1926-01-18

[Stage Direction]
Annual report of the Department of Health -Hon. Mr. Lapointe.
Annual report of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment; annual report of the Board of Pension Commissioners for Canada- Hon. Mr. Stewart.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. R. B. BENNETT (West Calgary):: May I direct the attention of the Minister of Agriculture to the fact that I have received certain telegrams from produce dealers in western Canada indicating that they have considerable quantities of eggs which they have been unable to sell up to the present moment. They have reason to fear that there may be a dumping of eggs from the United States on the Canadian market, and they are seeking some assurance from the administration that in such event steps will be taken by His Excellency in Council to prevent that contingency.


Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, the question raised by the hon. member for West Calgary is one of considerable importance, especially to the produce trade and the poultry men of Canada. My hon. friend was good enough to acquaint me with his intention to bring this question up, and I have prepared a short statement dealing with the situation which, with the permission of the House, I will read:
The present rather unprecedented situation in regard to the egg market in Canada is due entirely to peculiar weather conditions which have maintained throughout this Dominion during the last few weeks. That is to say, on account of the weather having been very mild Canadian hens have been laying very much more generously at this time of year than usual-more generously in fact than ever known in the history of Canada for many decades.
To give an example of the tremendous increase of production in this country alone, it may be stated that the receipts from purely local sources on the Montreal market in the first week in January were 6,000 cases plus, as compared with 1,000 cases plus in the same week of last year.
In consequence of this extra production, which condition it should be stated exists in the United States as well as in Canada, up to the present time comparatively few eggs have been imported into this country from the United States. If the situation, however, develops more acutely in the next few days, as some anticipate, the officers of my department keeping in close touch with the situation, we will then be in a better position to discuss possible remedial measures if thought warranted.


Mr. MANION:: In view of the statement
of the Minister of Agriculture is it his intention, as a minister, to claim for the government credit for the improvement in the laying qualities of the Canadian hen?
The Address-Mr. Elliott



NATURAL RESOURCES-ALBERTA

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Richard Bedford Bennett: Will the Minister of Justice lay upon the table the agreement made with the province of Alberta with regard to the return of the natural resources before the proposed legislation is submitted for ratification?


Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice):: Of course some legislation will
have to be brought down to ratify this agreement. I will submit it to my colleagues, and take into consideration the request of my hon. friend that the agreement should be laid before parliament before legislation is introduced.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think it is desirable,
so that the western members may have an opportunity of seeing the agreement before the legislation is presented to the House.



GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH


[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of the Speech of His Excellency the Governor General at the opening of the session.
Mr. J. C. ELLIOTT (West Middlesex) moved:: That ail address be presented to His Excellency the Governor General, offering the humble thanks of this House to His Excellency for the gracious Speech which he has been pleased to make to both houses of parliament.
He said:	In attempting to express the
thoughts which have been in my mind for some day3, may I ask the indulgence of hon. members? If they will bear in mind their ability and my limitations that indulgence will be generous indeed.
Before alluding to	the	Address	of	HisExcellency, may I for a moment refer to his sojourn in this country. I believe I express the feelings of Canadians in general when I say that the sojourn of His Excellency has done much to preserve and if possible to intensify the loyalty	and	devotion	of	thepeople of this country to the Mother Land. In the performance of his duties while abstaining strictly from any interference with principles of responsible government, he has upheld the dignity of the crown, and has carried the gospel of goodwill throughout the length and breadth of	the	country.	May Isay to him that, as in	the	war he held	first
place in the hearts of the Canadian soldiers, so in peace he enjoys the confidence and esteem of the Canadian people, and where-
[Mr. Manion.I
ever he goes he will carry with him their admiration and affection. I desire also, on behalf of hon. members of this House, to express to His Majesty the King and other members of the royal family the heartfelt sympathy of all the subjects of this Dominion in the loss of the Queen-Mother. For over sixty years she exerted a profound though silent influence on the empire. Her benevolent interest in the sufferings of others, and her efforts to aid them through the establishment and maintenance of hospitals as well as her own modest, kindly nature, have won for her a first place an the affections of the people of this nation and in the esteem of the world that will live as long as kindly deeds are remembered. The welcome of the people of England to "the blissful bride of a blissful heir" was truly expressed in these words:
Sea-king's daughter from over the sea,
Alexandra!
Saxon and Norman and Dane are we,
But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee, Alexandra!
Throughout the length and breadth of the empire her death is equally mourned in the cottages of the humblest of citizens as well as in the mansions of the wealthy and great.
May I also, Mr. Speaker, congratulate you on your re-appointment to the high office which you hold. After the graceful remarks of the leaders of the various parties in this House, it is not necessary for me to assure you that you enjoy the confidence and the respect of hon. members in every quarter of the House. We know that in the discharge of your duties you will display the same ability and impartiality as you have shown in the past, and that under your guidance a high standard of parliamentary dignity will be maintained.
I wish also to express my appreciation of the honour conferred upon the constituency of West Middlesex which I represent in according me the privilege of making this motion.
I am quite aware, Mr. Speaker, that this honour has been conferred, not on account of any qualifications of mine, but because of the excellence of the riding which I am privileged to represent. May I recall to hon. members of this House the fact that in the early part of the last century immigrants, largely from England, Scotland and Ireland, settled among the woods which then covered what is now the county of Middlesex. They brought with them from the Old Land strong arms and stout hearts, and very little else, except the industry and character typical of the stock from which they sprung. They had, however, that faith in the future of the country

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which enabled them to clear the fields, build schools and churches and change an unbroken forest into a county of beautiful homesteads which to-day produce more agricultural wealth than any of the other fine counties in the province of Ontario. I am sure that all the members of this House have read with interest the excellent agreement which has just been made under the Empire Settlement Scheme, to further encourage immigration and colonization from Great Britain. I invite whoever is to be Minister of Immigration and Colonization to visit the county of Middlesex at an early date and study the history, character and progress of its people with a view to settling the vacant lands of Canada with a type of settler as nearly as possible similar to those who transformed the wilderness of less than a century ago into the productive farms of to-day.
May I also, Mr. Speaker, congratulate the Prime Minister of this country and the government upon the fact that parliament has been summoned at the earliest possible moment, and that they have strictly refrained from making any appointments or commitments until satisfied that they have the confidence of the majority of the elected representatives. I doubt if the history of responsible government anywhere reveals a truer observance of the rights of the people and this House, and the country may, I think, well have confidence in a Prime Minister who so rigidly observes the best traditions of the supremacy of parliament in the government of the country. May I say that, while everybody appreciates the strict observance of constitutional practice by the Prime Minister, I believe I express the sentiments of a majority of the people of Canada to-day when I Say that it is most desirable that this House should have the benefit of his valuable assistance at the very earliest possible moment.
This country has been greatly honoured by the selection of one of its senators as president of the Sixth Assembly of the League of Nations. The Hon. Senator Dandurand will, we know, maintain the high traditions of the province from which he comes, a province which has given to the public life of this country so many men who are a distinct service to the Dominion, and an ornament to the highest offices in the land. We know that as .president of the present assembly he will add further lustre to the record of the brilliant Canadians who have represented this Dominion beyond the seas. During a recent visit to England. I had an opportunity of meeting a number of England's leading men, and what impressed and pleased me more than anything 14011-13
else was their high opinion of Canada and Canadians. That opinion has been acquired largely from their contact with Canadian soldiers, their knowledge of the valour and high character of Canada's sons during the Great war, and also from the record and addresses of Canadian representatives who have represented this country at the various Imperial conferences and the League of Nations. There is no doubt that the British people consider that if a Canadian is anything like a fair representative of the type of young men whom they knew in the war, he is a good type of man and they accord him that position. It is also a matter of great pride to the people of this country that the men of all political parties who have represented this Dominion in the past, both at the overseas conferences and on the League of Nations, have been men who are a credit to Canada and who have inspired the confidence and admiration of the statesmen of Great Britain.
May I now, Mr. Speaker, refer briefly to some of the things mentioned in the Speech from the Throne? I am sure it is a source of satisfaction to all hon. members to see by the Speech that this country is enjoying a period of advancement and prosperity such as it has not enjoyed for some years past and that that prosperity has been aided by the policies of the government. In the early part of 1922, when the present administration assumed control, they realised that if a country, with a population of about nine million and a debt amounting to over $2,400,000,000, was to make progress, was to raise the money necessary for paying interest on its debt and for paying the expenses of government, the various outgoings which it had to meet, and was also to make some reduction in the public debt, that could be done only by a policy of rigid economy, and by obtaining, if possible, better markets for what the Canadian people had to sell, better and cheaper facilities for getting to those markets, and more people on the land producing actual wealth. May I call attention to the fact that the total disbursements for the year prior to the present government coming into power amounted to $418,620,000, and for the year just past the total disbursements amounted to $339,902,775. I am sure the reduction in the actual cost of carrying on the affairs of this country is a matter of great satisfaction to hon. gentlemen in every quarter of this House. That means a reduction practically of from $51 to to $37 per head of the population of Canada.
One of the first acts of the present administration upon coming into power was to see whether or not wider markets for the cattle

The Address-Mr. Elliott

raisers of Canada could be obtained. Hon. members will bear in mind that on the accession to power of the present administration the cattle raisers of this country were faced on the American boundary by the emergency tariff and on the other side of the water in Great Britain by an embargo against Canadian cattle, making it absolutely necessary that these cattle should be slaughtered at the port of entry within ten days of landing. It is not necessary for me to detail the voluminous correspondence and the interviews that took place between representatives of this government and representatives of the British government. It is, perhaps, sufficient for our purposes to mention that, after various conferences, an interview was arranged at which the Prime Minister and the Minister of Railways and Canals,, representing Canada, met representatives of the British ministry and discussed the question. As a result of those discussions and of assistance given from different parts of this country by various persons, an act was passed by the British House of Commons and House of Lords in 1922. May I direct attention to what that has meant to people engaged in the cattle industry in this country? In 1922, before the effect of the removal of the embargo was felt, the total shipments of Canadian cattle to Great Britain amounted to some 18,000 head. In 1925, after that trade had been going on for nearly three years, the total shipments of Canadian cattle to Great Britain were a little over 110,000. It has been estimated by experts that that means an addition to the wealth of the cattle raisers of Canada of from li to 2 cents a pound on all cattle passing through the Toronto market. This is a matter of particular interest to my home county of Middlesex, which is the largest producer of beef cattle of any of the counties of Ontario.
Hon. members will recall that in 1921 there was a great drop in food prices in this country without a corresponding drop in the prices of the articles which the farmer had to buy. The result was that, although the 1901 crop in this country was fairly good, owing to the cost of production and transportation in getting to market practically nothing was left for the man who raised that crop. We are, I am sure, all devoutly thankful to a kind Providence for the excellent crop of 1925. We are also thankful for the great reduction in the cost of implements used in production and in the cost of transportation, both of which have enabled the farmer to produce the 1925 crop at a much lower cost than formerly would have been possible.

May I call attention to some of the reductions which will, perhaps, be more familiar to those engaged in farming operations than to hon. gentlemen not so engaged? The wagon which in 1921 cost $54, in 1925 cost $50, or a reduction of about 22 per cent. The eight-foot binder which in 1921 cost $335, in 1925 cost $208.50, a reduction of about 20 per cent; and wheat prices to-day have so increased that instead of receiving as he did for the crop of 1921 eighty cents or a little less for No. 2 northern wheat in Saskatchewan, the farmer gets for the crop of 1925 about $1.34 net at the elevator in that province. This has had an effect on all business in the country and I mention it by way of illustration to show how the prosperity of every industry in the country depends upon the basic industries of agriculture, mining, lumbering and fishing. These industries must be healthy if the other businesses depending upon them are to be satisfactory. There is no question about it that during the last couple of years farming operations in this country have been much more satisfactory than they have been in previous years, and that prosperity is very quickly reflected in all the other industries throughout Canada. The explanation is of course quite apparent. In spite of everything that is said to the contrary, there is no one who spends money when he has it more freely than the farmer does; there is no one more anxious to buy necessaries for his home and family than the farmer is; and there is no one more willing to pay for what he does buy, if the proceeds of what he produces will enable him to pay it, than is the farmer. So that when the farmer is successful every other industry in the country is bound to be successful as well. I might also put the converse, that in a country situated as Canada is unless the farmer is prosperous the man in the industry that expects to sell goods to the farmer cannot possibly prosper. And that is why in the last campaign a great many men engaged in the manufacturing business, such as the hon. member for West Lambton (Mr. Goodison), Mr. Massey, Mr. Little of London, and many others similarly engaged, realized that if the particular industry in which they were interested was going to thrive and prosper it could do so only if the basic industries of the country were also prosperous and the people whom they expected to buy their output had" money to pay for it.
I have no doubt that hon. gentlemen in almost every section of the House will remember that during the last election campaign certain statements were made by some manu-

The Address-Mr, Elliott
facturers, certain intimations given to their employees, certain hints thrown out that unless this government were defeated those industries would have to stop, with the result that their employees would be put out of work. I think it is fortunate that the government was not defeated, for the industries did not stop and there are to-day fewer people out of work in Canada than has been the case for some considerable time. I have particular knowledge of the industries in my own riding especially those in the town of Strathroy. I had occasion to visit all of these industries during the last campaign when I saw practically all their employees, and I found that without an exception every industry in that town was active. The employees were all working, some of them overtime. Although election day was a holiday those manufacturers urged their employees, having made arrangements for them to go and vote, to come back as soon as they possibly could in order to go ahead with the work which they were so anxious to have done in order to complete the orders they had on hand and on which it was necessary for them to put in overtime. It may be that the manufacturers of Strathroy are more resourceful and more fortunate than those in some other places, but I find on examining what I think are fair tests that the prosperity of the country and the conditions I observed at that time in the town of Strathroy are pretty general to-day throughout Canada.
Let us consider for a moment what are the tests of prosperity in any country. Perhaps the best criterion is the ability of the government, after paying all expenses incidental to the management of public affairs, to wipe off a little of the debt. In the fifty-seven budgets since confederation there have been reductions in the public debt of Canada in ten, and of that ten two, or one-fifth, have taken place in the four budgets delivered by the present government. Let me put it another way: in less than one-fourteenth of the total number of budgets delivered, one-fifth of the reductions in the public debt have taken place. Or to put it another way still: If I read correctly the figures in the public accounts, I find that since confederation there have been reductions in the public debt totalling less than eighty million dollars. And in the four years since the present government has come into power the reductions in the public debt have totalled over thirty-six million dollars. So that nearly half of the total reductions since confederation have taken place in the four budgets that have been delivered by the present administration. Now 14011-131
irrespective of our individual views it is a matter of great satisfaction to the people of the country, that Canada is at the present time in the condition I have described.
Let us take another test. I suppose that when the man on the farm finds that he has paid1 out less than he has received he thinks he has had a good year. Well, in 1921 the total balance of exports over imports in this country amounted to $17,000,000, and I find that for the year ending December 31, 1925, the total exports from Canada, over imports into Canada was a little over $392,000,000. There we have an increase of $375,000,000 in the balance of trade in those four years. What does that mean? I am not a scientific economist, as everyone will readily understand, but this seems to me to account for the fact that whereas in the year 1921 the Canadian dollar averaged about 13 cents less than the American dollar, in the year 1925 the Canadian dollar was practically at par. That is another indication of the sound financial condition of the country at the present time. May I also call attention to the fact that, comparing Canada with our neighbour to the south of us,-because after all a great many comparisons are inevitable between the two countries -Canada's exports last year, with a population of a little over nine million, were greater than the total exports of the United States in 1889 with a population of 76,000,000. For the year ending in August last-that is the end of their year-I find that the per capita export trade of Canada amounted to $125 while the per capita export trade in the United States was $37.
Now, Mr. Speaker, certain reductions were made in the tariff by the present government. As hon. members will recollect, those reductions were largely confined to the duty on implements of production. It struck me that if there was anything in the argument that reduction in the protection enjoyed by any industry was likely to work prejudicially to that industry, we would find that the value of its stock would have declined. If hon. members will take the trouble to look at the quotations of stock in the Massey-Harris Company, the Sherwin Williams Company, and in practically any of the other companies presumably affected by that reduction in tariff, they will find that the value of those stocks in practically all instances has increased rather than diminished. This bears out the theory which I think they have on the other side of the line, where implement industries have flourished, although they have had no protection for over thirty years. It will also be found that the comparative value of other
The Address-Mr. Elliott

standard stocks in 1925 shows a marked increase over that of 1921. In confirmation of this may I refer to two or three standard stocks? In 1921 stock of the Bank of Montreal sold for $215; on the 5th instant it was quoted at $261. Royal Bank stock rose in value from $205 to $249; Bank of Commerce stock from $198 to $224; Canadian Pacific Railway stock from $141 to $149; Canada Cement Stock from $67 to $103. Various other stocks show corresponding increases in value.
Some hon. gentlemen may not think that that is a conclusive indication of prosperity. Well, I would refer them to the issue of the Financial Times for October 9 last containing a statement that the general average of the prices of stocks is one of the best indicators of the country's prosperity. It will also be found that there has been a steady improvement in the price of bonds. In 1921 5i per cent bonds were selling at $900 per $1,000; in 1924 the same bonds brought $1,040. In October 1920 there was floated a loan of $25,000,000 at 7 per cent, and it sold at $962 per $1,000; in 1924 a loan of $50,000,000 at 5 per cent sold at over $978 per $1,000. In other words, the 5 per cent loan in 1924 brought $16 per $1,000 more than the 7 per cent loan floated in 1921.
May I also quote the opinion of an outstanding transportation authority as to the progress this country is making? The Montreal Star of September 10 last reported Mr. E. W. Beatty, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, as follows:
I am only restating what you already know when I tell you that, judging from traffic returns, business is on the upgrade. It is generally admitted that prospects are better than they were this time last year, and the financial skies are considerably brighter. There are some, indeed, who predict a boom; but in view of the amount of leeway still to be made on our heavy indebtedness, such a thing as a boom is neither to be expected nor desired.
I am sure it is a source of satisfaction to every hon. member to know that our own National Railways have similiarly prospered, and that instead of the deficits of former years they show a net operating surplus of over $30,000,000 for the past year. I would also ask hon. members to consider ithe statements of the presidents of our leading chartered banks with a view to ascertaining just what progress we have made, because we have undoubtedly got past the fame when there is any question on this point. At the annual general meeting of the Bank of Montreal held on December 5, 1921, the president said:
Our banking year just closed has witnessed a further readjustment of prices and slackening trade. This has

been a year of unremitting anxiety entailing constant vigilance in order to avoid serious losses.
Referring to the harvest, he said:
The stimulating effect of a good harvest would have been experienced but for the serious decline in prices which has cut into the farmers' profits, and in a number of instances has actually involved losses on the season's operations. m
Under the heading of "Conditions in Canada," he said:
In most propitious circumstances of trade prophecy is rash, and in the complicated conditions that now beset us I will refrain from the risk of forecast.
Now let us look at the report at a similar meeting of the same bank held on December 7, 1925, when the same gentleman is reported
as saying:
There is no question but that the trend of business is slowly but surely upward. As an evidence of this, car loadings are the largest on record, while wholesale and retail business shows a fair degree of increased activity.
The president of the Bank of Commerce, Sir John Aird, issued a similarly encouraging statement, in the course of which he said:
Manufacturers in practically all lines, merchants and commercial houses in general, have this fall reduced their indebtedness to an extent impossible for several years past. All bank statements show the same thing: a great reduction in commercial loans and a big increase in bank investments in stocks and bonds.
The large implement concerns, for example, have this fall made huge reductions in their indebtedness to the banks. The same thing applies to other branches of the manufacturing industry and business in general.
All this country needs now to go ahead in splendid fashion is people. Enough people of the right type would solve the railway problem. We need from two and a half million to five million people in Canada. We want only population to make great progress.
That brings me to the question of what, in the opinion of practically all the financial authorities of this country at the present time, is most to be desired in order to ensure increased progress and prosperity for Canada in the future; that is, population. Hon. members will bear in mind that in 1919 and 1920 and for some years prior and subsequent thereto, our friends on the other side of the line made huge sums of money. Those moneys were looking for investment. A large building programme was started which developed into a boom. On this side of the line everybody will remember that as a result of the war and expenditures in connection with it, the finances of this country were pretty well drained. We were not able to embark on any expenditures of a capital nature except such as were absolutely necessary. The quota law which restricted immigration into the United States applied to Europe and other countries but did not apply to Canada, and the result was that, attracted by the high

wages for skilled and unskilled workmen offered on the other side of the line, a great man}7 of our Canadian workmen went over to the United States. But I am glad to say, Mr. Speaker, that they are coming back, and with agricultural prosperity returning to this country, industrial prosperity is following, and I believe that we may fairly expect that the return of those who left this country and went to the United States will continue to increase as time goes on. There are a number of immigration enterprises being looked after by the government at the present time. One of these is the 3,000-British family enterprise. There has been certain criticism of the present government because it has not brought into this country more immigrants in the past few years. May I call attention to the fact that, as a result of the conditions to which I have just referred, it was not desirable in recent years to attempt to attract population to Canadian cities and towns. It would not have been fair to the labourers already here, because the industries were fully manned. The idea of the government is that where the population is needed at present-and in that I may say they agree absolutely with the heads of all financial institutions whose annual reports I have been able to peruse- is on the farms; we want people who will come in here and help to produce wealth, thus enabling us to pay off our debt. The idea was prevalent in this country, and I believe, still exists in certain sections, that it is dangerous to increase the wheat production of Canada because it is feared that if too greatly increased, it will bring down the price. I do not believe that for years to come the wheat production of Canada will have such an effect upon the world production as to bring about any such result. We are raising in Canada to-day nearly six times as much wheat as we raised only twenty-five years ago; and this year the farmer will get a better price for his wheat than he has received for many years, excluding the period of the war when prices were exceptional. The efforts which have been put forward to bring immigration to this country have been most successful, I believe; and after all, it is a business proposition. An intending immigrant wants to know before leaving his own home and emigrating to a foreign shore, whether he is going to better himself. The best way in which the government of any country can induce agricultural 4 p.m. immigration is to satisfy intending emigrants that they can do better in the country to which they are asked to come than they can do anywhere else.
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They must show a sympathetic interest in agricultural immigration and undertake to do everything in their power to encourage and assist the agricultural immigrant.
One of the best ways to do that is to reduce the cost of the passage in the first place. The immigrant who leaves another country to come to Canada does so largely because he has not in his native land succeeded in accumulating any very large amount of money.
I am sure it was a matter of satisfaction to all to see the great decrease in the cost of transportation under the present arrangement as compared with what the immigrant had to pay in the old days. May I give a few of the figures which will show what the reductions have been. Under the recent agreement which has been made between the government and the transportation companies, rates have been so reduced that where it formerly cost a man coming from the Old Country to Halifax, St. John or Quebec about $93.50, or for a family of five, $467.50. it will now cost him only $15 per head, or $75 for the family; where it formerly cost $107.50 to Toronto it will now cost $22.50; where it formerly cost to Winnipeg close to $120 the new rate will be about $27.50; where it formerly cost $125 to Regina, it will now cost only $30; where it formerly cost to Calgary and Edmonton a little over $126, it will now cost $32.50. To Vancouver the old rate was $142; it will now be $15.
Mr. Speaker, I must apologize for having occupied the time of the House for so long, but there is just one word which I wish to say in regard to a subject about which we hear a great deal at election time but not nearly so much at other times-that is, the tariff. The tariff in this country is a very complex problem at best. It is the result of over forty years of very careful study and hard work on the part of different ministers of finance and staffs of very able assistants. There have been a number of commissions of inquiry into the whole subject which has been gone into in a thorough and scientific way. I may say that as successive ministries have taken office they have found on making a scientific study of the question, that the reforms which they had previously thought absolutely essential to the welfare of the country were not by any means advisable. If anyone will take the trouble to look at the map of Canada and consider the great distances which separate the provinces, and the diversity of their natural and economic conditions, bearing in mind that we have the industrial provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the Maritime and prairie agricultural provinces and beyond those again, the province of
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The Address-Mr. Lacomhe
powers and all our natural resources are a very powerful factor leading to prosperity.
A wise and economic government proclaims as an integral part of its programme a reduction in expenditures and a fusion of departments. It also specially gives consideration to immigration. A serious problem is the fetter! No doubt, it is our duty to attract to our country the foreigner to supply to our untitled sections of Canada strong hands that will grow wheat on the land and perform useful, beneficial and profitable work to Canada. Nevertheless, I have no hesitation in stating now, in this House, that the government is bound, in this delicate task, to separate the tares from the wheat and to allow but respectable people, observant of our laws, to enter this country.
. Mr- Speaker, the sacred duty of maintaining in this country the confederation pact devolves upon us, we must act fairly towards the whole population and yield to the reasonable and just requirements of all parts of our immense Dominion. We shall attain this aim providing we know how to penetrate ourselves with a truly Canadian national sentiment; providing we consent to give to the various provinces the full share of justice, advantages and assistance to which they may legitimately lay claim. Then our beautiful, young and great country, in the midst of a world Shaken by the awful war which burst upon the nations, a few years ago, can proudly continue to move forward on the path leading to prosperity and towards its immortal destinies.
I have the honour, Sir, to second the motion of the hon. member for West Middlesex (Mr. Elliott).


Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN:: (Leader of the Opposition): We are now, Mr. Speaker, fairly launched upon the work of the fifteenth parliament of Canada. Among us are more new members than perhaps ever have graced the stage of the opening of any previous parliament of this country. To all of them, as one of the older members of the House, I extend, so far as I may be allowed, a cordial welcome, and assure them that in the work of this House they will find from those of us of longer experience nothing but a spirit of cordial co-operation. I follow the time-honoured custom-and because time-honoured my words are none the less sincere-of congratulating the mover (Mr. Elliott) and the seconder (Mr. Laeombe) of the Address on the success of their first performances in parliament. The mover of the Address has come to us fresh from the enjoyment of an excellent reputation at the bar, and as well

comes to us with nothing but good report from the community where he lives. His experience in the Ontario legislature has made him feel more comfortable, perhaps, in this federal parliament; consequently he has delivered a speech free from those restraints and embarrassments that all of us experience in our opening address. He has acquitted himself creditably. If I were his leader I would congratulate him especially upon the assiduous care he exercised to keep within the straight and narrow limits of Liberal campaign utterances.
The seconder of the Address is, I think, deserving of special commendation. He speaks his mother tongue certainly with eloquence, I hope he has the advantage of speaking the English language as well. I thank him personally not only for the excellent diction but for the careful articulation which makes his speech one to be listened to with pleasure by those of us less fortunate than he. His reference to enjoying the honour that long years ago fell to his late distinguished leader was most appropriate, and I could wish for him nothing better than that he might look forward in this parliament to a career approaching in usefulness, dignity and success, that of the great whom he honours.
I am not compelled on this occasion to terminate my remarks of a pleasant character with eulogies of preceding speakers. I find in the Address itself something to which I can refer with commendation. Its first reference is to the lamented death of the Queen Mother of the royal family. To this no extended remarks would now be fitting, because upon the order paper of this House there appears at the instance of the government a resolution making mention of the same lamentable fact- a resolution, if the government will accept from me the compliment, graciously worded with meaningful phrases, and one, I hope, soon to be passed by this august House.
I join with the mover of the Address in an expression of pride that a Canadian public man, the leader of the government in the upper chamber, was selected to preside over the last meeting of the League of Nations at Geneva. This brought indeed a thrill of pleasure to his fel 1 ow-Canadians, a pleasure not in the least embarrassed by any doubt whether he could perform those great duties with success. Senator Dandurand has the special advantage of a full and ample command of the two great languages which, I believe, almost exclusively prevail in that assembly. This qualification, added to his long experience in great public affairs, fully qualified him for the honour which was done him.

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The usual allusions are made in the Speech to the abounding prosperity of our country, and these have been acclaimed by the mover of the Address with words of appreciation. He finds in them the last seal and proof that all is going well with Canada, and in that naturally he rejoices. He states that things are far better than they have been of recent years and he attributes this fact to his colleagues the members of the administration. Some excuse, of course, may generously be given to the hon. member for West Middlesex (Mr. Elliott).	He has not been in this
House very long.	If he will turn up the
Speeches from the Throne of the last three years he will find them quite as enthusiastic about the great prosperity of Canada as that which is before us now. Even in those days, which he admitted were rather trying, the government were so anxious to take credit to themselves that they boasted of an abounding prosperity in every Speech from the Throne. Moreover, in that which followed the contest of 1921. when according to their pre-campaign utterances we were on the verge of ruin and national collapse, the Speech from the Throne declared that we were in the best position of any country that had been through the war. With consistent enthusiasm they boasted of like conditions ever since. Therefore the rest of us do not feel at all either enlightened or confirmed in our opinions by any assertion in the Speech from the Throne about the prosperity of our country.
There is also a phrase which does not come as a surprise from the present administration, but which from any other government would be deemed rather inappropriate. I refer to that which declares that-
-the increased prosperity and advancement have been aided by the policies of the government and the reductions in expenditures and taxation made from time to time.
I do not want to be too severe. I can quite understand the spirit of an administration which, not being able to find very much support or laudation anywhere else in this Dominion, makes an honest though clumsy effort to compel the Governor General to pass that laudation upon itself.
There are some other features which mi^ht be disposed of without any lengthy comment. The Speech is unusually long. It partakes of characteristics that have not been lacking in previous performances of the same character, namely, the filling in of paragraphs with material which is nothing but a sort of skilful publicity, pre-campaign literature-material which does not consist of contemplated legislation or of substance to be laid before parliament at all. I might make mention here
of what appears in the closing paragraph at the bottom of the third page, reading as follows:
In pursuance of the fixed policy of the government to encourage the movement of grain and other Canadian products through Canadian ports, the Board of Railway Commissioners has been instructed to include in the general rate investigation now in progress, a special inquiry into the causes of diversion of Canadian grain and other products through other than Canadian ports, and to take such action under the Railway Act as it may deem efficient to ensure as far as possible the utilization of Canadian ports for Canadian traffic.
The ordinary reader, and possibly new members of the House, might conceive this to be an announcement of policy, an announcement of something to be taken into consideration by parliament, a great new endeavour on the part of the administration to alleviate the disabilities of which the Maritime provinces complain. I was curious to know really what foundation there was for the assertion, so I looked up the order in council referred to in the paragraph. I have it in my hand. This order in council states, as the Speech from the Throne itself says in effect:
That the Board of Railway Commissioners have been directed, as part of the general investigation above referred to, especially to inquire into the causes of Canadian grain and other products being routed or diverted to other Canadian ports, and to take such effective action under the Railway Act of 1919 as the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada may deem necessary to ensure as far as possible the routing of Canadian grain and other products through Canadian ports.
Well, the comment one would -make in the first place is this, that this has been the duty of the railway commission, for years unnumbered, under the Statutes of Canada, indeed ever since it has existed. But the repetition of the direction now is ail the more ludicrous when one goes back just a few short months to June 5, 1925. That is the time this government issued the order in council declaring "equalization as far as possible" to be a proper principle to underlie the rate structure of our country. The declaration, I need scarcely pause to say, had been made in the most explicit and final terms, in a modified form, back in September, 1920. But in the same order in council of June 5, 1925, after a multitude of recitals, I find the following direction to the railway commission:
The committee therefore advise that the board be directed to make a thorough investigation of the rate structures of railways and railway -companies, subject to the jurisdiction of parliament, with a view to the establishment of a fair and reasonable rate structure which will, under substantially similar circumstances and conditions, be equal in its application to all persons and localities so as to -permit of the freest possible interchange of commodities between the various provinces and territories of the Dominion, and the ex-
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pansion of its trade, both foreign and domestic, having due regard to the needs of its agricultural and other basic industries and in particular to (a) the claim asserted on behalf of the Maritime provinces that they are entitled to the restoration of the rate basis which they enjoyed prior to 1919 and (b) the encouragement of the movement of traffic through Canadian ports.
Now this order in council of June 5, 1925, was no more than an assertion of duty applicable to the railway commission and already embodied expressly in the law of Canada. It was described by me at the time as eye-wash and it was nothing more. Now another order has been passed directing the commission again to do the same thing and in virtually the same words and precisely to the same effect; and the third or fourth expression of this direction to a commission to do its duty is solemnly heralded in the Speech from the Throne as an announcement of government policy. But the Maritime provinces should not despair; a little patience will carry the reader to the next paragraph wherein he is promised by the government of Mr. Mackenzie King a royal commission to inquire into the grievances of that part of Canada. It says:
With a view to affording such remedies as may appear to be practical and appropriate, the government also propose to appoint a royal commission to inquire fully into the claims that the rights of the Maritime provinces in regard to the operation of the Intercolonial railway, etc.
Well, I do not doubt that the government need information on the subject. Their leader announced in the Maritimes on his late visit that he did not know what Maritime rights were. But I would caution hon. members from the Maritime provinces not to get too enthusiastic about the results of a royal commission appointed under the present administration. Had this notification come to us four years ago we might have accepted it with some measure of hope. But what has been the record of royal commissions under this government? I would put the question to hon. members, especially to members of the administration as they sit in this House-the sorry remnant that I see in front of me now. Is there any one of them with ingenuity enough, with imagination enough even, to suggest the name of one single royal commission they ever appointed which did a particle of good? Royal commissions! We have had them in floods: we have had puipwood commissions, gram inquiry commissions, Great Lakes commissions, and the like. We have had I think twenty, yes, and more which have cost us over a million dollars. Why, the grain inquiry commission, inclusive of the money that had to be spent by the municipalities and others who appeared before it, cost this 
Dominion over half a million dollars itself, and its achievement was absolutely nothing. Hon. members know that the scfle result was the giving of authority to the grain commission to do what the grain commission never intended to do and were not instructed to do, and what the grain commission has not done. The only other result was an increase of Salary to the commissioners. And as for the puipwood commission, it travelled throughout the country, roaming the Maritime provinces. Will some hon. gentleman suggest what good result that commission brought to Canada? The whole residuum from this tremendous outlay of the Canadian people's money has been nothing, nothing, nothing. The only result has been to shift temporarily from the shoulders of the government the responsibility which alone was theirs. And now this is offered to the Maritime provinces in the concluding paragraph, with which they are asked to agree,-that these proposals of the administration represent:
"a sincere effort to take into account the diversified conditions and interests of our Dominion in a manner which will promote mutual understanding and closer co-operation between all parts. It is believed that these measures which, taken together, form a coordinated plan of national progress, will ensure our common aim of a prosperous and united Canada."
I think I see through the thin veneer of this paragraph the photograph of the late member for St. Lawrence-St. George. But if by any chance I am mistaken I would turn to this meaningful utterance on the second page:
Otir revenue is derived partly from taxes made necessary by the war and partly from other sources.
It is helpful to be reminded of that.
In order that the people of the Dominion may have an exact knowledge of the sources of their revenue and the objects of its expenditure simplified forms of account will be issued periodically.
This is indeed the sign-manual of the late member for St. Lawrence-St. George, Mr. Marler.
It is true, as the mover of the Address has stated, that the Speech from the Throne is especially emphatic on the subject of immigration. No less than three paragraphs, one of them quite lengthy, are devoted to an elucidation of the last programme of the government on immigration. Again, we do not rise to the appeal of the hon. member to become enthusiastic. In every Speech from the Throne that this government has brought down they have declared an immigration policy. Every Speech from the Throne has been laden not only with a certain salt of boasting, but with a proclamation that there is going to be very much coming in the way of immigration. A year ago we were assured

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that the efforts of the government were exhausted-that every effort had been made to bring a flood of desirable immigrants to our country. The language of the previous year was scarcely less emphatic; the year before it was just about the same, -and interlarded between the speeches from the throne we have had a various succession of immigration ministers proclaiming a new policy to the public at different functions held in this country. I do not know just what the grand total now amounts to, but we have had anywhere between a dozen and twenty immigration policies announced since this government came into power. Whatever suffering we may be enduring because of the starvation of the country from an immigration standpoint, we have not suffered from any lack of multiplicity of policies. The ministers too have followed one another in somewhat rapid succession. We first had the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) who had the department on his shoulders; then I think it was thrown upon the already over-burdened back of the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Rolbb) and he laboured with it for, a time; becoming discouraged, he passed it on, I think it was, to the late member for South Renfrew, Mr. Low, who was Minister of Trade and Commerce too. Just before the election the portfolio was thought to be necessary to save the political destiny of the then member for West Peterborough, Mr. Gordon, and he was installed; but no sooner had he been installed and had the Prime Minister informed the country in bis opening speech at the general election that under the new minister's vigorous management great things might be expected in the way of immigration-no sooner was that done than the Prime Minister, entering upon western Canada, found it would be necessary to get another minister of immigration from there; so the member for West Peterborough was notified that his tenure would be short and that very soon there would be a brand new minister of immigration from the west. But the minister-designate was not elected; he lost the seat of South Winnipeg, and no doubt now reflects that if he had not been handicapped by the promise of a portfolio in this government he might possibly have been elected on his personal popularity. However, the circle has been traversed, -and we are back again to the old Minister of the Interior, who is trying his hand at it once more.
Where are the immigrants? It is about a year now since we were told that the new tide which was just coming was to be directed along the lines of our railways where there
was land available, and a special new policy was to be developed under which the immigrants were to be settled away up in the Peace river. That was in the Speech from the Throne a year ago. And speaking at Edmonton in the course of the campaign, we had a new adjective, if not a new policy, announced by the Prime Minister: we were going to have a "spearhead" policy of immigration. This great mass of humanity, swarming upon our shores from foreign lands, was to be "spearheaded" into the Peace river- this of course in the hope of electing the Liberal candidate there. Well,T took pains to inquire at the time where those masses of humanity were. Again, before coming to this debate I secured from the Department of Immigration the grand total of the success of this long series of policies and this majestic circle of ministers. Here are the results. In the first eight months of 1923-24 we secured 118,091; in the first eight months of 1924-25, 97,805. That was the year of the Peace river policy. In the first eight months of 1925-26-and that is as late as there are any returns, up to the end of November- we secured 70,112, or 47,979 less than we secured in the same period of time two years ago, and 27,693 less than we secured in the same period of time last year-the year of the "spearhead" policy. Are these results gratifying to the hon. member for West Middlesex? He says, and well says, that the best immigration policy is that which shows an immigrant he will be more successful here than elsewhere. I wonder if the immigrant is so measuring the subject up himself. And if he is, how is it that he has not taken at par the assertions of this government in its Speech from the Throne that a glorious prosperity pervades this land? How is it that he has not accepted that and come to our shores in the numbers which would have arrived if he did accept such a glowing statement? Why, the stream is drying up. It has been drying steadily-indeed, it has been drying rapidly ever since this government came into power. We had a torrent of immigration previous to the war. Naturally there was a subsiding during the war. In our last year of office we had over 148,000 immigrants. This government's policy last year, after all these herculean efforts, attracted only 111,000, and this year the figure will not be within a score of thousands of where it was last year, notwithstanding the four or five ministers successively in charge of that department and the fourteen pronouncements of policy.
I want to make mention very briefly of some other subjects referred to in this Speech from the Throne. In connection with immi-

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gration, we are advised at the end of the third paragraph on that topic that to make it easier-
-to assist those who are already established on the land by reducing the cost of agricultural production... a measure will be introduced offering wide facilities for rural credits.
Personally I welcome that announcement, but I cannot help wondering whether the government intends to adhere to its rural credits policy of other times, or whether it does not. Has the government changed its rural credits policy, or is it consistent, is it persevering? Last session a bill was brought down-one of the many farces with which this government afflicted parliament. It was based on a false principle; it was ill-considered, ill-digested, and it had not in it one redeeming factor or feature. It was based on the principle of direct loans by the government-not by this government; that might have been worse-direct loans by provincial governments to farmers, the provincial government being responsible. Within the body of the legislation there were restrictions which made nugatory any attempt these governments might make to operate under the law-restrictions as to priorities and all sorts of things which demonstrated clearly that the government had not the slightest intention of the bill ever going into effect, or, if going into effect, of a dollar ever being loaned under it. It is true they brought it to parliament in the dying hours of the session and took care that it got to the Senate just as the Senate was about to adjourn. Now I wonder if the government intend to improve on their proposals. Do they mean to introduce a real measure or do they not? I have often been asked to be constructive, and I think if hon. members will look at my speeches made in the House they will find something in the nature of constructive suggestions along this line.
We will never succeed with any scheme of government loans. That system cannot be administered successfully, especially in a coun-tiy such as this, so widely spread in area and so difficult of direct supervision. We have had experience with government loans in more than one sphere already. We never ventured upon that course save under pressure of exigency. We made government loans in the west in order to relieve dire distress, in order to provide seed. The history of them, while not discreditable, certainly has given no encouragement to any government to launch upon this as a general principle. We made loans also under the Soldier Settlement Board, and I believe under both governments every

effort has been made to make that system successful. I am afraid its success has not been what we all anticipated. Special circumstances, of course, surrounded it. We had returned to our shores great numbers of men, a large proportion of them better qualified for farming operations, perhaps, than for any other special occupation of life. We provided for them by this special legislation, but we are certainly going to lose money in the venture and I do not think our experience even there is such as would warrant our applying the principle in any general way to agriculture in Canada.
Nor does the history of this subject and of the application of the principle in other countries afford us any more encouragement. The United States has ventured upon quite a different course. They have endeavoured to proceed upon the principle of co-operation, leaving the responsibility of the loans and their collection to those directly affected and concerned, not providing out of the treasury of the country moneys afterwards to be collected by the hand of government. Along these lines briefly stated, the United States has proceeded and the government has provided a fund which enabled provision of a sinking fund. Beyond such limits as I have indicated they have not gone. I do not say that their system is wholly applicable to this country. Much light has been thrown upon the subject by investigations which have been conducted, but nothing has followed. I do believe, however, that much can be learned from the example of the United States, and that with such modifications as would be appropriate to a country much newer than theirs, their idea would likely be valuable here. I promise the government my most earnest support in the progress of any measure along those lines or other lines that may seem more sound for the establishment of a rural credit system in Canada. We certainly ought to have an underlying system of first mortgages on farm lands at a lower rate of interest than prevails to-day.
5 p.m. There cannot be permanently successful agriculture, as there should be in this grand agricultural country, until something is done to make moneys available on absolutely sure security at better rates than now prevail.
Then reference is made to other topics. I find that the government intends to restore to the province of Alberta its natural resources. It would be premature for me to comment upon any proposals the government may have made in this regard, because the proposals

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are not before us. We have some rumours of what they contain, but they are rumours so far, and nothing more. Let me say that I hope the government has succeeded in obtaining from the province of Alberta proposals, now accepted by them, which can be received by the other provinces as fair to all concerned. I am anxious that this should be settled. I do not want any more hoaxing about the question at all. It was a great mistake in the first place ever to have established provinces in this Dominion which, supposedly set on their feet, were in reality hobbled, restrained and shackled by restrictions which do not become the majesty of a province. That foundation error has been the parent of an extensive progeny of trouble since. The passing of every year has made settlement more difficult.
I welcome the promise in the Speech from the Throne that a step is to be made shortly towards its solution, and my hope is sincere that the step will prove acceptable to us all. Until its terms are known we cannot say. I for one will approach the legislation in no captious spirit but in a spirit of sympathy, and I believe the same will be the general attitude of the House.
I come now to what have been described, especially by hon. members to my left, as the alluring, attractive clauses of the Speech. Let me refer to perhaps the least significant first. Our attention is going to be directed to "a bill amending the Dominion Elections Act." This is delightfully general.


Mr. STEVENS:: Safe.


Arthur Meighen: It is pretty safe. Are we to be treated to a bill changing the hour at which the scrutineer is to receive his credentials, or something of that trifling sort? What is to be the nature of this amendment? Is it our old friend the alternative vote? I cannot tell from the look on the face of any minister whether it is or not, and do you know why I cannot tell? Because they do not know themselves, and I venture to say- I make it only by way of prediction-that this debate will close without the House being enlightened. It is one of these old cripples which have appeared on the government programme times almost without number, only to die afterwards a somewhat ignominious death. By the way, it is not the only one we miss in this announcement at the opening of the fifteenth parliament. There are a lot of others which have fallen by the way. They are lost, gone from view, apparently passed into the limbo of history; the government will not even like to be reminded of their
names. But I turn to this alternative vote first. We have here something which, if they ever get the courage to bring down a bill, will be declared to have been the manifesto, the sort of John the Baptist announcement which came in advance. Why is it they are so hesitating, why so doubting, why so mysterious and obscure? Things were not always thus. Two years ago they came down and announced there would be an amendment to the election act providing for the alternative vote. This was in the Speech from the Throne. Well, one would wonder why it was necessary to mention it again except just for the old reason-the House had to be satisfied with promises and had to witness their abject negation. Nothing was ever done. The bill came down. The government jockeyed with it until the end of the session. This government, which was voted confidence by the majority of hon. gentlemen to my left, simply felt it could dally with the question. The government never had the slightest intention of passing a bill for the alternative vote. The government knew that the great bulk of its members were against it and it knows so now. But by those means the government held to its side hon. gentlemen to my left, by their support held and sustained itself in power, and these hon. gentlemen found themselves rewarded at the close of four painful years by the declaration of the leader of the government, to the effect that they had never been any use to him at all. What will follow the repetition of this performance none can conjecture. Suffice it to say that it is nothing more now than a sort of shadowy, duplex indication that the government may do something new which it definitely promised twice before and as to which just as often it broke its pledge.
But on the forefront of page 4 of the Speech I read these momentous words:
My government propose to submit provisions for the completion forthwith of the Hudson Bay railway.
Keeping in mind, Mr. Speaker, the announcement of yesterday, confirmed 'by the resignation which you read to-day, it occurs to me that not only have the government and the Prime Minister made up their minds for reasons very obvious, to complete the Hudson Bay railway, but the Prime Minister has resolved to get the first ride on it himself. The history of this subject in recent months is one of the blackest episodes in the record of hon. gentlemen opposite and in the record of their leader. It was not a subject upon which there should have been the character of performance which was indulged in in the late election by himself and by others of his
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followers. Hon. gentlemen will remember that in the past four years while members to my left have pressed and pressed earnestly, vigorously and consistently for the immediate completion of that enterprise, and while certainly we could have embarrassed the government very seriously by joining with them, we declined to do so. We felt that the finances of Canada would warrant us in being cautious, even though the enterprise already had proceeded over a large extent toward completion. Session after session I confirmed the government's course of holding its hand, and waiting for the completion of the enterprise until wre were in a better condition, but I stated-and stated in the campaign as well-that the enterprise had to be completed, that we could not justify, a young and a vigorous country leaving something upon the faith of which thousands had gone into new territory seventy or eighty per cent complete, a proclamation to the whole world that we were not able to do what we set out to do. That the enterprise should be finished few if any doubted. Indeed its continuous prosecution was only halted because owing to the unprecedented and immense obligations entailed by the war we felt that we had to suspend our outlay. Certainly the government had no reason to complain of its treatment from this side of the House. I felt, and I so expressed myself, that the question of how soon we could complete the project would depend upon just the amount of money involved. Difference of opinion existed. Difference of opinion was expressed in this House. I think a government return wras brought down indicating that there would be involved something in the nature of-I may be wrong, but if so I should like to be corrected-fifty million dollars anyway, a very vast sum indeed. Certainly this country is in no position to launch upon an outlay of even half the amount, or anything approaching it. If such expenditure is essential we had better wait. We have railway responsibilities enough without adding in any such serious degree as that to the railway burdens of our country. There waited upon me, though, toward the end of last session-I have no doubt the same delegation waited upon the government-a delegation which represented, on the authority of what appeared to be very competent engineers, that sufficient could be done to test the feasibility, the practicability, of the route within a sum of money which they fixed at $3,000,000. Of course no pretence was made that this sum would place the enterprise in that position of completion it ought to be placed in wThen it is demonstrated that

it will be a success; but they did allege that that sum would put it in the position where the practicability of the route could be fairly tested. I said to them-and I stated in the campaign; my words never varied no matter what part of Canada I was in-that if the amount to put the route in such position was this sum, or a sum within the range, I would not stop at a million or so; that there was no reason for protracted delay or any delay at all; that it would not be in the interest of Canada merely for such an expenditure as that to allow the system to remain longer in the state it is in and leave thousands of settlers who have gone into that country on the faith of all political parties in a state of discontent and resentment. The position I took in the campaign I restate to-day, and I take the pains to do so first so that no one in this House will feel there is anything in the way of evasion on my part. I proceed to make a few comments on the conduct of the government on this subject.
What was the course of the administration? Did the leader of the government go to western Canada and say the completion of the road depended upon the amount of outlay necessary? Did he say he would ascertain, as I certainly would do, what that outlay would be, the minimum necessary to get the road going, and that his policy would be decided in the light of these facts? No, that was not his course. The Prime Minister of Canada went into the district to be affected by the building of this road and told the people there that they would get the road on one condition and one only, and that was that they voted for him. And on platform after platform in western Canada he declared that if enough Liberals were elected from the part of the country affected, then he would build the road, and intimated if they were not elected he would not. This Hudson Bay railway was dangled as a bribe before the whole of western Canada during the campaign and in a manner which made it nothing in the world but a bribe. A government must of course announce its policy; a party must announce its policy, and the announcement of a policy may mean benefit to one section of the country and perhaps little or none to any other section. As long as that policy is to be put into effect if such party is returned, that is an honest presentation. But if it is made a condition of the policy that the people specially to be benefited vote for the government, then it is a bribe, and a naked, shameless bribe. This government now declares that having thirteen members elected in Saskatchewan, the province chiefly affected, the

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[DOT] _ . bribe promised is about to be paid. Such is
the way it ought to be put, if it were put honestly in the Speech from the Throne. I ask hon. members to my left, is that the conduct of a government in whom they are proud of having expressed confidence? I know hon. members to my left were told it was not a confidence vote; that they were not voting confidence in the government. But the first member on the government side who rises when the debate is over declares to-day that the House has expressed confidence in the government, and he spoke the truth. The Prime Minister went to Saskatchewan and said, " Defeat the Progressive candidates in Saskatchewan and I will give you the Progressive policy ". By those means he elected his candidates over them, and in that constituency of Prince Albert to which he now hies for election, his words, spoken from a platform at Saskatoon were, " If you want the Hudson Bay railway do not vote for the man who championed the Hudson Bay railway there in four sessions of parliament, vote against him ". That was the late member for Prince Albert, Mr. Andrew Knox. Having defeated Mr. Knox and every other champion of the Hudson Bay railway in thirteen constituencies of that province, he now comes to the survivors, elected in spite of every effort which he made, and he says, "'By the same bribe which secured me thirteen seats in Saskatchewan, I now invite you to support me ". Such is the late record of this administration on the Hudson Bay railway. What their future performances will be I will not venture to conjecture.
Those of us who have been in the House during the past four years are not reposing any very great faith upon declarations in the Speech from the Throne. Will the House bear with me for a moment while I take the minds of hon. members back over a few short years and trace the history of this government's proclamations and announcements of policy in the Speech from the Throne? In 1923 the great announcement was of a new immigration policy. This has been common in all years before and since. The policy was described, and the results of the policy, if it ever was applied, I have already detailed to the House. But in addition that year we were told that the country was struggling under the grip of a combine on the Great Lakes-a combine of shipping interests which were injuring agriculture and were discriminating against the use of Canadian ports. The government declared that it was setting out upon a crusade to defeat that combine, to restore to agriculture the moneys which were mulcted from them and to remove from
Canadian ports the effects of the damage that was being done. Well, what have been the consequences? WTe did get a bill, and every member of the government knows- and no one knows it quite so well as the hon. Minister of Finance-that if ever there was legislation utterly worthless and utterly discreditable from every standpoint of intelligence; if ever there was legislation which brought nothing but loss and humiliation to this country, it was the legislation they introduced. They know to-day that this policy announced in 1923 of control of the operations of the Great Lakes is not in effect in the faintest imaginable degree. They have not a whit more control of rates to-day on the Great Lakes than they have of the religious persuasions of the people of India. The whole thing ended in a farce. Those were the principal pronouncements for the year 1923.
In 1924 the programme was still more pretentious. We were to have a Dominion fuel board to evolve a coal policy. Well, the fuel board may exist, but I know the coal policy does not exist. Very few boards ever disappear under this government, and very few policies are ever evolved. We did have some legislation last session which received the most sympathetic treatment on the part of hon. members on this sidte of the House, but for some reason that nobody can understand on any creditable principle, at was suddenly abandoned by hon. gentlemen opposite. Do hon. members suggest there may have been a reason for its abandonment? Well, if there was any it was this: that when they introduced this coal policy for the manufacture of coke a provincial election was pending in Nova Scotia, and when they abandoned that policy the provincial election was over.
We were told in 1924 that the government had under their serious consideration the question of the St. Lawrence waterway, and they gave as their reason for not making any definite pronouncement on the subject, that they wanted to make further inquiry. This was two years ago. This problem, pressing enough to be placed in the Speech from the Throne two years ago, upon which we have since had twenty-four months of "inquiry", is now dead and gone from sight. It is not even worthy to be mentioned, and if anything has been done, then the government has succeeded in doing it without the knowledge of the people of Canada.
They did not stop there. There was announcement of an effort on the part of the government to secure lower rates on cattle. Just how far that effort has proceeded, just

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who it perspiration has been emitted, I do not know, I am in no position to say; but I know there are no lower rates on cattle. We did have something that was supposed to be an attempt to that end, and in this connection I refer to the promise in the Speech from the Throne for the stabilization and control of freight rates by land and sea from the head of the lakes to Liverpool. This was the star pronouncement of 1924. The echoes of that proclamation did not die until the election was through, for on almost every stump hon. members of the government proclaimed, as the great central article of government policy, that they were going to have "no monopoly by land or sea". It would be merciful to the government-if it would not be quite fair, it would at least be merciful-if I were to say that no attempt was made to carry out that pronouncement of policy. Unfortunately there was an attempt: the ill-fated Petersen contract, of malodorous memory; the Petersen contract which has now gone into the past eternity; the most indescribable, unspeakable attempt at contracting which any government has ever made in the old world or the new, in ancient or modern times. I do not need to harrow the memories of hon. gentlemen opposite by referring to it much farther. Suffice it to say that it was laughed out of this House. After many twistings and turnings the government consigned it to a secluded cemetery in the form of a committee, and there, at a cost of about $100,000. it was buried for evermore. All we hear of it now is the dismal dirge of the company in its lament over the profits which it lost, and all we witness to bring back its memory is the presence of the I ago of the play, looking down from his favourite place in the gallery in despair upon a government which was so long his patron and his friend.
Will hon. members now follow me into the manifestoes of the Speech from the Throne of 1925? This Speech opened with the declaration that what was engaging the attention of the government most of all was the problem of the "Cost of Living." It was harrowing their souls. They were troubled by day and sleepless by night in their effort to get the cost of living down to a point more sufferable for the masses of our country. I do not see in the Speech from the Throne to-day any particular concern for the cost of living. Why is it omitted? If I could only show hon. members the chart of living costs in Canada since the delivery of that Speech they would realize at a moment's glance why it was omitted. It was omitted because as shown by the chart which I obtained to-day from the Department of Labour, the cost of living, so

high that it worried the government and formed the major feature of the Speech from the Throne a year ago, is now just about five per cent higher than it was then. It has gone up in a line almost as perpendicular as the line which represented its course during the progress of the war. So a higher cost of living does not worry them at all. It has passed from their sight, and they decide to forget it and to build the Hudson Bay railway instead.
These are the principal features of Speeches from the Throne which have come to us in the past, delivered iby hon. members of this government. I am sure I have said enough to indicate to this House that we need to be not too sanguine, and that it is better not to be too enthusiastic. It is better not to consider as though there were realized to-day all the promises of hon. gentlemen in their Speeches from the Throne.
I spoke some time ago of dear old friends who are missing and apparently gone forever, and amongst them none was more familiar, none more lamented than the figure of that great apparition known as Senate reform. Its death has been very recent, so perhaps we should speak of it with bated breath. It was in the Speech from the Throne a year ago. We were then told that parliament would be asked to authorize the calling of a conference. All of us knew that the government had called many conferences without asking the authority of parliament at all, so we suspected that the reference in the Speech from the Throne was merely intended to postpone an evil day. We all remembered too that the session before had closed with a declaration from the Prime Minister that the Senate was going to be reformed and of what was to be the specific character of the reform. He had told us just where its wings were to be clipped, and he declared that when the government was through, the Senate would not be able any more to balk legislation passed by the Commons more frequently than twice. As time went by, this particular programme was little by little abandoned. At the time I ventured to ask him if he had taken the trouble to consult the provinces who had been parties to the pact of confederation and who naturally would like to have something to say about its alteration. The question was not answered, but the significance of the question evidently sank into the government's mind, because as month after month went by this particular programme of Senate reform became vague and still more vague, and the proposal and method of the reform became in time utterly beyond all understanding. As the election proceeded the in-

The Address-Mr. Meighen
tention to reform some way, any old way at all, was pronounced over and over again by the leader of the government. How far he was followed by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) I am in no position to say, 'but I will venture the suggestion-and I ask hon. members to watch the minister-that he never suggested Senate reform to an audience during the whole election. On the doctrine of the solidarity of the government he must have acquiesced in the pledges of his leader, and there was scarcely a platform upon which that leader spoke in the whole campaign which did not resound with his declaration that he was bent upon Senate reform and on one occasion he announced that steps would 'be taken to that end before the next session of parliament. Not only did he so declare, but he said: "Already I have so pledged members who have been appointed to the 'Senate that when they get there they have to vote for Senate reform whether they want to or not. 'Not only have they to vote for Senate reform, but they have pledged themselves to vote for any kind of Senate reform which the government sends up." Thus he described the character of senators who, according to his own admission, he had lately appointed to the upper house. Thus the matter stands until we are greeted in this parliament with the Speech from the Throne, and I look through all its lines in vain; I look through all the perfervid literature that graces its pages, and I cannot see mention of the Senate or of Senate reform. The Minister of the Interior himself looks puzzled. Is it all forgotten?. May I ask, is it forgotten, is it ,afoandoned, or was it in the beginning nothing more or less than a hoax? Was it simply a stage-play by which it was hoped to secure the support Of Labour in this country? In any case the record of the government as regards Senate reform is a very useful object lesson to new and aspiring members of this House as they read, possibly with some enthusiasm, the Speech from the Throne of to-day.
I want to make mention of another topic, and with this I close. In the Speech from the Throne there is a reference to the subject of the tariff. A reading of this paragraph is well worth the time of any hon. member of this House. It is one of the most curiously constructed things I have ever seen. In symmetry it almost resembles the late government

and I use the word "late" intentionally, for hon. members will recall that it was one of the chief boasts of the Prime Minister that his government represented with exactitude the various provinces of our Dominion. We were told with what precise and 14011-14
perfect symmetry the various peoples who compose our population were represented in this government. Now of course the whole picture presents a different spectacle, a spectacle which we find reflected in the promise in the Speech from the Throne to reduce the number of ministers. Well, necessity is the mother of invention and very often it is worth while to make a virtue of necessity. The government apparently intends to carry on with four provinces not represented by a minister and one of them the most populous province in Canada.


Mr. BOURASSA:: They are happy provinces.


Arthur Meighen: They are not unhappy. Indeed, if they had their way there would not be any ministers. But they are not allowed to have their way; the country is not allowed to have its way, and that because hon. gentlemen are determined not to interpret the result of the late election by the vote polled but rather in the light of the attractive promises now held out.
On the subject of the tariff one would search in vain for any indication of government policy. We are told that the government is against a general raising of the tariff. How mild and innocent an assertion this is from the authors of the 1919 resolution. What a watering of the strong drink of those times! What a poor and feeble imitation of the courageous spirit which dominated that convention! We have had some changes in the tariff, injurious all of them, changes which hon. gentlemen to my left have described as just a little valise full, and after the valise is filled hon. gentlemen of the government calmly close it and lock it and say they are not in favour of giving anything more. They are not going to raise the tariff; and having said so much they declare that they will appoint a tariff advisory board forthwith. I ask the House to dwell just a moment on the significance of the word "forthwith". Will hon. gentlemen be surprised when I say that the government promised a board two years ago, and promised it in the Speech from the Throne? Then it was called a taxation board. The reason it was not called a tariff board was this, that if they had so named it it would have been an assumption to themselves of a policy announced by the Conservative party in 1912 which they all bitterly opposed. In order therefore to make it look a little different they gave it a drapery and an ensign on which was painted "Board of Taxation." The functions of this board were described by hon. members of the government

The Address-Mr. Meighen

one after another: it was going to investigate tariff matters and modes of taxation. And a motion of the hon. menber for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) was even deferred because the Prime Minister declared that the very matter of that motion was to be the object of investigation of this new "board of taxation." Wei], where is the "board of taxation?" I had almost said it had not been appointed, but I really do not know. All I can say is that there has been no result. Indeed, I do not believe it was ever appointed; if it was I should like to be corrected by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb). I say I do not believe it has ever been appointed to this day. But do hon. members know that in that year this government passed a vote in the body of the estimates by which they were authorized to make appointments without reference to the Civil Service Commission and they got 830,000 for that purpose? Yet no appointment has so far been made. Not content with that, they came down the next year and asked for another vote to provide them with a tariff advisory board. Hon. gentlemen will note that the colour keeps changing, the appearance is altered, the nomenclature is amended until finally the thing becomes a "tariff board", just a year ago. They got that vote again, but neither taxation board nor tariff board was appointed; and now true to form the administration comes to the House in 1926 and as a new announcement of policy declares to parliament that it will appoint a tariff board and appoint it "forthwith."
What is the intention of the government now? The hon. member for West Middlesex (Mr. Elliott) thinks that this board will help the farmers in the long struggle against drought, and hail and all those precarious circumstances which make their livelihood so difficult; and he hopes that someone will be appointed on that board who like himself has had some experience in countering the winter's blasts and all those other obstacles of nature which obstruct the path of the farmer. I do not see very much connection between a tariff board and those visitations of nature which affect the farmer's crops. However, the Conservative party stands where it has stood all along on this subject; it stands on a policy which would have been the law of Canada for the last thirteen years but that it was defeated by the exertions of hon. gentlemen opposite and their majority at that time in the Senate.
I am going to speak of the verdict of the late election on this subject of the tariff. The hon. member for West Middlesex tells us that the country is very prosperous, and the usual platitudes are poured out to explain 
this prosperity. For example, there is no one, he says, idle in the town of Strathroy. If you look at the government's tale of the national debt and at nothing else you will think, he says, that things are getting better. But we have all heard these words before. True, the prosperity of the country depends upon the prosperity of the working man of every class, and while I am very glad to know that the population of Strathroy is busy I would much rather see the population of Canada busy and I would much rather see the population of Canada increasing. Just a few moments ago I received the employment returns of this country and I find that the employment figure stands for Canada last month at 95.3; that is to say, we have approximately five per cent fewer at work than we had in January 1920, notwithstanding the fact that the system of compilation has improved and the number now returned proportionate to the number employed is greater than it was at that time. Is this a country where the ratio of employment should go down year by year? Has that been the record of the United States since 1920? And we must read even these figures in the light of the fact that in mining, in respect of which this government has no more to do than they have to do with the colour of the clouds, there has been a tremendous increase in employment. If we look at manufacturing alone, 88.1 is the employment figure in December, 1925. It would be less to-day without a doubt, because it is always less in January, whereas for January, 1920, it stood at 100. Well, it might be worse, but surely this is nothing of which to boast; surely we ought to be going ahead in Canada at least from 5 to 10 per cent per year; we should to-day be standing at a figure of from 125 to 135 compared with 100 in 1920. For the past two or three months we have diminished: 98.3, October 1; 97.1, November 1; 95.3, December 1. Hon. gentlemen may say that this is seasonal. Well, I look at their own returns of United States employment, and I read that factory employment in New York state showed a gain of less than one per cent in November as compared with October. Ours on the other hand, goes down: we are 3 below what we were just three months ago. There is a similar report from Massachusetts: persons employed, 235,910 in October compared with 229,946 in September. There is a similar report from Illinois. In Wisconsin, while there has been a slight decrease in number, there has been an increase in the pay rolls. We have a favourable report from every state mentioned in this return, while Canada has gone down by 3.

The Address-Mr. Meigken
Now, I do not say there has been no steadying of conditions in this country; there has been some. Whatever steadying there has been is due, not to any confidence that this government would not like to meddle with our fiscal conditions, but to a confidence that they do not dare bo do so any more. This Dominion is confident that after the result of the last contest this government will not dare to meddle much with tariff matters. Though it may not lack the desire to do so, it certainly will lack the courage. True, hon. gentlemen opposite suggested-because they thought it would be of value to them in the confidence debate; that is the only reason they suggested it-that after all the verdict of the last campaign was for low tariff. Do you see any indication of this conviction in the Speech from the Throne? Do you see any indication of an approach to the goal set in 1919? Do you see any indication of the fulfilment of the words of the Minister of the Interior that the policy of 1924 spelled "the death knell of protection"? Did you hear those words uttered by him even in the course of the campaign? Why, I am told that since October the minister has not gone to a funeral for fear it would remind him of that fatal sentence!
I appeal now to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell). Will hon. members hearken to the classic utterances of that hon. gentleman in the debate of but two years ago? Speaking in this House on May 7, 1924, he said:
We are beginning to do slowly what we had endeavoured to do rapidly on three historic occasions and failed-in 1878 and in 1891, unrestricted reciprocity, and in 1911 reciprocity in natural products. We endeavoured to go rapidly, but we were told we were going too quickly and we were defeated in each instance. Now we have been reaching out to the same objective by easy stages-so easy the first two years that our action did not meet with very much approval.
Will he say now as he sits in front of me that they are still marching to the same objective? Are they persevering? Ah! See the lesson of the election on the Minister of Agriculture.	Even he has not misread its
significance. Never will we hear those words from him again,, unless possibly on the eve of another contest-or unless he goes into opposition. If he goes into opposition, all these familiar phrases will return. "The death knell of protection" will have no terrors any more for the Minister of the Interior.
Hon. gentlemen opposite know, and this whole House knows, that the party which I have the honour to lead to-night was sustained on the great issue of protection. Not only were we sustained, but we were sustained throughout almost the length and breadth of 14011-14J
this Dominion; scarcely was there a province where the vote did not indicate that on this great question of fiscal policy the Conservative party was right. Hon. gentlemen opposite talk about the vote in the Dominion being for low tariff. I wonder how many hon. gentlemen from the province of Quebec were elected upon the tariff policy of this government?


Ernest Lapointe: Every one of them.


Arthur Meighen: How was that policy described?


Ernest Lapointe: I will tell my right hon. friend when I speak.


Arthur Meighen: I should like to hear it now. Was it described in the language of the hon. member for Joliette (Mr. Denis) the other night? He has told the House how he was elected so far as tariff policy was concerned; he has declared that not only in the last election but for the last three elections he appealed to his electors on a policy of "moderate protection". Yes, I ask again: Were hon. members from that province elected to oppose the Conservative party because of its tariff policy? Were they elected to support this government because of its tariff policy? I put that now on the conscience of hon. members opposite. I put it now to the Minister of Justice: Was there one hon. member from the province of Quebec elected to support the government of the day because of its tariff policy?


Ernest Lapointe: Every one of them was
elected on the low tariff policy.


Arthur Meighen: Low tariff policy!


Ernest Lapointe: My right hon. friend was not there.


Arthur Meighen: I have spoken in the
province three times for every once his own leader has. It is all very well to say: You cannot count among your supporters the followers of Mr. Patenaude in the province of Quebec. I should like to know: On the question of tariff, on every question debated in the last contest, did the Conservative party of Quebec appeal on any other ground save on the well understood policies of the Conservative party of Canada? They did not. I know full well that there was a difference of opinion as to who should be the leader of the Conservative party; I know that my leadership was not universally acknowledged. Perhaps those who refused to acknowledge it were right. But I want to tell the government that policies are greater than leaders, principles are greater than politicians. Leaders

The Address-Mr. Meighen
may change, but the principles of our party are not only one, they are universally accepted as one throughout the length and breadth of Canada, and nowhere more definitely or clearly than in the province of Quebec.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker, (had I observed the time .prior to six o'clock, I should have concluded the few remaining sentences I had to offer before calling it six o'clock. I was in the midst of a reference to the unity of principle upon which the entire Conservative party fought throughout this country during the late election, and had -made some mention of the diversity of views which characterized the professions, of hon. gentlemen opposite who .managed to secure return, a diversity of view equally marked in the late contest as in those which preceded it. I had also stated that none who eared to adhere faithfully to facts would think of ascribing the Liberal victory in the province of Quebec to the tariff policy of that party. I do not want to lay over-emphasis on the character of the campaign conducted by hon. gentlemen opposite and their colleagues and allies, some of the members of the provincial government, in that campaign. Mention indeed is unnecessary. The whole country knows upon what the contest was conducted. The evidence is at hand indisputably. We have it in our possession and it is in the possession of the people of this country. All I can say to hon. gentlemen opposite is this: that a campaign of that character can be overdone. I am proud as a Canadian and proud as a member of the Conservative party to say that there was no counterpart of these methods in evidence in any other part of the country, and I hope there never will be. I counsel hon. gentlemen opposite not to tempt fate too far. I counsel them to have reai consideration for the unity of this country and to see that such consideration is evidenced iby acts, by deeds and by records, rather than having it too often proclaimed in mere empty words.
The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), the acting leader of the House, interjected in the course of my remarks the statement that all candidates in Quebec were elected on the policy of bis government on low tariff. May I refer him to the words of t)he member for Joliette (Mr. Denis) just for the sake of
[Mr. Meighen. i
putting a specific question which I will give him Ojpportunity to answer as I speak, or, if he declines, which I will request him to answer when he takes the floor?
The member for Joliette declared, in language whose clearness was equal to its truth, that he contested his election on a policy of moderate protection. Now I want to ask the leader of the government, is moderate protection now the policy of the Liberal party? I ask the hon. Minister of Agriculture, whom I am delighted to see in our midst, if he conducted his campaign in the province of Saskatchewan on the policy of moderate protection?


William Richard Motherwell: No.


Arthur Meighen: He did not. Then I ask him how he can proclaim the unity of his professions with those of the member for Joliette.


William Richard Motherwell: A moderate tariff.


Arthur Meighen: The Address-Mr. Meighen
I have now had the advantage of a conversation on the various subjects mentioned in your letter with you and a committee of your members. Consequently my reply will not now need to be so extensive as would otherwise have been necessary.
I made it clear in the conversation, and now repeat, that the policies outlined and elucidated in our interview to-day are the policies of the Liberal-Conservative party irrespective of the source from which it gets its vote either in the House or in the country.
I refer to the following subjects:
1.	The tariff.
2.	The Hudson Bay railway.
5.	Statutory freight rates on grain and flour.
6.	Public ownership of national railways.
7.	The income tax.
9. Transfer of natural resources to the prairie provinces.
^ 10. Trade relations with the United States.
11.	A national coal policy.
With respect to these subjects the stand of the Conservative party has been fully and repeatedly outlined by myself in the House of Commons, and along precisely the same lines elaborated in the country. So far as I know it has never been charged that my attitude as leader on any of these subjects has been equivocal or obscure. In our interview to-day all points on which elucidation was desired were cleared up. I therefore need make no further reference to them now. May I add though that on the subject of the tariff I could not in a few words better define our historic and present policy than to quote what the Right Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King on September 8, in the county of Peel, in the province of Ontario declared to be the policy of the Liberal party, namely-"a tariff which will help to give us what we need in the way of revenue, and, at the same time safeguard industrial development."
As to the others I will take them up separately:
3.	Peace river outlet. Without' doubt there will have to be provided a western outlet for the Peace River territory. It should be provided as soon as possible because until it is that territory cannot develop as so splendid a district should develop because of the very long haul freight rates which now are necessary. At the same time I stated frankly in our interview that I could not undertake an immediate outlay for this purpose. Undoubtedly the cost would run into a very large sum, and we should be in a better position to take care of the responsibilities entailed by railways already constructed before we venture on any new large enterprises. The sooner we are in a position, however, to go on with this the better I will be pleased as we must all have the very greatest sympathy with people who have gone into that district.
4.	Mountain Differential. The principle laid down in the order in council issued by the government of which I was head in 1920, the principle of equalization, was then as definitely and broadly worded as is possible in the defining of any principle. It has not been enlarged, or indeed modified, since. On this principle it is the duty of the railway commission to base their conduct. The function of putting it into effect is theirs, and with the exercise of their function no government should interfere. It is equally reprehensible on the part of a government to pursue the judicial decisions of this tribunal with praise as with blame. If we feel the members of the board are not doing their duty we should take the steps against them which are open to us under the law and not treat them as if they were a political body.
8.	Rural Credits. I am most anxious to see installed at the earliest possible date a sound and sane system of rural credits in Canada. I am opposed to government loans for this purpose and do not think such a

system can over be successfully administered. We should profit by the experience of other countries, and especially o-f the United States. It is our intention to have the operation of their land bank system very carefully studied without delay and it is our confident hope to bring in a measure, certainly at no distant date, based on the general principles found to be successful there. There will necessarily be such modification as may be appropriate to this, a younger country.
12.	Revaluation of Soldier Settlers' Lands. I am strongly in favour of a revaluation scheme, but I must admit I have never myself been able to think of a plan which could be defended on the ground of fairness as applicable to all settlers. The matter will be most sympathetically considered and any plan reasonably defensible on grounds of fairness will be adopted.
13.	Co-operative Marketing. While I have not discussed this subject very fully in the House of Commons, I have on more than one occasion discussed it in the country, and my views are I think well known. The utmost possible assistance will be given to cooperative marketing of farm products of every kind.
14.	Alternative Vote. We are definitely opposed to the alternative vote.
Yours very truly,
I may say I had a letter also from the leader of the Labour party, but I do not think I need detain the House by a perusal of that correspondence. It differs in this respect not by an iota from the correspondence with the leader of the Progressive party. No, our principles have not changed. There are those whose principles have varied and there are those whose practice has never accorded with their principles. There are those who now are moving by slow degrees, so long as they feel they are safe with a majority, away from the stand upon which they secured many of the votes which first of all installed them in office. We stand by the resolution of the 2nd of last June. That resolution embodies those things on which historically the Conservative party has built its faith, those things that have given it the usefulness with which it has served Canada through forty years. That resolution the entire Conservative party stood behind in the late contest, and that resolution we stand behind to-day. Where this government will	move	on the	tariff no oneknows, there is a direction in which I * urge them	at	this time	to go. Whatever may.be said for a tariff commission, there is need of no tariff commission to inform this House,	or	to	inform	any fair-mindedman or woman, that agriculture to-day, in respect of the tariff, labours under a disability, and a disability which it is the duty of this House at once	to	remove.	The agriculture
schedules are not so inter-related with the general tariff structure of our country that we must investigate and await the report of a tariff commission before we attack them. In the market to which agriculture has contributed, which our farmers have been taxed

The Address-Mr. Meighen
to build in that market they should have an advantage comparable with the advantage enjoyed by their competitors in corresponding markets of other lands. They are to-day suffering competition which is doing harm and is discouraging to the agricultural population of this country

comparable with the United States; and that country affects us more than all others together as a competitor; their goods are admitted into this country over less than half the tariff which confronts the products of the Canadian farm on entry to the United States. On what principle of fairness is such a thing continued? Why wait for a tariff commission to remedy an obvious wrong? What other sections of the tariff would be affected by a change of the agricultural schedules? Why, for example, should dairy products, still more, fruit products, still more, vegetable products, produced early on the farms of the United States, come into this Dominion over almost no tariff, satiate the Canadian appetite, destroy the Canadian market, before Canadian goods can come to be consumed? While the American tariff was low, while their cattle schedules were low, their grain schedules low, their mixed farm schedules low, there was reason for keeping the Canadian tariff low also, because our farmers were then on a good plane, on a basis of fair competition with their great competitors across to the south. That was all changed in the fall of 1921. Ever since then the American farmer has monopolized his own market and has had almost equal rights here with the farmers of this country. And not content with that situation hon. members opposite came along and informed the Canadian farmer that in addition he would have to pay a price for the entry of the manufacturer's product into Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world. This government, which boasts of its trade treaties, not one of which so far has been anything else than a disaster to Canada, -the French treaty, the Italian treaty and the Australian treaty,-introduced a treaty with Australia under which they have admitted into the Canadian market the products of Australian farms, and now of New Zealand farms, in competition with the Canadian farmer over almost no tariff at all, and in most cases over absolutely no tariff. The Minister of Finance will remember, if he will steel himself to do so-he will not do so if he can help it-the speeches he made in parliament telling us that we had not got very much from Australia in the way of farm products, or from New Zealand; so we will let the Canadian farmer in the winter-time compete, practically with no protection against the
Australian and New Zealand farmer, producing at the same time his goods in the summer.
I. have before me a paper published in Vancouver, the Vancouver Province, to which hon. gentlemen have given their imprimatur already this session, and I read the following: New Zealand butter breaks local price.
This is dated January 11, not quite a week
ago.
Over 400,000 pounds were brought in last week and prices slump three cents.
Butter is down from two to three cents a pound. This is the first change that has taken place locally in this commodity for several months, a wholesale basis of 48 cents a pound having been maintained since the fall.
To-day the quotation among wholesale dealers runs from 45 to 46 cents a pounds, top grade.
It then goes on to say that close upon 8,000 boxes, or 448,000 pounds, of butter had landed from New Zealand last week. The closing paragraph states:
An additional shipment from New Zealand is expected inside the next few weeks.
New Zealand was admitted, by order in council of the 26th September, into the benefits of the Australian treaty, and this butter comes into Canada over a duty of one cent a pound. I put this question to the government, whose leader in the city of Kingston declared that industries had to be safeguarded against competition from all parts of the world, even from the country to the south- safeguarded against depreciated currency-I put this question to the government who, through its leader, has expressed such solicitude for the safeguarding of industry and thereby declared that a protective system must continue: How do you justify a protection of one cent a pound in Canada for butter? How do you justify loading on the backs of the farmers of this country the whole cost of a treaty made for the benefit of the manufacturers of Canada? There is one step which can now be taken. It is not only in accord with, but it is one of the great objectives of Conservative policy. I therefore, move, seconded by the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton):
That the following words be added to the Address: "We desire respectfully to express regret that the Speech from the Throne gives no indication of policy designed to enlarge the volume of employment in Canada, and particularly to give to the producers of farm products, coal and other primary products the advantage they are, under present world conditions, entitled to enjoy in the markets of this country." .


Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted indeed that my first words should be words of agreement with some sentiments expressed by the
The Address-Mr. Lapointe

right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) in the first part of his speech. I join heartily with him in extending to the new members of the House of Commons the most cordial welcome. I may, perhaps, add that if any of them on the other side of the House are not comfortably accommodated, I invite them to come across the floor and we will see to it that they are well looked after. I also agree with him in the congratulations he offered to the mover and the seconder of ithe Address. The hon. member for West Middlesex (Mr. Elliott) comes into the House of Commons with a great reputation which he has won not only at the bar but in other fields, and he has considerably added to it, first, by carrying an important constituency for the Liberal party in the province of Ontario during the recent election-and that was no mean achievement-and, secondly, by his splendid effort of to-day. The hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains (Mr. Lacombe) is a young and eloquent member of the bar of Montreal, and his talent and industry will be an acquisition to our House of Commons. He replaces in this House a veteran who has represented that constituency for over twenty-eight years, and I earnestly trust that he will have in this parliament as long and honourable a career as his predecessor.
I agree with the right hon. leader of the opposition in the words which he uttered with regard to the honour accorded to Canada at the last Assembly of the League of Nations by the selection of my colleague the leader of the Senate to the presidency of that great body. I have had the honour of attending one of the assemblies of the League of Nations as a representative of Canada, and I know the hon. member for Argenteuil (Sir George Perley), who also, I think, attended one of those assemblies, will agree with me when I say that it is no mean honour to be selected as president of the League of Nations. We knew-and this is the more agreeable to us- that the gentleman who was selected could and did fill the position with dignity and ability.
The leader of the opposition at the opening of his address, offered at least some words of commendation on one of the paragraphs in the Speech from the Throne. I am in favour of reciprocity in courtesy as well as in anything else, and I desire to congratulate my right hon. friend on the somewhat improved tone of his remarks to-day. It is true that "he did not lack the aggressiveness which is always so powerful in eliciting applause from his followers; still, he did not display that spirit of bitterness of which I complained in former years. My right hon. friend was cer-

tainly mostly critical and negative, more industrious in spreading alarm than in giving useful guidance or direction. But on the whole I have no ground for complaint. My right hon. friend is, I think, beginning to be a good loser and he certainly needs to cultivate that spirit in the years to come. He seems to have acquired that quality mentioned by the hon. member for Port William (Mr. Manion) the other day, that is, a sportsmanlike attitude towards defeat, and he does not seem to bear any grudge against the House on account of the vote of Thursday last. If my right hon. friend could only forget that old Tory delusion, that Tories were created by divine right to rule over other people, he would be constructive and he might be helpful in the administraion of public affairs. And having so far commended the right hon. gentleman I suppose I shall be excused if I find it necessary to censure him to some extent. In the first place I fear he displays an extreme indelicacy in formulating and proposing policies for his opponents and in expressing their view's for them. Personally I have never given to the leader of the opposition any mandate to state my own views either on the tariff or on any other question and I desire to be judged rather by what I may say on these matters than by what my right hon. friend represents my views to be.
Another criticism I am constrained to offer has reference to the right hon. gentleman's comments upon the last general election, more particularly as they relate to my own province. May I tell him that his criminations and recriminations in reference to the result of that election and the manner in which the campaign was carried on will receive very little sympathy from the men and women voters in any of the constituencies of Canada who know how the campaign was conducted by himself, or rather by his friends. On this side of the House we have lost some friends as a result of that campaign, but we have the satisfaction of knowing that most of them have been the victims of whispered propaganda and of a lavish expenditure of money, as unscrupulous as it was unprecedented in this country. We have had arrayed against us all the forces of selfishness in Canada.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: Oh, oh.


Ernest Lapointe: Let the hon. gentleman laugh; he received the support of those who think that they have a right to enrich themselves at the expense of the masses and who believe that parliament ought to be their creature and to act as their servile tool. Now I



IS, 1926

[Stage Direction]
The Address-Mr. Lapointe
am sorry that my right hon. friend opposite compels me to refer to the province of Quebec, but I am bound to say this, that that province has emerged from the election greater and prouder than ever she was before. She has proved that it is impossible to make her bend the knee to Baal, or rather to the golden calf, and she has shown, further, that duplicity does not appeal to her. Surely my right hon. friend should not be resentful of Quebec because of that election. Whatever the Liberal electors of that province may think of him, they certainly believe that it was an affront to public morality to keep him outside the province and to compel him in his peregrinations throughout the country merely to hover over that territory,-and that at the behest of what his friends call the Montreal clique. We think in the province of Quebec that my right hon. friend was treated unfairly by those who claim to be his friends in that province, and I do not think that he should resent what has happened there.
All the problems affecting our public life have been discussed in Quebec just as much as they have been discussed in any other province, and some of them to a greater extent even. Even the tariff has been the subject of greater debate in the province of Quebec than elsewhere in Canada. True, the tariff was not the only question discussed there: why should it be? The tariff is only one of the incidents of our national evolution; it is not the whole public of Canada. There are other questions besides the tariff that call for consideration and we have a right to discuss them-nay, it is our bounden duty to do so. And so far as the tariff is concerned I beg to read what Willison's Monthly has to say on the subject. This is a publication which is edited by Sir John Willison, who is by no means a friend of the Liberal party and who is a keen observer of political events in Canada. In its issue of December, 1925, Willison's Monthly at page 250 says:
The British preferential feature of the tariff was discussed more in the province of Quebec during the recent election campaign than in other parts of Canada and in the closing days of the campaign the French language newspapers carried a full-page advertisement under a caption charging that Mackenzie King mani-pule la preference britannique au prejudice de 1*Industrie canadienne.
I repeat, all the features of Canadian life have been discussed not only by myself but by my friends as well in the province of Quebec, as they have been discussed by those who undertake to debate political questions on behalf of the Liberal party. In the presence in this House of the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Howard) we have an exemplification of the feeling which prevails in the province of Quebec. Sherbrooke, it will be remembered, was represented in parliament in 1917 and 1921 by an old friend of mine, Mr. McCrea. Mr. McCrea had a weakness, however: he voted with my right hon. friend on the tariff policy; he repudiated the Liberal policy in that respect. And what happened to my dear old friend Frank McCrea? Although the government was quite disposed to allow him to be elected as representative of Sherbrooke, the electors of that constituency declined to nominate Mr. McCrea for the reason that he had voted with my right hon. friend on the tariff question. Is that not a clear case? Instead, the voters of Sherbrooke decided to elect my good friend Mr. Howard, the present member, notwithstanding that it had been charged against him that he had been in favour during the war of a policy which my hon. friends opposite claim was the only question discussed in the province of Quebec in the recent campaign. The present member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Howard) was elected because he approved of the tariff policy of the present government and because he disapproved of the tariff policy of my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen).
Arthur Meighen: How did he describe
it?


Ernest Lapointe: Surely my right hon.
friend does not expect me to quote the speeches of the hon. member for Sherbrooke.


Arthur Meighen: I could do that.


Ernest Lapointe: But everybody knows
that what I am now saying is true. It is a slander on the province of Quebec to describe the character of our recent campaign as it has been described in a certain portion of the press and by certain of the public men of Canada.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Ernest Lapointe: My friends are laughing. I have in my hand the National Review, edited by Mr. Maxse. It is the issue of December, 1925, and contains comments which are insulting and slanderous to the province of Quebec. I will not read them because I do not want to do anything which might be conducive to destroying national harmony and good will, but I may say that he bases his comments on the speech made by my right hon. friend in Hamilton as to the character of our campaign in Quebec. The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) is a gentleman whom I admire. He is one of the best debaters in this House. I thought he was broad-miuded -in fact I believe he is broad-minded, but I
The Address-Mr. Lapointe
COMMONS*
was disappointed to read in the Vancouver Sun of December 2 last a report of a speech made by him in that city. I will not quote it.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will my hon. friend do
me the justice at least of telling me what he is talking about? I want to say to him at once that any report of a speech of mine in the Sun would be a pretty distorted report. However, we will take the Sun report if my hon. friend will quote it.


Ernest Lapointe: Well, I would not be
surprised if my hon. friend should also have the misfortune which happens to his leader, who is so often being misquoted.


Arthur Meighen: , No. There has been only one paper quoted in respect to a speech of mine which was in the slightest degree in error.


Ernest Lapointe: My right hon. friend is
every day denying reports of his speeches which appear in the press, and he knows it.


Arthur Meighen: I am denying what hon. gentlemen say, not what newspapers report, save in one instance.


Ernest Lapointe: I am in the judgment
of the House in that respect, even of the followers of my right hon. friend. If my hon. friend insists I will read the quotation.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Go ahead. I am not
ashamed of any utterance I have made.


Ernest Lapointe: Very well:
Premier W. L. Mackenzie King is "hanging on to office"-
That is old news.
-(because he has been forced to do so by his Quebec ministers, notably Hon. L. A. Lapointe-
I may advise my hon. friend that my initials are not "L. A."
-Vancouver Conservatives were told by Hon. H. H. Stevens Tuesday. Fear of another election with loss of the machinery of office, which they had outraged, and fear of the revelations of gross maladministration which would-


Henry Lumley Drayton: Hear, hear.


Ernest Lapointe: I knew my hon. friend would say, "hear, hear." He has a fine voice and likes to give expression to his hilarious "hear, hear."


Henry Lumley Drayton: Give us some
more.


Ernest Lapointe: I want to quote what
my friend said about our campaign in Quebec.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Read it all.


Ernest Lapointe: I shall read' what I desire to read. The report continues:
Tories Benefit
The result in that province was really a victory for the Conservatives.
We have heard that from my right hon. friend too.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It sounds reasonable.


Ernest Lapointe: Quebec, he said, had been 90 per cent favourable to the doctrines of the Conservative party, but had been misled into opposition by "a handful of maliciously disposed men," among the leaders of whom he named Messrs. Lapointe, Cardin and Belaud.
Do I look as malicious here as I did to my hon. friend in Vancouver?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I would suggest that he looked more vicious in Vancouver when he told certain Liberal-Unionists there that they were Judas Iscariots. Perhaps he recalls that.


Ernest Lapointe: I never said that.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Ernest Lapointe: I am in an even better
position than my hon. friend. I do not think I have ever been quoted as having said that.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Oh yes.


Ernest Lapointe: Never. It is a dream of my hon. friend from Vancouver Centre.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It was published in the Sun-it may have been a dream.


Ernest Lapointe: Let me go on with
another dream of his.
A scandalous campaign had been pursued by the Liberals in Quebec, he charged.


Arthur Meighen: Hear, hear.


Ernest Lapointe: The electors had been stampeded by stories to the effect that if Mr. Meighen were elected, within a short time Great Britain would declare war on Turkey and the men of Quebec would be conscripted to fight while the women would have to work in the factories. ''You may ask how the people of Quebec could be so simple as to believe that. They have their own language,-
Poor people!
-press, with two or three exceptions hammering away since 1917 on conscription story," he added, continuing that Conservative analysis of the vote in Quebec had indicated that 90 per cent of the women on the lists had voted in the recent election, while previous elections had shown only from 50 to 60 per cent of the men voting.
"The women were frightened," Mr. Stevens declared, and, continuing, said that the women of Quebec were "not, I would say, more ignorant, but certainly less informed on politics than the women of any other part of Canada." The situation in Quebec, Mr. Stevens declared was appalling; a serious problem not only to the Conservative party but to Canada.

The Address-Mr. Lapointe
Let me tell my hon. friend-


Henry Herbert Stevens: May I now interject this? While perhaps there may be some slight variations, in the main the report 9 p.m. of my speech is correct, but I would ask the House to bear in mind that the emphasis placed on the various passages is that of the minister.


Ernest Lapointe: I see. My only comment will be that my friend was not fair, at least to the women of Quebec. Let me tell him that they are as intelligent as they are attractive.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Absolutely; and I was
very careful not to reflect upon their intelligence.


Ernest Lapointe: Thank you.


Henry Herbert Stevens: If my hon. friend will
permit me? I said that because of the preponderance of a one-language press in that province they were perhaps not as well informed upon the politics of other sections of Canada.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh. oh.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is what I said.


Ernest Lapointe: Even there my friend is wrong. If he could read the French-speaking press he would see that its readers are well informed on every problem of Canadian politics. No, really, my friend owes an apology to the Quebec ladies, and I hope he will tender them one.


Arthur Meighen: I might remind the hon. minister that the Premier of Quebec, Mr. Taschereau, has a very poor opinion of the accuracy of Le Canada.


Ernest Lapointe: That is another question. I do not think so. I think my friend Mr. Taschereau has a very good opinion of Le Canada, its editor and its readers.


Arthur Meighen: He says not.


Ernest Lapointe: My right hon. friend
may not have the same good opinion, but Mr. Taschereau believes in the accuracy of Le Canada.


Arthur Meighen: He repudiates it.


Ernest Lapointe: Well, my right hon.
friend said that there might be retaliation, in a sort of threatening way. But he may take it for granted that when he gives blows he will take blows also. There will be give and take in that matter. He was mistaken when he stated that in other parts of Canada
nothing was said that could be criticized in this respect. I have here an editorial in the Toronto Star saying that never was a public man more maligned and slandered than my right hon. leader has been throughout the campaign in the province of Quebec.
Sir HENRY. DRAYTON:	The Toronto
Starl Do not quote the Toronto Star. Get another paper.


Ernest Lapointe: I have something better, then. I am going to read something which was published during the election, not in the Toronto Star but in the Toronto Telegram, with the headline:
Every Vote For Sir Henry Drayton In West York is a Vote Against Mackenzie King.
Here is what is said-I do not know whether the tariff is much emphasized in that little paragraph:
The anti-oonfscriptionist of 1917 West York will never vote to send the help of Alexander MacGregor to Hon. W. L. M. King, whose policy refused to send Canadians to the fighting line in time of war, and whose policy does send Canadians to the United States in time of peace.
And in another sentence my right hon. leader is referred to as a cold-blooded traitor. That was to carry the election in West York, to elect my hon. friend who said "hear, hear" a few minutes ago.
Notwithstanding what may be said, Mr. Speaker, the great principle which underlay the Liberal campaign in our province, as well as in the other provinces; the goal which we indicated as the only one worth fighting for, the spirit which we claimed should inspire our acts and policies, was and is that of Canadian unity. It was our aim during the campaign; it was our aim in formulating the contents of the Speech from the Throne, and it is my aim in the remarks which I am making to-night. I believe that the present situation gives to all men in Canada a splendid opportunity to exercise moderation and goodwill, to make a special effort to understand the points of view of our fellow-Canadians in other sections of the country, and to bring all Canada to an understanding which will make our country advance as a unit and not in squads. We shall need in that vision the help and support of all men, and we must learn a lesson of compromise. Our great difficulties in this country come from the fact that the country is divided into four geographical sections separated by natural barriers. It is necessary for all Canadians wherever they live to try to understand the economic interests of the other sections of the country, to learn what the other view-
The Address-Mr. Lapointe

point is, and to reconcile divergent views.
If Canada is to be a great 9 pm. country, the home of a united people, we must recognize the fact that lake Superior is not a barrier between one section and another. Our clear duty is to formulate policies which follow a middle course and can be acceptable to the various interests, whatever part of Canada they represent. Stability is desirable, but it must be stability based upon economic justice to all and upon the necessary requirement of achieving national unity.
During the last general election some of our opponents at least carried on a campaign which, if successful, would make one half of Canada hate the other half. The gist of their arguments in the east, and more especially in my own province, was that this government had sold the east to the west by their actions on tariff and railway matters. I would like, if I had time to do it, to show you some posters which confronted us at every comer in our province. At the same time the right hon. leader of the opposition was stating in the west-as he practically stated this afternoon in his address-that the government had made no concession to western Canada and had "put it over" the Progressives during the last four years.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, 'hear.


Ernest Lapointe: My hon. friends applaud, but how can they reconcile this statement with that made in our eastern provinces, namely, that we have sold the east to the west, that we have sacrificed Quebec and Ontario to western interests? One or the other is true ,* surely the two cannot be accurate.
I ask you, Sir, is it a fair task, is it patriotic, to try to. persuade one-half of the country that the other half is unreasonable and wicked?
I say that those who are responsible for such a campaign have sown seed which, if it is not nipped in the bud, will produce a harvest that may work tremendous injury to our people and to our country. The peace and prosperity of the nation will always depend on uniting the minds, the wills and the hands of all Canadians. Our nation is not and cannot be a racial unit. History and the laws of sociology prevent it. It is good that it should be so, because as the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) rightly said the other day, to attempt to make it such would denationalize Canada as much as if the American doctrine of the "melting pot" was adopted by this country. We must keep and maintain Canada a political unit and, so far as possible, an economic unit. We must bind the different

parts of it together by common interests. Financial economic and administrative reforms are all desirable, but they will derive their [DOT]highest value from the spirit which inspires them. This spirit must be actuated by justice, kindness, love of truth and confidence in the destiny of our country.
He confesses blindness to stern realities who does not see that refusal to accept*a compromise on the tariff, on the fiscal question, will arouse in Canada an unending agitation. I have already stated in this House, and I state to-day, that I believe in a middle course on the tariff question, with a view of harmonizing to the greatest possible extent the apparently different interests of the various sections of the country. In regard to adherence to the policy of high protection, I say that a country whose area is as large as that of Europe, a country which has a population of only nine millions spread over an immense territory and has natural resources in abundance, cannot enrich herself by erecting a wall around her borders and refusing financial and economic communication with other countries. On the other hand I believe that an industrial system which has prevailed in this country for a large number of years cannot be subjected to an immediate or radical change or revolution without working some injury, and the greatest possible care and precaution must be taken in that respect. Moreover it is obvious that the circumstances) of geography, as I have already stated, have a great influence on the views of the people on fiscal questions. In our huge country we have interests in certain sections which are different from those of other sections. This parliament must act for the whole of Canada and in the interest of all Canadians. Compromise is necessary, and notwithstanding the views of my hon. friends opposite to the contrary, men jn office in Canada must be men of compromise.
The three outsta nding considerations we must have in mind in connection with the tariff question are the interests of revenue, the needs of industry, and the interests of the consumers. The men who will be appointed to the advisory board which we propose will represent various classes and various sections of the country. They will be men outstanding in their respective communities, and it is the hope of the government that their advice-based not only on their own experience but on the data that they will be able to collect-will be of great value in the framing of any legislation concerning the tariff. My views on the tariff are primarily concerned with the interests and the well-

The Address-Mr. Lapointe
being of the whole community, and I will never subscribe to the doctrine which was preached during the recent campaign on many Tory platforms, that the little fellow will be all right when and if the big feHow is all right.
The same spirit has animated the other features of the Speech from the Throne, and they are based on the same principle. My right hon. friend stated this afternoon that the policies set forth in the Speech from the Throne did not mean anything; that they may never be carried out. Well, my right hon. friend no doubt remembers his own experience in that regard, and he speaks from memory. He was Prime Minister of Canada for one session, and one session only,-that which opened in February, 1921. The Speech from the Throne at the opening of that session was the work of my right hon. friend. It is the only Speech from the Throne for which he is wholly responsible. What was the main feature in that Speech? May I read it to you, Sir?
My advisers are convinced of the necessity for revision of the customs tariff. In order to secure the most complete information a committee has conducted an extensive and thorough inquiry-
The hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) must remember that it was he who was the investigator.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Well done!


Ernest Lapointe: Well done, but it ended with the loss of papers in his department.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Oh no, my hon. friend is quite wrong in that. He has forgotten that the American tariff intervened in the meantime, and it was thought that we ought not to go on with it, as was then explained.


Ernest Lapointe: Is that so? I thought my hon. friend would say he kept his papers as a souvenir.


Henry Lumley Drayton: They are in the office.


Ernest Lapointe: However, I will go on with the quotation from the Speech from the Throne in 1921:
-and has secured the views of all parties and interests in every province. The hearings necessary for this purpose have now been completed, and the conclusions founded thereon will be submitted to you in due course. It is the opinion of my advisers that in such revision regard must be had to the necessities of revenue and as well that the principle of protection to Canadian labour and legitimate Canadian industries, including agriculture, which has prevailed for more than forty years in this country must be consistently maintained, but that the customs duties imposed to that end should be no higher than is essential to ensure good standards
of living among our working population and to retain and make possible the normal expansion of the industries in which they find employment.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Ernest Lapointe: I see my hon. friends
are delighted to hear their policy as contained in the Speech from the Throne in 1921. But it remained there; it never came before the House during that session. Instead of revising the tariff, as my right hon. friend had compelled His Excellency to say the tariff would be revised-


Arthur Meighen: In due course.


Ernest Lapointe: -my right hon. friend proceeded to hold a general election. That policy he submitted to the people instead of to the House. He ran his election on it in 1921; he conducted the election on it in 1925, and I am afraid that Speech from the Throne will serve when the next election comes. We ,do not want to follow my right hon. friend's example in that regard. What is embodied in the Speech from the Throne will be carried out. It is the intention of the government to submit legislation for the carrying out of these policies, and my right hon. friend will 'have the opportunity of voting for or against them.
Now, in the matter of immigration we believe, that in the interests of the country everything possible should be done to secure good immigrants, men who will go on the land. ,We believe this is the opportune time to do that. The time was not opportune during the last few years, but the conditions of business in this country now warrant a Strong policy of immigration. Sir, I attended a convention of boot and shoe manufacturers in the city of Montreal last year, and what the president complained of was that there were too many shoes in Canada and not enough feet. I think it is important for all men concerned in our industrial life that there should be more feet in Canada. When we consider that the population of England amounts to 618 persons per square mile of her territory, that there are 35 persons per square mile of the territory of the United States, and that there are only 2.7 persons per square mile in Canada, I think everybody will agree that it is one of the problems which have to be solved. But, sir, it has been felt by a large number of people in this country that the benefits, the concessions, the advantages which are offered to people of other countries should at least be shared by Canadians; that we should do as much as possible to repatriate Canadians who have emigrated to foreign countries, and that we should spend sufficient money to induce as many as possible of the
The Address-Mr. Lapointe

people of our cities to take up and farm our Canadian land. I believe, and the government believes, that after all the best settlers in Canada are Canadians. But immigration and repatriation cannot be successful unless they are supplemented by other policies which will help keep the Canadian farmers on the land, whether by facilitating the marketing of their produce or by enabling them to secure money on as easy terms as those enjoyed by other classes of the community. That is the purpose, the raison d'etre, of the rural credits policy enunciated in t'he Speech from the Throne. I can assure my right bon. friend that the legislation which will be brought down will be accepted by those who have worked along the lines of rural credits. I have read with the greatest interest the two reports of Dr. Tory on this subject, and I think he makes a case which is unanswerable. I heard an hon. member sitting angularly opposite state that [DOT]he had heard that -the members from Quebec were opposed to rural credits. I do not see why they should be. We have already in our province a small organization which has been effective along that line. I refer to the les caisses Desjardins, an institution organized by ,a philanthropist who was an officer of this House for years and who devoted much time and energy to the creation of those small rural banks which have been so successful. The only difficulty in regard to them is that [DOT]their scope is not large enough to meet all needs. They are restricted to the parishes in which ithey operate, and they cannot grant loans outside their own territory-simply to their own shareholders. It follows that the big parishes cannot help the small and poor parishes, and a larger and more effective organization is necessary. I repeat that I do inot see why Quebec dhould be opposed to [DOT]rural credits. I was pleased the other day to receive copies of the journal of La C'ham-bre de Commerce de Montreal. I noticed that in many of its issues appeared resolutions which had been adopted both by the council and by the members of the Chamber of Commerce of Montreal in favour of the organization of rural credits in Canada. A most influential organization, the Catholic Association of Young French Canadians, at a function a,t Ste-Hyacinthe a year or two ago, also adopted a resolution urging the government to establish rural credits in this country. So my right hon. friend must realize that no objection will come from that source, and that on the contrary this policy will be supported by the citizens of my province.
My right hon. friend spoke also about the paragraph in the Speech from the Throne concerning the Hudson Bay railway. He says fMr. Lapointe.]
[DOT]that it is a bribe to western Canada, or to a part, at 'least, of western Canada. H it is a bribe, Mr. Speaker, it is one of long standing. I hold in my hand a very interesting book- [DOT]and I am now going to resurrect a spectre of the past. I refer to the Halifax platform lof 1908, which was reproduced in 1911.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My right hon.
friend never stated that the Hudson Bay railway was a bribe. He pointed out that the way in which the matter had been put before the people constituted a bribe, in that the railway could only be obtained if government supporters were elected.


Ernest Lapointe: My right hon. friend
will be most grateful to the member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) for coming to his rescue.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Not at all. I
just desired to save time by calling attention to the facts.


Ernest Lapointe: If my hon. friend wants
to save time, let me assure him that I will be very brief in my remarks.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I want to help my hon. friend still further.


Ernest Lapointe: In the handbook of the
Liberal Conservative party of 1911 I find the programme enunciated by the then leader, Sir Robert Borden, who. referring to the Hudson Bay railway, said:
The Liberal Conservative party has been committed to the construction of the Hudson Bay railway since 1896, when Sir Charles Tupper embodied it in his policy. It will be built by the next Liberal Conservative administration without one day's unnecessary delay. It will be operated by an independent nonpolitical commission, on behalf of and in the interests of the people, with full control of rates and it will not be handed over to the control of any railway corporation.
So if we are fulfilling one of our pledges, we are doing more: we are fulfilling even a pledge of the Conservative party which has been standing for a long term of years. I say that we are redeeming not only our own pledge in regard to the Hudson Bay railway, but also another pledge which was incorporated in the Halifax platform eighteen years ago. I can refer also to section 15 of that platform, "The restoration of the public lands of the province of Alberta and Saskatchewan upon fair terms." After all, our Speech from the Throne seems to carry on not only Liberal policies, but policies which were advocated by my hon. friends on the other side.	,
But I have something even better than that. My right hon. friend was most sar-

The Address-Mr. Lapointe
castic when he referred to the reform of the Senate. Reform of the Senate! We have not changed our views about Senate reform from what they were last year. We said last year that the proposals of the government would be submitted to a conference of the provinces.


Arthur Meighen: What are the proposals?


Ernest Lapointe: The proposals which we will submit, and we expect that some of them, at leasit, will be accepted by the provinces. I contended then in the House, and I still submit that confederation was a pact among certain provinces and that you cannot alter that pact in any substantial feature without conferring with those who were parties to it. This was our policy last year. This is our policy to-day. But what about my hon. friends who are now thundering against anybody or any leader or any party who dare to refer to a reform of the Senate? The Halifax platform in paragraph 5 stated:
Reform of the Senate. Such reform in the mode of selecting members of the Senate as will make that chamber a more useful and representative legislative body.
If my right hon. friend and my hon. friends opposite are kind enough not to put too many obstacles in our way, we will redeem their pledges as well as our own. There is no doubt that to achieve those reforms, sacrifices are required on the part of various sections of our people. The development of a spirit of sane Canadianism is necessary in order that we may be more willing to accept those sacrifices and thus bring about national unity. A tendency to sectionalism becomes a disintegrating force if it is not neutralized and absorbed by a growing spirit of nationalism. A patriotism embracing all Canada must be fostered in order to develop a truly national character. At the last meeting of the Association of Canadian Clubs, one speaker, I think the president of the association, expressed the idea that the most constructive contribution to empire solidarity which we Canadians can make is the development of a more pronounced Canadianism. I thoroughly agree with that view. With a sound Canadianism inspiring the hearts and minds of our people, with a national spirit permeating all our activities and actuating all the members of our political bodies, I am firmly convinced that all our problems and questions can be considered and settled in tire best interests of Canada by a parliament having the authority, prestige and backing of Canadian opinion, and that there should be no need or excuse for that-my right hon. friend will pardon me for the use of the adjective-absurd and highly objectionable suggestion of resorting to a general election on issues which, from their nature as well as from constitutional and other points of view, must be settled by parliament, most notable amongst which is the issue of peace and war. With regard to this new policy of the leader of ithe opposition, it is generally believed that it was devised for the purpose of pleasing the province of Quebec and improving the destiny of his party in that province.


Mr. CHAPLIN (Lincoln):: After the election was over.


Ernest Lapointe: Yes, but before the election in Bagot took place.


Arthur Meighen: Would the hon. gentleman read a report of a speech delivered by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Cardin), which 1 read and in which he stated that that was and had been Liberal policy for a long time?


Ernest Lapointe: I am actually concerned with the speech of the leader of the opposition, and I will ask him to leave Marine and Fisheries alone for a little time. The policy, I understand, was born in the city of Hamilton before the election in Bagot. Indeed, my right hon. friend seems to have chosen his time and place. He is an adept in political birth control. May I say

and I claim to have a fair knowledge of the views and the mentality of the people of my province-that if such were the raison d'etre of the Hamilton statement it was a huge mistake? If there is one thing Quebec wants least of all, it is another wartime election. It is my earnest desire as a lover of my country that never again will the population of Canada be divided, for electoral and political purposes, into loyal and disloyal men and women, patriots and traitors, heroes and cowards. No. Canadian problems, Canadian questions, must be settled by the Canadian parliament and by members of parliament imbued with a real Canadian spirit and elected by a Canadian people actuated by Canadian motives. This is the only effective safeguard. In that regard, speaking of Canada, now that the heat and dust of the campaign are slowly disappearing, I hope there will be no more depreciation of our whole country; that the peevish laments which we heard during the recent electoral campaign will no longer be voiced. We have heard slanders of Canada of a character unparalleled in the history of this or any other country. Unwarranted optimism is not desirable, but pessimism, especially calculated pessimism, is not only a plague but a crime. Canada has gone through the world crisis better than any
The Address-Mr. Lapointe

other country which participated in the war from its inception, and to-day from all sides, from our leaders in banking and financial institutions, from railway chiefs and captains of industry throughout the land, comes the statement that Canada has entered an era of progress and that we have successfully passed through the crisis. I could quote the words of Sir Vincent Meredith and the words of Sir Frederick Williams-Taylor as spoken at the last meeting of the Shareholders of the Bank of Montreal, and I could quote those not only of Sir John Aird but of many other financial authorities as well. But I do not like to prolong my remarks unduly. I cannot help, however, quoting an advertisement that appeared in the Evening Telegram of Toronto in its issue of January 5, 1926, from the Bank of Toronto. It is interesting to observe in passing that this good Conservative paper published in good Conservative Toronto should publish, only two months after the election, something so different from the tale which was told in the same columns two months before. Let me read:
The Dominion of Canada passes the first quarter of the twentieth century with faith and resolution perched high upon her banners-faith in the prophecy of a great Canadian that the twentieth century should be Canada's.
And further on:
Canada in a twenty-year period has increased the production of manufactured goods from 480 million to more than 4 billion dollars.
And again:
What a panorama of fast achievement, of present opportunity and future greatness must pass before the eyes of all those Canadians possessed of the spirit' that cries "Ever onward!"
These quotations are undoubtedly interesting, but it is rather a queer fact that the Bank of Toronto should be compelled to publish advertisements to refute what was printed in the same newspaper two months previously.
Our railways are improving their traffic tremendously and our export trade has reached an extent which exceeds any previous record in our history. Indeed, Canada according to our own statistics has per capita the second largest exporting trade of any country in the world. I do not know whether we are too modest in the compilation of our own statistics, but I have been reading the latest issue of a French financial review, Le Journal des Economistes, which shows Canada to rank first among the nations of the world so far as her export trade is concerned.
My right hon. friend this afternoon spoke about unemployment, and he will pardon me if I observe that he was not quite fair. He

stated that the employment index for December last was 88.1 as against 100 in 1920. But surely he knows that in 1920 the devastated countries of Europe were rebuilding themselves and that Canadian trade was never better than it was in that year. He should make his comparisons with the later years; at least he should take his own year of 1921 when the employment index was 79.3. Let him compare that 79.3 of 1921 with the 88.1 of the present time if he wants to be perfectly fair. I have the statistics from the Department of Labour in relation to unemployment and I shall refer to them. I have the figures as they appear at the end of November-those for the close of December were not available-and I find that the ratio was 5.7 at the end of November of the past year while at the close of November, 1921, under my right hon. friend's administration, the unemployment figure was 11.1. Is not that an improvement? I think my right hon. friend should be somewhat fairer in giving us the statistics.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Have you the figure for 1923? It would be interesting to have it on the record.


Ernest Lapointe: I do not see that it would make much difference; I am comparing 1925 with 1921 when my hon. friend was adorning the treasury benches as Minister of Finance.


Arthur Meighen: I was in the government in 1920 and there has been, since this government came into office, not an improvement but a deterioration while our competitors have improved. That is the point.


Ernest Lapointe: Surely my hon. friend
knows that conditions in 1920 were abnormal.


Arthur Meighen: So they were in 1921.


Ernest Lapointe: The countries of Europe were devastated and their trade was shattered (while our manufacturers and producers sold goods to foreign countries in 1920 to an extent which was unparalleled. So that it is not fair to compare 1920 with the following year.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Take 1923.


Ernest Lapointe: If my hon. friend will
graciously allow me to continue I promise him that my remarks will be brief. Now to take full advantage of the conditions that face us we must have an administration and a parliament which will be responsive t-o the spirit of the times and which will move 'along progressive lines, not being afraid to undertake reforms and going ahead in a world that can-

The. Address-Mr Lapointe
not remain stationary. The co-operation of all those who believe in great, generous and Liberal causes is necessary; their combined work is needed to defeat the ends of those who would clog the wheels of progress. If you read unfavourable comments and deprecations in certain sections of the press since the vote in this House of Thursday last you may depend upon it that they have their origin in a deadly fear of some arrangement or alliance between the forces of progress in this country.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Will my hon.
friend allow me a question?


Ernest Lapointe: My hon. friend will admit that I have been quite liberal in this regard.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I freely admit
the great courtesy of the hon. member and it always becomes him, but I should like very much to ask him a question. In what he has just said does he refer to that excellent journal published in Montreal and known as La Presse?


Ernest Lapointe: I do not grasp the point the hon. gentlemen seeks to convey. I may ,tell him that I do read La Presse and it is a much better paper than those that support him. I do not, however, see the purport of the question.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not want
to befog my hon. friend, but La Presse in an editorial the other day called upon parliament to stop this farce and have an election. I was wondering whether it was this to which the hon. member was referring.
Mr. LAPOINTE':	If the hon. gentleman
will allow me to continue my remarks perhaps La Presse will appreciate what I shall say. It was Burke who said, "When bad men combine the good must associate." I commend these words to the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) although I hardly know in which class he will consider himself.


Henry Lumley Drayton: We are all together already.


Ernest Lapointe: I suppose that the hon. member, with his customary humility g.nd modesty, will classify himself with the good, but I fear that at present he is making a huge mistake. After all there are only two spirits, the spirit of progress and the spirit of resistance. And the latter is the spirit that moves my hon. friend. Now some Liberals go further than others and I rather like the words of my good friend Mr. McMaster, the former member for Brome, who defined a Progressive



REVISED

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as a Liberal in a hurry. There are shades or nuances, to use the words of the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa), in Liberalism as well as in Conservatism. It makes for definiteness and courage in the expression of views, but makes also the task of government a little more difficult.
At a time like this all those who agree on fundamentals should co-operate. The Liberals of the right and the Liberals of the left, all lovers of progress of whatever group they belong to, should form a large group to govern this House and legislate in the interests of the country along lines of reform. In this way we will realize the economic importance of the reconstruction of our country. We will do it with the help of the right hon. leader of the opposition-at least if he will only forget his resentment to help us; we will do it without him if he does not agree to assist; we will do it in spite of him if he blocks the way. The right hon. gentleman and his friends still claim that they were victorious at the recent election because their party polled more votes than the Liberal party as such. Sir, the ancient Greeks had a race which was called the torch race, in which every runner carried a lighted torch. The victory went not to the runner who reached the goal first, but to the one who reached it first with his torch lighted. The trouble with my hon. friend is that when he reached the goal of this parliament his torch was not lighted. It lacked the flame of high ideals of reform and democratic progress. That is the reason why he could not secure a majority of the members of this House last Thursday.
All we ask for, Sir, all we need, is fair play. There are big problems facing us, there are tasks to be undertaken much greater than those which fell to the lot of the leaders of the past. We are willing to try to deal with those problems and to undertake those tasks, relying on the support of all patriotic Canadians. Therefore we are submitting a programme which we feel ought to appeal to all the members of this House, especially to those who are lovers of progress, and it is with confidence that I submit this programme for their consideration.
Mr. ROBERT K. SMITH (Cumberland): Mr. Speaker, it is with considerable timidity and, as was tersely said the other day by the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett), with great humility, that I venture to address this House on the occasion of my maiden speech in parliament. I would have preferred to wait until I had gathered more experience and acquired more knowledge, but as we have

[Stage Direction]
The Address-Mr. Smith
[Stage Direction]
heard, so far as the opposition is concerned, from practically every portion of Canada with the exception of the Maritime provinces, I do not think it amiss that we should have a few words from that important part of this great Dominion. We have heard from the extreme west, from the middle west, from faraway Yukon, and from the two great central provinces; and I propose to address myself to the House on a few outstanding matters pertaining to the Maritime provinces.
A few days ago the hon. Solicitor General (Mr. Cannon) stated] that the opposition consisted of eight separate groups, and he expressed the opinion that they could not all follow the leadership of the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen), among the latter being that group which he termed the "Maritime-righters." It is true, Mr. Speaker, that we are Maritime-righters; it is true that we place country before party-as all loyal citizens should, and especially all parliamentarians-but he omitted to say that we were of one mind on two main, outstanding and salient points, namely: first, strict adherence to the principles and policies of the Liberal-Conservative party as enunciated time and time again inside and outside this House by the right hon. leader of the opposition; and, a second, unswerving loyalty to the leader of the Conservative party in Canada.
May I add in this respect that the right hon. leader of the opposition is the first leader of any political party in the Dominion that, to my knowledge, has held out anything in the nature of a tangible and specific remedy for the ills that afflict the Maritime provinces? On the other hand, during the last federal contest we had a visit from the Right Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King, who came down to the Maritime provinces and asked the people "What are Maritime rights?" or words conveying the same meaning. The Maritime provinces represent a little over a million in population. Of the 29 seats in the three Maritime provinces we returned in the last election 24 members in opposition to the Mackenzie King government-over a four to one shot," in the language of the corridor. On Mr. King's four main points the people decided in the negative, which, as I understand, means against. The hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Cardin) last week endeavoured to promulgate some new theories and some strange doctrine with regard to the reason why people vote at the polls, and expressed the opinion "that you could not accept the popular vote as a verdict." Let me say, Mr. Speaker, that so far as we from the Maritime provinces are concerned, 
none of us arrived here out of sympathy for the Mackenzie King government, or, as the hon. minister suggested, by reason of our personal magnetism or our extreme popularity. We are 'here because of .the expressed will of the people of the Maritime provinces against the government of Mackenzie King. That expression was very pronounced, as you will notice by the number of Maritime righters on this side of the House. The Speech from the Throne, Mr. Speaker, reminds .me of an old saying which went something like this: that it had powder in its cannister but no shot in its locker-that is, a great explosion, a loud noise, but no direct results either good or bad. Almost the opening paragraph of the Speech from the Throne reads as follows:
I congratulate you on the growing prosperity of this favoured land-
And further.
With the improvement of conditions throughout the country.
And still further:
This increased prosperity and advancement have been aided iby the policies of the government.
And so forth. There may be prosperity in some parts of this great Dominion, but in my part of the country there is none. In fact, the condition is the reverse to prosperous. Since 1921 we have lost from the town of Amherst, Cumberland county, over 2,500 of our .population, which is a quarter of the total. We have nearly 1,300 less men employed today than we had in 1921, and the industries of that town are languishing and have been in this condition ever since 1921. What applies to that town applies to almost every other industrial town in the eastern portion of the Dominion, so that portion of those glittering utterances of the so-called Prime Minister does not carry weight or conviction with those who know the facts and realize the stern realities.
May I proceed a step further and refer to a very recent resolution received by me from the general works committee of the Dominion Iron and Steel Corporation at as recent a date as October 6, 1925, which resolution was subsequently endorsed by the Sydney Board of Trade and forwarded to me and, I presume, ito every member of parliament from Nova Scotia. According to this the growing prosperity has not yet invaded that part of the country. There are a lot of recitals with a Jong preamble but I will only read the pertinent parts of the resolution:
Therefore, be it resolved, that the general works committee, representing the men most seriously affected, in meeting assembled call upon the Sydney Board of Trade as being the representative body of the communities' interests to demand of the federal government

The Address-Mr. Smith
that provision for protection be made against the importation of iron and steel from countries with depreciated currency.
Be it further resolved, that the duty against all other countries that have invaded our home market in steel products be sufficiently increased to afford us adequate protection in that we may not have to walk the streets in idleness or be forced to leave our homes to seek employment elsewhere.
Be it resolved, that we consider the steel business in Sydney to be menaced with destruction because and for reasons set forth in this resolution.
Be it further resolved that we are prepared to go before the Sydney Board of Trade and offer concrete cases to show how we are being forced out of employment because we are not sufficiently protected in the matter of steel products.
In December, 1924, just a little over a year ago, Hon. E. H. Armstrong, the then Premier of Nova Scotia, introduced a delegation consisting of representatives of Nova Scotia boards of trade to the government at Ottawa. They asked for a protective tariff on coal and steel sufficient to save those industries in Nova Scotia, and give the workers employed in them a square deal in employment and wages. I would like to quote a few extracts from the memorandum which Mr. Armstrong presented:
The allied coal and steel industries of Nova Scotia have been for some years in a depressed condition. The prospect for the future is that there may be even more serious depression and resultant poverty. The province of Nova Scotia is largely dependent upon these industries which are the main and, in some instances, the sole support of the population in important centres. This will be easily understood when it is considered that from 20,000 to 25,000 men are employed in the mining of coal and its associated industries. And that directly dependent on these there are not less than 100,000 to 125,000 people, or more than one-fifth of the population of the province.
The delegation asked the King government for adequate tariff protection to prevent foreign coal and steel products from flooding Canada's markets; to stabilize and promote the coal and steel industries in Nova Scotia, and to give the working men engaged in them steady and remunerative employment.
It would not appear, Mr. Speaker, that conditions are as rosy in that part of Canada as the so-called government tried to paint them in that picturesque and alluring Speech from the Throne. May I speak further with respect to the coal industry in Cumberland county, which I have the honour to 10 p.m. represent, and also in-the province of Nova Scotia? Our miners have been working on an average one and two days a week for some considerable time. Recently the press of Canada carried headlines about miners in one part of Nova Scotia-not Cumberland county, I am happy to say-resorting to looting and burglarizing. The miners claim that this was done to keep their families from starvation. I do not countenance this violence, but it does seem strange 14011-15J
that miners should be reduced to such straits on account of unemployment when millions of tons of bituminous coal are imported from other countries. With the permission of the House I desire to quote Major Hume Cronyn, K.C., member of the commission which investigated the coal industry in Nova Scotia, whose report, recently presented to the government of Nova Scotia, to my mind sounds a warning note in this matter. Major Cronyn adds to the report an addendum which deals with issues raised at the inquiry, but in respect of which the commission as a whole state they did not feel free to discuss in a report. Major Cronyn states that in his opinion irregularity of employment has been perhaps the greatest cause of distress and discontent among the miners. Further, he goes on to say that the major cause of irregularity of employment is the inability of Nova Scotia coal to compete in the St. Lawrence markets with bituminous coal imported from the United States. He also recommends federal assistance towards the establishment of coking ovens, and a substantial increase in the import duty on all bituminous coal and anthracite screenings. Or in the alternative he proposes a federal bounty on coal shipped from Nova Scotia to Montreal or beyond. Further he says:
It is not -possible to exaggerate the calamitous consequences to Canada should coal mining in Nova Scotia be permitted to decline. If the central provinces are unwilling to sacrifice something of their prosperity on the altar of common citizenship to aid, and perhaps indeed to save the main industry of Nova Scotia, we may witness an estrangement as far as Nova Scotia is concerned of far-reaching consequences.
There must be some national sacrifices, ad Major Cronyn states, if we are to have national unity, and I appeal to all shades of opinion in this House to look these facts squarely in the face and answer whether there is any spirit of unity, any adherence to the spirit or letter of the pact of confederation in a policy which allows one important basic industry of Canada to stagnate, its employees and their families to want, and one of the confederated provinces to languish on account of a glutted Canadian market-a market which was intended for and promised to us under confederation but which is not ours, belonging instead, as it. does to foreign countries on account of our excessive freight rates and insufficient protection. I ask you hon. gentlemen, is that the spirit or the meaning of the union of the provinces, which union was to be a union of patriotism and commercial advantage? The Act of Confederation was not acceptable to us in 1867. We returned but one confederationist from the province of Nova Scotia, the late Right Hon. Sir Charles Tupper,
The Address-Mr. Smith
[Stage Direction]
whose vision, courage, and outstanding qualities of statesmanship are household words throughout this great Dominion. His old constituency of Cumberland I have the honour to represent-I should have said the honour feebly to represent-a constituency in which were born four of the Fathers of Confederation, including the grand old man himself. If, Mr. Speaker, confederation was not acceptable in 1867 after all these long years of waiting for results, how much longer will it be tolerated if our rights and1 privileges and the pledges of the Fathers of Confederation are not speedily recognized and fulfilled?
May I be permitted to quote briefly some of the utterances concerning our transportation problem® of those former great Canadians in whose honour and integrity our fathers placed their trust, and whose assurances and guarantees the present generation, outside of the Maritimes, does not seem to view with any great concern? Slpeakilng about the Intercolonial railway, Hon. Mr. MeGiverin, of Ontario, stated:
I believe it can never be made a profitable commercial enterprise.
The Hon. George Brown said:
As a commercial enterprise the Intercolonial railway has not, I apprehend, any considerable merit.
'So said they all. None intended that rates should be fixed on the basis of all that the traffic would bear, or that the Intercolonial railway should become in effect a branch line of the main traffic route to Portland, Maine, as it has of recent years. Said Hon. George Brown:
It will make Halifax and St. John the Atlantic seaboards of half a continent.
And again, speaking in Toronto:
I would be willing to build six Intercolonial railways to get confederation.
Sir E. T. Galt said of the building of this railway that it was intended to mean the- -swelling of the tide of a new commerce we may hope to see called into being in the open Atlantic ports of St. John and Halifax, the opening up of the markets of all the provinces to the different industries of each.
Has there not been a great betrayal on Canada's part concerning our connecting link of communication with the markets of central and western Canada, a betrayal we resent, and a betrayal the remedying of which we will insist upon and demand with the least possible delay?
At one time in 1874 we in the Maritimes had forty-three members in this House of Commons. We now have itwenty-nine. Where once we had more than twenty per cent of the membership of this House, now we can

scarcely muster more than ten per cent-an appalling decrease,, due mainly to the north and south policy that has been pursued; to excessive railway rates; lack of substantial protection to our main industries, and to an utterly reckless and indifferent violation of that east [DOT]and west policy so pertinently enunciated at the time of confederation.
1 Mr. CAMPBELL:	Would my hon. friend
explain just what he means by "north and south policy"?
Mr. SMITH:: I mean the policy that stops the flow of Canadian trade through the ports of St. John and Halifax and directs it mostly through other ports-ports, I am sorry to say, of a foreign country. I have here a copy of a resolution passed by the St. John Board of Trade emphasizing this point. It is as follows:
Whereas in formulating the scheme of confederation, it was recognized that the disadvantage of the geographical lay-out of the Dominion could only be overcome by the federal government as a national undertaking; and whereas the Intercolonial railway, the Canadian Pacific railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific railway and the Canadian Northern railway have all been constructed with federal government financial assistance with the intention of overcoming this geographical disadvantage; and whereas this intention and sipirit of the confederation agreement has been lost sight of and traffic of the Dominion has been diverted to foreign channels; and whereas this diversion of Canadian traffic is detrimental to the best interests of Canada and the empiire:-
Be it therefore resolved that the federal government be requested to at once instruct the Canadian National railway officials to employ to the fullest extent the facilities which the country is being taxed to maintain, and to augment these facilities with whatever is necessary to retain the entire traffic of Canada within her own borders.
The. hon. Minister of Customs and Excise (Mr. Boivin) the other day quoted somewhat flatteringly from the Winnipeg Free Press. May 1 be permitted rto quote from the same source touching the Transcontinental railway, which affects the east so much:
By putting the Transcontinental to work the government would only be keeping faith with the Canadian people who authorized an immense expenditure to have this line built up to a high standard for a particular purpose which has never been fulfilled.
The Manitoba Free Press states further:
It must not be forgotten that when the road was finally completed in 1916 for a few months a rate was established which permitted hauling grain to the seaboard at a figure which corresponded very closely to the lake and rail rate in the summer. This rate which was six cents per bushel was in effect only a very few months. It then jumped up about four hundred per cent. At or about that point it has remained ever since, and the amount hauled over this line since that day has been to all intents and purposes a mere fraction o-f the volume going through the United States.

The Address-Mr. Smith
And again the Manitoba paper puts the facts directly up to the federal government and the .Canadian National railway officials when it gays:
The National Transcontinental was the main issue of the campaign of 1904. It was completed in 1916, and in 1921 the late Hon. Frank Carvell, then chairman of the railway commission, who originally supported its construction, declared that it was rightly conceived, so rightly that freight could be transported over it at a figure which would mean the absolute ruination of other railways in Canada.
There is, however, a vast difference between a rate which would be absolute ruination of the other railways of Canada, supposing that statement is accurate, and a rate to eastern seaports which would enable a fair proportion of the crop to flow through Canada instead of being stored all winter.
I have also a clipping from the Toronto Globe in the same connection. That paper declares:	.
No wonder that it is a grotesque condition that a great railway system should be built through the Canadian hinterland to connect the grain fields with eastern Canadian ports, and its rails left to rust for lack of traffic which seeks other and too often foreign outlets.
The abandonment of the Transcontinental railway is an open violation of parliamentary commitments, sacred and binding, made in the House of Commons in 1904, and these violations are of the most disconcerting character ,to the citizens and to the welfare of the Maritime provinces.
Last November, Mr. Speaker, a representative gathering of business men from all over this great Dominion assembled at Winnipeg .under the auspices of the Dominion Board of ,Trade.	Maritime province matters were
thoroughly aired and conscientiously considered, and, at the conclusion of 'that great non-political gathering the following resolution was passed with regard to the Maritimes:
Whereas the statements made to this conference of boards of trade and chambers of commerce of Canada by representatives of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island reveal a serious economic situation in those provinces;
And whereas this serious situation is a menace to the welfare of the Dominion of Canada as a whole, and therefore a matter of concern to all Canadians; Therefore be it resolved:
That this conference urge the Dominion government to immediately take such steps as may be necessary and justifiable by the circumstances as will remedy the economic disabilities which now prevent the Maritime provinces from realizing those advantages which, under confederation and the subsequent development of the Dominion of Canada, should have accrued tn them.
The resolution, Mr. Speaker, speaks for itself and needs no comment from me, except that I commend its spirit of unity and Canadian wide concern of our problems to every member of this House. In the Speech
from the Throne there is contained this paragraph:
With a view to affording such remedies as may appear to be practical and appropriate, the government also propose to appoint a royal commission to inquire fully into the claims that the rights of the Maritime provinces in regard to the operation of the Intercolonial railway have not been observed, and that in regard to transportation, immigration, and other economic factors these provinces have suffered prejudicially, in their position under confederation.
I would like to ask this House, Mr. Speaker, if an important part of the Dominion of Canada such as the Maritime provinces requires a royal commission to investigate its affairs? As I read about them in the papers, commissions are merely vehicles for sidetracking troublesome questions. 'Is it necessary that we should have a royal commission to investigate conditions in the Maritime provinces that we twenty-four members who come from there are thoroughly familiar with? We know that there is a serious situation in the Maritime provinces, and we are here to grapple with it. We are here in the spirit of unity with every member of this House to ask for your assistance in its immediate solution. I am not opposed to a royal commission to investigate affairs in the Maritime provinces. It may be of some benefit to us if it is, first, the right sort of commission, and I believe in order to constitute the right sort of commission, the members should be men from the Old Land-the chairman at least. Secondly, there must be proper terms of reference to the commission, and thirdly, perhaps the most important of all, the commission should be instructed to get down to business with the least possible delay. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that Canada to-day stands united for a fair deal for all the provinces, including the Maritimes, and I appeal to members of this House to reflect the honest views held by our Canadian citizenship.
In conclusion let me sum up briefly what I believe to be the just rights of the Maritimes and what I know to be the demands of the vast majority of the Maritime people. This is the platform that contains the essentials of Maritime rights, a platform which, if given effect to, would bring progress and prosperity to this neglected and important part of our great Dominion.
1.	The restoration of the integrity of the Intercolonial railway, with the western terminus of the system re-established at Montreal.
2.	Canadian trade through Canadian ports, and a complete recognition of the statutes and commmit-ments of the parliaments of Canada guaranteeing this Canadian policy.
3.	Such freight rates as will give the products of the Maritimes that easy and profitable access to the markets of the rest of Canada, which was agreed
The Address-Mr. McLean

upon as one of the fundamental principles of confederation.
4.	A transportation policy that will ensure to the people of the Atlantic provinces a fair share of the benefits of the great import and export trade of the Dominion, and such adequate markets as will serve to stimulate and develop our great natural resources, commerce, industry and general business.
5.	A thorough survey and investigation of the industrial life and possibilities of Nova Scotia and the Maritime provinces, to determine, among other things, what fiscal changes may be necessary to induce and ensure the maximum of prosperity to these provinces and our people. Where increased tariff protection may be found to be necessary, increased protection to be afforded. Where the measure of protection may be lowered without injury to existing or projected industry, the reduction to be made. The policy for the Maritimes should be the one calculated to serve this portion of Canada.
6.	That the people of Maritime Canada desire to live as contented and prosperous partners in the Canadian federation. We believe that such a condition can be brought about, if the people of the rest of Canada are prepared to extend justice to the Maritimes. The problem of composing the differences that exist in this coimtry of great distances is vast and complex; a problem that calls for the highest qualities of statesmanship. It should be the aim of the Maritimes to assist in the solution of this great problem: while constantly standing for their right's and demanding justice, to seek by every means in their power to develop their own rich and unrivalled resources, and to ensure the contentment and prosperity of their own people, in conformity with the true all-Canadian policy that must be inaugurated if the confederation is to endure.
Mr. MALCOLM	McLEAN (Melfort):
First of aW, Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate jrou on your re-election to the honourable and high position you occupy in t-his House. It has been said that gratitude is a lively expectation of favours yet to come, and so perhaps it may be in my case, because I* i*1 common with many other new members ol this House, are anxious for the favours you so freely and so generously extended to new members in other parliaments, helping them and guiding them on their way until they became familiar with the ,path they had to tread. I wish also to congratulate the mover and the seconder of the Address this afternoon.
I am sorry I was not able to follow the speech of the seconder of the motion (Mr. Lacombe), as I do not understand the French language. That is a part of my early education which, in common with that of many of my colleagues^ has been sadly neglected. But I did appreciate the speech of the hon member for West Middlesex (Mr. Elliott). As he spoke of the conditions in the constituency of West Middlesex-which existed there one hundred years ago, when the pioneer settlers from the Old Land as well as other countries came in to settle in the bush, and to carve out for themselves homesteads and farms-I had a picture in my mind's eye of the same 
process exactly being repeated in the constituency which I have the honour to represent. My constituency in Saskatchewan is a great one. It is not only great in area, but great in its natural resources, great in its potential wealth, and great in its actual wealth, the wealth it has already produced. The basic industries of Canada, agriculture, lumbering, fishing and mining, are all represented in the area included within the boundaries of that constituency. We are often prone to think of our western prairies as being suitable for the growing of wheat and nothing else, and sometimes those who have not been fortunate enough to visit them, are under the impression that that idea is correct. When we speak of farming in western Canada people have a picture of grain only in their minds. W.e have great grain growing areas, it is true, and I am not going to elaborate on that. We have also timber lands which produce a large quantity of timber. We have timber lands which are producing at the present time probably one hundred million feet of lumber in a year, and that lumber must find its market in competition with the lumber from north, south, east and west, much of it goes to the New England states; a great deal of it is taken to the east coast of the United States along the Atlantic seaboard; and yet I did not find that during the campaign which has just terminated that any of the lumbermen who were compelled to ship their produce a distance from their mills failed to support the government for whom I stood on the ground that they had to have greater protection for their lumber, or that they had to have greater profits in order to enable them to market their lumber in those eastern or southeastern cities. In addition to the great agricultural and lumbering industries we have in our northern lakes a great fishing industry, but more roads and railroads are required before that industry can be developed as it should and will be developed in time to come. In addition to that we have to the north of the timber district enormous deposits of minerals which have not jret been scratched, and it is absolutely impossible for us to develop that great mineralized area until we get more railroads. That is the situation in my constituency, and I believe that in Saskatchewan other constituencies are similarly situated in that regard.
Speaking for my constituency, I may say that great changes have taken place in the thought and feeling of the people in the last few years. Four or five years ago we were over-bought, over-developed, and in trouble generally. Fortunately the people of that

The Address-Mr. McLean
community, in common with the rest of the people of western Canada generally, got down to business in a way that deserves the highest credit, and they, in common with a great part of the people of the Dominion of Canada, are to-day enjoying relative prosperity.
I do not wish to tire hon. members by reading in full an article which appears in a paper that I hold in my hand, but there are some extracts I would like to read from it in order to show the importance of the area to the west of the Great Lakes in the general business and trade of Canada. This is a copy of the Gazette of Montreal, the city whence the "whispers of death" are alleged to have emanated. On the front page I find this sentence:
It was not until the autumn was reached that a turn for the better set in.
The first few lines deal with conditions beginning in the first part of 1925, and they were not very good.
A large harvest was then assured, upon which manufacturers and merchants were able to found confidence that an upward reaction was at hand, and accordingly buying proceeded less niggardly, imports began to expand, and the year closed with brighter business prospects than at any time since 1920.
The harvest has always played a principal part in the economic life of Canada. Upon its quantity and market value depend in great measure the condition of trade generally, and the prosperity or otherwise of transportation interests.
Further down it says:
The employment of this new money, whether in discharge of debts or in purchase of new goods of various kinds, ensures a distinct improvement in all branches of business and industry.
A little further on I read:
A notable feature of the foregoing statement is the [DOT]onsistent excess of exports over imports into Canada, aggregating in the last five years $892,370,000.
Again it says:
In the eight months ending November, 1925, agricultural and vegetable products, animals and animal products shipped out of Canada, had a value of $511,717,000, or 60 per cent of the total export trade. The improvement in general business now occurring has its roots in the soil, and so long as farmers are able to find ready markets abroad for abundant harvests, for live stock and dairy produce at profitable prices, domestic trade will be active.
It then goes on to deal with other industries, including the lumber industry, that tend to make for progress in Canada, and it shows that the transportation industries of the country benefited to a great extent from the tremendous harvest that was reaped. It continues:
The Canadian National has improved earnings by approximately $13,000,000 bringing the surplus of its net revenue in 1925 up to $30,000,000. . . In the eleven months to November 30, the Canadian Pacific was able to offset a decrease of $3,274,000 in gross with a
reduction of $5,014,000 in working expenses, and thus to increase profits $1,830,000.
Dealing with the financial situation as regards clearances through the bank, it states:
Gains are found chiefly in the northwest cities, owing to the great crop. . . Bank earnings did not widely vary from those in 1924.
And it also states that:
The money market was in a state of "ease" throughout the year.
An unusually active stock market prevailed through most of the year, due measurably to the facility for borrowing money, with some spectacular advances, as in the case of Consolidated Smelting and Montreal Light, Heat and Power Company.
And so on. As I go through this paper I find the same kind of news on almost every page. I find in it the record of the Canadian Pacific for 1925, and it is a gratifying one. I find also the record of Canada's foreign trade for 1925, and it is a splendid one:
Exports continued over the million dollar mark first touched in 1923-24-
I think that should be "billion."
-and showed an increase of some $24,000,000 over the preceding year. The trade balance was more favourable than in 1923-24 by about $120,000,000, owing to the falling off in imports of about $100,000,000.
In the twelve months ended with November, exports of Canadian goods attained a value of $1,219,861,083, as compared with $1,057,508,866 in the preceding period and $1,001,937,269 in 1922-23.
Wherever you look throughout this paper the figures are about the same, announcing greatly augmented services in various lines, including telephone and steamship services and many others. I am glad to see that prosperity, to some extent at least, has displaced the troubles and hard times that existed for some years. I have in my hand-and I shall have almost finished quoting when I read this -an extract taken from a nationally known magazine published in Toronto by MacLean's Limited. In its issue of August 15, 1925, there appears an article from which this extract is taken:
A short study of the big fair's balance sheets over a period of years is evidence of the fulfilment of that prophecy. It is generally known that the profits after payment of all charges, are handed over to the city of Toronto, the exhibition's "financial angel'', and since 1917 the amounts handed to that city have been: 1918, $90,597;	1919, $175,007;	1920,	$146,830;	1921,
$135,016; 1922, $177,250; 1923, $251,739; 1924, $271,459.
There must be reasons for the bringing about of that state of affairs. Some new wealth had to be produced; some new sources of development had to 'be tapped. Something had to be done to correct the unfavourable state of exchange that existed a few years ago. Something had to be done to help the people of this country to bear the burden of debt that rested upon their shoulders a few years ago
The Address-Mr, McLean

and that still bears upon them. During these years the greatest improvement in Canada's national life was derived, as is admitted by this paper, from the large harvests reaped in the western country. Several things have contributed to the development of this country's prosperity. The mover of the Address to-day told us that the cost of implements had been reduced in the last few years. I do not wish to tire the House with any quotation of figures that have already been given, but I may say that in the constituency which I represent, the reductions in the cost of implements of production between the years 1921 and 1925 landed to the farmers in that locality have run all the way from 9 to 25 per cent. On one item alone, ten foot rakes, the reduction in cost has been as low as 9 per cent, and in connection with the sale of wagons complete and farm sleighs it has run as high as 25 per cent. On all other goods it has ranged from 14 and 20 per cent.
It is generally admitted1 in that western country that the decrease in the cost of these implements was due in part to the action of the government during the past few years in reducing the duties on farm implements to the extent it did. A very significant point I want to make just now is that during the year succeeding the reduction in duties on farm implements,-a year when farmers in the west and no doubt elsewhere in Canada were able to purchase these implements at a more reasonable price; a year when owing to a short crop due to dry weather, western farmers could not purchase as many implements as they needed and would have liked to obtain,-one of the principal implement companies of Canada showed that it had earned in that year a profit of approximately $87,000 as against a loss the year previously of over $300,000. To show a change to that extent in the financial standing of a concern in a hard year is something that is worth noticing. The farmers of the west were glad to see that profit made. They do not wish to see any industry which is filling a useful place in the business life of the country put out of operation as a result of any unfair treatment. They have suffered sufficiently themselves in the past from unfair treatment and therefore they have no wish to see the same thing inflicted on others.
Now what has happened in these years which we have been describing as hard times in the west? The farmers of that country were not content to sit down and bemoan their fate or bewail the adverse circumstances in which they fotand themselves, expecting that something would turn up Micawber-like 
to rescue them from their difficulties and set them on a sound basis. No; during those years they were forced to practise thrift, men, women and children were obliged to do without the things they needed because they cost too much. The work of the country was carried on, more lands were cultivated, more of the resources were developed, many new undertakings were entered upon. And so when the more favourable years came along, bringing with them better crops, they were in a position to take advantage of this condition as they could not have done if they had said to themselves, " It will not pay us to do this, because there is no immediate market offering profitable prices; nor will it pay to do the other thing, because we cannot make money just now". After the preparation they had had in those hard years the people of the west gathered some of the fruits of their labour in the good years that ensued in 1924 and 1925 when crops were larger and prices more favourable.
And the reduction in the tariff on implements of agriculture helped to some extent to that end. The restoration of the Crows-nest rates on grain, which meant from 25 to 35 per cent of a benefit from many points, aided considerably also in securing for the farmers more of the fruits of their labour, while the equalization of grain rates east and west encouraged many producers to continue in the hope that better times would come. More efficient marketing |also became the order of the day. According to the best figures available-I am quoting from the Country Gentleman, an American agricultural paper-there was a time when it took on an average four and a half hours of labour to produce a bushel of corn. That was seventy-five years ago: to-day it requires just forty-one minutes to do the same thing. And whereas it took three hours to produce a bushel of wheat at that time it requires today only ten minutes. That and other facts suggest another vital point: the teachings of the agricultural colleges have been lopsided in the direction of production in the past but they have now taken on a new angle; the colleges are now paying more attention to marketing and other phases of rural economics and sociology. The American farmer-and that includes the Canadian-knows how to produce, but what he has not always known in the past is how best to dispose of his products. The effort is being made therefore to secure better marketing facilities and that has contributed to a great extent to the increased prosperity which is felt throughout the Dominion.

The Address-Mr. McLean
Along with better crops and improved marketing facilities there has existed the necessity for wider markets. The farmer of the west does not believe that it pays him better to sell a small quantity of goods at an extremely high price to a limited market than it would pay him to dispose of a larger quantity over a wider area to a greater number of people. Nor does he believe that if you can make a village or a city prosperous it will follow that the country around will become prosperous as well. He does believe that if you can make the agricultural country surrounding a city prosperous the trade of the city itself and of the whole community generally will increase; trade will automatically flow to the city if proper conditions obtain otherwise, and the city itself will naturally prosper if it is properly managed. And so wider markets are needed. The agriculturists of the west rejoiced therefore when about three years ago the embargo on the shipment of cattle to Great Britain for feeding purposes was removed. It is however regrettable that the market to the south of us for Stockers and feeders is not open to us on more advantageous terms. In reference to the phrase about raising the tariff wall on implements brick for brick with the American tariff, I would ask the House this question: Of what avail has it been either to the west or to the east to have a 25 per cent duty on American stock coming into this country when the American retaliates by putting on a two cent duty on beef animals going across the line to his side? Wherein are we benefited? We are not trading with them at the present time; we have been shut out of their market. If we were able to obtain access there it would be one of the greatest boons conceivable to western agriculture. It is true that they do not purchase our cattle unless they think they can make a profit on the transaction; and it is equally true that we do not buy goods from them or, for that matter, from any other country, nor does any of us buy goods from his neighbour, unless we think that we are getting something that is more valuable to us than the money we give in exchange. We have been fortunate in the last tw'o years in the fact that our markets in Europe have been improving. Since the great scheme suggested by the Dawes Commission was put into effect in Europe conditions on this side have been benefited because our former customers have been coming back to trade with us, whereas during the years of Europe's bankruptcy we could not dispose of our products there. Since Europe has had money to spend, however, and since
her industries have again begun to operate, our trade has benefited considerably. With regard to the necessity for wider markets, and bearing in mind what has been said by hon. gentlemen about dairy produce, I want to quote very briefly an item with reference to butter. Hon. gentlemen opposite have shown some concern about the Canadian dairy cow. Well, the Canadian dairy cow has been doing her duty nobly in the years that have gone and no doubt she will continue to do so. The item I refer to reads:
Canada at present is regularly exporting butter to the following countries:	United Kingdom, United
States, South Africa, Bermuda, West Indies, Newfoundland, Ireland, Cuba, Japan, Germany, Belgium, the Philippines, South America and Panama.
In view of this it is difficult for me to understand how an industry which is doing as well as that, and an industry which has increased its exports to such an extent in recent years, should be suffering so terribly from the competition of the poor cow down there 6,000 miles away in Australia.
Many things are still required in the western country in order further to assist its development. The immediate completion of the Hudson Bay railway is a very live topic indeed in western Canada. It is something that has been definitely promised for seventeen years. It was definitely promised in the elections of 1908, and the people in the west at that time fully believed that the road would be built, and they still believe that if the conditions then prevailing had continued the road would have been completed. Now at last they see a reasonable prospect of that long standing promise being redeemed and a new route to the markets of the world opened for their produce.
The question of lower tariff, of freer trade and wider markets, also interests the people of the west. One subject that I spoke of a moment ago in connection with lower tariffs, the impossibility of exporting our cattle to any great extent to the United States for feeding purposes, is something that is hurting the west very much at the present time. Some of the commodities that we import are still carrying too heavy a load of protection, even although reductions have been made in recent years; and undoubtedly those reductions have been of great advantage to the producers of the west.
Immigration is a live question to-day in western Canada. Our great vacant spaces need skilled labour and capital. To illustrate the change that has taken place in western sentiment in the last few years, I hold in my hand a copy of a resolution that was passed by a Great War Veterans' Association as
The Address-Mr. McLean

reported in a newspaper of February 22, 1924. I do not intend to read it unless some hon. members so request, but it goes the length of advocating increased immigration of Europeans, including British, Scandinavian and German, who will settle on the land and help build up this country. A great change in sentiment in this respect has, I believe, taken place all over the west in the last few years.
Among other needs of western Canada are further branch line extensions. I know this has been a sore subject in this House for many years back. Some of the bills that were turned down by an unkindly Senate in 1923 were subsequently passed and the branch lines thereby authorized have since been built, but the constituency which I have the honour to represent was deprived of two branch lines for which legislation was at that time introduced and passed in this House, but rejected by the Senate. To-day the districts to be developed by those lines are enjoying railway transportation, but it is being provided by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The executive of that railway did not let the grass grow under their feet. When the bills for the National branch lines were thrown out they secured the necessary construction and reaped the advantage of tapping a territory that had been developed by settlers who went over Canadian National lines and who would have liked to ship out their products over those lines in order to help reduce the deficits and make profitable the operation of the National road. They are forced to haul their produce to the Canadian Pacific branch lines. I do not wish to be interpreted as knocking the Canadian Pacific Railway. That railway has been a great boon and has given great service to this country. Further branch lines are still needed in that country, and until they are constructed the settlers will not be able to get their produce to market, and unless they are given transportation facilities within a reasonable time they may be forced to abandon their homesteads. Very often it costs more money to haul grain from the farm to the primary market than to take it from the primary market to the lake terminal. It is current opinion, and I think it is quite a reasonable view, that if many of those gentlemen who had the temerity to defeat that branch line legislation had been given their desserts they would) have been condemned to spend a day, a week, a month, or whatever time it might take according to weather conditions, to haul grain from some of those remote points in

Saskatchewan to the nearest railway market. If they were required to haul a load of wheat or other grain for forty or fifty miles to the nearest station at forty below zero and take the very low price that was available during some of these years-in fact during the very year that that legislation was defeated-I am satisfied, Sir, that not one of them would have voted in the same way when those bills were again under consideration.
I	was indeed sorry to hear the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Smith) paint such a dismal picture of conditions in his native province. The provinces by the sea hold the affection and regard of a great many people in western Canada. The good old province of Nova Scotia is particularly dear to me, and I am saddened to hear of such distressing conditions. The Maritime provinces, particularly Nova Scotia, at the time of confederation were supreme on the ocean. In those days of wooden ships and iron men the shipbuilders of Nova Scotia were turning out sailing vessels that were to be found on the seven seas, ships that sailed faster than any that had ever been built in any other country. I have in mind particularly the bluenose clipper ships. To think that those provinces should have descended from that proud state to their present condition is indeed sad, and I wish to assure the hon. member for Cumberland and any other hon. members from his province that I shall be glad to do anything I can, as representing a constituency in western Canada, to understand his problems and to help
solve them, so long as the foun-
II	p.m. dation of that solution is sound.
As I said before, Sir, I am satisfied that western Canada does not wish to inflict injustice on any other part of the Dominion. What we want is a spirit of cooperation, of mutual forbearance, of toleration and moderation, the representatives of the various parts of this Dominion getting together around a common council table and attempting to arrive at a satisfactory solution of our various difficulties. That solution, it seems to me, can be found by our making a little sacrifice here and a little there, such as all self-respecting and self-governing peoples have always been ready to make. I am confident, I say, that by this means a solution can be found of all our provincial difficulties satisfactory to the Dominion generally.
On motion of Mr. Mullins the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Motherwell the House
adjourned at 11 p.m.

Death of Queen Alexandra
Tuesday, January 19, 1926