1926-01-27

CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. J. A. ROBB (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) promised to obtain and give certain information in answer to an inquiry from the hon. member for Toronto Northwest (Mr. Church). I now have that information, and it is as follows:
With reference to the question asked by the hon. member for Toronto Northwest, relative to a statement made by the Deputy Minister of Railways, which is set out on page 429 of Hansard, the statement as given by the deputy minister is correct, but further negotiations are being carried on by the syndicate, who made the original offer to purchase the property for the sum of $1,250,000, and to erect a suitable building and lease suitable office space to the Canadian National Railways. On the result of these negotiations will depend whether the railway offices will be moved back into the old building or not.



FUEL SUPPLY

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. R. B. BENNETT (West Calgary):: The Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) has doubtless received a telegram from the Board of Trade of Calgary with respect to the coal situation. I do not know whether he is now in_a position to make any statement to the House with respect to what has taken place since our last sitting.


Hon. CHARLES STEWART (Minister of the Interior):: Mr. Speaker, I have nothing
to communicate to the House with respect to the movement of coal from the west beyond

Privilege-Mr. Meighen
what I stated yesterday. It is true that I have received a wire from Mr. Sutherland, representing the Calgary Board of Trade, asking that the movement be extended, and I have telegraphed to him the statement issued yesterday by Sir Henry Thornton that another 25,000 tons will be moved at a rate of $7 per ton.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: Has the minister nothing to say with respect to the Nova Scotia situation?


Charles A. Stewart: I was just about to make a statement in regard to that. I notice that last evening the member for Halifax (Mr. Black) stated that he was in receipt of a wire from Premier Rhodes of Nova Scotia saying that no communication had reached Premier Rhodes from this government. That is true; I made inquiry today with respect to the matter. The message was sent through the Canadian Pacific Telegraph Company. It was filed here at 11.31 a.m. yesterday, and was not delivered to Mr. Rhodes until 10.20 last night at his hotel. I am in receipt of a telegram from Premier Rhodes. It is upon general matters, but incidentally coal is mentioned. It is a very lengthy wire and I have not yet had time to digest the contents. As yet no reply has been received from him to my wire of yesterday.



PRIVILEGE-RIGHT HON. MR. MEIGHEN

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Arthur Meighen: I am sorry to detain the House even for a moment in respect to a matter more or less personal to myself, but I feel it is just worth while and no more. I have been handed a copy of the Medicine Hat News of January 21st in which appears an article which purports to come from Ottawa. In justice to the press gallery let me say I do not believe any member of it was so malicious and imaginative as to send it out; I think it was invented at home. The article is headed "Nigger in the Tory Fence" and reads as follows:
Ottawa, January 19.-It was learned authoritatively to-day that when Hon. V. W. Smith, Minister of Railways in the ^Uberta government, was in the capital last week, he made definite pledges to Alberta Progressives on behalf of Right Hon. Arthur Meighen, Conservative leader. The pledges, which were ineffective in turning Progressive votes were:
(1) That Mr. Meighen, if brought into power, would take over the Edmonton, Dunvegan and B.C. railway at a fair valuation, put at $15,000,000, and then would turn it over to the National Railways and, (2) That Mr. Meighen would open negotiations with the B.C.
government with a view to acquiring the P.G.E., linking it up with the Peace River line.
According to Progressive members, Mr. Meighen would have been able to use the advantage conferred upon him by this situation so that he could have made a formidable bid for more members from Alberta. Also, it is said he could have greatly embarrassed the Oliver government. It is understood that the pledge has been renewed since Thursday's division with the object of bringing more Progressives into line.
I hope it is unnecessary for me to say, but I do say, that no word passed from me to the Hon. Mr. Smith justifying a word or a sentence or a thought that is embodied in this despatch, and I am equally confident that Hon. Mr. 'Smith never made representations to anybody to the effect set out in this report. The article is just an immoral adventure in political propaganda. It is nothing but vulgar mendacity.



GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH ADDRESS IN REPLY

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, January 26, consideration of the motion of Mr. J. C. Elliott for an Address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his Speech at the opening of the session, and the proposed amendment thereto of Right Hon. Arthur Meighen.
Mr. C. R. McINTOSH (North Battleford):: When I moved the adjournment of the debate on the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne last night, I was speaking on the question of immigration. I tried to leave the impression that the immigration problem is the most important one confronting the Dominion of Canada at the present time, and I would like now to advance the view that if we could put into action a policy by which we could increase our population four per cent per year-I mean four per cent natural increase and also the increase from outside sources-in five years our population would be practically eleven millions; in another five years, or ten years from the present time, it would be approximately thirteen millions, and in another five years, or fifteen years from the present time, it would be fifteen or sixteen millions. I am not going to say anything further on the question of immigration beyond the statement that it is a stupendous problem, and that the government of the day, by promising action upon it, has done a good thing for Canada.
Another pronouncement in the Speech from the Throne foreshadows the appointment of a royal commission to inquire into Maritime rights. That is another important Droblem before the people of Canada to-day, and I rejoice that the government is taking action

The Address-Mr. McIntosh
in that connection. I am not one of those Canadians who do not believe that there is in reality a Maritime problem. I believe there is really a problem in these provinces down by the sea, and I believe that the government of the day, by taking action in connection with that problem, obtaining all the facts in regard to it, and giving these facts to parliament, will be doing a great thing for the people of Canada. If I may venture a suggestion, Mr. Speaker, when the royal commission is appointed, as a Canadian I would like to see that commission made up entirely of Canadians. I would like to see at least one Maritime man on the commission, one from the central provinces and one from western Canada. If a commission of three will not be sufficient then make it five, but by all means appoint five representative Canadians, men who not only love Canada, who, understand her tasks and problems and will inquire into them, but men who will give their best ability to the unravelling of all the facts in connection with the question; so that when we come to deal with it we will do so in such a way that it will mean not only great development for the Dominion, but greater unity for Canada as a whole. We are prone to think of the Maritimes in respect to their location out in the north Atlantic, and to regard them as being detached from the rest of Canada. Mr. Speaker, we have in the Dominion a good deal of sectionalism, but I believe the time has come in the history of our country when that condition should be removed, entirely or, failing that, to as great an extent as possible. We have in the west the Rocky mountains dividing the prairies and the Pacific slope. We have between Ontario and the western provinces a thousand miles of slough, of rock, forest and mountain, and then we pass down through central Canada and come to the Maritime provinces, geographically separated, from the rest of Canada. It requires statesmanship to overcome these geographical difficulties, and although we have railways from coast to coast, although we have wireless, and although the west is practically settled, yet in Canada our problems are of such a nature that beyond all these facilities and beyond all these aids we need men who will face these problems resolutely and solve them for the good of the country.
In respect to the Maritime problem, I must say that I have a good deal of sympathy with -these provinces. I realize that in the province of Nova Scotia, we got the first incentive to representative government in Canada. In the early years of Nova Scotian development

we had the governor of that day in Halifax. He was given practically the whole power of government and for a time that authority remained with him. After a while he was given the power to appoint a council to aid him, and although that council was supposed to act in an advisory capacity only, yet it took unto itself certain powers in excess of those with which it had been entrusted. The people rose against it because it had exceeded its authority and in response to the public opinion of the day it was dqcided to summon a provincial assembly. That provincial assembly met in 1758, and that was practically 33 years ahead of the inauguration of representative government in Ontario. Not only did the Maritime provinces lay the foundations of representative government in Canada, not only did they point the way to representative and responsible institutions, but they contributed largely to the upbuilding of the Dominion by giving to its public life many eminent and splendid men

such men as Sir Charles Tupper, Sir Leonard Tilley, Hon. Joseph Howe, Sir Robert Borden and Sir John Thompson. I might go on and enumerate other eminent men for whose contribution to the upbuilding of the country we are indebted to the Maritime provinces. In connection with Sir Leonard Tilley I believe M'r. Speaker that there is an important fact which perhaps all of us in this House do not know. When we were organizing confederation, when we were deciding to launch upon that great adventure in national government, a difficulty arose as to the name that we would bestow upon the new confederation, and that difficulty was solved by a Maritime province man. The name was settled by Sir Leonard Tilley, and it was settled in this way. After discussing day after day the question of a suitable name, Sir Leonard Tilley went home, and, as was his custom, sought the Good Book. Turning to Psalm lxxii, 8, he found these words:
He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.
Sir Leonard read that verse and said to himself, " Here is the name,-Dominion of Canada ". He went back, made the suggestion to his confreres and the name " Dominion " was accepted. I might g-o on and .show the contribution, outside of public affairs, which has been made to confederation or to the Dominion by other eminent men from the Maritime provinces. We have in Saskatchewan, as head of our provincial university President Murray. We have in Alberta another Maritime man, President Tory.

The Address-Mr. McIntosh
We have in Ontario President Falconer. So that educationally these eastern provinces have done well by the Dominion. To foreign lands Maritime men have gone forth and there won fame and honour. Jacob Gould Schur-man was president of Cornell University; after holding that position with honour for some time, he was appointed Governor of the Philippines, and is now Ambassador to China.
In connection with this Maritime problem, Mir. Speaker, it might be well just to say in conclusion, that the population of Nova Scotia has come from the United Empire Loyalist stock, from the Puritans from Scotland, from France and from Ireland. With such a population, and given the encouragement and support they ask, I am confident these people will go forward and meet and overcome the difficulties with which they are confronted. I believe the problem of the Maritimes is wrapped up with other great problems of Canada. I believe it is wrapped up with the problem of transportation, the problem of developing interprovincial trade, the problem of developing agriculture and dairying, and also the problem of trying to send all our trade through our ports, not only on the Pacific, not only on the Atlantic, but northward through the Hhdson bay to the markets of the world.
There is just one more pronouncement in the Speech from the Throne in respect to which I want to say a word, and that is the Hudson Bay railway-a project and a problem of special significance to Canada and especially to western Canada. If we look at a map of the world we can see at a glance that in a geographical sense the Hudson bay and strait play an important part in the development of this continent. I do not believe this country was ever brought into existence and formed as we see it to-day, with that great body of inland water, that mighty inland sea, stretching to the doors of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario, placed where it is for naught. I have greater faith in my country than to believe that. I believe it has been placed there because through its use the development of western Canada, and indeed of Canada as a whole, will take place. I believe the government of to-day, in making a pronouncement upon this great project, is doing a beneficial work for Canada. We have only to glance at a map in order to realize that the Hudson Bay railway, linking up western Canada and in fact the whole Dominion to that great inland sea, will be the means of shortening the distance from Europe through America to Asia. The distance from Liverpool to
eastern Asia by the Suez canal is practically 16,000 miles; by New York and San Francisco it is 11,000 miles, and by the Hudson bay route it is only 8,000 miles, or one-half of the distance from Europe through America to Asia. It will be a link, not only in an international highway but in the development of Canada, and it will bring about Canadian unity to a greater extent than heretofore.
The people of western Canada have been demanding this railroad since 1880, when a request was made by the province of Manitoba for the building of a road named the Manitoba and Hudson Bay railway. In 1881 another demand was made for the building of the Southern Saskatchewan and Hudson Bay railway. In 1884 Sir John A. Macdonald introduced into this parliament legislation providing for the construction of that road, and said that to back up the project 6,400 acres per mile in Manitoba, and 12,800 acres per mile in the territories would be given. After a while, on account of the Northern Pacific coming into Manitoba and railroad development taking place from Emerson into Winnipeg, interest in that great project subsided. Later on Mackenzie and Mann began to build their road from Gladstone to Dauphin and from Dauphin to Winnipegosis, and later still they secured control of the Hudson bay charter. After deciding to build in the direction of Prince Albert and westward into the prairies, they decided that they would also build from a point on that road to the Hudson bay. Later on that charter was relinquished, and in 1908, three years after Saskatchewan entered confederation, Hon. Frank Oliver, who was then Minister of the Interior, decided to do away with land grants and took the stand that pre-empted lands and homesteads should be sold in order to finance the project. To a large extent the project has been financed in that way; a certain amount of pre-empted and homestead lands have been sold and Canada has reaped financially in that respect, but the project is not yet completed. We however in western Canada are encouraged by the fact that this government intends to take action, and I believe when it does take action it will have the support of all groups and parties in this House. Sir Wilfrid Laurier took the ground that this road must be built; that this route must -be opened up to the markets of the world. Without it western Canada will never be satisfied, and until western Canada is satisfied as we are trying to satisfy the Maritimes, we cannot expect to have a united Dominion. Therefore the people in that part of the country claim that we
*178

The Address-Mr. McIntosh
should do our best to get started and to go ahead with this project so that the people of Canada may know that their public men are going to abide by both their past and their present statements and policies in respect to this matter.
In one respect similar results may follow from the completion of this road to those which came from the completion of the Ontario government road into New Ontario. When the road into that new mining area was mooted, it was said that it would never pay; that it would be a failure. But we know that after that road entered New Ontario and penetrated one of the greatest mining areas of the world, it not only became a paying proposition but is an asset not only to Ontario but to all Canada. (Moreover, when the Canadian Pacific was mooted away back in the eighties we heard it said that it would not pay even for the oil or grease required in driving the cars from province to province. But we know today that that was wrong because the Canadian Pacific is one of the greatest railway systems in the world. I believe when this road to the bay is completed it will become an international highway of repute and will not only pay its way but will develop the northern areas of the three western provinces. The development of Canada is neither to the east nor to the west; it is in the east, the west, and the north. As we open up that northland and develop its resources in pulpwood, gold, iron, copper, fish, timber, water-powers, and in many other respects, we are going to make a real contribution towards' the development of Canada as a whole.
In closing, I believe the completion of the Hudson Bay railway is necessary for the full and proper development of western Canada, of the transportation systems of Canada as a unit, and if we stand shoulder to shoulder as we ought, we can approach this problem and solve it. There is no other way in which to approach it. If the people of the west are going to be against every contribution in regard to national development in the east and the east is going to do the same in respect to the west, we shall not make much headway in developing our country. I believe the time has come when we are more united and when the government will get support in its action in this direction. When I look over the pages of Canadian history I realize that out from the early period of discovery and expansion, from that period of French imperialism, from the period of Cartier, Champlain, LaSalle and Frontenac on to the conquest and down to the present, we have become united so that we can go forward freely on
fMr. McIntosh.]
the way that lies before us. On the plains of Abraham stands a monument to two great races, to two great men, Wolfe and Montcalm. That monument is a living testimony to the fact that in Canada we must have unity of all nationalities, of all provinces, of all peoples, if we are to have a great country. Out of that period of conquest and down through the struggle for representative and responsible government into the great era of confederation and thence on into the days of the Great war we have gone steadily forward. I believe that if we go forward animated with the same spirit that has moved us in the past we can build up such a Canada as was anticipated by the Fathers of Confederation.
A story is told of a traveller, a professor from the city of New York, who after climbing a precipitous pathway in the Swiss Alps, from rock to rock and from boulder to boulder, finally lost his way. He did not know what to do; there was rock to the right of him and rock to the left of him, and as he sat down reflecting on his plight a bright haired, blue-eyed Swiss lad appeared before him. The professor inquired of the boy whether he could tell him the direction in which he should go to find his way again and the boy said, "Yes, go straight ahead over yon shining boulders and on the other side you will come to a pathway. Follow that road and you will reach in time the green fields on the other side of the mountain." The traveller followed this direction and finally reached his destination in safety. Now it seems to me that Canada is pretty much in the same position, and some of us are persuading ourselves that we are lost. Nationally we believe that we are surrounded by difficulties from which we cannot escape and we are apt to sit down in despair and do nothing. Personally I do not regard Canadian life in that light; I think that what we need is faith in this Dominion. There may be rock to the right of us and rock to the left of us and chasms ahead of us, but if we press onward I have no doubt that we shall emerge safely from our present situation. It seems to me that the true spirit of Canadian unity and of Canadian progress is well stated in those lines of Charles G. D. Eoberts in his poem, "Canada:"
Bat thou, my Country, dream not thou!
Wake, and behold how night in done,-
How on thy breast, and o'er thy brow,
Bursts the uprising sun!


Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York):: Before I say anything else, Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation of the efforts of the hon. encyclopaedia from Saskatchewan, and next to apologize to you, Sir, and to the

The Address-Mr. Maclean (York)
House for leaving my own seat, which under the rules I am supposed to keep, and moving to the centre of the chamber. I am presuming to speak from this position because it is easier for me to address the majority of hon. members here, and I want to set an example to every other hon. gentleman who has something to say and who has paid some attention to the preparation of his subject. Any hon. member who speaks from the centre of the chamber stands a better chance of being heard and appreciated, and if this practice, irregular though it may be, is persisted in it may perhaps lead to a badly needed reform in the construction of this chamber, which is intended for a deliberative assembly. This is a very fine imitation of the palace of Westminster and of the cathedral churches of England, but inasmuch as we are likely to have groups in this House I think that some alteration in the arrangement of our seats here is necessary. To-day at dinner in the restaurant, as I was enjoying a piece of pumpkin pie, the suggestion came to me that the best arrangement would be to have Your Honour occupy a central position on the west side, with the seats of the members in a sort of semicircle to your right and left and in front of you, so that the representatives of every group might be heard and fill a slice of the pie.
Having said this much on a subject which I think should commend itself to the consideration of the House, I want to spend a few minutes in reviewing the present transportation problem in Canada, more especially in relation to the Canadian National Railways and certain other interests of the country. If we desire to arrive at a reasonable solution of our transportation difficulties in Canada I think we should consider the subject under two heads, first, transportation by land, and next, transportation by water. In regard to the first, we have of course the Canadian National Railways and the Canadian Pacific, these two systems providing the people of the country with freight trains and passenger services. Now, that freight train service may or may not change, but the passenger service in Canada is in process of a great revolution of which we cannot fail to take note. In this connection I would observe in passing that the Canadian people are not at all satisfied with the present passenger service and the suggestion is being made that there should be substituted for our present passenger trains, which are more or less lengthy and which run once or twice a day, the individual electric car, complete in itself, without any locomotive and running by its own motor. This car can carry up to seventy passengers and has baggage and express accommodation and accommodation for mails. It can make from thirty to fifty miles an hour and frequent trips throughout the day are possible. If our railways in Canada, both the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific, wish to retain their passenger traffic they must use these small cars and give the people a more frequent service throughout the day. As regards freight trains, I shall deal with that question later.
In the matter of land transportation there is another agency or service which is rapidly developing in Canada, expanding enormously, and it constitutes a menace to our railways;
I refer to the competition of the automobile and the motor truck on our new highways in Ontario, Quebec and other provinces. The automobiles and motor trucks are securing nearly all of the local traffic by which the railways have so far been sustained, and where that competition is going to end I am at a loss to know. To show how efficient this motor service has become, I have only to say that many Toronto business houses are able to have their telephone orders given to outlying towns filled in the space of a few hours or half a day. An order is telephoned say to the town of Kitchener from a house in Toronto and the reply comes back that the motor truck will be at the customer's door that afternoon or, if the order comes in too late, the next morning; and this obviates the use of a railway warehouse, besides cartage and so forth. It does away with the delay which is unavoidable when freight has to go through the railway freight shed. I know a good many men now living in Toronto who prefer to travel to Montreal by means of their costly but very efficient automobiles, and even the man with the little Ford or in the little motor bus is now competing with our railways. Where this competition is going to end I do not know, but it is already a serious proposition for the railways, and I am certain that unless the railways themselves adopt these new forces they are going to lose their main business, the business from which they derive their best revenue, that is, the business of local transportation in its various forms.
But there is something else that also threatens our railways. A very able American announced the other day-and he said that he had ample financial backing-that he and his associates were going to build a new right of way on a concrete foundation, that there would be a complete separation of grades, and that on this right of way they would run rubber tired ears and would give a transportation service that could be speeded up to one hundred miles an hour without any trouble. If I am to believe what the press say about
480	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Maclean (York)
it, that form of competition will be in operation within a year or two.
And still another force threatens our railways-air service is becoming one of the most advanced forms of transportation in the world. It was announced two or three weeks ago that Mr. Guggenheim had1 given two and a half million dollars to a certain university to encourage the study of aeronautics, with special regard to its possibilities for public transportation service, different from war. To-day the United States government has in operation one of the greatest air services in the world- and I want to emphasize the fact that that government is developing the service on an absolutely public ownership basis for the benefit of transportation. The great airways across the continent are marked out by electric lights at night so that the service can be maintained right through the twenty-four hours. The United States government appreciate the great possibilities of this form of transportation and already their mails are carried across the continent in less than a day and a half. Only first-class postal matter is handled, and, in addition, money and credits. Can you imagine what it means in the way of saving interest on millions and millions of dollars by the two or three days that are cut off the time taken by the railways? Our railways are threatened with that competition almost immediately. This form of transportation is prevalent in Europe to-day. A great proportion of the traffic between the European capitals is by airway. It may be some time before this competition is a factor in our railway situation, but undoubtedly it is coming.
Now I come to another form of competition that our railways have to meet-transportation by water. Transportation by water is an important factor in the movement of our western grain. Every day that I have sat in this House, except when we were discussing constitutional questions, our time has been taken up with transportation matters. As I say, we have a great deal to do with transportation on our lakes and also across the ocean. Indeed, last session we had before us a proposition in regard to ocean transportation. My friend from Marquette (Mr. Mullins) referred to it the other day, and I sympathize very much with his proposal that our government should fit up one of the vessels of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine for the transportation of live stock across the Atlantic in an effort to widen that market in the old country. I believe that eventually we shall see this undertaken. But a still more important form of water transportation threatens our present railroad and shipping systems. We fMr. W. F. Maclean.]
have practically committed ourselves to a treaty with the United States for the deepening of the St. Lawrence waterway that will enable ocean steamers drawing thirty or thirty-five feet not only to come to the present head of navigation, as Montreal is now called, but to go through our canals in the St. Lawrence and up into lake Ontario, and so make seaports of Kingston and Toronto. When the Welland canal is deepened-and the work is well under way-it will permit ocean-going vessels to go into lake Erie and make seaports of Buffalo and Fort Erie, Cleveland, Windsor, Sarnia and Detroit, thence into lake Huron and so make seaports of the shipping centres on Georgian bay, whence the Booth railway-the old Canada Atlantic-which is now incorporated in the Canadian National system, makes a direct airline to Montreal. Lake Michigan and lake Superior will also be opened to ocean-going boats, and consequently there will be seaports on every one of the Great Lakes. All the investigations that have been made up to date with respect to the feasibility of the St. Lawrence waterway and into the diversion of the waters of the Great Lakes for the benefit of Chicago and the Mississippi valley-all these things to my mind indicate a firm belief in the American people and in the people of this country that this great waterway will eventually be opened up to ocean-going boats, which will then become serious competitors of our railways. That is very significant, and I am going to deal with it in another phase in a few minutes. These various agencies of transportation are in competition with our railways, and they all follow lines of their own. It seems to me that if we as a nation are to undertake the solution of the question of transportation we will have to go into all these various agencies. If we do not compete with them, our present enormous investment in railways will be more or less scrapped. That is the transportation problem, and my argument is that if it is to be properly solved it must be approached as a public ownership proposition which will embrace railways, highways, waterways, and perhaps the motor truck services, welding them into one great combination.
Speaking of this new waterway system, there is a great financial combination in this country-and it has been very active-to hinder the development of the St. Lawrence waterway, as well as to impede the progress of the Canadian National Railways. I am led to believe that this opposition seems to have its centre in the city of Montreal and that it comes from my fellow countrymen in the province of Quebec. I do not believe that. They joined the name of the premier

The Address-Mr. Maclean (York)
of the province of Quebec with those responsible for this opposition, saying that he is more or less interested in the 'blocking of the waterways. But I believe that the people of Quebec and the people of Ontario are proud of our National railways and that they have a great appreciation for the Canadian Pacific as well. I am trying to bring to the attention of this House what a huge problem that of transportation is, and how we must approach it if we are to settle it. If it is true that the opposition to the Canadian National Railways is centered in Montreal, I call here and now for a showdown. I am going to name the very people who are said to be behind at and ask them if their object is to smash the Canadian National Railways.
First of all I name the newspapers, the Star, the Herald, and the others controlled by Lord Atholstan of Montreal, with which is also associated that good Tory newspaper, the Montreal Gazette. I challenge these papers to say here and now whether they are for the Canadian National Railways and public ownership or whether they are out to smash them and turn them over to the Canadian Pacific Railway. And then I am not afraid to challenge my fellow countrymen in the province of Quebec. They 4 p.m. have been misrepresented, as has been stated, but they are as true to the Canadian National Railways as we are in Ontario. I do not even need to ask them. But if you believe these papers, the whole of Montreal-


Mr. LAPOINTE:: Do not believe them.


William Findlay Maclean: I do not believe it, but I am going to call these opponents to time. I am not only going to name Lord Atholstan but I also name the president of the Bank of Montreal and the president of the Royal Bank, both of whom are directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. I am also going to (Challenge the whole organization of the Canadian Pacific Railway to say whether or not they are working to-day to destroy the Canadian National Railway system and put it out of business, in order to acquire it to their own company. I challenge all these people to say whether that is the object they have in mind. I have seen a good deal of their hand at work in the last election, as well as some other organizations in which they are interested. One such organization is that which they have in Montreal at Garden City-I think it is called the Railway Users Association. They are now distributing propaganda throughout 24011-31
this country; they say they are railway users, but I say they are agents of-and I will use a term which has been used before-the St. James street group of Montreal. If it is true that Montreal as a city and Quebec as a province are against the National railways, the sooner the headquarters of the Canadian National are taken out of that city and brought to Ottawa the better for the people of Canada.
Having said that, I am going to take up another phase of the situation and deal with the question of public ownership. We know what public ownership is in Ontario. We have a hydro-electric system which is the admiration of all the world, which is publicly owned and in which there is no profit. We have public ownership there; we have public ownership in the street railway system and the motor bus service of Toronto, and I am told that they are going to supplement that service by a system of taxis at cheap rates. It is said that the Montreal group not only hates public ownership but hates it especially >in the way it has manifested itself in Ontario. But we have more than that; Ontario has a splendid railway called the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway, which opened up the silver fields and the new gold fields of Ontario and which has given an impetus to the opening of the Rouyn field in Quebec. Ontario has set an example to all the other provinces in the way of building its own roads to open up the province. We have many other instances of public ownership; in the eyes of some it is apparently a crime to advocate such a thing, but sentiment favourable to that policy is growing all over the country. I want to tell this House now-and I hope hon. gentlemen will ponder it well-that the great proposition before the-world to-day is to take the profiteering out of the great public services and to distribute those services at cost to the people who participate in them. That is the underlying principle. One of the first persons who, in a public way, has taken it up is Mr.'Baruch of New York, whom I believe to be a German by birth. He has given a large sum of money towards the development of the idea of taking profiteering out of war. Profiteering was one of the causes of that disastrous war through which we recently passed. Hundreds and thousands of fortunes were made out of that war, not only on this continent but also on the continent of Europe, and that is the menace of the world to-day. People are awakening to that fact, not only here but to a greater degree in the United States, and they are beginning to advocate the removal of profiteering from

4S2	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Maclean (York)
the great public services. What I mean by profiteering is dividends for shareholders as against bank interest on the money involved.
I want to give a recent example of public ownership that will probably astound this House, and I am going to give it on my responsibility as a citizen, a very ordinary citizen of this country. After a good deal of investigation I find that undoubtedly the greatest instance of public ownership to-day is the National Reserve bank system of the United States. And this is where I issue my challenge to the Wall Street Journal: The National Reserve bank system of the United States has in its possession for the people of that country billions of gold in bars or in coinage, other millions in coinage subsidiary of gold, and it has an unlimited number of its own notes. The best money in the world is the national note of the people of the United States issued from the treasury at Washington. And this great banking organization is doing-and this is where it comes in as a public ownership proposition-what the United States to-day, through its treasury organization and the National bank reserve, is doing, namely, all the rediscounting for all the banks of the United States at actual cost. Does my right hon. friend laugh at that?


Arthur Meighen: No, I have a humorist
behind me.


William Findlay Maclean: It is the greatest example in the world to-day of public ownership; and I challenge the Wall Street Journal to say it is not true that the treasury of the United States and the National Reserve bank are now doing the rediscounting for all the banks of the republic and doing it at cost. They have taken the profiteering out of the rediscount proposition in the United States, and it is one of the surprising things of the world. What they have done is to the credit of the government of the United States and also the people of that country. They have encouraged all the little local banks; every one of them, if it amounts to anything, has to become a member-bank of the reserve bank system. Not one of those member-banks dares default for a moment, and none does default; the money is always there. And so the local banks of the United States are getting the rediscounting of all their business paper at cost, a service rendered by the National Reserve bank system. Now that is the first and largest illustration that I can give of public ownership applied to the solution of a great problem. Behind that National Reserve bank system there are all the stores of gold and silver that the United States possesses. The

republic has also billions of notes and obligations from all over the world that they have taken in connection with the .war, and all that money is consecrated to the National Reserve bank system. They have all this paper, too, that they hold under discount. There is a great outstanding example to our friends in Montreal who say they do not believe in public ownership of railways in Canada,
I had to go to the United States for that illustration, and now I am going to cite something further. Alongside the National Reserve bank system in the United States there is the Interstate Commerce Commission. However, before I deal with that I want to go back a little. I do not know that the United States owns a single bank share, yet it has absolute mastery of the whole banking System of that country. I do not believe the United States owns a single mile of railway, although perhaps it does own some little lines here and there. But the United States, to-day through its Interstate Commerce Commission, which is an absolute public ownership service, is administering the railroads of the republic and compelling them to organize and consolidate themselves into larger systems. The movement was started a while ago to force them to organize into twelve groups. That number is being reduced, and another great merger went through the other day. Before long the railways there will fee so closely merged that the United 'States will be in complete control, and later practically in complete ownership of the railway system of that great country. Well now, I have given those examples of public ownership. It may be said "Oh, that is not public ownership." Well, what is it?


Mr. BOURASSA:: Public control.


William Findlay Maclean: It is more than
public control; it is public service, and that is another thing than public control. Over there they have this great public service and: by it they are able to regulate and fix the-rate of interest and discount. That is what the United States National Reserve bank has; been doing for the last few months. Every time the bank statement comes out it can be seen that the rate of interest is going down, and that is being done by the great institution which I have mentioned. We have got control and some regulation of the banks in this; country, but I want to tell the people of' Montreal-and I am coming to banking now for a moment-living as we do alongside of the United States, that unless we give the same public service that they are giving in regard to banking-and we do give the same service in regard to railways-it will not bn

The Address-Mr. Maclean (York)
long before Canadians will be asking why we have not the same banking system that the United States have.
The heads of two great banks of Canada, Sir Vincent Meredith and Sir Herbert Holt, have made a great success of their banking. But if they are going to obstruct the public ownership of railways in this country the people of Canada will demand that there ibe further banking amendments here to create a national reserve bank system such as they have in the United States,, especially for the encouragement of local banks, instead of what they call the bank branch system. I pass from these gentlemen to a very clever bank manager, Mr. Neill of the Royal Bank of Canada. Mr. Neill has undertaken to lecture me and you, and the rest of the people of Canada, and to argue that the branch bank system is better than the system of local banks and that the Canadian plan is ahead of the United States plan. I challenge that here and now, and I say that Canada has got to have a banking system similar to what they have in the United States. I am going to make an appeal to the patriotism of our people. Not long ago the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mr. Baldwin, made an expedition to the United States to settle the war debt of Great Britain to that country. He effected a settlement, and it was all done more or less through the National Reserve bank system of the United States. If Canada had a similar system we could have done a great deal for the credit of the Mother Country, and done it probably in association with the banking system of the United States.
We were talking about via medias the other day. That is one thing that is available. Already the rumour has gone abroad that the national reserve bank system of the United States wants to open a branch in Canada, and if we do not open our own system, they will come here from the States, and you will find brokers opening up in Canada before long; they will undertake to collect great blocks of paper for discount in Canada, take it over to the United States and rediscount it there. I am perhaps going out of my way, and it is rather an adventure for me. I am telling these men who are directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway and who are heads of the great banking systems which are organized in Montreal, that if they persist- even if they disclaim being participants in the attack on the Canadian National Railways- that we are going to follow the United1 States in adopting what we think is an improved system of banking in this country for rediscounting in the local banks. Of course I want to see the big banks remain, but I want to 34011-31J
see local banks provided in the small communities for the development of the industries of their local people. Something in that direction will be only a step in the direction of the creation of farm credits, and that is the most dangerous thing we have to deal with. But there is some connection between them.
I have made an analysis of and dealt with the various agencies that we have for transportation in this country, I have dealt w'th the opposition to the National Railways, and I say that these men in Montreal-and for short I call them the St. James street group-they or somebody in Montreal are at the bottom of that Railway Users' Association. I challenge them to a show-down, to say where they stand in connection with the Canadian National Railways and whether they really believe the people of Quebec and the Premier of Quebec are determined to block the National Railways, to turn them over to the Canadian Pacific Railways and to smash them. No charge can be made against hon. members on this side. The consolidation of our railways was carried out by Sir Robert Borden and Sir Thomas White and by the present leader of the opposition here. We have the National Railways on our hands, and have to make good, and thank God the surprising thing to the world to-day is the manner in which the Canadian National Railways are making good. Where is the man who will stand up in this House and say he endorses the destructive campaign, the inimical campaign, directed by the Montreal press and by Atholstan and by the Whites to destroy the National Railways? Is there any hon. member of this House who will justify it?


Ernest Lapointe: Oh, no.


William Findlay Maclean: No, nor will anyone in the House say that he is against the National Railways. No one on this side of the House will say it, because we are all1 proud of the National Railways and of the service Sir Henry Thornton has given us. I desire to give the government credit for what they have done. They have advanced large sums to the Canadian National Railways, and I do not think they are going to lose anything by it. The service is increasing, the Canadian people are taking pride in their own railway and are patronizing it the more because it is impressed on them that the Canadian Pacific is behind this attack that is made upon it.
I come now to the Canadian Pacific Railway. I am not the oldest man in the House, but I came to this House as a young newspaperman almost fifty years ago, and even at
484	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Maclean (York)
that time I knew, although not very intimately, a man who became one of the greatest men in Canada; my father knew him very well. 1 refer to George Stephen., as he was then called. I saw that Canadian Pacific railway system grow up and George Stephen, afterwards Lord Mount-Stephen, a Scotchman by birth but a splendid Canadian, who got in touch with Sir John A. Macdonald. Do hon. members know how George Stephen got in *touch with Sir John A.? He was engaged in textile industries in this country and he got into various lines of woollens at first, then cotton, and in connection with Sir John A.'s National Policy which was the beginning of the industrial organization of Canada-


Mr. CHABOT:: The prosperity of Canada.


William Findlay Maclean: Yes. He got
into touch with Sir John A. Macdonald; and George Stephen, a man doing business in connection with textiles, rose to the opportunity and organized the original Canadian Pacific syndicate. He and his associates made the contract for the Canadian Pacific Railway. That Canadian Pacific Railway was built and it is one Of the most successful Railways in the world to-day. I give these men credit for what they did. Then associated with Lord Mount Stephen was Donald Smith, and I even remember seeing Donald Smith here in Ottawa, a representative of the Hudson Bay Company; he knew all about our west. And one of the Anguses was here then. Those men were interested in Canada, had faith in Canada, they knew the west and knew what railways had done for the development of the western states. These men got together and built the Canadian Pacific Railway, and it has been a magnificent success. It has given great service. It opened up the country. I believe the rates were high, and that they were pretty hard on the patrons of that road in the past, but the rates came under the jurisdiction of the railway commission and the road gives just as good service, so far as the charges go, as the Canadian National Railways. I appreciate the fact that these gentlemen I have named and the newspapers I have referred to have every confidence in the Canadian Pacific Railway. So have I. But in connection with the Canadian Pacific and the consolidation of the other railway lines in Canada, a new problem has come to this country. We went on a mad venture of over-railroading in Canada in the past. We built three transcontinental lines, if not more, when one or two would have been enough. We went on

building railways in the west, and then we started, when we brought the Canadian Pacific Railway down here, to duplicate the existing roads of all the country. And so this country to-day is cursed-and I use this term advisedly-with a duplication of railway systems which is absolutely unnecessary and which is costing the country to-day over two hundred million dollars a year. The loss to-day on account of this absolutely unnecessary duplication of railways in Canada is fully that amount. I am not merely speaking by guesswork; I have some authority for what I am saying.


Mr. CAHAN:: Annually?


William Findlay Maclean: Yes; the loss on account of the unnecessary duplication- is over two hundred million dollars annually. The House and the country must approach this railway problem in a broad way. If the Canadian Pacific Railway thinks it is the bigger dog and can eat up the other one, that is the end of the matter. But I believe the Canadian Pacific Railway to-day (is ready to treat with the Canadian National Railways for the removal of these unnecessary duplications in order to put the two great systems together into one, namely the Canadian National Railways. When that is done, you get a great steamship service that is paying its way. You are on the ocean with all kinds of steamers. This is -where I began this debate last year when the government across the way proposed to this House that we should give enormous subsidies to the Petersen syndicate. I said!: No; instead of taking new money out of the treasury in order to solve the ocean transportation problem, make an arrangement with the Canadian Pacific for consolidation with the Canadian National and, in that way, get a great steamship service, not only on the Atlantic and the Pacific, -but on our Great Lakes and rivers. You will then begin really to solve the transportation problem in a big way without increasing your liabilities. That idea was not taken up then, and although I am rather afraid to make the suggestion, I am going to make -it: that if this House is big enough for its opportunities-and the opportunity is here now to clean up this transportation problem, to cut out these unnecessary duplications and to get a better service on the ocean-the only way in which to bring this about is to approach the Canadian Pacific Railway -in a fair manner and to make a reasonable arrangement by which not only the duplication I have mentioned, but the duplication involved in

The Address-Mr. Maclean (York)
having two systems, shall end. If the two roads are put together, you can do-and this is something new, I hope-what engineers call re-routing. If these two railway systems were turned over to a corps of good engineers, they would immediately re-route the transcontinental and branch line services, taking the best out of either system, putting them together, choosing the best grades, the best bridges and the best locations in the different towns and cities. If that were done, millions of dollars a year would be saved, the service would be improved and a great deal of railway material would be scrapped. What would come of that? We are over-railroaded in the east and in large portions of the west; but if we can scrap 5,000 miles of unnecessary railway trackage in the west, we have 5,000 miles of rails, 5,000 miles of ballast, 5,000 miles of ties and all the stations and freight houses to put into the Canadian National railways in building new lines in the west where they are wanted for the new settlers we propose to bring out to that part of the country.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: Would the hon. gentleman state in what part of the west these lines could be torn up?


William Findlay Maclean: No. I want the western men to decide that; but I will give them the material. I am not going to settle any of these problems. I am only trying to approach them as a member of this House and to assume my responsibility of dealing with these problems as they exist. We have the problem involved in our being over-railroaded in this country. We have the problem of finding railways in the west for the new settlers we hope to bring to this country- because if we are going to build up Canada, we want more settlers and more wheat fields. The greatest asset we have now is our wheat fields in the west, and they will be a still greater asset when Winnipeg, Edmonton and other progressive cities in western Canada will have industrial populations around them making a market for the local farmers in addition to the markets of the world.
All these things have to be looked at in a broad way, and I am going to make this suggestion:	We have heard a good deal about
co-operation between two parties in this House as a coming solution of our difficulties, and I admit we have difficulties. But I say that the time has come when all the representatives of the people of Canada in this House must sit down together and see how our railway problem can be solved without any unjust or unfair treatment of the Canadian
Pacific. I have the greatest admiration for what the Canadian Pacific has done. They have been largely the victims of the overbuilding of railways that this parliament has encouraged in Canada. We must treat them fairly; we must solve our railway problem, and the only way of solving it is by the cooperation of the different parties in thi3 House. We have had too much partyism in this chamber of late and, as I say, we have heard a good deal of talk about co-operation. I am ready to co-operate with anybody or any party in this House who will deal with this problem, bring about a settlement, put our National railway on its feet, and cut out this unnecessary duplication including duplicate express and telegraph services. I happened to tell a fridnd of mine, who is very much interested in the railway problem, that I was going to bring this matter up and he said: "Maclean, you will get an awful spanking if you do." I am ready to take the spanking, and I hope other hon. gentlemen are ready to sit down together and, first of all, to settle this problem of transportation.
We have had one great experience to widen our view of things. We did not go through the war without being able to take an after-the-war view of problems. The after-the-war view of problems is absolutely necessary as a solution of our political troubles. I could speak on that topic all night, but I am not going to do so. I very much appreciate the attention which 'hon. members have given me and I have just one thing to say about this House: I have seen every parliament since the sixth in this House and this is the fifteenth I have known nine parliaments in this House and the largest representation of young men has arrived in this parliament to-day. They are here now and they are the spes gentis of Canada. They are the hope of the nation. I want to see them come forward and I congratulate these young men who are now in this House. They are making good speeches; indeed, the model maiden speech was made in this House last night by the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Geary). It was not a long speech, but it was an able one. Perhaps it was studied a little, but it was none the worse for that. I compliment these newcomers and I want to tell them, especially the 'hon. member for South Toronto, the hon. member for Toronto West Centre (Mr. Hocken), the hon. member for East Toronto (Mr. Ryck-man) and the hon. member for Toronto Northwest (Mr. Church) with his aspirations, that their aspirations should not be dampened because they see a solid phalanx of twelve exministers sitting on the front benches. It is
486	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Maclean (York)
rather an intimation that these are the reserved seats for the ministers of the next Conservative cabinet, but I want to tell the young men of the House that that is not so. How they got there, I do not know; but they are there and they think they are entrenched in reserved seats. May I say to these promising young men that there is hope for them and the way to accomplish their ambition is to make short speeches, speeches like that which the hon. member for South Toronto made last night. They must also practise the parliamentary trick. It is a very hard thing to become proficient in parliament and I am not boasting of being in any way proficient myself. These young men are better Canadians than any of us who are older and they fully appreciate what it is to be a Canadian. But I too appreciate the privileges and the responsibilities of Canadian citizenship and when I speak of co-operation I want it understood that I speak not so much as a citizen of Ontario as I do as a son of upper Canada who is willing to co-operate with the sons of lower Canada. It was the sons of lower Canada who in the old days joined with us of upper Canada in the salvation of this country. There is the formula, if you want it, for the settlement of the difficulties of former days. Probably we shall not have an opportunity in this House to settle the tariff issue, but there is no reason Why we should not settle our railway problem without a dissolution. Some people talk about the dissolution; who is going to bring it about? The fellows who talk about it cannot do it; they think they can but they cannot. We may 'have to hold up the settlement of the tariff question for some time but there are other things that we can deal with. And speaking of the tariff, I am going to vote for the amendment. I come from a constituency made up largely of market gardeners, fruit growers, florists, poultrymen and butchers who all derive their main livelihood from the business they do in the city of Toronto, and the amendment covers in a measure their views in regard to the tariff. I know of course that it contradicts the views held by western people who wrant the benefit of the early products of the United States and elsewhere; they want the early vegetables. I cannot deny that, and that is one of the problems that we shall have to solve. I am quite aware, as I speak even now, that I may be severely criticized in my own town for saying that the tariff issue may have to hang fire for a while, but I do not see anything else for it.
Now if I have said anything to hurt the feelings of those who are associated with the
{Mr. W. F. Maclean.]
banking system in Montreal or of those connected with the Canadian Pacific Railway, I will apologize at once. It occurs to me however-indeed, I have read the statement- that the Canadian 'National railway system is regarded by some people in Canada as a stone about the neck of this country. I deny that suggestion and I hurl it back at those who make it; and the last man at whom I hurl it is the representative of the. 'Mond Nickel Company, and the man who controls those mines in my province at Sudbury. That gentleman, in a lecture to the Canadian club, which was reported in that great enemy of public ownership the Toronto Financial Post, after surveying the situation in Canada deplored the evil of our railway debt and the dole system that exists in Canada. I want to tell Mr. Corless, and I want to tell Sir Alfred Mond who owns the nickel mines in Sudbury, as I do also notify the International Nickel Company, that if they want to help Canada the best thing for them to do is to develop these nickel mines by refining the nickel and making of it a finished product in this country instead of shipping out the raw material for the development of either England or the United States. I will not go into that question to-day, but it must be obvious to all hon. gentlemen that the only means by which this country is to be developed is to compel those who own these natural resources,-and Canada has a monopoly of them -whether it be nickel, asbestos, aluminum or even pulpwood, to put all these materials through the complete process of manufacture from the raw state to the finished product so as to give work to our Canadian people and freight to our Canadian railways.


Mr. JOHN EVANS (Rosetown):: The hon. member who has just sat down (Mr. Maclean, York) by his reference to some of the problems that face the Canadian people to-day must have reminded us that in this country of diversified interests the people of one part necessarily look at these things from a different standpoint from that of the people in other portions of the country. I think however that it must be gratifying to the whole of Canada that since the last parliament we have been enjoying a greater measure of prosperity than has been our lot at any time since the war. This has been due mostly to an abundant production on the farms. But not only amongst agriculturists themselves is there greater hope and less despair; this hope and courage are apparent in our industrial centres as well. The basic industry of agriculture has proved the one great producer of wealth in this Dominion. In the years 1922

The Address-Mr. Evans
and 1923, and perhaps later, when the so-called "whispers of death" were heard over the land, when emigration was taking place to an extent unsurpassed in the history of Canada, it is very significant that agriculture was the one thing that caused a return to prosperity. The general progress and prosperity of any country is fairly well measured in modern times by the extent of that country's railway traffic, and a review of the tonnage carried in Canada brings to light the startling fact that while this basic industry of agriculture has for many years been bled and sacrificed to the one idea of building up the industrial centres, it is at present the only industry which we may expect to contribute very materially to a returning prosperity in Canada. Agriculture in this country has long been hampered through the fallacy that the progress of Canada depended on the development of the centres of industry, and unjust burdens of taxation have consequently been placed upon the primary producer; but we find now that agriculture has been the only industry that has advanced since 1913, the year before the Great War. We find that in 1924 the railways carried 27,979,000 tons of agricultural products, an increase over 1913 of 7,610,000; and in the same year they carried, of products of the mine,, forest, and factory, including merchandise, 78,391.000 tons, being a decrease from 1913 of 7,024,000 tons. It is evident therefore that the improvement in conditions referred to in the Speech from the Throne has been due entirely to the basic industry of agriculture. I have not the figures for 1925, but there is no doubt that for the tw'elve months just ended the result would be much more startling.
It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that there are a few lessons to be drawn from this state of affairs. Surely the most biased of protectionists in the Dominion, indeed those most ignorant of economics, must understand that statistics of this kind are not without significance. Canada has come to the point that England reached in 1845, when her manufacturers found their trade ruined by heavy taxes on food. This is very plainly stated in Trevelyan's Life of John Bright, and is part of a speech made in the British House of Commons on March 13, 1845. Now the old National Policy, which we have been labouring under since 1878, has at last put the cost of manufacturing so completely out of line with world prices that it is no longer possible to export manufactured goods except at a loss. While perhaps this was the case for several years before the war, the loss to the manufacturer then was probably not so great
that it could not be easily made up by charging the home consumer a price to cover all deficits-something we made possible by the import penalties we impose on our consuming public. To say that our manufacturers do not do this is to assert something which is entirely out of keeping with the facts. Take the case of automobiles. Our export trade has reached very respectable dimensions, and our manufacturers have not once told us that they cannot compete with their United States rivals in the Australian or New Zealand markets. I ask, then, why is it not possible for them to compete in the Canadian market without a tariff that gives them a price-fixing power over home buyers? Will the automobile manufacturer to-day say that he cannot compete with the foreign manufacturer here? If that is so, then he needs that price-fixing power just as much to meet competition in his overseas trade. Either he does not need that power in Canada, or else he is charging the home consumer a price to cover the deficit he suffers, say, in the Australian or New Zealand markets. I ask, which?
Do our manufacturers suffer a loss on their export trade, or are they carrying on their everlasting hypocritical whine in this House, session after session, for the purpose of fleecing the Canadian public? Again I ask, which? And perhaps some hon. member who follows me in this debate may be able to fully answer my question. I hope so. I assert, Sir, that there is no loss on their export trade. Therefore the tariff policy which the people have had to put up with since 1878 is a diabolical frame-up-a frame-up between the manufacturers and politicians for the purpose of fleecing the home consumer. The primary producer, the agriculturist chiefly, has had to bear the whole load. Will any one in this House tell me why the Canadian millers, for instance, need fifty cents a barrel protection on their flour, when Canadian flour can be, and very often is, sold cheaper in Great Britain than at the mills located on the wheat fields of Saskatchewan and Alberta, where we raise the finest wheat in the world? Millers have told me that it is because they put a much finer product on the Canadian market than they send abroad. Such is not the case. In fact, the best of everything goes to the British market, and because of her free trade policy Great Britain exploits the whole world for her food products, and only the best is sent there. Let me ask another question: Have the implement companies and other manufacturers - been exporting their wares to all parts of the world against the competition
The Address-Mr. Evans

of foreign manufacturers, and yet are not able to compete in the Canadian market with those manufacturers? No! a thousand' times no! A direct misrepresentation again. They have carried on a campaign of falsehood for greed, because forty-eight years ago corrupt politicians found it a convenient source of campaign funds-and to this day it is used for the same purpose. Lest I may appear too presumptuous in this statement, I should like to quote one or two authorities. My first quotation is from a speech by Sir Richard Cartwright, delivered in this House April 11, 1S90:
Finding we were not going to tax the people, the leader of the present government made an appeal to a set of gentlemen who put themselves up for sale, and who, the moment I refused to buy them, went and sold themselves to hon. gentlemen opposite. Yes, that is what they did. There never was an elector who sold himself for five dollars, who sold himself more completely than the protected manufacturers of Canada sold themselves to hon. gentlemen opposite. We did not buy them; and they sold themselves and their votes to hon. gentlemen opposite.
Goldwin Smith, another great Canadian, in his well-known work, Canada and the Canadian Question, said:
International hatred and political corruption are two inseparable companions of the system of protection. . . The upshot is that on the neck of the Canadian, as of the American commonwealth, now rides an association of protected manufacturers, making the community and all the great interests of the country tributary to their gain. Before a general election the Prime Minister calls these men together in the parlour of a Toronto hotel, receives their contributions to his election fund, and pledges the commercial policy of the country.
Up to 1S96 the Conservative party in power was responsible for the fiscal policy of this Dominion, and the history of the tariff for that period shows that an entirely one-sided arrangement was made for the benefit of manufacturers who could exercise political influence, Edward Porritt, the writer of Sixty Years of Protection in Canada is emphatic in declaring that it was again and again affirmed that the manufacturers subsidized the Conservative party to corral consumers by the tariff and compel them to buy their wares and pay the prices which the import penalties enabled them to exact. From the House of Commons debates of April 11, 1890,1 take this incident. Sir Richard Cartwright said that in the National Policy there was a duty of one cent a pound on rice, in the interest of two mills at which imported paddy rice was cleaned. He said that by this duty, $170,000 was fraudulently extracted from the pockets of the people, and that of this sum $10,000 to $15,000 was annually turned over at Red Parlour conferences by those who devised the

robbery, for the development of the election fund. When he said this Mackenzie Bowell said:
You don't mean that.
Sir Richard Cartwright answered:
I mean every word of it. I know how you do it
He continued:
I say that the whole business of protection is robbery, legalized robbery; that you subsidize the manufacturers and that the manufacturers in return subsidize you.
He also said that it was openly done by both parties to the transaction. Goldwin Smith in 1891 wrote:
"There is continual running to Ottawa for larger draughts of the fatal stimulant, when the first draught has failed."
It is a fact and it is a feature of protection that the thing can never be definite; it creates its own appetite and must be increased to be effective.
I will deal with that later on. Such, Mr. Speaker, is a short history of the background of our fiscal policy, and a bit of the history of the system on which the right hon. leader of the opposition and his party deem it an honour to have been elected. Let me quote his words, from page 211 of Hansard. He said:
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.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


John Evans: Hon. gentlemen are proud
of that, but I am not at all envious. The right hon. gentleman when challenging the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) later on, when that gentleman declared that those from Quebec on the government side had been elected on a low tariff, asked how that policy was described. I want to say a word here about the way politics in this country are laid before the people, particularly this policy which makes legal the plunder of the people. I want to say here that the whole plan of campaign and organization of the Progressive party to-day is a challenge to all political leaders. Our electors themselves organized, formulated their own policies and elected their own representatives to advocate those policies in this House. That is the way in which it should be done, and the only way democracy can be maintained. I say it is a challenge to the political leaders and reformers of Canada to-day, to conduct their own political campaigns likewise. I will make the assertion here that if the question of protection had been honestly placed before this country during the last forty years, hardly one protectionist advo-
4S9

The Address-Mr. Evans
cate would have been returned an the last election. The organization of the people for their own information is the last thing the party politician would think of in the years gone by. I say to those advocates of privilege to-day that they are 5 p.m. afraid to organize their electors and let them meet to formulate their own principles and send their own representatives to this House. I challenge them to do it. I say again that the policy and plan of organization of the Progressive party constitute a challenge to this whole House.
That some advocates of protection are time and again elected is due to several causes, some of which I will name. One cause is the control of newspapers and magazines, the dissemination of literature by industrialists seeking class privilege, such as the woollen manufacturers, the writer of the Seeley national policy, the Prosperity League of Canada, and others. A strict silence, too, has been maintained for many years by professors of economy in all our colleges and universities; these institutions have come under the icy hand of privilege as completely as every other activity of this nation. There is also another means by which protectionists are elected to this House, and I do not know but that it may constitute the chief means-that is, the intimidation of workers in the industrial centres. Coupled with that is the continued threat of the capitalists to withdraw their investments if things do not go according to their wishes- and I want to say a word here regarding capital in relation to protection. I want to speak on that subject because I see concentrated to my right the representatives of organized industry and capital. Industry in this country has enjoyed the benefit of import penalties coupled with an arrangement under which raw material mostly comes in free since the Rays of Sir A. T. Galt, that is from about 1859. But I want to say that throughout this long period the system has had an entirely opposite effect from that for which it was inaugurated. In the first, place it has not, as vTas intended, kept the money in the country. We have borrowed more money for industrial purposes as a nation than perhaps any other nation on earth. Great Britain offers a striking contrast to that; she lends freely for industrial purposes to every other country in the world. I will make this further statement, Mr. Speaker, that the advocates for protection in Canada do not believe in their own policy. The one great thing we need, they all say, is capital to develop our own natural resources. Yet, we
see our directors of banking and finance investing in foreign enterprises in preference to developing our own natural resources; and one of the most glaring cases in point, one which was a real humiliation to us in the days of the war was the fact that while we produced as much as eighty-five per cent of the world's nickel we did not have a nickel refinery in Canada worthy of the name. Because of this lack our enemy was using nickel produced from Canadian ore and sold to it by foreign refiners.


Mr. McGIBBON:: Will the hon. gentleman give us some proof of that?


John Evans: It is well known.


Peter McGibbon: Give us proof.


John Evans: I have not the proof here
but it is a fact all the same. The proof is that it was mentioned in this House in 1922-


An hon. MEMBER:: And contradicted.


John Evans: -and some help was given by the Canadian government towards the production of nickel. That was in the session of 1922 and I was a member at the time. Let me give another instance which goes to show the perfidy of our protectionist advocates to their own doctrine. To-day we are supplying a very large part of the world's pulpwood. To-day our manufacturers are calling for an export embargo on this raw material. Instead of controlling the world's markets by their own foresight and enterprise they ask to be placed entirely beyond the competition of the foreigner by an export embargo. This would give them a pricefixing power over the pulpwood producer who would be unmercifully exploited, just as the miller is seeking an embargo on wheat to-day in order to have the farmer delivered a little more completely over to his mercy that he may the more easily skim the cream off the crop. Protection is in many ways hindering the development of this nation. There are two particularly disastrous features which always accompany a system of privilege as a national policy. First, it destroys enterprise, it is detrimental in this respect even to those whom it was supposed to benefit. That is plainly shown to-day, I think, in the demand for export embargoes. It also destroys courage and self-reliance. As a result our manufacturers to-day are relying on the tariff to secure a market for them rather than having recourse to their own enterprise and the quality of their goods. I think this is plainly seen in the fact that 116 men elected to this House are plaintively calling
The Address-Mr. Evans

on parliament to stand between them and the competition of the foreigner.


An hon. MEMBER:: A competition of low wages.


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: They are proud of it, evidently.


John Evans: Evidently. Not only has
this system been detrimental to their own self-reliance and enterprise, but they have used this national charity to destroy the enterprise of the small proprietor. They have absorbed the little industries of the small proprietors, and concentrated them under their own exploiting control. I think it is no exaggeration to say that every small industry in the province of Ontario has been cornered by fair or foul means. Furthermore, the small industries of the Maritime provinces too have been closed out by unfair methods of competition, until those provinces to-day have become hewers of wood and drawers of water for this industrial area situated between Montreal and Windsor.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh!


John Evans: Some hon. gentlemen know that to be quite true, but in view of where they are sitting, they do not like to admit it. The other disastrous feature of this national indulgence is that it has impoverished the primary industries of the country, and particularly the basic industry of agriculture. Protection to be effective must always be parasitic in its nature. It cannot be anything else; it can only live by obtaining that for which it gives nothing in return; it lives practically on the blood of others. Protection for manufacturers is effective because agriculture cannot be protected; and hon. gentlemen may as well get it out of their heads that they are going to persuade the agriculturist of this country that agriculture can be protected by a high tariff. It is a common economic law that the industry that creates the new wealth of any country must find its market in the wide world and accept world's prices for its products. Agriculture is impoverished because the manufacturer is not standing on his own feet but is dependent on the tax laid on the consumer to give him a profit on what he sells at home and abroad.
This fact and the way it affects agriculture has made necessary the scheme of rural credits. Indeed, any one perusing the Speech from the Throne must surely be struck by the fact that all our problems are inseparable-that is there is an underlying cause for

them all. This system is also the cause of the great need for immigration; it necessitates our young men leaving Canada and seeking their fortunes in other countries. The agriculturist of Canada to-day could find employment for every idle man in the country could he pay the wages commensurate with the high cost of living. This is not possible because the cost of production in Canada is out of line with world prices. We are crippling the development of this nation by that fallacious policy which we have followed for the last sixty years. It is not possible for the farmer to pay that wage because the cost of production in Canada is entirely out of line with world prices. The production and distribution of this country has actually become too expensive to permit our people to look after even their own natural products. The right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) sought to persuade the agriculturists that he could give them a price-fixing power. We are to-day seeking a market abroad for nearly 400 million bushels of wheat and we have got to do that in the world's market. What a fallacy then to think that he can protect the farmer. How is he going to do it? I repeat, what a fallacy! In>
fact the whole idea of protection is a fallacy, but perhaps the people of the cities will never realize this until the time comes when .the agriculturist can demand his own price.
Much has been said in this debate about the importation of butter and eggs. I do not think the farmers are complaining much. In this respect the Australian treaty has been cited as a gross injustice. On the face of it,
I admit it is an injustice to certain classes, But I want the people to understand that trade treaties are always an injustice to the primary producers of any country that finds it necessary to make trade treaties. The trade treaties are essentially a feature of countries imposing protection on their consumers. A free trade country makes no treaties. It cannot. It has nothing to bargain with.


An hon. MEMBER:: It does not have to.


John Evans: As the hon. member says, it does not have to. They are not needed. Trade treaties are a part of the class privilege as much as the import penalties themselves are. A trade treaty can be of advantage to privileged classes in Canada only by trading the rights of the agriculturists to give them an advantage in foreign markets. In the Australian treaty the rights of the farmers have to some extent been sacrificed by placing their

The Address-Mr. Evans
products on the free list in order to give the Canadian manufacturer of automobiles, agricultural implements, pulp products and other things a preference in the Australian market. The leader of the opposition last session and during the election campaign, urged the adoption of a higher protection on butter, eggs, poultry, vegetables and so on. This again was even a more seductive way of increasing the draught of the fatal stimulant of protection, the inevitable reaction of which must fall on the agriculturist. If the agriculturist would agree to that part of the deceptive game, those who desire more advantage under price fixing tariffs would have an excuse to demand higher import penalties for their own goods. It seems that it worked very well in the United States some time ago as an excuse for the Fordney tariff. But even if this protection for the farmer proved beneficial, it could only be so for a short time, very short at that, as wages would have to be increased to meet the higher cost. Manufacturing would be more costly, distribution costs would have to be increased, and the farmer again would find himself going round in the same old circle. In such a demand the hollowness of the protectionist's argument is very plainly revealed. If these things are cheap now to the consumer, that must of itself prove of advantage to the manufacturer. If anything would prove conducive to making this country a manufacturing country, surely it is the low cost of living. Why then do they want to increase it? I say it is simply because they want an excuse to increase their own protection.
Protection can only be effective when an effective system of immigration is carried on alongside, and a gradual but continuous lowering of living standards for the workers to a point where the low wage balances the greed of the employer. The fact that the present rate does not give the desired protection or the price-fixing power is due to the completeness of the workers' organization, and hence the feverish anxiety for immigration. It is not borne out by facts that a country to be prosperous must have a large population. England to-day wants to get rid of a number of her men. The question at present is not how to get immigrants. The real question we should consider to-day is what becomes of our earnings. Here is the crux of the whole situation. This year we shall in all probability exceed all countries in the amount of exports per head of population, yet those who raise this new wealth will be left as poor as they were before, and nothing looking to a permanence of manufacture or agriculture will be
instituted. In all probability we shall this year raise some $125,000,000 by the tariff. To do that we shall have fleeced our people of about $375,000,000, $250,000,000 of which will go into the pockets of the protected interests, or as the ratio of home manufactured goods stands to imported commodities consumed in Canada. I will quote the computation given by Sir Richard Cartwright at the 1893 Liberal convention held in this city. Any hon. member can find it at page 42. He said:
The cost of protection to the people of Canada between 1880 and 1893 is hardly less than $1,000,000,000.
During those thirteen years the protective tariff took out of the pockets of the people as much as $76,000,000 annually, and this was when our population wa3 considerably under five millions and prices only a little over one-half of what they are to-day. The national debt and the railway debt of this country pale into insignificance in comparison with the amount we put into the pockets of the protected interests. The national debt to-day could be wiped out in ten years with what we are taking from the pockets of our workers. The amount pocketed by those for whom this robbery was devised is not by any means the whole of the evil. It is crippling the basic industry of the country, the one industry that can stand on its feet. There is only one brake on production on our farms, and that is the high cost of production. The hon. member for East Toronto (Mr. Ryckman) crystallized this very well in a statement which he made in the last session of the last parliament, that Toronto itself was paying twenty-three per cent of the income tax of the whole Dominion. That is a most startling statement, but I do not dispute his words. I think what he meant to throw at this part of the House was the fact that somehow we were beating the income tax collector. Such is not the case. We would very much like to have an opportunity of paying income tax; but the evil today is this concentration of wealth and industry in the hands of a few who are directing every activity of the nation. That statement of the hon. gentleman was, however, an admission in regard to those in the city of Toronto who were paying twenty-three per cent of the income tax of the Dominion. We have heard it stated several times in this House that those industries on which that great income was made could not live without this price-fixing power which this country gives them. That means that this country is taxing itself to keep those industries in Toronto, and as we used to say in the Old Country, anyone living on the taxes is a pauper. Thus we are face to face with, perhaps, one of the
The Address-Mr. Evans

worst incongruities ever known in a national way, when we permit our paupers to pay our income tax.
But to pass on, let me say that rural credits as a national benefit will be rendered null and void under this system of concentration of wealth. The Empire Settlement scheme itself cannot function under such a policy of concentration of the nation's earnings. It has often been said that our tariff is very low, and I admit that the tariff schedule is an innocent looking document. In fact the whole Customs tariff is not by any means a formidable thing, although it is all one-eidedi and discriminatory. But the departmental rules and orders in council governing the administration of the act, which are seldom exposed to the public gaze, constitute something altogether different. Let me give the House one or two instances, and first let me take the case of trade discounts. The figures which I am going to give have been submitted to a tariff expert and he has found them to be correct. If we take the case of household utensils as an example, I find that the rules of the manufacturers and distributing combines are recognized in the administration of the act. As an example, the price to all is say $100. To the large dealer there is a discount of 50 per cent and 15 per cqnt and 10 per cent, leaving a value for duty of $38.25. The duty on that is $11.47 and the sales tax $2.98, making a total cost to the large dealer, mark the figures of $52.70. To the jobber there is a discount of 50 and 15 and 20 per cent, making the cost for duty $34.01. The duty in that case is $10.20, and the sales tax $2.65, making the total cost of $46.86. To the departmental store the total cost would be $49.71. To the consumer, however, the valuation for customs purposes is $100. It does not matter what he has bought them for or what discount has been allowed, the department does not allow any trade discount to enter into the appraisement for the purpose of imposing a duty. It does not matter what the quantity the consumer buys may be, the valuation for duty is $100. The duty would be $30 and the sales tax $7.80, making a total cost of $137.80. The tariff schedule innocently names 30 per cent as the duty to be paid as protection. In practice, it works out at from 90 to 190 per cent according to the classifications.
The Customs tariff is administered in a way that is not known to the public, secretly and tyrannically in the interests of those who are in partnership with the politicians. The manufacturers and distributing combines have made a set of rules which they compel the politicians to accept and establish by orders in

council, all designed to make the consumer pay the bill. But I have something worse yet, and this touches, perhaps, the very quick, the very heart of any man who has any sense of the liberty that he should enjoy. Under the rules of the combines in Canada to-day, no co-operative company can get a better standing than a consumer and it must pay the consumer's price. It does not matter what line of business a co-operative company may carry on or the extent of its buying and selling, it is still a consumer. It does not matter at what price it may buy its goods in a foreign country, the value set by the customs appraiser in this country is the value which the Canadian combine controlling that particular line says that it ought to be. What do you think of that in a democratic country? If the consumers of Canada think that they are free they are mistaken, for the Canadian public does not know what liberty is. Since 1878 we have handed ourselves over to a set of men who are controlling every activity in the country; they control price and everything else, and they control the lives of the workers of this land. This very system has closed some of the best co-operative companies in western Canada. The price set by the customs appraiser is always the retailer's price to the consumer. I should like the people to take to heart this fact, that cooperative companies, no matter how much business they do or whatever line of goods they distribute, are always classed as consumers, and under the combines rules it is forbidden to sell any class of goods or merchandise to a co-operative company. This is what has crippled the co-operative companies in Canada. They are compelled to go abroad for their goods, buying their supplies in foreign countries, and they are subject to the Dumping Act. The co-operative company being classed as a consumer has to pay, under the Dumping Act, a duty equal to all the profits of the other classes above him, that is to say, the retailer, the wholesaler, the dealer, the jobber or the manufacturer, as well as the difference in price between what the foreign manufacturer charges and what the Canadian manufacturer says it ought to be.
I submit to the House that this is the most diabolical piece of legislation ever enacted in modem times. Canada was the first of all countries in all time to conceive such an idea and this act was placed on the statute books for the first time in the year 1904. It was vigorously enforced between 1911 and 1918 but it was not until 1922 that it completely covered every line of merchandise that the consumer needs, even to his daily bread. That

The Address-Mr. Evans
amendment passed this House by the combined strength of the Liberal and Conservative parties against the solid vote of the Progressives.


Arthur Meighen: What year was that?


John Evans: It was on June 23, 1922.


Arthur Meighen: I would never support
a government like that.


John Evans: The right hon. gentleman
himself denounced it as protection of protection. He denounced the government in language such as I had never heard used to a public body, and yet he and his party afterwards unanimously voted for the whole thing.


Arthur Meighen: We denounced them for
their treachery but not for the principle. The hon. gentleman however supported them for both.


John Evans: My right hon. friend very aptly described the legislation and I would commend the House to a reading of his words at that time. He was even more denunciatory than I have been myself to-day. I have spent some time discussing this question, but when I hear so many members on the Conservative side glibly talking protection, and the right hon. gentleman declaring his pride in being leader of a party elected because of its stand on this question, then I wonder if even these hon. gentlemen know the extent of the bondage under which they have placed the country. Stability has almost become a slogan in this House during the last three or four years. Let me say to those who believe in creating stable conditions by oppression that it cannot be done. Whether you have a tariff commission or a tariff advisory board, or whether you take the tariff out of politics or do what you like, stability cannot be created by oppression. It is as true to-day as when Lincoln uttered these words in reference to his own country, that this nation cannot live with one-half free and the other half slaves. If there is an industry to-day that cannot live by its own perseverance and enterprise, let it lay its books on the table and if it is essential to the welfare of the country that it should be helped in some way then let it be helped. Since an advisory tariff board is to be appointed I hope it may do some good in this direction, but I have very little hope of it.


Mr. KENNEDY (Wiqpipeg South Centre):: Do you believe in a (policy of absolute free trade for Canada?


John Evans: I believe that the policy of protection has nearly driven us to the wall.
Under the tariff we have created a set of exotic industries that cannot stand a breath of fresh air. The whole discussion here on Monday centred round an industry that had been established on a basis of tariffs, bonuses and bounties-the British Empire Steel Corporation and particularly the steal concerns.
I am in favour of free trade for Canada. We have established our industries on a false foundation, and on the statement of the leader of the opposition, I say they are beginning to tumble down around our heads and we are on all fours trying to keep on top of the debris to-day.


Arthur Meighen: I hope the hon. member will not be found voting for a Speech from the Throne which declares that we are in a very flourishing condition.


John Evans: I am quoting what the right hon. gentleman himself said. Two sessions ago in this House he said that 2,000 factories had been closed in one year. Well, I happen to know something of the reason why some of these factories were closed. I have said the same thing in the House before, and at the risk of tedious repetition I shall say it again: the name of the Libby-Owens Company was frequently mentioned two years ago as one that had failed because insufficient protection had been given to it. Now let me tell the House something. In one of the large buildings in course of erection in western Canada, a sanatorium, there are three large sunrooms running the whole length of the structure, some 200 feet. I was up there one day and noticing that the boxes were all labelled England or Belgium, I asked the foreman: "Why is it that you did not get this stuff in Canada and so give employment to Canadians? A company in Hamilton has closed down because it had not sufficient trade." " Oh yes," he replied, " I know, they are the Libby-Owens Company; but we could not use their stuff, it was too brittle." There was another case. As I said before, our manufacturers are lying down under the tariff, expecting that to carry them through rather than the quality of their goods and their own enterprise. The whole thing is a fallacy. I am rather surprised at the leader of the opposition supporting this system as he does, year after year.


An hon. MEMBER:: He knows better.


John Evans: Of course he does. But this is what I want to say:	Surely the day is
gone by when this nation will give any in-
The Address-Mr. Evans

dustry increased power under the system of the past to exploit the public and harass too, the primary producer with high prices, which he is compelled to meet by long hours of toil and a low standard of living. We have the finest country on the face of God's earth,-	t


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


John Evans: -and a freedom to develop the agricultural industry, the one basic industry of this country, would populate our empty spaces, and secondary industries to supply the agriculturists with what they need would then grow up naturally. I think there is the best answer to the hon. gentleman who asked me if I believed in free trade. Our industrial system has been built up by hothouse methods, and cannot stand the natural air of competition. We must get rid of the thing in our midst, class legislation-class privilege-which is dividing the different classes, the different vocations and the various geographical areas of this Dominion, even to the extent of breaking up confederation.
It has been said that Canada with its diversified areas and climate is a hard country to govern, I want to say to this House that it is only a hard country to govern according to the extent that class privilege is permitted to divide classes and areas, I want to say to each man and to each class conducting the different activities of this country:	Let each
mind his own business, and not prey on his neighbour by feudalistic means established by legislation. Then we shall have peace. We may have our political differences, but let us get rid1 of this thing that divides us, and so develop a common nationality, a common love of country, and implant in the people a tradition of kinship. Government should be based on a square deal to all. But our parliament is a disgrace; it has been reduced to nothing better than a plunderbund, and government has become a mercenary scramble.


Hon. J. W. EDWARDS (Frontenac-Adding-ton):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to add my congratulations to those which have already been tendered to you and to the mover and seconder of the Address. I am glad that J still have this privilege left to me, for it is about the only time-honoured practice which has survived the general slaughter of constitutional precedents and traditions and customs in this House. The honour conferred on you, Sir, is all the greater because it is a departure^ for the first time since confederation, from the' well-established _ rule that representatives of the two principal races should alternately
JMr. Evans.]
occupy that honourable position. I hasten to remark that with the creation of this new precedent I am not disposed to find fault. At all events I can assure you of this, Sir,- and I am certain that I also speak the sentiment of every hon. member in this section of the House-that I would far rather see you occupying the position which you are so eminently qualified to fill than any hon. gentleman who sits to your right. But, Mr. Speaker, I had doubts whether you would be re-elected to that position. I recall that years ago, at the conclusion of the war, Sir Robert Borden manifested to a remarkable degree that rarest of all virtues, political gratitude, by appointing to honourable positions several who had been faithful to him in the time of crisis. Some were appointed to the Senate; some to the bench; two in particular were singled out for special honour, because, as you will recall, Sir, they had for many, many years manifested an almost violent affection for the Conservative party-one was made chairman of the Board of Railway Commissioners, the other was appointed a lieutenant-governor. I thought that the Liberal party would not wish to be outdone in practising this rare virtue of political gratitude. There are gentlemen in this House whose services, in season and out of season, deserve appreciation, and I really thought that the chair which you now fill might perhaps be occupied by the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke), or possibly by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland), or the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman); I even thought that if ex-Premier King's chivalry was equal to that high sense of honour with which he was credited1 by the Minister of Customs (Mr. Boivin) the other day, the member for Southeast Grey (Miss Mac-Phail) might stand a very good chance of becoming Speaker of this" chamber. However, chivalry is a thing of the past apparently, and political gratitude came to an end with Sir Robert Borden's practise of that virtue.
Now,^ Mr. Speaker, there are one or twc things in the address to which we have just listened that I should like >to draw attention to before you call it six o'clock. The hon. member for Rosetown (Mr. Evans) is in a position of splendid isolation in this House so far as tariff matters are concerned.


John Evans: Not isolated, no.


John Wesley Edwards: Very much so, I 'think. His mind is dominated by theoretical assumptions and arguments which, oft repeated, have become ingrained and occupy a segregated area of grey matter to the exclusion of everything

The Address-Mr. Evans
except the theories of Adam Smith and Cobden. I have not the pleasure or privilege of knowing the hon. gentleman, but I had always understood that he was noted for his sincerity and earnestness. I believe that most people in this country gave him credit for those qualities, but I am rather disposed to think that his sincerity will have to be discounted in view of his attitude recently. I have in my hand the report of a speech made by him on September 25 last, in which he says:
There can be no coalition as long as the Liberal party is wallowing in the mire of corruption, as it is.
"No coalition," the hon. gentleman says, but he has already shown his willingness to co-operate with the Liberal party in corruption. No coalition with the Liberal party in corruption; but co-operation with them in corruption.


John Evans: May I ask the hon. gentleman if a coalition has been entered into?


John Wesley Edwards: I am taking the hon. gentleman's statement that he was not prepared to enter into a coalition with the Liberal party while it was' wallowing in corruption, and I am adding to that this further statement-which is a statement of fact-that he has already manifested in this House his readiness to co-operate with the Liberal party which he says is wallowing in corruption. How far the hon. gentleman has to travel 'between co-operation and coalition is something that he will have to work out for himself.


John Evans: Another question, please.
The hon. gentleman has not yet shown my hypocrisy or insincerity in the matter, and perhaps he might tell me-


John Wesley Edwards: What is the question?


John Evans: I would like to ask my hon. friend to name the course I should have taken to be sincere?


John Wesley Edwards: I do not think there should be any doubt in the hon. gentleman's mind in that connection. We have his declaration that this government is wallowing in corruption. Surely a man with any moral sense would know that the right course would be to vote against a party which was wallowing in corruption. The hon. gentleman should not need any guidance in that. And allow me to quote a little further. He said in the same speech:
One of the vi'.est untruths that any politician was ever guilty of, Mr. Evans asserted, had been uttered by Hon. W. R. Motherwell when he told a Saskatoon audience in 1923 that the government has reduced duties on sixty commodities.
Yet he lines up with the Minister of Agriculture in the only vote which has so far been taken in this House. Again he says:
I challenge the Liberal party to go out and carry on a campaign of education along the lines of its own platform, and to choose its candidates in a democratic way.
He had no faith in the Liberal party, evidently, nor in the Liberal platform; he challenges them to the issue, but when he comes into this House he goes back on his professions and lines up with a party, one of whose ministers he says tells vile untruths, and a party which he says is wallowing in corruption. It is apparently good enough for the hon. member for Rosetown to associate with. The hon. gentleman, speaking on the same occasion, further said:
The only difference between the Conservative and Liberal parties is that the Conservatives openly advocate class privilege through protection, while the Liberals achieved this end through stealth ever since 1896.
So if we may judge from the hon. gentleman's attitude, he does not prefer the open way, but rather desires to associate with those who gain their ends by stealth and underhand methods. He says further in the same speech:
The Liberals have gone even further in the extension of class privilege than the Conservatives. The Liberal government, by administering the Customs Act in secret, has gone further in increasing tariff charges than any government since 1867.
In the face of these words, Mr. Speaker, what would any person not acquainted with the hon. gentleman expect his course to have been? The last thing one would have expected would be that a gentleman of his fine type would associate himself with a government wallowing in corruption, one of whose members he charges with uttering vile untruths, a party which attained its ends by stealth instead of by open, manly and aboveboard methods. Yet we find the hon. gentleman apparently ready to swallow not only his own convictions and principles, but to swallow the whole government, or what is left of it, on the other side of the House. I will refer further to the hon. gentleman's speech on another occasion.
On motion of Mr. Edwards (Frontenac-Addington) the debate was adjourned.
At six o'clock the House adjourned, without question being put, pursuant to rule.

Adjournment of the House
Thursday, January 28, 1926