1926-06-14

[Stage Direction]
On the Order for Motions:
Mr. W. G. McQUARRIE (New Westminster) :: Mr. Speaker, a few days ago I presented a petition from the allied Indian tribes of British Columbia. I think a report has been laid on the table in connection with that petition, and if it is in order I now move that that petition be printed in Hansard.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Mr. McQuarrie moves
that the petition from the allied Indian tribes of British Columbia be taken as read, so that it may appear in the debates.


Hon. CHARLES STEWART (Minister of the Interior):: Is my hon. friend referring to the petition filed by Mr. Kelly?


William Garland McQuarrie: I presented it last
week.


Charles A. Stewart: Is it the
one that has reference to supplying funds in connection with making representations before the Privy Council?


William Garland McQuarrie: It was the petition of the allied Indian tribes of British Columbia. I presented it last week, and I believe it has been reported to be in order.


Charles A. Stewart: There is no objection.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
(The petition is as follows):
To the Honourable the House of Commons of Canada in Parliament Assembled	9
The Petition of the allied Indian Tribes of British Columbia humbly showeth as follows:-
1.	This Petition is presented on behalf of the allied Indian Tribes of British Columbia by Peter R. Kelly Chairman duly authorized by resolution unanimously adopted by the Executive Committee of allied Tribes on 19th December, 1925.
2.	When British Columbia entered Confederation Section 109 of the British North America Act was made applicable to all public lands with certain specific exceptions. By virtue of the application of this Section it was enacted that public lands belonging to the Colony of British Columbia should belong to the new Province. By virtue of the application of the same Section as explained by the Minister of Justice in January 1875 all territorial land rights claimed by the Indian Tribes of the Province were preserved and it was enacted that such rights should be an "interest" in the public lands of the Province. The Indian Tribes of British Columbia claim actual beneficial ownership of their territories, but do not claim absolute ownership in the sense of ownership excluding any title of the Crown. It is recognized by the allied Tribes that there is in respect of all the public lands of the Province an underlying title of the Crown, which title at least for present purposes it is not thought necessary to define.
3.	In order to make clear what is meant by an "interest" the Petitioners quote the following words of Lord Watson to be found in the Indian Claims Case- L. R. 1897 A. C. at page 210:-"An interest other than that of the Province in the same appears to them to denote some right or interest in a third party independent of and capable of being vindicated in competition with the beneficial interest of the old Province."
4.	The position taken by the allied Tribes was placed before Parliament by means of Petition presented to the House of Commons on 23rd March 1920 and read in the House of Commons and recorded on 26th March 1920 (Hansard p. 825) and Petition presented to the Senate on 9th June 1920, to all contents of which two Petitions the Petitioners beg leave to refer.
5.	In the month of August 1910 Sir Wilfrid Laurier. having been advised by the Department of Justice that the Indian land controversy should be judicially decided, met the Indian Tribes of Northern British Columbia at Prince Rupert and speaking on behalf of Canada said-"I think the only way to settle this question that you have agitated for yeans is by a decision of the Judicial Committee, and I will take steps to help you."
6.	By Agreement which was entered into by the late Mr. J. A. J. McKenna Special Commissioner on behalf of the Dominion of Canada and the late Premier Sir Richard McBride on behalf of the Province of British Columbia in the month of September 1912 and before the end of that year was adopted by both Governments it was stipulated that by means of a Joint Commission to be appointed lands should be added to Indian Reserves and lands should be cut off from Indian Reserves. By that Agreement it was provided that the carrying out of its stipulations should be a "final adjustment of all matters relating to Indian affairs in the Province of British Columbia."
Allied Indian Tribes
[Stage Direction]
7.	On the 30th day of June 1916 the Royal Commission on Indian Affairs for the Province of British Columbia appointed in pursuance of the Agreement above mentioned issued Report which was placed in the hands of both Governments.
8.	In the month of September 1916 the Duke of Connaught, acting as His Majesty's Representative in Canada and in response to letter which had been addressed to him on behalf of the Nishga Tribe and the Interior Tribes gave assurances communicated by His Secretary to the General Counsel of allied Tribes in the following words:
"His Royal Highness has interviewed the Honourable Dr. Roche with reference to your letter of the 29th May and your interview with me and I am commanded by His Royal Highness to state that he considers it is the duty of the Nishga Tribe of Indians to await the decision of the Commission, after which if they do not agree to the conditions set forth by that Commission, they can appeal to the Privy Council in England, when their case will have every consideration. As their contentions will be duly considered by the Privy Council in the event of the Indians being dissatisfied with the decision of the Commission, His Royal Highness is not prepared to interfere in the matter at present and he hopes that you will advise the Indians to await the decision of this Commission."
9.	The allied Tribes have always been and still are unwilling to be bound by the Agreement above mentioned and have always been and still are unwilling to accept as final settlement the findings contained in the Report of the Royal Commission.
10.	In the year 1920 the Parliament of Canada enacted the law known as Bill 13 being Chapter 51 of the Statutes of that year authorizing the Governor General in Council to carry out the Agreement above mentioned by adopting the Report of the Royal Commission. From the preamble and the enacting words the professed purpose of the Bill appeared to be that of effecting settlement bj' actually adjusting all matters.
11.	In course of debate regarding Bill 13 had in the Senate on 2nd June, 1620, Sir James Lougheed, leader of the then Government in the Senate, answering remarks of Senator Bostock by which was expressed the fear that if the Bill should become law the Indians might "be entirely put out of Court and be unable to proceed on any question of title," gave the following assurance (Debates of Senate-1920 p. 475 col. 2):
"I might say further, honourable gentlemen, that we do not propose to exclude the claims of the Indians. It will be manifest to every honourable gentleman that if the Indians have claims anterior to Confederation or anterior to the creation of the two Crown Colonies in the Province of British Columbia they could be adjusted or settled by the Imperial Authorities. Those claims are still valid. If the claim be a valid one which is being advanced by this gentleman and those associated with him as to the Indian Tribes of British Columbia being entitled to the whole of the lands in British Columbia this Government cannot disturb that claim. That claim can still be asserted in the future."
12.	Upon occasion of interview had with the Executive Committee and the General Council of allied Tribes at Vancouver on 27th July, 1923, the Minister of Interior speaking on behalf of the Government of Canada conceded that the allied Tribes are entitled to secure judicial decision of the Indian land controversy and gave assurance that the Dominion of Canada would help them in securing such decision.
13. By Order in Council passed in the month of August, 1923, the Government of the Province of British Columbia adopted the Report of the Royal Commission.

14.	By Memorandum which was presented to the Government of Canada on 29th February, 1924, the allied Tribes opposed the passing of Order in Council of the Government of Canada adopting the Report of the Royal Commission upon the ground, among other grounds, that, no matter whatever relating to Indian affairs in British Columbia having been fully adjusted and important matters such as foreshore rights fishing rights and water rights not having been to any extent adjusted, the professed purpose of the Agreement and the Act had not been accomplished.
15.	By order in council passed on the 19tth July, 1924, the government of Canada, acting under chapter 51 of the statutes of the year 1920 and upon recommendation of the Minister of Interior adopted the report of the royal commission.
16.	From the memorandum issued by the Deputy Minister of Justice on 29th February, 1924, answering questions which had been submitted by the allied tribes to the government of Canada, the order in council passed on 19th July, 1924, and the memorandum issued by the Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs on 9th August, 1924, it clearly appears as is submitted that both the Department of Justice and the Department of Indian Affairs regard the statute chapter 51 of the year 1920 as intended, not for bringing about an actual adjustment of all matters relating to Indian affairs, but for the purpose of bringing about a legislative adjustment of all such matters and thus effecting final settlement under the laws of Canada without the concurrence or consent of the Indian tribes of British Columbia.
17.	The allied tribes submit that, so far as section 2 being the main enactment of chapter 51 may be interpreted as being intended for accomplishing the purpose above mentioned and thus bringing to an end all the aboriginal rights claimed by the Indian tribes of British Columbia that enactment is an conflict with the provisions of the British North America Act.
18.	On the 15th January, 1925, the executive committee of the allied tribes unanimously adopted the following resolution:-
"In view of the fact that the two governments have passed orders in council confirming the report of the royal commission on Indian affairs, we the executive committee of the allied Indian tribes of British Columbia are more than ever determined to take such action as may be necessary in order that the Indian tribes of British Columbia may receive justice and are furthermore determined to establish the rights claimed by them by a judicial decision of His Majesty's Privy Council."
19.	In the course of debate held in the House of
Commons on the 26th June, 1925, the Minister of Interior	speaking on	behalf of the government ofCanada	in answer to	the	representations which	had
been made on behalf of the allied tribes recognized that the allied tribes are entitled to obtain from His Majesty's Privy Council decision of the Indian land controversy and agreed that the government would give authoritative sanction for doing so.
20 With regard to the remark then made by the minister that the government would not be justified in providing funds unless "something very concrete" should	be presented,	the	allied tribes submit	thatthey have already presented "something very concrete,"	namely their	own conditions proposed	for
equitable settlement by their statement presented to the government of British Columbia in response to request of that government in the month of December 1919, and subsequently presented to the government of Canada.
21.	With regard to the general subject of the funds which as the allied tribes claim the Dominion of Canada is under the obligation of providing, the allied tribes have placed in the hands of the Superintendent-

Allied Indian Tribes
General of Indian Affairs the following Memorial:-
The Allied Indian Tribes of British Columbia to the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs
By this memorial of the allied tribes of British Columbia it is respectfully submitted as follows:-
The allied tribes submit that the Dominion of Canada is under obligation for .providing all funds already expended and all funds requiring hereafter to be expended by the allied tribes in dealing with the Indian land controversy, in establishing the rights of the allied tribes, and in bringing about final adjustment of all matters relating to Indian affairs in British Columbia.
The allied tribes so submit upon grounds briefly stated as follows:-
1.	Well established precedent relating to judicial proceedings intended for establishing the rights of Indian Tribes and in particular that of the Oka case, which was carried independently to the Judicial Committee of His Majesty's Privy Council by the Indians interested and of which the total cost was provided by the Parliament of Canada.
2.	The fact that the Dominion of Canada being by virtue of the British North America Act and the "Terms of Union" Trustee for the Indian Tribes of British Columbia and under all obligations arising from such trusteeship has by entering into the compact with British Columbia above mentioned rendered itself incompetent for taking effective action establishing the rights of the Indian Tribes of British Columbia, as is clearly shown by the opinion of the Minister of Justice issued in the month of December 1913, and moreover 'has put itself in the position of a party in the case upholding the contentions of the Province of British Columbia, and by the acts so stated has placed upon the Indian Tribes the absolute necessity of proceeding independently for establishing their rights.
3.	The principle of compensation in respect of all aboriginal land and other rights of the Indian Tribes of British Columbia, responsibility for which has already been conceded by the Dominion of Canada, and of which as the allied Tribes submit the first item consists of the full expenditure required for establishing such rights of the Indian Tribes and bringing about adjustment of all matters now requiring to be adjusted.
4.	The assurances which on behalf of the Dominion of Canada have from time to time been given to the Indian Tribes of British Columbia and in particular that of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and those of the present Minister of Interior.
5.	The lands and funds held by the Dominion of Canada in trust for the allied Tribes and being the full beneficial property of the allied Tribes.
Therefore the allied Tribes now formally demand from the Dominion of Canada payment of the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, being the total amount of such expenditure already incurred, and further demand from the Dominion of Canada that full provision be made for paying all additional funds which hereafter shall be required for such expenditure, as shall be agreed upon between the allied Tribes and the Dominion of Canada or if necessary shall be determined by the Judicial Committee of His Majesty's Privy Council.
Dated at the City of Ottawa the 10th June, 1920.
Peter R. Kelly,
Chairman of Executive Committee of Allied I'ribes.
To Honourable Charles Stewart,
Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs,
Ottawa.
22.	The Government of Canada having definitely agreed as is above shown that the Dominion of Canada
will facilitate securing from the Judicial Committee of His Majesty's Privy Council decision of the Indian land controversy, the General Counsel of allied Tribes entered upon discussion with the Minister of Justice regarding the particular method by which the securing of such decision will be facilitated, and offered to suggest for consideration of the Minister of Justice common ground which might be reached by the Government of Canada and the allied Tribes in connection with the carrying forward of the independent judicial proceedings of the allied Tribes.
23.	In presenting this Petition to the Parliament of Canada as the Supreme Body representing the Dominion of Canada the allied Tribes declare that, while it is necessary for them to demand what they consider to be their rights from both the Province of British Columbia and the Dominion of Canada and even to contest the validity of an Act of the Parliament of Canada, they desire and intend to act towards all Ministers of the Crown, all Members of both Houses of Parliament and all others concerned in a thoroughly reasonable and conciliatory way and that their one central objective is by securing judicial decision of all issues involved to open the way for bringing about an equitable and moderate settlement satisfactory to the Governments as well as to themselves.
Therefore the petitioners humbly pray:-
1.	That by amendment of Chapter 51 of the Statutes of the year 1920 or otherwise the assurance set out in paragraph 11 of this Petition be made effective and the aboriginal rights of the Indian Tribes of British Columbia be safeguarded.
2.	That steps be taken for defining and settling between the allied Indian Tribes and the Dominion of Canada all issues requiring to be decided between the Indian Tribes of British Columbia on the one hand and the Government of British Columbia and the Government of Canada on the other hand.
3.	That immediate steps be taken for facilitating the independent proceedings of the allied Tribes and enabling them by securing reference of the Petition now in His Majesty's Privy Council and such other independent judlicial action as shall be found necessary to secure judgment of the Judicial Committee of His Majesty's Privy Council deciding all issues involved.
4.	That this Petition and all related matters be referred .to a Special Committee for full consideration.
Dated at the City of Ottawa the 10th day of June, 1926.
Peter R. Kelly,
Chairman of Executive Committee of Allied Tribes.

Mr. W. D. EULER (North Waterloo):: Mr. Speaker, I beg to move that the third report of the standing committee- on National Railways and Shipping be referred to the committee of Supply.


Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I do not
rise to oppose the intent of the motion, but it runs in my mind that I have never heard of a report of a committee being referred to the committee otf Supply, and that the right procedure is to have the report come before the House and be by the House referred to the committee of Supply. I speak, though, without having had time to look the point up.
Old Age Pensions


William Daum Euler: I am making the motion
entirely at the suggestion of the Clerk. I presumed this was the right procedure to follow in connection with interim supply with regard to shipping.


Arthur Meighen: What is the rule?


Hewitt Bostock: From the information I
can gather, this motion refers to a certain appropriation for the merchant marine which has been dealt with by the standing committee on Railways and Shipping. I understand that this item has been passed upon by the eommitteee, but that it has never been referred to the committee of Supply. I understand that there will be an Interim Supply bill, and in order to put things in shape, this report should be referred to the committee on Supply, in order that the amount may be included in the Interim Supply bill.


Arthur Meighen: That is to say the submission to the committee of Supply would come in the usual way?


Hewitt Bostock: Certainly.


Arthur Meighen: That is all right.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the Order for Motions:
Mr. A. W. NEILL (Comox-Alberni) moved:: That this House take the necessary steps under rule 86, to search the journals of the Senate in order to ascertain if any action has been taken by the upper house with regard to Bill No. 21, an act respecting Old Age Pensions.
He said:	For the benefit of members who
would prefer, perhaps, to see the motion in print I may say that they will find it under "Notices of Motion and Questions" in Friday's Votes and Proceedings. I think this motion is thoroughly in order under rule 86, to which I would refer the House. I admit that of late years it has not been much taken advantage of, it has somewhat fallen into disuse. Nevertheless it still remains there to be available for our protection if we require it, and I think this is one of the occasions on which it should be properly invoked. There are two purposes that will be served by this motion. One, of course, is the very obvious purpose stated in the motion. I think it would be better if the motion had read "what action, if any, has been taken", but nevertheless I suppose the wording will cover the purpose aimed at. It seems a remarkable thing that at present we have no channel whatever whereby this House can receive

official information of the rejection of any of its bills by the Senate, or perhaps I had better adopt the conventional words that have come to be regarded as proper in speaking of the Senate and that is "another place". I had better use these words hereafter. But if any of us were to ask the Clerk to-day what has become of this bill-or any other rejected bill for that matter but decidedly so as far as the present bill is concerned-his answer would have to be officially "I do not know." If a bill is accepted by the other House and is returned here we know when that happens because we receive a message to that effect and the same if it is amended. But if a bill is not accepted no message returns and the Clerk of this House is forced to conclude, by some Sherlock Holmes method, that something has happened to it, and that it has been thrown out. That is the exact procedure to-day. If a bill does not come back from the Senate there are several reasons that might account for it. It might have been lost in transit, or one of the papers, when a clerk was collecting a number to send here from the other place, might have slipped out of the folder, have been picked up by the char-woman and by her, in ignorance of its value thrown into the waste basket. The present bill, to all intents and purposes, is in the same position as if it had been in that category. Human nature is liable to make mistakes and something might have happened to the measure on the journey between the two Houses.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Alan Webster Neill: Some hon. gentlemen seem to think the matter is one for laughter but it is within my recollection at any rate, as it must be within the recollection of several other members, that in the last parliament covering only four sessions such a thing as that happened practically twice. I do not say that the whole bill was lost in its transit from the other chamber but in one case an important section was lost between the two Houses. In the other ease some provision was either left out or put in; I think it was put in on the way back. It is not desirable, it is wholly undesirable, that this haphazard method of communication should prevail. I therefore desire that this House should be informed when any bill so important as this has been rejected or whenever any action whatever with respect to it has been taken by the Senate.
The second purpose that I seek by this motion is somewhat along the same line. I wish to correct, or perhaps correct is not the rigffit word; it can only be corrected by

Old Age Pensions
changing the procedure as it at present exists -perhaps overcome would be the better term, an anomaly in the present procedure. The procedure to-day is that when a bill has been sent from this House to the other chamber and it has been accepted, a message to that effect is sent back. Supposing it has been amended in a slight degree, it is returned to this House with a message indicating what the amendments are and the report is placed on the orders of the day and can then be debated. Three courses are then open to this House: We can accept the amendments proposed in the other place or we can reject them, or we can call for a conference which, as the House knows is practically a joint committee of members of the two houses to see if an agreement can be reached. Now all this procedure, this careful and thorough procedure exists to take care of an amendment even of the most petty Character. It may be only the dotting of an "i" or the crossing of a "t" but that procedure is gone through in order to maintain our right, at least of making representations, in case of any difference of opinion between the two legislative bodies. But here is the anomaly, here is the peculiar situation. If it is a case of the total rejection, not of some comparatively unimportant feature but of the whole principle of a bill then none of these safeguards exist at all I Now, if a careful procedure be necessary when a comparatively unimportant amendment is in question, how much more necessary is it when the whole principle of a bill is at stake. I believe that rule S6, which I have invoked in this case, allows us, within certain limits, to which I propose strictly to adhere to debate this subject. In the present case such official as we would send to do what is required would come back and make his report. On receipt of that report we might, if necessary, stretch the rules a little, and base upon it an expression of opinion of our right to make further representations and ask for a conference. If that conference were not successful in determining the issue raised in the other chamber it would at least have the effect of impressing upon its members that we are determined to proceed with the legislation.
There are some further remarks I want to make on this subject. I may be sailing rather close bo the wind in connection with the matter of being out of order. But I very carefully framed my remarks so as to keep just within the line, and as long as I am within the line it matters not how small the margin may be. I will anticipate any criticism which may be made on that score
by referring the House to rule 16, page 50, paragraph 203:
Allusions to debates in the other House are out o orderand so on. I propose to adhere strictly to that. I do not propose to make any allusion to debates or anything else that has transpired in the other House at all. I may also call the attention of the House bo rule No. 19, page 62 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules, paragraph 234 (b) which says that a member of the House cannot:
refer to any debate in the Senate-
And mark this:
but he may refer to the official printed records of the upiper house, though they have not been formally communicated to the lower house.
So I am thoroughly in order in referring to the alleged printed records of the other House. I use the word "alleged" advisedly, because I have in my hands what purports to be minutes of the other House but there is nothing in it to certify to its correctness or to its authenticity at all. It is not signed by any clerk or certified to by anyone. There is a small note at the very end of it to say that it is printed by the King's Printer, but there is a lot of stuff printed by the King's Printer that I would hesitate to endorse as authentic. There are also speeches delivered in this House for the accuracy of which I hope the King's Printer is not responsible. I use that word rightly when I say that it is alleged to be the printed minutes and I therefore assume that I am correct in referring to that printed record. The record, page 279, shows that the bill was defeated, or sup posed to be defeated, by a vote of 45 to 21 a majority of 24. There are 96 members in the other chamber. At present there are three vacancies. The presiding officer reduces that number by one; so that there are ninety-two members competent to vote, and when I say, competent to vote, Mr. Speaker, I mean able to stand up. That is the only requisite required there; so long as they can stand up they can vote. Out of 92 members competent to vote 66 actually voted, about two-thirds. The same record discloses the fact that this was the 24th day this session that a meeting had been held in that chamber. That means 24 working days in five months, an average of less than five days each month.


William Garland McQuarrie: Whose fault was that? It was the government's fault.


Alan Webster Neill: And let us consider how
short a lot of these sessions were-


William Garland McQuarrie: No business for them.
Old Age Pensions


Alan Webster Neill: -and during a great part of the session some of these members were pawing over the nauseous details of divorce bills which should never have been introduced into parliament at all. If there had been any party advantage to gain I can visualize the kind of vote/ that would have been taken. In this House with our 245 members, at times we have seen practically a complete vote recorded in matters of far less importance than the question under discussion. Although only 66 votes were recorded on that occasion, the same record I have referred to shows that 77 members were present in that chamber at some time that day; so that 11 were present who did not vote. Now I may be prejudiced in discussing this matter, but I will try not to be.
The first reaction to my mind when I read the news in the paper was that this was the result of an arrangement by the Conservative party in this House with their friends elsewhere to defeat the measure. That was my first suspicion, and I must say that that suspicion was somewhat strengthened by the proceedings the last time this bill was before this House. When the bill came before us in its early stage I cannot say that it was welcomed with acclaim by the Conservative party, but many hon. members announced openly their approval of it and stated that they intended to support it, but when it was before the House on the last occasion, it was remarkable to see how hon. members on the other side of the chamber who spoke united to condemn it. I took down some of the language used. One hon. member stated it was utterly disappointing. Another hon. member alluded to it as absurd. Another one called it a wash-out, and another hon. member characterized it as abortive. I remember saying to the hon. member sitting beside me at the moment that I could see the finish of the bill in another place, owing to the attitude of hon. members opposite. Further strength is lent to that suspicion- and it may be an unwarranted suspicion- by the fact that- in the other place all the Conservatives present save one solidly voted against the measure, which would point to such a unity of action as would almost presuppose some pre-arranged plan. At any rate, be that as it may, the Conservatives have the largest body in that other place; certainly they could have put the bill through, and certainly they did not, and they must share to a large extent the responsibility for its defeat.
But there were other people in that august body besides the Conservative party. Without reducing the responsibility of the Con-

servative party, let us consider the action of the Liberals in that connection. The Conservative majority, as I gather it, in a full House would have been 12. I am told it is less than that, but certainly not more. Why then was there a majority of 24 when only 66 voted? That calls for investigation and analysis. There are supposed to be 40 Liberals in that place; 20 of them voted for the bill, 3 against it and 17 were absent. Of that 17 it is noteworthy that 7 w'ere in the House that day and did not vote. Some of the absentees may have been sick, but it is not reasonable to suppose that all of those 17 members were sick, and besides that we know that the 7 were present. Have they forgotten the Liberal platform and convention called in Winnipeg in 1919, where a policy was adopted to guide the party in years to come, not to be put into force in a day or a week or a year, but as circumstances warranted? The government of the day thought the time and the circumstances were ripe and introduced the measure. Was it not the duty of the Liberal- senators as henchmen or supporters of that policy, to adhere to the principles of that policy? If they had stood by their principles and by their platform the vote would have been, 42 Conservatives against 40 Liberals for.


Mr. GUTHRIE:: Although my hon. friend may be technically within the rule, I submit he is establishing a very dangerous precedent in referring in terms lacking in respect to members of the other chamber. Certainly he does not show great respect in using the language he has used. I have no objection to the motion, but I do think there should be some limitation of the language which an hon. member may use in speaking of members of the other House. I think the expression he has used is against the spirit of the rule.


Hewitt Bostock: I would ask the hon.
member to withdraw the expression "henchmen." Although it is a proper expression under certain circumstances, yet as the hon. member for South Wellington says, it is not very appropriate when referring to members of the upper house. There are certain amenities in parliament which are not to be ignored. I would call the attention of the hon. member to rule 19 which reads:
No member shall speak disrespectfully of His Majesty, nor of any of the Royal Family; nor of the Governor or person administering the government of Canada; nor use offensive words against either House, or against any member thereof.
The subject is a very delicate one, and I would ask the hon. member to kindly live up to the letter of the rule. I do not think

Old Age Pensions
that the use of the word "henchman" is an insulting expression, but I would not like to be called a henchman under circumstances such as the present. He could say that a member was a supporter of a certain party but "henchman" is too strong an expression in my opinion.


Alan Webster Neill: I have not the slightest
hesitation in withdrawing that word, I had never thought it could be regarded as offensive.


Hewitt Bostock: I never thought the hon.
member intended to be offensive.


Alan Webster Neill: If I had intended to be
offensive I would have used much stronger and more appropriate words. I suppose I adopted the word after reading some of Sir Walter Scott's novels, where it is used and where it was considered to be a compliment for a baron or knight to be called a stout henchman of the king. I think probably that is the way it came into my mind, but I certainly will avoid calling any member a henchman hereafter. I was analyzing the vote, and without adding any adjectives I will say; had the vote gone as I suggest it should have done, it would have read like this:	Forty-two Conservatives against, forty
Liberals and one Conservative in its favour, or forty-one against forty-two. It would have lost by a majority of one, and a loss by a majority of one would have been satisfactory in this respect that it would surely predicate the passing of the bill at a session in the immediate future. We know there are three vacancies and they possibly would have been filled up before next session by men who would be inclined to support the measure. If that body had rejected it by a majority of only one there would not have been very much complaint, because educative forces would have been brought into play and no doubt they would have been prepared to pass it in the near future.
It has been suggested in the press-and I suppose I can allude to it-that possibly the government were animated by improper motives in introducing this measure in this House, the suggestion being that they had been held up-that language was used from time to time-by certain Labour members in this House as the price of their support. May I in parenthesis make the remark that in this House there are other members sympathetic to labour besides the two Labour members from Winnipeg who represent labour? On both sides of the House there are many members who owe a large measure 14011-281
of their support to labour and who are not found wanting in connection with anything that can be done to advance the views of labour. In any event I do not know that it would be a very great crime if the government had yielded to wishes presented by a considerable section of this House in reference to legislation. That is a method adopted by most governments. If we hold views of that kind we are apt to get into a discussion as to whether the dozen members of the cabinet constitute a body of super-human beings and the ordinary members are here only for the purpose of recording the wishes of the government, or whether, as some people hold, the 245 members of parliament are to regard the cabinet merely as an executive body to carry out the people's wishes as expressed by them.


Mr. CAHAN:: I rise to a point of order. The resolution reads:
That this House take the necessary steps under rale 86, to search the journals of the Senate in order to ascertain if any action has been taken by the upper house with regard to Bill No. 21, an act respecting Old Age Pensions.
I think such a discussion as has been proceeding for the last five minutes is entirely out of order as being irrelevant and not pertinent to the resolution, and I ask for a ruling.


Hewitt Bostock: Does any other* hon. gentleman desire to s^eak on the point of order?


Alan Webster Neill: On the point of order I would say that there is not any. This motion refers to the old age pension bill, and within limitations, without making reflections or especially without referring to the debate elsewhere, I consider I am per'f-ctly in order. At the particular moment when the hon. member interrupted me I was dealing with newspaper rumours as regards the motive for the introduction of this bill which motive the newspapers said might have influenced members elsewhere. I think that is a legitimate subject of comment in dealing with the subject generally. I was analyzing this vote which I took from the printed record alluded to before. I submit I am in order within the judgment of this House in dealing with that phase of the matter.
Mr. SPEAKER. Bourinot at page 357 says:
It ds also a part of the unwritten law of parliament that no allusion should be made in one House to the debates in the other chamber, a rule always enforced by the Speaker with the utmost strictness. Members sometimes attempt to evade this rule by resorting to ambiguous terms of expression-'by referring, for instance, to what happened "in another place"; but all

Old Age Pensions

such evasions of a wholesome practice should be stopped by the Speaker, when it is evident to whom the allusions are made.
Bourinot adds.
It is perfectly regular however, to refer to the official printed records of the other branch of the legislature, even though the document may not have been formally asked for and communicated to the House.
So far 1 think the hon. member is referring to those printed records and speaking of the printed record of the occasion referred to.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I was referring to the fact that having dealt with the action of the Senate, the hon. member seemed to me to be reflecting upon the motives of members of this House and members of the government with regard to the introduction of the bill in question, the manner in which it was introduced and the action taken. This seemed to me to be irrelevant as regards the resolution submitted.


Hewitt Bostock: The hon. gentleman who
is now addressing the House knows the rule I have laid down and I am following him pretty closely to see that he does not go beyond that rule.


Alan Webster Neill: The hon. member (Mr. Cahan) is certainly beside the point when he says that I reflected on the government. I was not reflecting on the government at all. I will leave that phase of the matter seeing that it seems to be a source of irritation to my hon. friend although I do not know why it should be. I will summarize the situation in this way. This bill was passed1 unanimously by this House; therefore there can be no suggestion of coercion of the government, and this same House passed unanimously a resolution three years ago in favour of the same principle. One hon. member who recorded his vote against this measure sat in this House last session and' voted for the very principle and methods which he now condemns. How true it is that in a different environment we forget the convictions and principles with which we start out. There must be something enervating, in the atmosphere of the place, which to amplify the name of a popular or unpopular novel, I might call "The Land of Twilight."
The situation as summarized from the official record is this: The Conservative party could have passed the measure and did not; the Liberals might have tried to pass it and they did not. So this was not a partisan decision in any way, and we can only suppose it was in some way connected with the environment, with some kind of a sobering, might I say stupefying, influence that seems to dominate in

certain places, that seems to paralyze any desire for enterprise or progress. Possibly it is also due to the fact that possession of great wealth or connection with the big interests necessarily gives one a different point of view, and ahove all to that freedom from responsibility to anyone or everyone.


An hon. MEMBER:: Does the hon. member want to go there?


Alan Webster Neill: Some hon. gentleman suggests I may be there. Perhaps if I were there I too would have a selfish point of view. Perhaps I would remember that as long as I lived I had a remuneration just forty times as great as that suggested that this government should be called upon to bear in the case of a poor old industrial worker, that for each day of the average session I would be drawing nearly double the amount proposed to be contributed by this government for a whole year to that industrial worker. Above all there is the lack of accountability. That I think has a great deal to do with the matter.
There is an old saying-I do not know the author of it and it does not greatly matter- "Whom the gods seek to destroy they first make mad." I was at church yesterday or at least recently and I heard a portion read from the Old Testament. The biblical historian recorded the doings of one of the Kings of Israel in this language:
And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above ail that were before him.
I could not help thinking what a terrible epitaph that was to put on a man's life career, what a poor letter of credit for a man to carry into another life. Glancing over the pages of history since confederation and looking forward as far as one's limited vision can go, I have not read and I cannot conceive of any step more calculated absolutely to alienate the sympathy of the ordinary people of Canada, sometimes called sneeringly "the common people"-I will adopt the term as it is a good phrase-than the rejection of a measure of such popular importance as this is. The average point of view of the man in the street towards the Senate is one of mild derision, rising in some cases to rather hostile dimensions, and I am afraid that when the people in general find that a body which costs them three-quarters of a million a year has rejected not the details of this measure, but -and this is the vital point in respect of which the common man will be most embittered-the very principle of the measure itself, the feeling against that body will be greatly aggravated. The details of the bill could have been adjusted, bus the vital prin-

Old Age Pensions
ciple of the whole thing has been rejected, and rejected by such a large majority. It means that for a long time to come, until time has got its work in, there will foe no hope of this or any other government bringing forward a measure of old age pensions in the face of such a complete and final rejection of the principal at stake by such a considerable majority. If I were, what the hon. gentleman hopes I shall be some day, a member of that body; if I had no conscience whatever, no regard for the welfare of anyone but myself; and if I were animated only by a selfish desire to remain in the promised land as long as I could until death might us part, my one last and only advice to my fellow members would be, "Pass this measure, and pass it quickly, for if you don't the people will turn on us and rend us and we shall be torn apart from the emoluments we receive." That would be my advice, purely from a mercenary point of view.
There was an English king many years ago who opposed, as so many kings do, certain measures of reform sought by his subjects. Ultimately the aggrieved subjects took up arms, with the result that there was a long and bloody war that lasted six years. Finally they cornered the king, driving him into a position where defeat and humiliation with the possibility of death stared him in the face. In the space of one short hour he conceded the reforms for which his subjects had been contending for six years, and was astounded to receive the advice of his subordinates that the people would not accept these belated concessions. His advisers told him, "A month ago the people would have been satisfied with half the reforms you now grant them, but to-day they demand more". What they demanded was in addition, the unconditional abdication of his majesty. There may be a moral there for our political Ahabs, the privileged sons of Omri.
Now I have almost done. I do not apologize, even at this late date of the session, although I have spoken at considerably greater length than I should otherwise have done. But the matter is of far greater importance than many others that have engaged, or will likely engage, the attention of parliament this year, and the time I have spent discussing it this afternoon is fully justified. I want to quote from the pen of an abler man than myself, a few observations on the defeat of this measure. But I cannot quote his own words precisely; I must venture to paraphrase them.
The Old Age Pension Act, he says, has been blocked by reactionaries. It is nearly twenty 14011-2814
years since Great Britain enacted an old age pension measure, and fear and want is no longer seen in the eyes of old British workers as it is in too many instances witnessed among the old people of Canada. Australia has old age pensions, and so have most of the progressive nations of Europe. No body must be allowed to deny Canadian workers this moderate measure of social reform, which after all is only a palliative. There would be no need for old age pensions under a complete system of social justice. No body must stand as an obstruction against social justice or against any of the temporary expedients which other civilized nations have adopted as insurance against revolution. The reactionary sits securely on the backs of the Canadian toilers.
I may digress here for a moment to observe that we are spending large sums of money on immigration to secure from the Old Country men who when they are out of work are in the receipt of doles, and who are insured against subsequent privation and suffering by a system of old age pensions. Is it any wonder that such people do not come in the numbers we anticipate?
The writer then goes on to remark that in the British Isles a condition prevailed somewhat similar to the one we have in this country, but that the House of Lords of their own volition curtailed their powers to a reasonable extent. The suggestion about safeguarding provincial rights is so much humbug. Such rights have been outraged session after session for the benefit of bootleg liquor vendors in the province of British Columbia^ So says the writer, and I know this to be the case inasmuch as I come from that province. I should like to have the words of this writer written in letters of gold, as the saying is, but the paraphrase I have given must suffice. Here is the gem of the whole article: The withered hand of reaction will emerge at the end of every session and throw back legislation which the elected members of parliament have approved, so long as the majority of the Canadian people are satisfied to have it so. One Nova Scotia fisherman at the age of seventy, one Quebec lumberman, one city street sweeper, if you will, one farmer has contributed more to the upbuilding of Canada and has done more to earn a pension than any one of these political reactionaries.
Long years ago when I was a boy my father, I remember, warned me against any attempt to bolster up a good case by means of exaggeration. I notice how true this is all
Old Age Pensions

through life. When you have a good case you should not seek to spoil it by overdrawing or exaggerating it. It is always better to be moderate, temperate, indeed almost kindly, in the language you use, for such language will appeal to reasonable people where stronger and more passionate words will fail. Therefore I will not indulge in the language with which I should like to characterize the rejection of this very moderate measure of social reform. We know that it is only a bad case whose arguments must be reinforced with declamation and abuse, and I have carefully refrained from anything of the sort. I endorse, however, every word of the editorial from which I have paraphrased some sentences, and I trust that it will be read throughout the country and will result in the formation of a determined public opinion. A strong and determined opinion among the masses of the people is the greatest force for good in a democratic country or one governed under democratic conditions. I hope therefore that public sentiment will develop and crystallize into such an insistent and vigorous demand as will render it impossible ever again for a measure like this, passed unanimously by 245 newly elected members representative of the common people of Canada, to be blocked or rejected as this one has been.


Arthur Meighen: 
[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 190, from the Senate, respecting certain patents of James McCutcheon Coleman-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 191, "from the Senate, to incorporate Gatineau Transmission Company-Mr. Fontaine.

Questions

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. BROWN:: j, "Was there a legal department functioning in the Winnipeg office of the Soldier Settlement Board at the time Colonel F. J. Murray sold the W-J of 2-10-X East of the 1st in Manitoba to the board and was the purchase approved by the head of the department or any member of his staff?
2. Who signed the requisition for the purchase price and who forwarded the cheque for the purchase prire to the vendor?
3.	Was any member of the legal department negligent in the performance of his duties in approving of the purchase of the said land and in paying the purchase price to the vendor? If so, who was the party?
4.	Did any official of the board investigate the aforesaid purchase and report at any time to the head office of the board or any other government official whether any member of the staff of the legal department had failed to perform his duties properly in connection with the purchase of said land and recommend that the services of the negligent party be terminated? If so, who made the investigation and report and who was named in the said report as the negligent party 7
5.	Was any member of the staff of the legal department in Winnipeg dismissed or otherwise punished for negligence in connection with the said purchase? Il so. who was so punished?


Hon. Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: 1.	Yes, the purchase was not approved by any member of the 1'egal staff.
2.	W. K. Chandler signed the requisition. No cheque was forwarded to the vendor. Two warrants were forwarded to the vendor's solicitors-one by C. M. Boswell and the final warrant by A. M. Graham.
3.	No member of the legal staff was found negligent by the beard.
4.	While a general investigation of purchases of land made in Manitoba was being held in 1920, this purchase came to attention and was investigated by the commissioner holding the inquiry, John Barnett. No recommendation was made that the services of any member of the legal staff should be terminated because he had failed to perform his services properly in connection with the purchase of said land.
5.	No.


SOLDIER SETTLEMENT BOARD-LAND PURCHASES
Mr. DONNELLY:: 1 What prices were paid by the Soldier Settlement Board for each of the following parcels of land,-South 1 25-2-21 W. 1st, East i 30-2-20 W. 1st, West 4 2-4-20 W. 1st, all of section 9-4-20 W. 1st, and North J 3-4-20 W. 1st?
2.	Who in each ease was the vendor, and when and at what price did the vendor acquire the land?


Hon. Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: 1.	Of the twelve quarter-sections described the board purchased only two quarter sections, namely,-the S. E. 25-2-21-W. 1 for $6,200; and the N. E. 30-2-20-W. 1 for $6,000.
2.	The vendor of both quarters so purchased was R. G Willis. According to the vendor's affidavit on Form E, he purchased the S. E. 25-2-21-W. 1 in November, 1914, for $4,000, and subsequently erected a frame barn (36 x 42) on a cement foundation with cement floors, completed a well with windmill, fenced the whole quarter and improved the house; and he purchased the N. E. 30-2-20-W.
1 in 1915 for $4,800.


PRINCE RUPERT ELEVATOR
Hon. Mr. MANION:: Has any guarantee or pledge been given to the lessees of the Prince Rupert elevator, either by the government or the officials of the Canadian National Railways that sufficient ocean tonnage will be brought to Prince Rupert to take care of all the grain cargoc3 offering?


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: No guarantee or pledge by Canadian National Railways.


F. J. SOLOMON
Mr. MACDONALD (Kings):: 1.	Is the government aware that prohibition or inland revenue officers searched the premises of F. J. Solomon at Georgetown, Prince Edward Island, on or about the 12th March last, finding therein a still which was seized and placed in the custody of the local customs officer, and reporting same to the inland revenue authorities?
2.	If so, what disposition has been made of said shill 7
3.	What action has been taken with regard to a prosecution in this case?
4.	Was a fine imposed, and if so, was it collected?
5.	If not, why not?


Hon. Mr. BOIVIN:: 1.	Yes.	.
2.	The still has been destroyed by order of the department and certificate to that effect furnished by T. Morrissey, sub-collector of customs and excise at Georgetown.
3.	F. J. Solomon was prosecuted under Section 180 (e) of the Excise Act; pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a penalty of $200 or six months' imprisonment. The case was tried by Judge A. L. Fraser of Georgetown.
4.	Yes.
5.	Answered by No. 4.	__


AMHERSTBURG-DREDGING
Mr. GOTT:: 1.	Was any dredging done by the Canadian government at the port of Amherstburg, Ontario, during the years 1922, 1923, 1924, and 1925?
Questions

2.	If so, under whose supervision was the work carried on?
3.	When was the work completed?
4.	What dredges or tugs were used in connection with the work?
5.	Were any reports made that the work was not properly completed?


Hon. Mr. KING (Kootenay):: 1.	^es, in 1924 at Mullen's coal dock.
2.	District Engineer H. B. R. Craig.
3.	June 30, 1924.
4.	Dredge "Q & R No. 1" and tug "Peel".
5.	No.


IMMIGRATION SERVICE-WINDSOR
Mr. GOTT:: 1.	How many officials are engaged at the port of Windsor, Ontario, in the immigration service who are non-residents of Essex county?
2.	What additional expense does it cost the government (average per man) to employ outside men in the immigration service at the port of Windsor, Ontario ?


Hon. Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: 1.	One.
2.	Sixty dollars per month living allowance, pending completion of transfer.
2.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-O.C.S. FREIGHT
Mr. WHITE (Mount Royal):: 1.	In the Canadian National Railway annual report for the year ending 1925, a comparative statement of revenue tonnage is shown on pages 33 and 34. Is
O.C.S. freight included in this statement?
2.	If so, what were the tonnages of the various groups handled O.C.S. ?
3.	What amount of revenue, by groups, was credited to the Canadian National Railway earnings on account of this freight?


Hon. Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	Answered by No. 1.


THE NATIONAL DEBT
Mr. SPENCER:: 1.	What is the total liability of the Dominion of Canada in respect to short term notes?
2.	What are the maturing obligations of Canada during each of the next ten years?
3.	What is the amount of Canada's national debt as on the first of June, 1926?
4.	Of this amount how much is tax exempt?


Hon. Mr. ROBB:: 

QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: 1.	What is the name of the Deputy Minister of National Defence and his salary?
2.	What is the number of officers in the Canadian militia on the staff or in the permanent force who receive an annual salary (including pay and allowances) of:
(a)	$9,000;
(b)	$7,500	and	over	but	less	than	$9,000;(c)	$6,000	and	over	but	less	than	$7,500;(d)	$5,000	and	over	but	less	than	$6,000;(e)	$4,000	and	over	but	less	than	$5,000;(f)	$3,000	and	over	but	less	than	$4,000;(g)	$2,000	and	over	but	less	than	$3,000?3.	Is it the intention of the minister; (a) to maintain any longer officers receiving a higher salary than the deputy minister of the department; (b) to reduce the salary- of officers on the staff as was done with the privates in 1924?


COLONIZATION SUB-AGENTS
Mr. BARBER:: 1.	Were the following in the employ of the government, during the years 1925 and 1926, as special colonization sub-agents; Rev. J. M. Boucher; Rev. A. S. Desohenes; Rev. J. M. Doucet; Rev. Nap. Eavreau; Rev. F. X. Goyette; Rev. L. P. Gravel; Rev. G. P. Jubianvil'le; Rev. S. Lajoie; Rev. L. A. Lebel; Rev. A. Lepage; Rev. E. Martin; Rev. Chas. Minette; Rev. J. A. Normandeau; Rev. P. M. Roussel; Rev. B. Schaffler, all of Montreal?
2. If so; (a) what salary was paid in each case, during 1925 and 1926; (b) what expenses were paid in each case during 1925 and 1926?
3.	What were their duties?
4.	Was Rev. J. A. Ouelettte employed as colonization agent at Montreal during .the years 1925 and 1926?
5.	If so, what salary and expenses were -paid him during each of the above years?



UNOPPOSED MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Mr. DOUCET:: For a copy of all correspondence, reports, telegrams, and other documents, exchanged between the St. Lawrence Pulp and Lumber Corporation, of Chandler, Quebec; Mr. Pierre-S. Lafontame, wharfinger of the public wharf at Sandy Beach, Quebec, and the Department of Public Works, regarding payment of wharfage tolls by the said St. Lawrence Pulp and Lumber Corporation at Sandy Beach, Quebec.
No. 3 HARBOUR BOARD ELEVATOR-VANCOUVER


Mr. ROWE:: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, telegrams and other documents, exchanged between the Vancouver Harbour Commissioneis, their solicitors, and the
Grain Growers Grain Company; F. E. Buckerfield,
J. R. Murray, -manager of the Grain Growers Grain Company, Honourable T. A. Crenar, and any other officer of the Grain Growers Grain Company or their solicitors. Also a copy of lease and agreement entered into between the harbour 'board and the lessees, in reference to No. 3 harbour board elevator, Vancouver.



CAPTAIN CHARLES GREFFARD.

Hon. Mr. STEVENS:: For a copy of all correspondence in connection with certain charges made against Captain Charles Greffard, camp supervisor at Valcartier, together with a copy of the evidence taken by Sergeant Zanneith, of the R.C.M.P., in November last, together with his report. Also a copy of the evidence taken by Colonel J. Roy, of Ottawa, in March, 1926, together with a copy of his report.



CALGARY STOCK YARDS INVESTIGATION

Mr. DAVIS moved:: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, reports and other documents relative to the investigation of certain alleged drregularitdes in connection with the handling of dive stock and other 'matters at Calgary stock yards.


Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, in so far as this
motion refers to correspondence, letters and other documents relative to this investigation, there can be no exception whatever taken to their production. However, as the report referred to deals with an inquiry 3 p.m. which is still under way, I do not think it would be in the public interest that at the present state this report should be tabled. With this reservation, I shall be glad to get the other documents before the House as early as possible.


Arthur Meighen: Does the minister mean there has been an interim report?


William Richard Motherwell: It is an interim
report of a departmental nature, dealing with an inquiry that is still under way.


Arthur Meighen: It will be brought down
later?


William Richard Motherwell: I would think so.


Alfred (Fred) Davis: Mr. Speaker, I understand that representatives of the department were sent to Calgary to investigate local conditions, and that they have made a report. That is the report which I asked for.


William Richard Motherwell: That is the report to which I referred, but inasmuch as I am advised that a further inquiry will be necessary before a solution of the various problems involved can be arrived at, I do not think it is in the public interest to make that report public at the present time.
Interim Supply


Hon. R. B. BENNETT (West Calgary):: Mr. Speaker, this is a much more important matter than the minister's casual observations seem to indicate. There has been litigation. The matter has been heard in the courts, and at the moment there is intense dissatisfaction on the part of the people connected with the stock yards as to the character of the investigation that w-as carried on by the representatives of the minister. They went there, they made an investigation, and they made a report; it was not an interim report. The minister then directed that they should make a further report, as I understand, and those who have been connected with the stock yard industry in Calgary for many years are under the impression that a very great injustice is being done to them, and that the government is endeavouring to assist in that injustice. I do not for one moment associate myself with that contention, not being sufficiently informed to form a proper opinion, but they feel that very strongly, and they have telegraphed and written to me, and when I was west the other day a delegation called to see me. They sent a telegram to the minister, to which he replied indicating that a further investigation would be held. In the meantime a certain license has been extended for another thirty days. The case is being tried in the press, and the general impression on the part of the stock yard industry is that they are being badly treated by the minister, because time is passing, and they fear that their case is not being properly-presented to the country at any rate, and that they are being prejudiced and their interests sacrificed because of an alleged desire to carry-on what is called co-operative marketing, which they submit is nothing more than an effort to destroy this legitimate business built up after the expenditure of vast sums of money-. I think the investment in the Calgary stock yards by the Canadian Pacific Railway is something like $700,000, if my memory serves me; I have not seen the last annual report, but that investment is listed among their securities. Under these circumstances, I submit that the matter is of very-great importance.


Hewitt Bostock: No debate is allowed on such motions.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Not on motions for
papers?


Hewitt Bostock: No. I thought the hon.
member was just making an explanation, but it turns out to be an address. Shall the motion carry? Carried.
Mr Motherwell.]


William Richard Motherwell: With the reservation I made.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Carried on division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, on division.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Henry Herbert Stevens: I would like to ask if provision is being made for the passing of the necessary supply for the payment of the civil service tomorrow? To-morrow is a pay day, and I understand that the interim supply has been exhausted. I thought I would bring it to the attention of the Minister of Finance, and ask if provision will be made to pay the service to-morrow.


Hon. J. A. ROBB (Minister of Finance):: When my hon. friend rose in his place, I was just about to ask the unanimous consent of the House to present interim supply bills, which I do now. I move that the House go into committee of Supply.
Motion agreed to and the House went into committee, Mr. Duff in the chair,



COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

James Alexander Robb: Resolved, that a sura not exceeding $15,934,291.06 being one-twelfth of the amount of each of the several items to be voted as set forth in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1927, laid before the House of Commons at the present session of parliament, be granted to His Majesty, on account for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1927.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: I assume, Mr. Chairman, that the proportion, one-twelfth, has been correctly w-orked out.


James Alexander Robb: Yes.


Henry Lumley Drayton: There is just
one mistake that I want to bring to the attention of my hon. friend, a mistake made by one of his colleagues in connection with the previous interim supply votes. I know there is no misunderstanding between my hon. friend and myself; that is, the fact of these supply votes being allowed to go through in this way does not commit the House in any way as to the principle in connection with any item in the estimates, and further, that the voting of this interim supply is never taken as authority to make any new commitments. I think my hon. friend entirely agrees with me.


James Alexander Robb: That was our understanding,
and it is so set forth in Hansard.

Sale of Empire Products


James Alexander Robb: Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $10,200,000, being ten million dollars on account of the total amount to be voted by vote No. 372 for loans to Canadian National Railway Company, and two hundred thousand dollars on account of the total amount to be voted by vote No. 373, for a loan to the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, Limited, as set forth in the estimates for the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1927, laid before the House of Commons at the present session of parliament, be granted to His Majesty, on account, for the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1927.
Resolutions reported, read the second time and concurred in.



COMMITTEE OF WAYS AND MEANS

[Stage Direction]
Mr. ROBB moved that the House go into committee of Ways and Means.
Motion agreed to and the House went into committee, Mr. Duff in the chair.
['Oh, no.\nProgress reported.\nOn motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjourned at 12.28 a.m. (Tuesday).\nTuesday, June 15, 1926.']
James Alexander Robb: Resolved, that towards making good the supply granted to His Majesty on account of certain expenses of the public service for the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1927, the sum of $10,200,000 be granted out of the consolidated revenue fund of Canada.


Henry Lumley Drayton: In this case,
Mr. Chairman, the resolution is in a different form. It has to be in a different form because this year, following the practice of last year the railway estimates were separated from the general estimates, but in doing so it was overlooked by the government-I do not know who overlooked it, but at any rate it was overlooked-that nothing was included in their interim supplies for the National Railways. It developed before the committee that the National Railways urgently required this $10,000,000, and that the merchant marine urgently required this $200,000, and as we certainly do not want to see these things held up, the committee unanimously consented that this matter should come forward.


James Alexander Robb: Resolved, that towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty on account of certain expenses of the public service for the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1927, the sum of $15,934,291.06 be granted out of the consolidated revenue fund of Canada.
Resolutions reported, read the second time
and concurred in. Mr. Robb thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 192 for granting to His Majesty a certain sum of money for the public service for the financial year ending March 31, 1927.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first
and second time.
Mr. ROBB thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 193 for granting to His Majesty a certain sum of money for the public service for the financial year ending March 31, 1927.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first and second time.


Hewitt Bostock: I presume the two bills
will be considered together in committee.
The House then went into committee on the bills, Mr. Duff in the chair.


Henry Lumley Drayton: So that it may be clear that we understand each other, both these bills will be subject to the stipulations already made in connection with the resolution?


James Alexander Robb: That is quite understood.
Bills reported, read the third time and passed.



[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day.
Mr. MURRAY MacLAREN (St. John-Albert):: May I ask the Prime Minister to inform the House when the royal commission in connection with the Maritimes will proceed with its work?


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: I have received word that Sir Andrew Rae Duncan, chairman of the commission, expects to sail for Canada before the end of the present month. Arrangements are being made to have the commission begin its sittings immediately after his arrival in this country.


SALE OF EMPIRE PRODUCTS IN GREAT BRITAIN
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. A. De WITT FOSTER (Hants-Kings): I draw the attention of the government to an article appearing in the Mail and Empire of June 12th, and if I may be permitted to read just a few sentences from it I should like to found a question thereon. It is in reference to a matter which I have brought before this House a couple of times, dealing with the sale of Canadian products in Great Britain. The article referred to sets forth, in corroboration of the statement I made in this House, that the British government has taken the lead by allocating one million pounds yearly to encourage the sale of empire products in that country, part of which will
Rules oj the House
[Stage Direction]
be spent on advertising. It purports to say further that an important scheme for cooperation between Canadian producers, exporters and transport agencies and the Canadian government, to promote the sale of Canadian food products in Great Britain, has been submitted to the British authorities by the High Commissioner. In view of the importance of the matter I ask the government if they are participating in this scheme by the allocation of a certain sum of money or otherwise, and whether they are assisting in this very laudable purpose of advertising Canadian products in the British Empire?
William Lyon Mackenzie King: The position the government is taking with respect to the money that has been provided for the purpose indicated by my hon. friend is, that the money having been voted by the parliament of Great Britain, the allocation of it comes under the responsibility of the minister in London primarily concerned. However, an intimation has been given us that the British government would welcome.the co-operation of our government by way of suggestion, and we have undertaken to cooperate in that way. But we have sought to make one point clear and that is that our co-operation is to interfere in no way with the responsibility of the British government for the expenditure of its own money in its own way. To the extent that our advice is asked and we are invited to make suggestions, we are only too happy to comply with the invitation.


Mr. FOSTER:: Will the Prime Minister go a step further and tell us if this government is contributing, and if so will we have an opportunity to discuss in this House the subjects which are to be covered by the contribution?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is the point I wish to make clear. Our government is not contributing. This is a sum of money voted by the British parliament to advertise products of different parts of the empire, but if is voted in its entirety by the British parliament itself.


NATURAL RESOURCES
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Alfred (Fred) Davis: Will the Prime Minister tell me if it is the intention of this government to transfer the natural resources of the province of Alberta to that province during the present session?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It is not the intention of the government to proceed with the resolution which now appears on the order paper with respect to the transfer of the natural resources of Alberta.


Arthur Meighen: Or on any other resolution?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No, unless of course there should be some material change in the situation existing at the present moment. .


RULES OF THE HOUSE
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
William Daum Euler: Before proceeding with the orders of the day, I desire to call the attention of the government to a matter of some importance and to address an inquiry to the Prime Minister in connection therewith. Last session a committee was appointed to deal with the revision of the rules. That committee met and did a good deal of work. I think it sat four or five weeks, and finally a report was made to the House. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, the report was never dealt with, nor discussed and no action was taken. It would be very regrettable if the work of that committee were entirely lost. I would ask if it is not possible to take action on that report this session, so that next year we may have the benefit of the recommendations of that committee?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not know whether
my hon. friend was in the House when this matter was brought up before. At the time I mentioned that the Minister of Customs, a former Deputy Speaker, had been asked to confer with the leader of the opposition and the leader of the Progressive party in respect to the rules and to ascertain if it might not be possible to secure agreement in reference to the adoption of certain parts of the report, if not the whole report. I asked my colleague to-day if he had a final conference in this matter, and he mentioned that he had been more or less busily engaged with some other pressing matters, but he hoped to be in a position to have a further conference very shortly. It is the expectation and wish of the government that this matter shall b* taken up this session.

Dominion Iron and Steel


Arthur Meighen: I think the report of
the committee of last session might well be used by the government and by this House as if it were a report of a committee this session. It is not a subject that has any special relation to time or to any parliament; consequently I think the government should act as if the circumstances were that the report had been brought down this session. I would not like to undertake to act on a committee representing this side of the House with a view to seeking to come to an agreement on that report. The report gives certain special advantages to leaders of parties, and I think the matter is now in a position where the government might well take the report, or such portions of it as it. approves, and move in the House for their adoption. I have stated to the Prime Minister that, so far as my personal opinion goes, I would be glad to give it, if it is worth anything, in relation to such portions of the report as the government wishes to move to adopt, but I do not think I can act for the party on any committee with a view to unanimity, in view of certain special features of the report.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The wish of
the government in the matter was to avoid discussion, if possible, when the report was brought down. I think I stated, in the absence of my right lion, friend, that he had mentioned to me that he hoped the government would bring forward such parts of the report as they were prepared to move in this House. As a result of that suggestion, before bringing forward any part of the report, the government thought it advisable to ascertain if there were any serious objection to any portion of it by any hon. member opposite or from any group in the House. In the event of finding out that there was objection to any part liable to create long debate, the government thought it would be inadvisable to introduce that part. The only wish the government has in the matter in conferring with my right hon. friend or any other member is, if possible, to bring in only such parts of the report as are likely to be generally acceptable to the House, and thus avoid a protracted debate, but not to bring portions of the report likely to occasion protracted discussion. Perhaps my right hon. friend will give us the benefit of his opinion as to the part he thinks will meet with opposition of hon. members opposite, and if he will go that far, we will take his opinion into consideration in deciding what part of the report should be submitted to the House.
PERMANENT FORCE On the Orders of the Day:


Alexandre Joseph Doucet: Will the Minister of National Defence tell me when I may expect the return to a motion adopted by the House on March 22, last with reference to officers and men of the permanent force of Canada?


Hon. E. M. MACDONALD (Minister of National Defence):: My hon. friend will recall that the form of that resolution was in question for some time and he wrote me stating that a certain portion of the information would be satisfactory. That portion is now being prepared, and will be brought down in a few days.
GRADING OF EGGS On the Orders of the Day:


Alan Webster Neill: I wish to draw the attention of the Minister of Agriculture to a telegram that I received which I will read and send to him, and ask him to send it with other data to the committee on Agriculture. The telegram reads:
Courtney, B. C.
A. TV. Neill, M.P.,
Ottawa, Ont.
View with alarm attempt to discontinue grading of eggs. The district association here sure that increased consumption result of consumer being better able rely upon freshness of eggs offered for sale. Considerable improvement in quality of eggs here since grading enforced. Believe same in interest of both producer and consumer.
Comox Creamery Association.


DOMINION IRON AND STEEL CORPORATION
[Stage Direction]
Mr. FINLAY MacDONALD (South Cape Breton) asked leave under rule 39 to move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the industrial crisis arising out of the announced intention of the directors of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, Limited, to default in payment of interest on bonds maturing July 1, 1926, with consequent unemployment on a large scale, and distress particularly in the province of Nova Scotia.
Hewitt Bostock: I am not quite sure that it is a matter of urgent public importance but of course according to rule 39 if twenty members rise the hon. gentleman may proceed.
The Clerk assistant having stated that more
than twenty members had risen:
Dominion Iron and Steel


Mr. MacDONALD (South Cape Breton):: I appreciate the responsibility of any hon. member moving the adjournment of the House and in order to do so he must be able to justify himself by calling the attention of the House to a matter of urgent public importance. The subject that I am going to bring to the attention of hon. members this afternoon is one not only of grave, but of vital importance to the people of eastern Canada. For the past few days the financial press of Canada has carried the news that the directors of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, Limited, intend to default in the payment of interest and sinking fund on their bonds, the first issue of which matures on July 1, and the second on September 1. The importance of such a move as this cannot be exaggerated. It is widespread and it is going to have a most disastrous effect as regards not only the island of Cape Breton, but the whole of eastern Canada.
The Dominion Iron and Steel Company, Limited, is one of the constituent companies of the British Empire Steel Corporation. It has been in existence for about a quarter of a century. It was organized about 1899 and began operations two or three years later. It is situated in the city of Sydney which at the time of its inception was a town of 3,500 inhabitants. Owing to the establishment of that company there, the town has grown into a city of about 25,000 inhabitants. The little town at the inception of the company obligated itself very heavily to the extent of $100,000 odd for the purchase of a site on which to establish this organization. At the time of the inception of that company we were led to believe that it had an exceptionally bright future. It was situated at tidewater within easy access of coal deposits and iron ore and in a particularly good situation to manufacture iron and steel cheaply. As a result of that the stock of the company was very largely marketed. The Liberal governments of that day both of Nova Scotia and of the Dominion at Ottawa assisted the corporation very generously. The federal government afforded them a certain measure of tariff protection and also gave them bonuses which had the effect of stimulating industry in its early days.
The city of Sydney in order to meet the growing demand of the population also went heavily into debt to the extent of some millions of dollars in order to provide the necessary civic services for this great corporation. The population grew from 3,500 to

25,000. At the present time there are some 3,000 employees in that corporation, not all on full time, but all depending for their livelihood on it. There are several allied industries which depend upon it. For instance the Tar and Chemical Company, the Cross Fertilizer Company and some smaller industries depend for their existence upon the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, Limited. The Dominion Coal Company alone gets a market for about 1,250,000 tons of its coal there. In addition to those millions that the city has spent on services, trust and loan companies have spent other millions of dollars in mortgages and other securities in the city of Sydney. If this industry goes, all those industries go, all this money invested in stock, city bonds, stocks of other allied industries and mortgages in the city, go. So that when I contemplate the threatened failure of this industry as it is now threatened by the action of the directors who say that they can no longer carry on and pay the interest on their bonds, I shudder to think of the widespread disaster that must follow.
I think this government can save the situation and I am imploring them to do it. I am pointing out to them that this corporation is a child of Liberal administrations in the past. Its birth and growth were due to them and in years gone by they pointed with pride to the result of Liberal administration in Canada in the establishment, organization and carrying on of those great companies. To me the thing absolutely transcends all political interests. It is so important that I approach it entirely from a national standpoint. It is not my purpose to indicate how I think the government should act; that I leave entirely to them. It is not my purpose to insinuate even in the most indirect way that the situation is due to the action or inaction of any government in the past. I intend simply to point out the present situation, the disaster that threatens that company, and to ask the government if they will give us any assurance that this great disaster may be averted.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What would my hon. friend recommend should be done?


Finlay MacDonald: As I pointed out I leave that entirely in the hands of the Prime Minister and his government. It would be presumptuous of me to indicate in any way what they should do. They are advised of the situation and they

Dominion Iron and Steel
probably know as much about it as I do. I feel sure' also that they are as much concerned about it as I am and that they will do whatever they deem fit. I leave it to their wisdom, because on their shoulders will rest the responsibility.


Mr. L. W. JOHNSTONE (Cape Breton North-Victoria):: I rise to second the motion of the hon. member, and in doing so I heartily endorse every statement he has made. The only excuse, if excuse is necessary, for bringing up the matter is that it is one of vast importance to the Maritime provinces. I do not think the government and the members of this House generally realize quite fully what it means to those provinces to have either of our two basic industries closed down. It would throw out of employment some 3,000 men who are entirely dependent upon the operations of the industry, and, in addition to this, the market for local produce which supplies the needs of these miners would be affected. Small business firms, various minor industries, and citizens of all classes living in the surrounding districts are vitally interested in the coal and steel industries of Nova Scotia. The people of the province as well' as others in eastern Canada have also invested their money in the bonds, debentures and stocks of the company. I have personal knowledge of some who have sunk their savings in the industry, and the closing down of operations would mean ruin to them. Our steel works have passed through a very trying time during the past number of years. By reason of the situation on the seaboard the industry has suffered more than any other steel industry on this continent from the competition of European producers, which competition has been stimulated by depreciated currency abroad. This disability cannot last forever, but it may continue long enough to kill the industry in Nova Scotia. We therefore come to the government to-day and ask them to do something to solve this great problem. Definite action is needed right away to give the people of the province, and especially those engaged in these industries, some assurance of stability. I cannot do better than quote in this connection the words of an editorial which I have taken from one of the principal newspapers of Nova Scotia and which I think covers the ground completely:
The greatest industrial interests of the province are in jeopardy; an untoward result means for the worker poverty, for the owners of these properties ruin, and for the enterprising communities which have grown up around them desolation and decay. Such results are not local in their consequences. They affect the whole business life of the Dominion. May they do more, they affect the prestige of Canada.
We are asking the government to take hold of this matter in earnest, to investigate the facts, and to adopt such means as will render impossible such a condition as is predicted in this editorial. The situation in which the industry finds itself to-day is so serious that in a very short time unless relief is forthcoming the province of Nova Scotia will be injuriously affected, with the possibility of the city of Sydney being wiped off the map.
Mr. ROBERT K. SMITH (Cumberland): As a Nova Scotian I cannot sit idly by and allow this discussion to pass without offering some comment. The point raised by the hon. member who moved the resolution is well taken: this matter should be approached in a non-partisan spirit. The situation is so grave that, as he observes, it transcends all political affiliations and I have no doubt that we are capable of considering it from the national standpoint and from that standpoint alone.
The coal and steel industries of Nova Scotia have been very closely associated for the past number of years, so that what affects one industry naturally reacts upon the other. A blow to the steel industry of Nova Scotia is a blow to the coal industry of the same province, and vice versa. When we realize that these are the staple enterprises of that province, employing over 25,000 workmen, and that upon them over one-fifth of the entire population of the province is directly dependent, not to mention the other people in the province who are indirectly affected, we can understand how important it is to the province that nothing shall be done to impair their activity. I do not think there is any need just now to elaborate the circumstances which have hastened the present situation, but it can fairly be said that the steel industry of Nova Scotia, while it can compete with legitimate English or American industry, cannot meet the competition of European countries where cheapened labour, a depreciated currency and non-union conditions, and in a good many instances, child labour, make for a low cost of production.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: What has the depreciated currency to do with foreign competition?
Mr. iSMITH: It has been stated by those who are in a position to know that the wages of the steel workers in Europe have increased to six times the value of the franc which is not on gold coin basis while in Canada the wages of steel workers have gone up 80 per cent on the basis of the gold standard. This
Dominion Iron and Steel

means that whereas the wages of European workers have increased six times on the basis of the franc, the increase is but 2 per cent on the basis of the gold coin. On the same standard the wages of the steel workers of Canada have increased to the enormous extent I have mentioned.


Milton Neil Campbell: To the extent to which currency in foreign countries has depreciated, the cost of living has increased. Therefore the workman would have to secure a proportionately larger amount of money. I am not arguing on the general question that the hon. gentleman is discussing at'all, but I fail to see his point, that the European manufacturer is in a favoured position because of the depreciated currency of his country.


Mr. SMITH:: I think my friend will admit, taking that one point alone, that since 1913 we have increased the wages of our employees 80 per cent to meet the situation on a certain gold coin basis, which is the only basis we appear to be able to work on in Canada to-day, but with only a two per cent increase on the same gold basis in Belgium and France we are up against a disadvantage that we cannot very well overcome without some change.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: Would the hon.
gentleman state what the importation of steel from Europe has been for the last year or two?


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: I have the information, but
I cannot put my hand on it at the moment. Our total importations of iron products for the year ending February, 1926, amount to $171,000,000 odd, of which we imported from the United States $151,000,000 odd, and from the United Kingdom $17,000,000 odd. I cannot give my hon. friend exact figures of the importations from European countries.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The depreciated
currency, then, does not enter very largely into the matter when you consider the imports.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: It is a well-recognized fact,
and I think my hon. friend will admit it, that large steel importations have come from Belgium and France.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Not according to
the figures the hon. gentleman presented to the House.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: What figures does my hon.
Mend refer to?
rMr, Smith.]


James Shaver Woodsworth: Of the total importations from the different countries, $171,000,000 odd, the gentleman stated that $151,000,000 odd came from the United States.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: I hope my hon. friend is
not trying to take an advantage because I do not happen to have before me the figures of importations from the European countries. I have given the total importations.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It is merely a
matter of mathematics as to how much 'is left.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: I do not think so. I did
not give my hon. friend complete figures.


James Shaver Woodsworth: W7ould the hon.
member say whether the importations in recent years have been more or less than they were before 1913?


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: Since 1913 the steel industry in Canada has suffered considerably; and whether the importations have been more or less I do not think is pertinent to the question that affects us to-day, because it is recognized that we are in a position which we cannot overcome under the existing circumstances.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It has a direct
bearing on the hon. gentleman's statement with regard to the effect of depreciated currency.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: Does my hon. friend want
to convey the impression to the House that there are no importations from the European countries?


James Shaver Woodsworth: No; on the contrary, I am trying to get from the hon gentleman whether the importations have not been a great deal less.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: Whether they have been less or not is not material if the situation is very seriously affected, as it is.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It is material to
the hon. member's argument.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: I do not think so. I am
arguing that importations of iron products are coming from European countries with depreciated currency, and those importations are putting our manufacturers out of business. Now thlat situation may have existed in 1913, as my hon. friend says, more of the iron and steel products of European countries may have been imported then, but other elements may have entered into the matter then which would not affect it so adversely as to-day.

Dominion Iron and, Steel
Some figures have been handed me of importations from European countries. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 1924, the importations of steel billets from France and Belgium were 3,498 tons; for the same period in 1925, 5,628 tons; and for the ten months of 1925-26, 10,559 tons. These figures indicate a very marked increase.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Would the hon.
gentleman give the proportion of steel billets to the total steel imported?


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: I am not an expert on this
question and cannot supply the information requested.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The figures do not mean anything unless we have that information, Mr. Speaker.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: The figures I have quoted
surely mean something. They show a very marked increase of importations in that particular line, and it is a line that seriously affects us in Nova Scotia. With respect to the importations of steel from Belgium, in my home town of Amherst, Nova 4 p.m. Scotia, we have been endeavouring for some time to carry on a rolling mill for the manufacture of reinforcing rods, using scrap steel in the process. Usually there is a ready market for this product. I wish to quote from a letter that I have received from one of the officials of the company to show what this industry is up against by way of foreign competition. He says:
I went down to Halifax on Tuesday and found the city full of Belgian bars. A certain company have received 725 tons, and all the jobbers of course are going there for supplies.
He mentions the name of the firm, but I do not wish to publish it. He states further: Apparently the company, and possibly a number of other concerns, have bought Belgian bars, and as far as I know we have never been asked to name a price. However, it is impossible ifor us to compete with the continental product to-day, and if this kind of thing is allowed to continue, it simply means that as far as the Maritimes is concerned our rolling mill is out of business. In fact it is a serious condition in Montreal as well.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not think I need stress the very serious and unsettled situation existing to-day in the Maritimes on account of the announcement of far-reaching con-[DOT] sequence which the big iron and steel company has been forced to make. Unless something is done by the government we will be very seriously affected in the province of Nova Scotia, and indirectly the whole Dominion will be adversely affected. Therefore I wish to appeal, as did the hon. gentlemen
who have preceded me, to the government to adopt whatever ways and means they deem to be most effective to avoid the very critical situation that is now impending in Nova Scotia.


James Shaver Woodsworth: May I ask the
hon. gentleman one question. He spoke of the unfair competition of Belgian workers. The steel workers of Nova Scotia have been working twelve hours a day. Would he suggest that the Belgian workers are working longer hours?


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: From the information I have they do not appear to have any regular hours of work over there. To a great extent it appears to be non-union labour and, as mentioned before, starvation-driven labour. That is the sort of competition we are up against to-day. I am not in a position to say what hours they work in Belgium, but I think it is a pretty safe guess that they work longer hours there than they do in Nova Scotia.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I fancy the hon. gentleman is chiefly guessing.


Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):: Could the hon. gentleman tell us whether or not it is true that Besco has discontinued buying Canadian-made nail kegs because they can buy to better advantage in the United States?


Arthur Meighen: Why shouldn't they?


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: I cannot answer my hon. friend's question.


Mr. ROBERT FORKE (Brandon):: Mr. Speaker, I do not know that I have very much to add to the discussion. I did make some remarks outside the House, in the city of Toronto, in connection with the situation in Nova Scotia for which I was afterwards very strongly criticized in this House by one of the members from Nova Scotia. I made the statement at that time that something was wrong with the coal and steel industry in Nova Scotia, that apparently there was something economically wrong with the industry, that it was not on a sound basis. I wonder just what is the matter. We are having a discussion thi3 afternoon and we are told that something has got to be done to save the coal and steel industry in the province of Nova IScotia. But if <they are carrying on under proper conditions, if economically they are on a sound basis, just what is the trouble? Hon. gentlemen who have spoken want the government (to do something. That is pretty nebulous. I do not know what "something" means. I think
Dominion Iron and Steel

the members from Nova Scotia who are asking the government to do something should tell us what they want done.
In regard to what has been said about depreciated currency, that is a favourite argument in the House. I am willing to admit that there may be something in it, but not nearly as much, I think, as some hon. gentlemen would have us believe. If the workers in Great Britain work longer hours, work faster, and do not live as well, then probably they can compete at an advantage, but I question very much if they would under those circumstances. What does experience show? It shows that well-paid workers, living and working under proper conditions, can and do compete successfully with those who are not working under proper conditions. We are continually hearing one side of the argument, about depreciated currency and a low standard of living in Europe, and then hon. gentlemen immediately turn to the other side and speak of the high wages paid in the United States, and say that we cannot compete with the United States under the conditions they have there. Those two arguments do not harmonize.
I am forced to the conclusion that there is something wrong with the industries in the province of Nova Scotia, and I am quite willing to hear a statement of the conditions as they exist in that province. Let hon. gentlemen tell us plainly what is the matter with these industries. Not one hon. member has yet told us what is the matter with them. Let them tell us that plainly, and not get behind some other thing that perhaps i3 not the reason why these industries are. not able to compete. Nova Scotia is the oldest province of the Dominion, and it has done a lot for Canada. I sympathize with the people there.


Arthur Meighen: Before the hon. gentleman proceeds, he says that there is something wrong with the industry. Will he not tell us what it is, and not be so nebulous?


Robert Forke: Perhaps they are working under wrong economic conditions; perhaps they are over-capitalized.


An hon. MEMBER:: Perhaps not.


Mr. CANTLEY:: Perhaps is not good enough.


Robert Forke: I want hon. gentlemen from Nova Scotia to tell me what is the matter. They tell us that these industries cannot exist, and I do not know that I am called upon to make clear what the trouble is.


Thomas Cantley: The hon. gentleman makes insinuations that are not fair. He ought to say what he means by those insinuations, and be frank and straightforward about it.


Robert Forke: I do not know what I am insinuating. Hon. gentlemen from Nova Beotia tell us that these industries cannot exist, and I want them to tell us why they cannot exist. Some explanations have been given, but they do not sufficiently explain to me why the failure of the British Empire Steel Company is in the immediate offing. There is something more to explain. There must be some reason for this condition at the present time.


George Eulas Foster: Will the hon. gentleman tell us whether he, as leader of his party, has seen the clear and distinct representations made by the Steel Company themselves as to what was wrong with that industry?


Robert Forke: I do not know that I can
begin to answer questions in that way, but I think that people who really love their native province and understand some of the difficulties down there in Nova Scotia should explain to the House what the difficulty is. I do not think the House has ever been told. I do not think it is my province to tell the House exactly what is wrong with these industries. We have a large population depending upon these industries, and it will be very serious for them if they are thrown out of employment, and I am prepared to go a long way to help those people. I have sympathy for them. I might even be prepared to sacrifice some of my principles to help them. I do not wish to be held up here as antagonistic to the workers down in Nova Scotia. I simply would like to know what is the trouble. We know that these two industries are linked together, but no one has told the House whether the coal industry is leaning on the steel, or whether the steel industry is leaning on the coal. I have never had that made clear yet. We want to know something of the economic conditions under which these industries are being carried on, and I repeat, there is something economically wrong, because these industries have received tremendous bounties in the past, a vast amount of money that I cannot name, and yet we find ourselves in the position to-day of being called upon to do something to rescue the industry from approaching bankruptcy; in fact, they are bankrupt. Would a little assistance really remedy the situation? Would the company not in a year or two find itself again in its present condition? Let us get

Dominion Iron and Steel
down to the basic facts and find out what is wrong. I repeat again, I am not antagonistic to these industries nor to the people dependent upon them. I am very friendly to the people of Nova Scotia, but I would like to know what are the basic facts underlying their difficulties. Can we possibly remedy them by paltry assistance in the meantime to get over a difficult situation? I hope some member from Nova Scotia will get down to basic facts, and tell us what is really the matter with the coal and steel industry in his province.


Mr. JOHN EVANS (Rosetown):: We are
face to face with a situation that might have been expected by anyone who had in any way learned even the ABC of economics many years ago. It is a case where an industry built up on a false basis has come practically to the point where it has got to reorganize and be built upon a sure foundation, on its own merits and standing, or it can go no further. The steel industry in Canada has from its inception been favoured as perhaps no other industry has; in fact, I do not think that in any country in the world has the steel industry been favoured as it has in Canada, and I am not excepting the United States. I remember that when the Dominion Iron and Steel Company was first inaugurated it secured from this government pretty nearly everything that we could give it. In the first place, we gave it a protection of some 17i per cent on steel rails. Then the government of the province, or the municipalities, gave it thirty years' exemption from taxation. It got $7 a ton bounty on steel rails, and also got favoured railway rates throughout the Dominion, and any royalties supposed to have been collected on coal were repaid to the company. At that time there was a great steel trade going on in Canada owing to the tremendous amount of railway construction work in progress. The two great companies in Canada were then furnishing steel rails for the government sections of the Transcontinental railway. The government paid as high as $32 per ton for these rails. They also paid a bounty on production making altogether $39 a ton for the steel rails used on the government sections of the Transcontinental. At that very time one of these companies was cutting prices against the whole world, and delivering rails in India at a price of $24 a ton. Did they need protection to carry on in this country, or did they use the protective privileges we were giving them to enable them to deliver rails at $24 a ton in that distant land? Either the companies cannot compete abroad or they do not need pro-14011-282
tection at home. The charge has been levelled at us in this corner of the House during the last five years that we would destroy every industry in the country. We have no such intention, in fact I would not be averse to a little protection if it were simply the home market they needed.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Hear, hear.


Mr. HANSON:: Well done.


John Evans: That statement pleases hon.
gentlemen.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Hear, hear.


Arthur Meighen: The lost sheep.


John Evans: But this is what I have to
say: If they needed protection to get the home market only nobody would have much objection to it, but the government for many years sought to give them a blanket protection to fleece the rest of the community. That being the case I say it is time to quit. When that stage is reached it becomes class privilege, and the granting of any privilege of this kind to one industry is done at the expense of other industries. I say that we have come to the point in this country where no industry must be privileged to tax other industries in order to keep itself going. If there is an industry in Canada which is essential to the national welfare it ought to be maintained but it should establish in the first place that its maintenance is a necessity to the country at large and that it needs protection. The 'hon. member for South Cape Breton (Mr. MacDonald) admits that the British Empire Steel Corporation enjoys all the advantages of coal, ore, and of convenient transportation facilities; in fact if you look at the map of the world to-day you would think the industry was most advantageously situated for delivering its products to the markets of the world.
What then is wrong at the present time? Another hon. gentleman says the government can prevent a catastrophe from occurring but does not say how the government can do it. Can this industry ever stand on its own feet? After the lapse of thirty years it has shown that under present methods of manufacturing it cannot do so. We should consider now what is wrong. If hon. members in favour of protection cannot answer this question why do they not support a reference of the case to the Tariff Advisory Board in order to get at the root of the matter? It has been shown how important all the subsidiary industries are to this particular industry. Well, practically all industries in this country are sub-

Dominion Iron and Steel

sidiary to agriculture, because the latter is a basic industry. Actually agriculture is being destroyed to-day because of having to carry the other industries on its back. It has had to pay artificial prices, enhanced prices, for everything it has needed whereas for the things it produces it is compelled to face the competition of the world. The steel industry says it cannot compete with the cheap labour and the depreciated currencies of Europe. But we farmers with our own products have to compete against the cheap labour of the whole world, even the labour of Europe, Asia, India and the Argentine. In no other country in the world are such high prices being paid for articles needed on the farm as in Canada. When an hon. gentleman urges the importance of this matter on the House, and expresses a fear that the country does not appreciate its urgency, does he not see the importance of having every industiy stand on its own feet, and should he not refrain from insisting upon protection which will be ruinous to other industries? Industries should pay their way, but according to the tales of woe we have heard in this House for the last four or five months no industry engaged in manufacturing is able to stand on its own feet. What is wrong? Let us ask this question and try to answer it. The fact is that because of our fiscal policy, which has been a false one from the beginning, we keep the cost of production at too high a figure for successful competition in the markets of the world. To-day the industry of agriculture is being carried on at a loss. Somebody may ask how it has been possible for it to remain in this condition for so long a period. Agriculture has been mining the soil in this country for the last thirty years. The farmers have been mining the soil in order to satisfy the demand of the rest of the country and have been obliged to pay enhanced prices for everything they needed under the protective tariff.


Arthur Meighen: If agriculture is carried
on at a loss why did the hon. member vote for a Speech from the Throne which stated it was very prosperous?


John Evans: The right hon. gentleman is evading the issue. He knows very well that what I am stating is the case.


Arthur Meighen: Does the hon. member say that the Speech from the Throne does not declare that agriculture is prosperous?


John Evans: I was not speaking of the Speech from the Throne and do not intend to allude to it. The right hon. gentleman
I Mr. Evans.]
knows as well as any man in this House that even the agricultural industry cannot be carried on under present conditions. Because we had a good crop last year and conditions are a little better in the country, it is not to be inferred that agriculture is on a permanent basis of prosperity. Our manufacturing industries have had prosperous years in the past but they did not seek to put themselves on a sound footing; they relied on the price-fixing pow'er given them by the tariff to fleece the consumers. Then when they have destroyed their own market and lessened the purchasing power of those who are engaged in the primary industries they raise the cry that they are face to face with a catastrophe. Another hon. gentleman has declared that depreciated currency has killed the iron and steel industry. I ask this question : Does not the agricultural indutsry have to face depreciated currency as well as other industries?
The same hon. gentleman argues that the industry has been hurt by low wages. At the same time we are told that the country which pays the highest wages in the world and has no depreciated currency is one of our chief competitors, and there is a general unanimity of statement that we cannot compete with the United States in the matter of industrial production. If depreciated currency is a detriment and prevents us from competing in the markets of the world, surely a country where the currency is not deflated can be more easily competed with, but such is not the case. I think the iron and steel company have come to a point where they might consider retrenching. Either the output is too great or something is wrong with the fiscal policy if they are unable to pay wages and employ labour. The threat is so often made in this House that unless protection is maintained or increased capital will seek investment in other parts of the country, and our workmen will go to the United States. The fact of the matter is that they will not do anything of the kind, and a great many threats have been made even this year regarding the steel and automobile industries. In fact some of them shut down for a little while for no object except to create public opinion.
What is this catastrophe which is facing us now? is it anything more than to create public opinion, to obtain more protection and to gouge more money out of the pockets of the people? I do not know, but one thing is certain. The tariff in this country has destroyed the enterprise of our manufacturers, and to-day they are carrying on

Dominion Iron and Steel
with obsolete methods, and they prefer to follow any means whatsoever to create the impression that protection is needted and must be provided before they will look to their own house, change their methods and find their own market. It is a serious thing. Hon. members in this House point to the dole system in England, declaring that the workmen in England do not want to work as long as they get a dole. The whole of the manufacturing industry of Canada has depended on the dole for the last thirty-five years and now if it destroys the desire to work on the part of the British workman on the one hand it must on the other destroy enterprise on the part of employers and manufacturers.
I took a little trip down into Quebec the other day and I saw a product being mined and shipped to Eochester. I refer to feldspar. We have all that feldspar in that district, easily mined, with the power in the river close by, the cheapest power that can be got any place in the world, yet not one industry using that product in this country is established, and it finds its market in Rochester. I came down to Buckingham Junction Saturday night and found thirteen cars all loaded for a foreign market. We have no enterprise in this country. What is wrong with it? Why will people rely on the tariff and not on their own enterprise? Why will they continually pursue a false fiscal policy which puts the cost of doing everything entirely out of line with world prices and then come back and seek more protection?


Thomas Cantley: My
only excuse for asking the House to bear with me now is the gravity of the situation referred to by the hon. member for South Cape Breton (Mr. MacDonald) who introduced the motion. I have no intention of referring in any way at this time to the fiscal policy either of this government or of any past government in relation to the condition of affairs that now exists in Nova Scotia, though greatly tempted, in view of the remarks of some speakers to my left, to deal with that matter. I prefer however not to do so because I really do not want to make this a controversial question at this time. The gravity of the situation in Nova Scotia is certainly great. I may attribute it to one source and other hon. members may attribute it to another source. I am not going into that at this time. The fact is that the affairs of the British Empire Steel Corporation to-day are in a critical condition. Practically one-half the 14011-282^
population of Nova Scotia is in doubt and almost despair as to what the outcome is to be.
There is I think an idea in the House that the iron and steel industry of this country dates back to the inauguration of the Dominion Steel Corporation about the beginning of the present century, but I would like to point out that it goes back very considerably further. Open hearth steel was first made in this country at New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, in 1882 and the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company continued to produce steel in yearly increasing quantities until the absorption of that company in 1921 by the British Empire Steel Corporation. In the year 1900 the Scotia company acquired the property of the General Mining Association of London, England, who began operations at Sydney Mines, Cape Breton and at Albion Mines near New Glasgow, Pictou county in 1826 just a hundred years ago. In passing I may say coal has been exported from Nova Scotia for 254 years; at first in small quantities. Some thing has been said as regards the inter-dependency of the coal and the steel. I can tell the House that so far as the Dominion Steel Corporation is concerned, that corporation was founded entirely with the object of providing a home market for the slack coal which was then produced in quantities much beyond what it was then possible to find any market for on this continent. It is an entirely mistaken idea to suppose, as many do suppose, some inside this House and a very great many outside the House, that the steel corporation was and is being operated at the expense of the coal property. There is a figure which the steel companies ought to pay the coal companies for all the slack coal used quite irrespective of whether they are independent or inter-locking companies. But my point is that if you close down the steel plants in Nova Scotia there will soon accumulate a large quantity of slack or small coal for which no market is available.
Consider the position in Cape Breton prior to the establishment of the iron and steel industry. The situation was this: not over 15 or at the most 25 per cent of the slack coal produced could find a market. A large quantity was stowed in the goof under ground; dumps containing hundreds of thousands of tons were to be seen in close proximity to the coal mines, not only in Cape Breton but in Pictou and Cumberland counties-hundreds of thousands of tons in all for which there was then no market. I myself have bought slack coal in thousands of tons, tens of thousands of tons in the late eighties and nineties at ten and twelve cents

Dominion Iron and Steel
a ton. The price later went up to twenty-five cents, to fifty cents; it has gone up a great deal since that time; but the fact is that the coal industry of Nova Scotia cannot be carried on to-day without a steel industry supporting it. They are inter-dependent.


Robert Forke: That is part of the information we have been seeking.


Thomas Cantley: I am trying to give it
to the House.


John Livingstone Brown: Does the statement that
there is such a large quantity of slack coal mean that there is more slack coal in the Nova Scotia mines than in other mines throughout the world?


Thomas Cantley: It does not necessarily
mean anything of the kind. The quantity of slack coal produced in any particular field depends on the character of the coal and the method of mining.


John Livingstone Brown: Does it mean that Nova
Scotia coal is not of equal value to other coal?


Thomas Cantley: It does not mean anything of the kind.


John Livingstone Brown: Then I cannot understand
the point.


Thomas Cantley: There are I fear many
things the hon. gentleman cannot understand. I am sorry I cannot enlighten him in reference to everything.


John Livingstone Brown: Since the hon. gentleman
has made that remark, might I ask how it is that when representations are made to us to aid certain industries, it is definitely stated that Nova Scotia coal is not of equal value to other coal?


Thomas Cantley: That statement is made by people who. have very little knowledge of the facts.


John Livingstone Brown: That statement is made by people who say they know.


Thomas Cantley: It does not make any
difference whether they say they know or not if they really do not. An hon. member recently made certain assertions regarding the character of Nova Scotia coal. I say that they are not true. When you mine 5,000,000 tons of coal you must of necessity have a considerable quantity of slack, I do not care in what country or under what conditions the coal is mined. There is a difference between the quantity of slack produced in certain fields and from certain kinds of coal, but all coal mined produces a considerable
[Mr. Cantley.l
quantity of slack, some of which is used and some wasted unless there be nearby some coke consuming enterprise.
As regards the Belgium situation I am not going to deal at length with the question of depreciated currency, although it has a very important bearing on the facts notwithstanding what representations may be made in this House. The hon. member for Rosetown (Mr. Evans), when he referred to the effect of depreciated currency in regard to farming, put his finger exactly on one of the factors bearing on the case. The franc to-day is worth less than four cents or about one-fifth of the nominal value. Labour is getting more in francs than it did before the war; but food in proportion to the gold value of the franc is very much lower in price than it was prior to the war, with the result that owing to the depreciation of the franc in their country Belgic work people are able to live more cheaply than they were before the war. We are not handicapped by the whole difference in the value of the franc, but we are to a considerable extent. Let us get down to concrete facts. Two steamer loads of Beligum wire rods have been landed in Cape Breton within the past year. Why? Because they could be and were landed there at a figure representing nine dollars a ton less than the cost of producing them in Sydney. Thousands of tons of Belgian billets, some French billets and some German billets and a large tonnage of skelp bars for pipe have been landed at Montreal for further manufacture. Why? Because the steel can be landed there under present conditions of labour, exchange and freight for less than we can produce them in Canada. I am not going to say who is to blame. I state only what are patent facts that cannot be disputed. That is one of the causes of the present difficulty.	-
One hon. gentleman says that agriculture is the most important industry in Canada. Undoubtedly it is; it is so in most countries. But next to agriculture the most vital industry in any country is the iron and steel industry. Reference has been made to the tax which the iron and steel industry imposes on agriculture. In view of the fact that the steel used in the manufacture of practically all implements used in agriculture is admitted into Canada free, what burden is the steel and iron industry on agriculture in this country?
I would like to make some little reference to the importance of the iron and steel industry in Canada looking back over the history of the last ten years. What happened

Dominion Iron and Steel
immediately after war was declared? We were asked whether we could supply certain munitions of war. How did we meet the demands upon us and what was the effect of our so meeting them? We were able to demonstrate that we could make in Canada basic steel which would meet all the requirements of the British War Office, though of a class of steel which they claimed and indeed was different from what they had' always used and which they were getting elsewhere; in short, they wanted acid steel of which none was made in Canada. They had certain specifications, certain tests. We met those specifications and tests both chemically and physically and we did it with basic steel, with the result that we were able in this country to embark on the production of munitions.
It is in the mind of all the leaders on both sides as to what that meant for Canada. It meant that hundreds of thousands of people were employed over a period of years. It doubled and quardrupled our exports within <1 eighteen months. It enabled us to earn money with which to prosecute the war. It gave employment to thousands of women and girls also to men who were incapacitated for service and who otherwise would have been idle. Not only did it create a great demand for iron steel and coal, but it extended its ramifications to almost every industry in this country, notably to the lumber industry, millions upon millions of feet of lumber being used in the production of boxes and cases for the export packing of munitions of various kinds. The outcome of the whole situation was that Canada was put in an industrial and exporting position that it never before occupied. The war profits taxes that came afterwards contributed very largely to meeting the expenses of the war. The steel and iron industry is fundamental, and essential to the national existence.
What is the situation in the United States? They are to-day making more than two-thirds of all the steel made in the world. Year after year for the past half dozen years on the average we have brought into this country nearly
700,000	tons of steel, or enough to provide work for every blas't furnace, every open hearth furnace and every steel mill in Canada. I do not want to get into the discussion of a national policy or any other policy; I want to get back to the fact confronting the industry to-day. The towns of New Glasgow and Trenton are dependent entirely upon that industry. One has a population of say 12,000 and the other has a population of about 8,000; they both have all modem conveniences, tramways, paved streets and so on.
In the town of Sydney Mines, which has a population of about 12,000, not a wheel has turned, not a furnace has been lighted since 1921 when the Nova Scotia Steel Company came under the control of the British Empire Steel Corporation. I know there will be a difference of opinion as to what is to blame for the present situation, whether it as due to management or tariff. I am not going to discuss that now. What I want to discuss is this. We are up against not a matter of opinion, but concrete facts. Tens of thousands of people in the eastern part of Nova Scotia to-day are in doubt whether they are to continue to get a living where they now live and have their homes. Hundreds are absolutely ruined. The government has a duty in the present situation. I am asking them to take at once what steps they can to give some measure of relief to a section of the country which is looking to them for help. Some bon. gentlemen may say it is incumbent upon me to suggest to the government what they should do in the circumstances. I am advised that proposals have been submitted to the government as to what they are or how far they go I am not fully informed and if I were so informed I would prefer not to discuss them here; indeed I fancy the government would perhaps not care to have them discussed. What I here and now ask is that the government take adequate, effective and immediate action to meet the critical condition which now faces one-half of the population of my native province,


James Alexander Robb: Every hon. member will I am sure appreciate the position taken by the representatives of Nova Scotia who to-day are alarmed over the situation which is developing in that province in connection with those great enterprises, the coal and steel industries controlled by the British Empire Steel Corporation. When the British Empire Steel Corporation was organized all Canada thought that the location of the works justified the expectation of a great future for the company. It is true that many people looked with alarm upon its over-capitalization, and I have reason to believe that while that over-capitalization was considerable it was not all that the promotors at that time attempted. We are told in reports that have been made on the coal situation in Nova Scotia that in the coal properties owned or controlled by the British Empire Steel Corporation there are latent reserves for more than 1,000 years on the basis of the present consumption, and we know that the company is well and favourably
Dominion Iron and Steel

located for obtaining iron ore. It has splendid iron ore properties in Newfoundland and the works are surrounded by coal fields. All that is needed is to cross the water to get at the iron ore in Newfoundland. The ore obtained in that island is good and the company ships some of it to other parts of the world. I understand that it gets the bulk of its ore from Newfoundland but also a small quantity from Africa and some from Spain.
Now in Canada there are, three large primary steel industries-the Steel Company of Canada located at Hamilton, the works at Algoma, and Besco in Nova Scotia. And Besco, so well and favourably situated, is apparently not able to pay its dividends, while the Steel Company of Canada has paid its interest and shown a profit each year. The Besco merger was formed in 1921.


Arthur Meighen: Can the minister give
us a statement, equally accurate, as to the Algoma company?


James Alexander Robb: I have not been looking into
that company recently, but I will deal in a moment with the situation at Algoma. The Besco merger, as I say, was formed in 1921 and we have been told by an hon. member who is well pasted in the industry and who himself, I believe, was associated with it- possibly he is still-that during the war the company was so well equipped and competent that is was able to meet the competition of the world and was of great advantage to Canada. The profits it made in the period of the war led the organizers of the merger in 1921 to inflate the capital to a *considerable extent, although they did not go so far as they would have gone if my hon. friends opposite, who were then in power, ihad not refused their application for a charter.
It is true that this company, as my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. Cantley), who ought to know, 'has said, from the day it was organized in 1921 untij the present time, has not turned a wheel in many of the larger branches of the industry. And the hon. gentleman wonders why it has not paid profits. Well, surely it was due to no fault either of this government or of the previous one that the company has not turned a wheel since 1921, because the protection which it has enjoyed in the meantime has been practically the same as it got during the war. The company has not paid dividends either on the second preference or on the common; and, I repeat, while this industry in Nova Scotia so well and favourably located, surrounded by coal fields and in proximity to its ore, has not paid any dividends on second
	|
preference or on common-it is said the company is going to default on some of its bonds -the other great steel industry of Canada located at Hamilton has at the same time been making money, paying all interest and putting aside substantial sums for reserves.
I am sure we all regret the labour divisions that, have taken place- in Nova Scotia. It is a matter of public knowledge that these labour troubles -have been occurring intermittently for some years. Much has been said to-day about the competition the company have encountered from importations from countries in which there is a depreciated currency. But the sworn statements of the customs officials of Canada do not go to show that there have been such great importations from depreciated currency countries. Most of our importations of steel products have come from the United States, where the tariff has not been changed, in my recollection, for some years.


Thomas Cantley: Has not the duty on
agricultural implements been interfered with in the last few years?


James Alexander Robb: That affected only to a small extent the operations of the British Empire Steel Corporation. I admit that it may have affected the Steel Company of Canada to a certain degree, but I do not think it affected the other company.


Thomas Cantley: I may inform the minister that we scrapped at New Glasgow plant to the value of over a quarter of a million dollars, plant that had been installed for, and which was devoted entirely to, the making of steel for agricultural purposes.


Finlay MacDonald: When?


Thomas Cantley: At different periods within a short time.


James Alexander Robb: I do not know what quantities the company in the Maritime provinces have sold to the manufacturers of agricultural implements, but I shall deal with that in a moment. In view of the statements made this afternoon, with regard to importations from countries where there is a depreciated currency, I wish to put on record certain figures which will throw some light on this question. It has been represented that thousands of tons of steel billets have recently come in from Belgium. I have here a statement of importations from Belgium of iron and steel during the months of April and May in the years 1925 and 1926 respectively. In 1925 we imported in April some $14,000 worth of these products, and in May, $105,000;

Dominion Iron and Steel
in 1926, our importations were $52,500 in April and $215,000 in May. France is another country with depreciated currency. From that country we imported:
April Value May Value
Year 1925	
$562	$60,820Year 1926	
10,205	34,970


Robert James Manion: Does that include iron
pipe?


James Alexander Robb: This is the record given me.
I can hand it over to my hon. friend if he wishes. It is taken from the importations of iron and steel during that period.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is it not perfectly obvious that that covers only one item and does not include the items with respect to which the company in Nova Scotia makes its most serious complaint?


James Alexander Robb: I am not going to enter into a controversy with my hon. friend, because I do not wish to prolong the debate, but I will say this: the representatives of Belgium have visited me recently and protested that under our legislation we are keeping out their products and they cannot compete in this country. My hon. friend will understand the difficult position of a finance minister when the representatives of a country with whom the balance of trade is largely in favour of Canada say: We cannot sell any of our products in your country.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Does the hon. gentleman
represent in this House the interests of Belgium. or the interests of this country?


James Alexander Robb: I do not, of course, represent any but the interests of the Dominion. But when the representatives of a great nation come to Canada, does my hon. friend say that I should not receive them and listen to their protests that they cannot do business here although the balance of trade is against Belgium?


Finlay MacDonald: Mr. Speaker-


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


James Alexander Robb: Now, what are the conditions in Canada? Let us see what business these gentlemen are doing. In 1905 Canada produced 752,695 tons of steel ingots and castings, or an increase of 16 per cent over the 650,000 tons produced in 1924. These are the per capita productions:
Tons
1921		 170
1922		 121
1923		 217
1924		 158
1925		 180
I direct particularly to the attention of the right hon. leader of the opposition the comparative per capita production in 1925 and 1921.


Arthur Meighen: Has the hon. minister
got comparative figures of the United States production in 1925 and 1921?


James Alexander Robb: I am not dealing with the
United States, I am dealing with Canada.


Arthur Meighen: I would recommend him not to.


Thomas Cantley: Would the hon. gentleman give the production in 1913?


James Alexander Robb: I have not the figures.


Thomas Cantley: I can tell him the production is less than it was ten years ago.


James Alexander Robb: But my hon. friend gave the reason: He said that since the merger in 1921 one of the industries had not been operated.


Thomas Cantley: Will the hon. minister allow me a word?


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


Thomas Cantley: I think that is rather unfair.


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


James Alexander Robb: For the first three months of 1926, Canada's steel production amounted to 180,458 tons-


Thomas Cantley: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a
question of privilege.


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


James Alexander Robb: -or about 9,500 tons over
the-


Thomas Cantley: Mr. Speaker-


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


Robert James Manion: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman has risen to a point of privilege.


Thomas Cantley: I am not making any
noise. There is no objection to my standing until the time comes.


Hewitt Bostock: What is the point of
order?


Thomas Cantley: It is a question of privilege, if you please. I claim that I am misrepresented by the hon. gentleman with regard to the statement-


James Alexander Robb: In what way?


Thomas Cantley: I did not say anything to give the impression that the shutting down of the one plant meant that the other plant
Dominion Iron and Steel

was or was not working full time. As a matter of fact, five blast furnaces are on one side of the harbour and two on the other. 1 referred to the 5 p.m. two blast furnaces and the five open hearth furnaces at Sydney Mines, which I said1 had not been in operation at all. As a matter of fact, today only two furnaces out of five are in operation on the south side of the harbour and none at Sydney Mines, on the north side.


James Alexander Robb: I thank my hon. friend for again telling us that this industry has not been running for some time. He said a moment ago that some of the plants had not been running since 1921.


Thomas Cantley: That is true, but not
wholly so.


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


James Alexander Robb: For the first three months of 1926 Canadian steel production amounted to 180,458 tons, or about 9,500 tons over the output of 171,952 in the first quarter of 1925. Production in the month of March was 58,765 long tons, an advance of 10 per cent over the figures of February.
Now, Air. Speaker, while the great steel industry in Nova Scotia is of importance to Canada-and we all appreciate the value of that industry to Nova Scotia in particular- and while the government has every desire to do all that is possible to make that great industry what it should be, an industry so well located right at ocean navigation, surrounded by coal fields and close to the iron ore of Newfoundland-while, I say, the government desires that that industry should be as prosperous as the other steel industry of Canada located at Hamilton-and, I submit, not quite so favourably located as the sister industry in Nova Scotia-yet the government has a duty to the other industries throughout the Dominion that use iron and steel, because that is the raw material for many of our industries.
I have not before me the figures of the number of men employed by the Besco corporation, but I have a statement respecting the number employed by the other industries throughout the Dominion that use iron and steel. There were 1,004 concerns in Canada in 1924 engaged in the manufacture of iron and steel and their products, in which a total of $535,539,833 is invested, and which gave employment to 78,240 persons, who were paid $99,600,000 in wages and salaries. The combined production value of these industries was $368,476,650 during that year.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the automobile industry is of considerable value to Canada, and hon. gentlemen will be glad to know from recent announcements in the press that that industry proposes to go along stronger than ever. A moment ago we had considerable criticism respecting the importation of iron and steel. I have since placed my hands on the records of the imports of iron and steel and their products. For the calendar year 1924 these were valued at $137,979,471 as compared with $173, -720,299 in 1923. Imports for the first ten months of the last fiscal year amounted in value to $144,029,695, being practically the same as for the ten-month period ending January 1924. So much for the trade-


Thomas Cantley: Will the hon. gentleman
allow me a question now? Will he tell me how many items of iron and steel are .on the free list?


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend will find that
on reference to the Customs Act.


Thomas Cantley: I am quite familiar with
the number as shown by the Customs Act; I was wondering if the hon. minister was?


James Alexander Robb: We have debated that question all winter, and parliament has decided that the proposition submitted by hon. gentlemen opposite of higher and higher tariff was not in the general interests of this country. Now let us come to present-day conditions. My hon. friend who has just spoken knows, as he said, that the government has been approached to do something for the Besco corporation. It is a hardy annual. Every year about this time, towards the last days of the session, somebody comes along and asks that something be done for the Besco corporation. Last year when we presented the budget we did do something for that corporation and the great coal areas of Nova Scotia; we imposed a uniform tax on bituminous coal of 50 cents a ton. Hon gentlemen might as well know they have been urging us in season and out of season during the winter to so provide that ships coming into our ports cannot coal unless they use Besco coal or pay an extra 50 cents a ton. I have answered that all that will do is to drive the ships to Portland or Boston, where they will coal free. So we have not consented to that. They have made certain other propositions to us and I propose, in order that this question may be clearly and well understood by all Canada, and particularly by our friends from Nova Scotia, to place on record the position of the government in that regard.

Dominion Iron and Steel
We know that a certain report has been made on this industry in the Maritime provinces. We have asked for that report, and the reply has been made to us that the report was not intended for publication, that it was not intended for the government or parliament who were being asked to give them greater relief, that it was intended for the directors. We said to them: Until we can have that report, we are not in a position to decide intelligently whether or not we should recommend to parliament what you are asking.


Arthur Meighen: Does the minister refer
to the Duncan report to the provincial government?


James Alexander Robb: No-and by the way, it would be interesting for the right hon. gentleman to read that report.


Arthur Meighen: I have read it.


James Alexander Robb: But just now I was not speaking of the Duncan report.


Arthur Meighen: What report is it?


James Alexander Robb: The Coverdale report.


Arthur Meighen: At whose request was it made, and to whom?


James Alexander Robb: What does it matter?


Arthur Meighen: I would think it had
something to do with our right to it. At whose request was the investigation and report made, and to whom?


James Alexander Robb: They are basing their demands upon the conditions presented in this report, and we say that if that is so, we should have that report, which has been prepared, I understand, by engineers. I propose to place the correspondence on the records:
Ottawa, June 5, 1926.
Dear Mr. Wolvin :
In view of representations made regarding the financial position of certain companies in Nova Scotia, and the request for immediate consideration of the question of payment on account of enemy war claims for losses, my colleagues suggest that before taking up the consideration of the various matters said to have affected the Nova Scotia coal and steel situation the government should have before it a copy of the Cover-dale report recently made to your officers and directors. If you agree, please mail a copy to either the Prime Minister or myself.
Yours faithfully,
James A. Robb.
Rot M. Wolvin, Esq.,
General Manager,
British Empire Steel Corporation,
Montreal.
Then on the 8th of June I received the following:
Montreal, Que., June 8th, 1926.
Hon. J. A. Robb,
Minister of Finance,
Ottawa, Ontario.
Your letter fifth received. This is a very serious request and I will come to Ottawa this afternoon if you can arrange for me to discuss same with you and Prime Minister this evening.
It. M. Wolvin.
Following that I received this letter:
Roy M. Wolvin,
President.
British Empire Steel Corporation Limited.
Office of the President,
Montreal, Canada, 8th June, 1926. Cable Address "Bremsteel."
Hon. J. A. Robb,
Minister of Finance,
Ottawa, Ontario.
Dear Mr. Robb:
I received your letter of June 5th with reference to making available to your colleagues the report of Coverdale and Colpitts upon our various industries in Nova Scotia. I telegraphed you and also telephoned your secretary that there were conditions governing the publicity of this report that might make more difficult any reorganization that might be undertaken by the bondholders of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company. The report has been made for consideration by the directors, who understand the details of the business, and it occurred to me that this request of yours should be fully discussed between the Prime Minister, you and me before acting on it. Your secretary has just called me to say that the press of legislation, for which you are personally responsible just now, makes it impossible for you to see me today or to-morrow. This will necessitate delaying the matter which I wish to discuss until a later time.
In the meantime, I trust that you will be able to give me the advice I requested prior to Friday, on which date I am planning to hold a meeting of the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company.
Yours very truly,
(Sgd.) R. M. Wolvin,
President.
On the 9th of June I wired Mr. Wolvin as follows:
Ottawa, June 9, 1926.
Roy Wolvin,
President.
British Empire Steel Corporation,
Montreal.
In conference with premier of Nova Scotia. We must have copy of Coverdale report to enable us to fairly consider requests on behalf of your companies.
James A. Robb.
To which Mr. Wolvin replied:
Toronto, June 10, 1926.
Honourable J. A. Robb,
Minister of Finance,
Ottawa, Ont.
Your telegram received. I offered to go Ottawa to discuss recent report on Nova Scotia properties Tuesday evening or Wednesday with Prime Minister and yourself but pressing legislation made this impossible.
444S
Dominion Iron and Steel

Report referred to is confidential and not intended for publication. If you will telegraph me here King Edward hotel an appointment with yourself Premier King and Premier Rhodes to-morrow I will bring report and confidentially will furnish such information therefrom as may be required.
R, M. Wolyin. [DOT]
Then on June 10th I received this telegram, from Toronto:
Hon. J. A. Robb,
Minister of Finance,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, Ont.
Not having heard from you leaving for Ottawa tonight. Will be available for conference at any time you may suggest.
R. M. Wolvin.
It is fair to Mr. Wolvin to say that he was prepared to give to myself and to the Prime Minister a copy of that report, but I pointed out, and I think correctly, that governmental responsibility required that any such report given to me in that capacity must be available to the whole government. We parted with that, and I have not heard from Mr. Wolvin since.
There is just one more matter in connection with the steel industry in Canada that I desire to place on record. It is a letter addressed to
Eight Hon. Mr. Graham, the chairman of the tariff board, under date of April 30, 1926, which reads as follows:
Dear Mr. Graham:
I am referring to the advisory board on tariff and taxation, for full investigation, the matter of tariff adjustment on iron and steel products requested by the Algoma Steel Corporation in a communication dated April 3, copy of which is enclosed, in triplicate.
As the request of this corporation involves the whole industry, I would suggest that you investigate fully the whole iron and steel industry in respect to its claims for tariff consideration. In the course of such investigation, may I suggest that you look carefully into sales to and purchases from subsidiary, affiliated or other companies and organizations in whioh any officer, director or shareholder of the iron and steel companies is financially interested. This applies to goods sold outside of Canada as well as to those sold in Canada, and you may widen the scope of inquiry if it appears to you in the public interest.
Yours faithfully,
James A. Robb.


Arthur Meighen: Before the hon. gentleman proceeds, would he say whether it. is his contention that this Coverdale report, made under those circumstances, should be given out for publication?


James Alexander Robb: Oh no, and I am glad my
right hon. friend directed my attention to that. I replied to Mr. Wolvin that the government have entrusted to them many confidential reports which would be regarded as confidential. My right hon. friend knows that many times the government have confi-
[Mr. Robb. 3
dential information given to them, and I appeal to my right hon. friend, does he think we were wrong? This company comes before us and asks for certain considerations involving expenditures in which the public are interested. The government are responsible to the public, and was it not fair that we should have this information before us, which I am certain their bankers will have to get-indeed. I understand their bankers have seen it.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. minister asked me a question. I understood by his recital that the company had offered the information to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, and the minister's contention was that it should be spread to the other members of the government. Am I to understand that the British Empire Steel Corporation does not trust the other members of the government?


James Alexander Robb: I would not like my hon.
friend to draw that conclusion.


Arthur Meighen: What other is there?


Henry Herbert Stevens: It sounds reasonable.


James Alexander Robb: The British Empire Steel
Corporation will have to trust the other members of the government before they get any concessions from this government. Mr. Speaker, I have stated frankly and freely our position. We have every desire to see this great industry go on; we have every desire to help them. But in helping the British Empire Steel industry, we do not wish to injure any of the other industries in Canada.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Will my hon.
friend kindly tell the House what the company is asking? I have heard what he has done in connection with their request, but I do not know what their request was.


James Alexander Robb: I have a memorandum here.
First they wanted a bonus of 50 cents a ton to steel plants using Canadian coal for metallurgical purposes, and an agreement that we would pay this for ten years. The reason they gave for this request was that the steel industry of Hamilton, in importing coal from the United States, gets a remission of this duty. They said that if we would make that concession to them they were hopeful of getting similar concessions from the province of Nova Scotia. Then there was another matter, and I may as well-


Henry Lumley Drayton: Can my hon.
friend say what that would amount to?


James Alexander Robb: They were prepared to place
a maximum. They suggested first five hun-

Dominion Iron and Steel
dred thousand a year, and if we would not agree to that they said that three hundred thousand would help them in the matter of reorganization.
There was another question Mr. Wolvin submitted to me. He said: We have certain claims against the revenues that you are receiving from Germany under the Dawes plan. Some of our companies have met with certain losses during the war and we want you to pay us on this account. My reply to Mr. Wolvin was that those moneys had been paid in to the Receiver General and they would have to be voted out by parliament. Then he represented we had other moneys, and my reply to that was that before the government could pay out on these claims we should know what all the claims were so that each would share alike on a percentage basis.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Were there any further requests?


James Alexander Robb: Yes, Mr. Wolvin represented
that our depreciated currency legislation did not quite cover certain importations because the duties were specific instead of ad valorem duties. That matter is under consideration.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Would that be
everything that was asked?


James Alexander Robb: I would say yes, speaking
from memory.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Perhaps my
hon. friend has a letter here making these requests.


James Alexander Robb: I hope, after the explanation I have given, my hon. friend will withdraw his motion.


Hewitt Bostock: Is it the pleasure of the House that the hon. gentleman withdraw his motion? [DOT]


Arthur Meighen: There were some other speakers who desired to express their views. However, I wish to make a few observations on the situation as it stands. It was quite evident from the address of the hon. gentleman who introduced the subject (Mr. MacDonald) that he was most anxious to avoid any post mortem into the causes, various though they may be, which have led to the present unfortunate pass in relation to the steel industry in the province of Nova Scotia. Very carefully he assigned no responsibility, and he did so not because he did not feel that responsibility rested with well-known parties and well-known governments, but because he was desirous of finding a
remedy for the present and not of censuring in respect to the past.
I do not think the seriousness of the position could be better stated than in the terms of the hon. member himself. When a city of
25,000	people, as well as other towns of less dimensions, depend wholly for their existence upon this industry and upon this company, and when, as well, communities further distant are dependent upon allied industries, it becomes only too evident that if Nova Scotia is to have a chance at all in the years that are before us, we cannot sit silently by and disinterestedly allow this industry to fall. Sometimes commercial collapses are of such dimensions that whatever may have been the original causes, however various may have been the foundation causes of the malady, it becomes a national question whether or not we should stand by and allow a crash. The late government found itself in that position in relation to more than one enterprise; in relation to the Canadian Northern enterprise in the first place. We could have stood by and permitted the collapse of that great business entity. Had we done so and the result been merely local or individual we could have been justified. Had we been able to do so and left the nation as a whole better off than by any other course we might have taken, it would have been our duty to stand aside and let matters take their course. The same situation presented itself in relation to the Grand Trunk Pacific, end again in relation to the Grand Trunk. In much less forceful degree but nevertheless with considerable menace, it presented itself also in relation to the Quebec and Saguenay railway along the north shore of the St Lawrence. In each of these cases we felt that we were not in any way responsible for the situation as it had developed. We might very well have washed our hands of the whole affair and said others were responsible for the agreements that had generated the enterprises, and that therefore we had nothing to do with the consequences. But we felt it was not well to take that rather complacent, attitude, and we addressed ourselves to trying to solve the problem that presented itself, and to seeing that the least possible disaster ensued to the people of Canada. The present situation seems to be of much the same kind.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The industries my right hon. friend referred to were railways.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, those which I have mentioned.
Dominion Iron and Steel


William Lyon Mackenzie King: With respect to which there is more or less of a federal obligation-I mean primarily?


Arthur Meighen: In the case of the Quebec and Saguenay railway I do not think there was any federal obligation. At all events it was not the fact of a federal obligation that influenced our action; it was the immensity and far-reaching character of the disaster that would ensue; it was the extent of the repercussion which would permeate almost every branch of Canadian activity. We asked ourselves would there be greater injury caused by this than would result from the imposition of the burden which we called upon the country to sustain. Here the situation relates to an industry which appears to be localized to the province of Nova Scotia. It is not wholly so localized; Canadians everywhere are interested in the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, in the foundations of that industry in the eastern province. But even if it were localized to Nova Scotia it is of so immense a character and its results are going to be so crucial that it behooves this House to examine the situation and see if there is anything we can do. I do not want to traverse the inquiry which is again insisted upon by the leader of the Progressive party (Mr. Forke) as to what the causes are of the present situation. I will make a few references to what has been said in that regard but they will be very brief.
I do not think the causes can be named in any single sentence. The causes are more than one, I would say, fundamentally though they allot themselves into two catalogues: first, tariff; second, transportation. But I do not seek to give the House the impression that in these two fields alone are to be found the whole of the original reasons for the present position. I do not know but what, perhaps, some may be looked for in the field of management. At the same time I am of the view that you might concede a very great deal in the way of better management and still you would has this position at the present time, or very little later, on account of the other two causes themselves. Hon. members of course have argued, particularly the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) that the condition cannot be attributed to anything in the way of government policy, because he is able to look at one steel company in Canada and say that that company has succeeded. Well, if this is to be taken as an answer and as a vindication of government policy, then government policy never can be wrong. I do not care what government policy you have
TMr. Meighen.]
in this Dominion in relation to any commercial matter whatever. I do not care what fiscal policy you have, you cannot have any fiscal policy under which there will not be some company in some industry succeed. With the advantages this country possesses, with the type of its citizenship, with the enterprise we have, there will always be some company which will succeed under any conditions. But he who is satisfied with the condition of the steel industry as an industry in Canada to-day, especially when he compares it with the progress made by our great competitor, is either a very small Canadian or else he is so blinded by politics that he is satisfied with anything under his own party.
The steel industry of Canada to-day is struggling and almost staggering. I know the Steel Company of Canada has had a measure of prosperity. I do not know that I can very fully, as a business man could, assign the special reasons which apply to that company, but I know that it is engaged in successful production, which production has a limited market in this Dominion; others cannot engage in it for the reason that the market is not here-classes of production which in a considerable degree are protected by the tariff even as it stands now, lines of production that are not comparable in very many important respects with those that are followed by the Algoma Steel Company and the great industry of Nova Scotia, the other two elements of steel production in our country. The minister was happily ignorant of the condition of affairs in the Algoma company. He is never prepared with any statistics that cast the least reflection upon the specially well selected figures he produces himself. He does not know anything about them, and he led the House to believe that if the British Empire Steel Corporation had had a management which would have produced'the Cover-dale report, or if it had less capitalization, nil would have been well with them. The fact of the matter is that this Dominion of Canada now, in the great articles of steel production, is only producing 68 per cent-that was the figure in the very latest report I was able to get-of what it produced I think in the year 1913, at all events in the year which has already been mentioned in Hansard in the speech of the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett). That is the production of the steel industry of our country, a production which compares only as two-thirds of what we produced years ago. The United States, our great competitor, in the same time are producing 60 per cent more than they produced previously.

Dominion Iron and Steel


Edward James Young: What about our importations?


Arthur Meighen: Our importations per
capita are immense. They are not governed by the same consideration which affect the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young).


Edward James Young: How do our importations to-day compare with those before the war?


Arthur Meighen: Our importations to-day are 600,000 odd tons of steel.


Edward James Young: How do they compare with importations before the war?


Arthur Meighen: They are immense compared with previous importations.


Edward James Young: What were they in 1914?


Arthur Meighen: I have not the figures before me, but if the hon. member contends they were more in 1914, the reason would be that we have less use for the product in manufacturing to-day than we had then.


Charles A. Stewart: My right hon. friend knows that a large portion of it went into the manufacture of steel rails.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, the Minister of Finance smiled when referring to the progress of the Steel Company of Canada. I have before me the report of the president of that company, the only company which can be said to have had any measure of success at all, and that measure for reasons akin to if not exactly those I have stated to the House. Here is what the president of the Steel Company of Canada says about the progress of his own company under the policy t<5-day:
The progress, or perhaps I should say lack of progress, of the steel industry in Canada during recent years is not generally appreciated. The competitive conditions I have referred to have been accentuated by the narrowing of the market as a consequence of the various tariff changes made from time to time. These embrace preferential trade agreements, drawback items and exemptions from duty which apply to steel for particular purposes,-also free list items which have been added and which, supported by lower wages and depreciated currencies in other countries, have faciliiatea the entry of foreign sellers into this market. Statistics show' the production of steel ingots in Canada has been as follows:
Calendar	Calendar
Year	Gross Tons Year	Gross Tons1912	
821,800	1923	
840,0001913	
1,006,000	1924	
625,0001914	
725,000	1925	
734,000
That is really a brilliant record.
It will be observed that, during the past two years, in spite of the general increase in the consumption of steel per capita-
And this is what counts.
-shown in most other markets, the production in Canada has been less than that shown during 1912 and 1913. In fifteen years Canadian production shows an increase of less than li per cent, 1925 over 1910, while in the United States the increase has been 75 per cent.
This is quite satisfactory to the hon. member for Weybum.


Mr. CAHILL:: Is that not the time my right hon. friend and his friends were in power?


Arthur Meighen: No, that is the period we Should have been in power, and if the hon. member's party had appealed on this policy in 1921 we would have been in power until 1925.


Frank S. Cahill: A pity for the country.


Arthur Meighen: Our steel production in 1921, the year of depression over the whole continent and over the whole world, was 64 per cent of what it was in 1913.


Frank S. Cahill: Shovels for Roumania
largely.


Arthur Meighen: Those were long before, and they would not amount to one-tenth of one per cent. That is about the size of the mind of the hon. member for Pontiac.


Frank S. Cahill: About $25,000,000.


Arthur Meighen: They would not amount to that. In 1921 our production was 64 per cent of what it was in 1913. The United States production the same year was exactly 64 per cent, showing that they shared in that world depression with ourselves, but they sprung out of it immediately, and from that day to this their production has gone steadily ahead until to-day they are 60 odd per cent over what they were before, while we are just 68 per cent of what we were before. We are still struggling-


John Evans: Will my right hon. friend not admit that in 1913 we were over-producing a great deal?


Arthur Meighen: I would not admit it, I do not think it is true. I cannot say I have given special study to that matter. We were importing at that time, and we had a hint from the hon. member for Weyburn that we were importing more then than now, but I think he is wrong. It seems to me we were not producing enough then, and are not now either. Those are the general conditions. Under our tariff to-day 15 per cent of all that is produced by the three great steel companies of our country, the British Empire, the
Dominion Iron and Steel

Steel Company of Canada and the Algoma Steel Company, is either imported free or given the benefit of a 99 per cent rebate on the importation. Under this situation we find our largest company shivering right on the brink of the precipice while the great companies of the United States are enjoying a prosperity never before known in their history. Whatever the causes may be, hon. members cannot complacently sit down and say: Oh, that is because we have not good enough men here, or because there is too much capital in this company.


James Alexander Robb: My right hon. friend is not insinuating that I said the men were not good enough.


Arthur Meighen: No, but my hon. friend did intimate that the management was not good enough, and management usually consists of men.


James Alexander Robb: I challenge my right hon.
friend to find where I said anything of the kind.


Arthur Meighen: I accept my hon. friend's explanation, but I ask him to chide the rest of his followers when they give that as the cause, because that is all the 'cause I have heard given this afternoon.


Robert Forke: I think the right hon. member himself admitted that something might be due to management.


Arthur Meighen: It may be, but that is not the fundamental cause. The great fundamental causes are different, and they are to be found in the field of tariff and transportation. The hon. member for Rosetown (Mr. Evans) asked: What is the matter with the Canadian people? Or rather he would not put it so widely as that because he never included the farmers of the west in his query. He asked: "What is the matter with the Canadian manufacturers? They have no enterprise. I saw thirteen cars of feldspar somewhere in the province of Quebec going down to the United States to be manufactured." I ask the hon. member for Rosetown, as well as other hon. members: Does he think there has been some special virus or poison or disease that has affected one selected portion of our population and rendered them inferior to their competitors, while the rest of us are all right?


John Evans: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: He does. I do not think that does credit to the hon. member's intelligence, so whenever he asks me I will relieve him of the sentence he uttered this afternoon. Our manufacturing population is recruited

chiefly from our agriculturists. If the hon. member looks to-day at those men upon whose shoulders rests the burden of our great manufacturing enterprises, within whose brains develop those great enterprises, he will find them the sons of agriculturists. He will find right in the offices, right on the directorates of the greatest manufacturing industries of our country, men who were very recently farmers or the sons of farmers.


John Evans: I would like to ask the right hon. gentleman if they have not brains to stand on their own feet now.


Arthur Meighen: If they had not brains they would not be where they are, so the reason cannot be lack of brains. Some of them are not where they are, if I may use the Irish expression. They are over there and when you find them over there, they are right at the top. Indeed many sons of Canadian farmers are to-day at the top of great enterprises in the United States. If you put the Canadian enterprise on a footing where it has a chance to compete with the United States enterprise, they will be here and not in the United States. You 'may preach enterprise all you like; you cannot found an enterprise and force it ahead if the fundamental conditions surrounding your competitor are better than those surrounding yourself.


Robert Forke: The right hon. member has struck the nail on the head right there.


Arthur Meighen: I certainly have, and I hope the hon. member for Brandon will strike the same nail on the same head. That is exactly the head he has been missing for many a year.


Robert Forke: Will the hon. member let me put myself right? He referred to the fundamentals in connection with industry. If the coal is as good and the materials are as good and there is some protection, what is the matter?


Arthur Meighen: It is all a matter of what is "some," but I congratulate the hon. member for Brandon on his progress. I have no difficulty in remembering the time when he would not even countenance some protection.


Robert Forke: I do not think so.


Arthur Meighen: I remember when he
would never sound the word except by way of anathema, when he used to make the welkin of the school houses ring against protection in any form. Think of the progress the hon. member for Rosetowm has made! We would

Dominion Iron and Steel
not hear it suggested that protection was necessary for the home market. My heart took a leap of joy when I heard from the hon. member for Rosetown. When I get him that distance there is not much left in the way of conversion of the entire House of Commons.


John Evans: I would like to ask the right hon. gentleman again: What are the fundamentals of industry?


Arthur Meighen: I would say:	Common
sense, conditions comparable with those of one's competitors, and hard work. The hon. member has the hard work. I will not deny him common sense. Just come along with the third requisite.


John Evans: Is that all the right hon.
gentleman is asking for to put industry on a safe basis just now, or is he asking for more tariff protection?


Arthur Meighen: 
John Evans: Why are they not in this
country?


Arthur Meighen: 'I have been trying to
explain to the hon. member that it is because we have had a population filled by false doctrine who have turned policy in the wrong
direction, or, where not turned in the wrong direction, have failed to follow courageously through a true policy.


Frank S. Cahill: How long is it since we
have been under a protectionist policy in this country?


Arthur Meighen: It is only five years
since hon. gentlemen opposite came into power, but it seems fifty to the country.


Frank S. Cahill: It seems so to my right
hon. friend because he is out of office, but not to anyone else.


Arthur Meighen: It was the country I
was feeling for, not myself.


Frank S. Cahill: I think the right hon. member comes first in his feelings,


Arthur Meighen: I want to make a reference to a statement which came from the Minister of Finance, who said that this House has decided that higher and higher and still higher protection was not to be the policy of Canada. For myself, although I have listened carefully to the voices of Canadian parties and people, I have never heard anyone suggest that that should be the policy of Canada. I have heard it suggested that a definite, sound policy of protection applicable to all Canadian production should be our policy; that it should be frankly carried through; that it should be pursued rigorously and thoroughly; that it should be adhered to definitely and consistently year after year, and that all these thunderings and lightnings against it should cease, so that confidence among our business men might be restored. I have never heard anyone talk about higher and higher and still higher protection save those who, afraid of a true statement of the Conservative doctrine, always seek to misrepresent it in order to have something to attack. It does not follow that, even after repeated reductions in many important lines, merely because we want protection restored in those lines we therefore want a high tariff, because if a high tariff follows from a raising of the tariff in any particular, then it must follow that free trade must be the logical policy of those who are preaching freer trade. If those who want higher protection on certain lines of Canadian products are to be denominated high protectionists by hon. gentlemen opposite, then those who preach freer trade must be denominated free traders. The Prime Minister of this country (Mr. Mackenzie King) has preached "freer trade ' in that very language, and he has preached it frequently in this Dominion. But if I were to call him free trader there is no language
Dominion Iron and Steel

which would be vicious enough for him to apply to me. 1 ask to be treated in the same way as we treat hon, gentlemen opposite. They are in favour of a continuous lowering of the tariff; we are in favour of no such thing. We are in favour of necessary protection for Canadian industry, whatever that protection may be. But because we are in favour of that measure of protection we do not want to be called higher and higher and still higher protectionists every hour of the day.


Robert Forke: The right hon. gentleman
says that the Conservative party stands for adequate protection, but I have yet to hear any hon. member say what adequate protection actually is. Does it mean such protection as will absolutely prevent foreign products from coming into Canada?


Arthur Meighen: Nothing of the sort. It is protection at a level which shall put the Canadian industry on a parity with its competitor.


Robert Forke: Brick for brick.


Arthur Meighen: That does not follow at all. The United States might have a high duty on something on which we did1 not need a duty at all, and they might have no tariff whatever on something upon which it would be necessary for us to impose a duty. They have to-day no tariff whatever on some things on which we must necessarily have a tariff if we are to have any Canadian production.
I cannot recall who it was, but I rather think it was the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) who sought to give the House the impression that we had not so good a quality of coal in Nova Scotia, and that this probably accounted for the trouble. If I were asked any question in regard to the respective qualities of Canadian and American coal I could not answer it, but the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Cantley) has said that while there is a large proportion of what is called slack coal in the Canadian mines, such coal is to be found in mines elsewhere. It is of course obvious that some mines are better than others, and I should be obliged ;o concede that great areas of American coal are better in quality than the Canadian product. But I do want this to sink into the mind of the hon. member for Lisgar, as well as others, that even if that is true it is not good business, it is not common sense on the part of this country to buy the better article from another country if we can use the inferior product ourselves.


John Livingstone Brown: I was trying to find out if it was true, that is all.


Arthur Meighen: I do not think the hon. member went further than that, but still I believe the lesson is necessary even though he did not give immediate evidence of its need. I ask hon. gentlemen this question: Even though we have not quite as good coal as is to be found in the great anthracite fields of the United States, is it not better economics, is it not more thrifty, is it not wiser for Canada so to direct its policy as to consume its own coal rather than buy the superior article from a foreign land? Let me illustrate. Suppose the hon. member had a farm and on that farm he had a supply of coal which was not as good as Pennsylvania anthracite but which nevertheless was of fair quality and quite fit for use. Would it be thrifty of him and his family to purchase American coal of high quality and ignore his own because he was not enterprising enough to dig it from the ground and use it for the purposes of his farm? The illustration is a simple and homely one, but it applies to countries as much as to families. And unless we have common sense and business acumen enough so to direct our policy that our own coal fields will be exploited, thus saving scores of millions of dollars which heretofore have gone to other lands, we shall continue in that difficult situation portrayed by the hon. member for South Cape Breton and other gentlemen who have spoken this afternoon.
All through these years, in 1922, 1923, 1924 and 1925, we have been gradually lowering the tariff, and now we find ourselves face to face with a crash in what is perhaps the greatest single enterprise in Canada outside the railways. What is the remedy? I am not going to say that an immediate remedy can be found wholly along one line. Sometimes you get to a pass where you are bound to explore other possibilities than the one which seems obvious. I know certain appeals have been made by the industry-appeals recited, perhaps not quite completely, by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) this afternoon. I know, too, that objection can be offered to many, if not all, of them. But sometimes we have to overcome such objections, and by whatever means we have at our disposal we must avoid a great calamity, knowing that though the objections be considerable it is far wiser to surmount them than to encounter disaster itself. I promise the government that any suggestions they may put forward we shall approach in a sympathetic mood. We want this industry saved. I implore the government to exert its best ability, in the light of the best inform-

Dominion Iron and Steel
ation it has, to meet the situation. I assure them that though we cannot promise to endorse their proposals, if they are the worst we shall at least review them in a sympathetic frame of mind; and certainly it is our earnest hope that we shall find ourselves able to support them.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Hon. members will .recall
that timie and again this industry has come to the attention of the country. Only last year its workers came here asking for a small amount to tide them over their period of unemployment, and we were told then that this was entirely a provincial matter. Now Besco itself waits upon the government with a request for a handout of $500,000 or $300,000. There have been many investigations into the coal .and steel industry of Nova Scotia, at least in certain aspects, but we have never yet had an investigation into the finances of the company, and until the financial affairs of this concern are disclosed to the country the government in my opinion is quite right in refusing any assistance. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) takes the view that the company must trust the members of the government. He should go further, and declare that before one red cent more is given to Besco the financial situation of the company shall be made public.
The leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) has referred to the tariff and transportation. I submit there are other matters to which reference should be made and which have been lightly touched upon to-day. Again and again we have had the most extraordinary representations from Besco. Those who spoke for the company last year assured us then that within a few weeks everything would be lovely. Mr. Kyte, later followed by Mr. Carroll, had something to say with regard to the situation. On February 24, 1925, as reported in Hansard at page 488, Mr. Kyte said:
The question of unemployment, therefore, is about settled so far as Sydney and Glace Bay are concerned.
If this despatch is true, and I believe it ds; if the steel plant will soon be working on a basis of 100 per cent production, then there will be employment for every steel worker in ithe city of Sydney, and for every coal (miner in the county of Cope Breton. That is the happiest solution of our difficulty, and I think the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg might very well allow the matter to drop with (the assurance given in this despatch that unemployment will cease entirely and that the plant will be working (full time by the sixteenth of March.
These are the representations we have had from time to time. We have had only a mere reference to-day to the over-capitaliza-14011-283
tion of this company. Anyone might have gone further and said that the whole company has been a splendid example of frenzied finance. We have had very little said of the mismanagement that has characterized the operations of this corporation. Charges have been made before on the floor of the House in other connections in regard to this matter. The very fact that we have had such industrial trouble in the steel and .coal industry during the last few years is of itself indicative that the men .in charge of this big corporation are not fitted for such responsibility. I have spoken again and again in this House on behalf of the steel and coal workers of Nova Scotia.
I may say that it has been more than a surprise to me to receive letters from the shareholders of this concern thanking me for having done something to expose the situation that prevails in Nova Scotia, because they realize that if the existing conditions continue they are sure to lose their investment in the company, that even the bondholders will lose their capital.
I need not go into the exploitation which the company has practised against the workers. It is only a few days ago that in this House we had to protest against more coal miners being imported from the Old Country. Surely those in control of the company must know its affairs, and yet they were proposing to bring in many more miners because they say the mining industry is growing at such a rate that they must have a larger number of miners to carry on the work, and then in regard to the steel workers, again and again we have stated in this House that they have been worked eleven and thirteen hours shifts, and every other wedk twenty-four hours on end. Yet we were told to-day by one hon. gentleman who was speaking on behalf of the company that this industry could not stand competition with the product of the low-paid: workers of Europe. I think the hon. Minister of Finance has answered the main part of that contention, that there is comparatively little importation of steel products from Belgium. There is the other side of the question. Statements were made that in Belgium men were working very long hours, that there was child labour and that very low standards of living prevailed. I would point out that since June 1921 Belgium has had a very stringent eight-hour day in force.
Mr, CANTLEY: Does the hon. gentleman wish the House to understand that the workers in Belgium during the last three or four years, or since the war, have been confined to an eight-hour day?

Dominion Iron and Steel


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes. I should like to read a protest-


Thomas Cantley: Will' he let me make a
statement?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am making the
statement just now. I have only a minute or two more at my disposal. I hold in my hand one of the publications of the International Labour office of the League of Nations, to which we are a contributing member. This is dated May 31, 1926, and the hon. gentleman will find in it a strong protest on behalf of some of the employers of Belgium to the effect that they are in a very awkward position in regard to the eight-hour day because they are forced to compete with nations whose labourers are working longer than eight hours a day.


Robert James Manion: What about the wages paid those workmen?


James Shaver Woodsworth: The wages are low, but on the other hand those wages bring in more in the shape of substantial' comforts to the workers of Belgium than they do to the workers in Nova Scotia.
Furthermore, in regard to other conditions of work, I should like the hon. member to study certain tables which have been published by the International Labour Office showing the progress of ratifications of the treaty. He will find that Belgium stands high with respect to hours, unemployment, childbirth, night work (women), minimum age (industry), night work (young persons), and so on. When we come to Canada's part in regard to these matters, we find there is an absolute blank, so that the impression given by the hon. member opposite is far from being correct.
I am not going to say anything about reparations, to which reference has been made, exoept to state that one of the difficulties is that the countries paying reparations have had to lower their standards of living, and we are being adversely affected because of that. I would urge-


Robert Forke: It is six o'clock.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I will close in a
word or two. I would say that undoubtedly any failure of a large industry of this kind will undoubtedly seriously affect the workers of Nova Scotia; indeed it will seriously affect the whole of Canada; but before assistance in any form whatever is given to this industry I would urge that certain conditions be laid down. The industry must be thoroughly reorganized and the interests of the workers in every respect thoroughly safeguarded.


Hewitt Bostock: Is it the pleasure of the House that the hon. gentleman shall have leave to withdiaw his motion? Carried.


George Eulas Foster: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a few remarks on the question.


Hewitt Bostock: It being six o'clock I leave the chair.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.
Mr. A. de WITT FOSTER (Hants-ICings): Mr. Speaker, at six o'clock I had succeeded in catching your eye and arresting the attention of the House for a "brief moment, and I assure you it is not my intention to detain the House at any length in discussing this very important matter. It is a matter exceedingly important to the province of Nova Scotia, to the Maritime provinces, and I venture to suggest to the whole Dominion of Canada. It is important to the constituency which I represent, and that in the main is the first consideration which induces me to detain the House for a few moments in discussing some of the points that have been raised in the discussion this afternoon.
It is true that the steel industry is not located in either of the counties which I have the honour to represent in this House, but like so many of the industries of Canada the ramifications of which extend to the various portions of the Dominion, it is not surprising that this company and its success should have a marked influence upon conditions arising in my own constituency.
I said it was important to all the Maritimes. When one remembers that 25,000 people are employed in this industry in the province of Nova Scotia, and that one-fifth of the entire population are practically dependent upon it for their living, one sees at once the market for the products grown in the rest of the province which is here contained in the cities which are the very centres of the steel and coal industry. The apples that are raised in the Annapolis valley, many of them, find a market in New Glasgow and Sydney and various portions of Glace Bay, and in other coal, steel and iron centres. The products of the farm, butter and eggs, while they come into competition with other similar products, nevertheless have to find a portion of their market in these cities. In the winter time some of our men are engaged in the woods getting out pit props in the eastern part of Nova Scotia, and ties are obtained for laying in the various tracks of Besco's mileage. In

Dominion Iron and Steel
that way the ramifications of the industry can be seen to extend into the various sections and centres of our province, in fact, throughout the whole Maritime provinces.
It is on behalf of these people that those who have spoken from this side of the House have approached the consideration of this question. It is not from the point of view of defending a corporation. The corporation of Besco is personally, save in the by and large, unknown to me. By that I mean I have not had the pleasure of meeting either the president or the officers of the company. I have not had the opportunity to enter into an examination of their financial standing or status or of any of the intricate problems with which the company's officials alone would be familiar. I presume in that respect I am somewhat in the same position as the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke), who inquired this afternoon why it was that we had not specifically placed before the House the exact conditions that mitigated against the success of this company. He alone of members on this side of the House, assuming for the moment the geographeial position rather than that of political distinctions, would have an opportunity of knowing what the problems of this company were and what requests they were making from the government. In general policy at any rate we are led to believe that the hon. member for Brandon has access to the demands which have been made upon the government, and it was with that idea in mind that I asked him the question I did this afternoon, and which he evaded answering. However, I find no fault with him for that, and I take this opportunity of thanking him for the interest he manifested, and for the promise he gave that in the consideration of this and other eastern difficulties we would have his consideration, and, I rather think I might say from his remarks, his support along certain lines, if not wholeheartedly, at least some support. I appreciate and gratefully acknowledge the proffered suggestion and support of the hon. member. I wish, however, that he might make a definite pronouncement that in matters affecting the east, as in those affecting the west, he would be willing to go as far with us as we have shown our willingness to go with him and those whom he leads in this House, in regard to legislation which has been brought forward for that particular section of the country.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mt. Woodsworth) rather led the House to think that we on this side were speaking in defence of the company, but as I pointed out a moment ago there is no hon. gentleman in this party Who has reason to 14011-2834
defend the particular policy of the officials of Besco. I have not heard that suggested, and I am sure it is not so; but we do have in mind the very serious condition which will result to the workers in those mines and to the people of the Maritime provinces in particular if a remedy is not provided. It does seem to me that if we had come here with the identical case which has been submitted to the government by the Besco officials and presented it to the House, we might then have been accused, and with some show of reason, of presenting a case in favour of the company itself. But we have not done so. In fact we have approached this question in an entirely non-partisan way, because we believe that when one of the major industries of this country is shaken to its very foundation and when a crisis is approaching it, the situation should not be made a political question to the extent of at least effecting no remedy and allowing such industry to come to grief.
Mention was made of the capitalization of Besco. I fail to see what that has to do with the matter, for the reason that we have been told by the Minister of Finance that up to the present time Besco had not paid any dividends on its second preferred nor yet on its common stock. Surely it cannot be claimed that in the bonds issued there was over-capitalization and that the property is not worth the value of the bonds. I fear it is default upon the bonds that will take place in the early summer rather than default upon any stock.
Mention was made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) in discussing this question that the government had gone into the matter to a very considerable extent. According to the conversations which he repeated and the letters and telegrams which he read, they had had various conferences with the officials of Besco, and it seemed to me, if I gathered the proper deductions, that the reason why action had not been taken turned upon the non-receipt of a report called the Coverdale report, the officials of Besco claiming that the report in question was a private document for their own particular use, and the government maintaining that they could not act without having this report in their posj session. I venture to assume that there may be material in this report which it would not be wise for the public to know in view of the present serious situation. I feel certain, however, that the officials of Besco would be perfectly willing to produce this report for the examination of the members of the cabinet, on their assurance that the matter would be treated as confidential. In view of
Dominion Iron and Steel

the difficulties connected with the situation and the calamitous results that are likely to ensue, as has been pointed out and as is believed at least by the people of eastern Canada, the government should not hesitate, because of a technicality of that nature, to provide at least some of the suggested remedies which have occurred to them in the discussion of this problem, if not all that have been claimed by the management itself.
We were told that there were three phases of this question upon which a solution depended. One of these is the tariff. With that I do not propose to deal, because I am sure my views on that subject would not coincide with thpse of the government, and inasmuch as the tariff commission is already investigating the matter it seems to me that an interim report might very well be made by that commission to the government to aid them in arriving at proper conclusions. 1 have my own ideas as to what those conclusions ought to be; but I cannot speak for the commission, and the results I have in mind may be arrived at in a manner different from that which we on this side have been led to believe is the right and proper way. And so I say that so far as the tariff 13 concerned, if the government could secure such information as has been laid before the tariff commission, that in itself might help them to come to a conclusion upon the point.
The Minister of Finance dealt with the question of the claims urged by the company for certain moneys, and I am bound to say that his position in that regard seemed to me to be eminently fair, inasmuch as the moneys have been paid into the public treasury and, as the minister pointed out, only parliament itself could vote those moneys back again. With respect to other claims, they should be on a parity with the rest. As regards the government's position on these two matters I venture to say that very little fault can be found; but the fact remains that having taken that position and adhered to it, no relief can come so far as the ministry is concerned without bringing those matters to the attention of this House and laying before it some concrete proposition upon which it could act. It is that thought I had in mind with the desire of suggesting it to the minister.
The other point I had in mind was that relief might come to some of these industries through the medium of a bounty. Being a protectionist, as I announced on a previous occasion, I have no fault to find with the system of bounties, but they must be sparingly used and applied for proper purposes.

I remember reading a speech on the subject of bounties delivered in this House by the Hon. W. S. Fielding on December 14, 1909, in which the hon. gentleman made, as I believe, one of the most successful cases, if not the most successful, in favour of bounties that has ever been made in this House. In the course of that speech he pointed out that while the government had paid out some $13,000,000 in ten years to the steel industry in this country, yet in the various places where steel and iron were manufactured-[DOT] such as Sault Ste. Marie, Sydney, North Sydney, Sydney Mines, Glace Bay, New Glasgow and Hamilton-the increase in the customs duties alone at these points had been over $9,700,000, or less than $4,000,000 short of the entire amount which has been paid out in bounties. And from that he argued that in thus giving a stimulus to this industry, the producing power of the country had been increased, more wealth had been created, and as a consequence the people of the country were able to pay into the treasury almost as much as had been voted from it to this particular industry. Whether the subject of bounties is one which the government should consider is not for me to say; I merely point out that there is an argument to be advanced in favour of bounties, the most extreme kind of protection.
The main point of the whole matter, it seems to me, is that we ought not to allow this House to prorogue, we ought not to allow this debate to finish, until we have at least some indication that the government will take this matter into consideration and that if it is not done before the House closes they will do by order in council, if they can do it, what they have in mind for the benefit of this industry. We should be told that the government are willing to submit for the consideration of the House certain conclusions at which they have arrived for the benefit, indeed for the saving, of this industry. If we can judge from the remarks of hon. members to my left, I believe this House will be willing to give earnest and non-partisan consideration to this problem. I regard it one of the greatest Maritime problems, and with that statement I believe the ministry agrees.


John Livingstone Brown: It was not my intention to take part in this debate, and I would not have assumed the responsibility of continuing the debate past six o'clock, but since the hon. member who has just spoken assumed that responsibility, it may not be out of place for me to continue the discussion.
I do not propose to say anything about the

Dominion Iron and Steel
British Empire Steel Company itself-at least not that portion of the company's business which relates to steel-but by general consent it would seem that the coal interests are linked up with the steel business, and on that question I propose to make some very brief remarks.
When the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Cantley) was speaking I interjected a few remarks which the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) interpreted later as throwing some doubt upon the quality and availability of Nova Scotia coal. He quite correctly interpreted my remarks, and, speaking honestly, Mr. Speaker, there does seem to be some question as to the quality of Nova Scotia coal and its availability. By that I mean the cost at which that coal can be la:d at the pit's mouth. The right hon. leader of the opposition suggested to me that if I had a coal mine on my farm it would be better to dig that coal, and set my family digging it, than get it elsewhere. I should not like to give an unqualified consent to a proposition of that kind. It would depend altogether upon circumstances, and upon the spread between what it would cost me to dig that coal and what it would cost me to get it elsewhere. I was reminded of the story of a farmer who was travelling along the road with a tank of water. A stranger met him and asked him how far he was drawing the water. He said, " three miles." The stranger said, "Would it not be better for you to dig a well"? The farmer replied) to him, "Well, it is just about as far that way as the other way" , and I presume it would be sound protectionist doctrine to dig a well three miles deep instead of to draw water for the same distance. That is an extreme illustration, but after all does it not elucidate the point I wish to make, namely that we must give some attention to the question of cost when we are considering whether we will develop our own resources, whether we will dig our own coal or buy it elsewhere ?
There seems to be some question in the minds of many with reference to Nova Scotia coal. I made the statement this afternoon that there were some things I could not understand, and the hon. member for Pictou sarcastically remarked that there were many things I did not understand. That I am quite prepared to admit, and among them are the reasons advanced as to why a certain policy should be followed. Now the reason for not developing Nova Scotia coal is that Nova Scotia coal is not of equal quality to other coal used for the same purpose. On the other hand, when provincial rights are touched the
Maritime men stand up and declare that their coal is equal to any other, and they resent very keenly any statement to the contrary, as the hon. member for Pictou said in referring to the remarks made by the leader of the Progressive party (Mr. Forke).


Mr. MACDOUGALL:: The hon. member
asserted two or three times this afternoon that Nova Scotia coal was of an inferior quality, and he attributed the statement to some particular individual or authority. I should like him to name that authority.


John Livingstone Brown: If the hon. member will call upon me privately I will tell him all I have in mind and the sources from which I have gained my information.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: There is nothing
private about it.


John Livingstone Brown: Very well. We have had it brought before us that Nova Scotia coal is very much inclined to slack When the proposal is made that it be shipped up the St. Lawrence, they tell us it does not stand handling, and again that it does not stand banking.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Who says that?


John Livingstone Brown: That seems to be very generally conceded.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Give me one authority who makes that statement.


John Livingstone Brown: I might go further and
state the ejfact propositions that have been made to us. One of the reasons given for the adoption of certain policies was that Nova Scotia coal for certain purposes was not worth within $2 a ton of American coal. I shall be very glad to give the hon. member the information.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Now is the time.


John Livingstone Brown: The matter has been brought before some of the members here in such a way that I do not feel at liberty to give to the House all that was said to us on the question. Personally I have no objection to doing it, but there are other considerations which, at the present time, I feel under obligation to observe. So that it is a subject to which we endeavour to give consideration, and I am perfectly willing myself to give consideration to these questions. But when we are asked to endorse a certain policy we must know the facts. From my own observation there seems to be reason to believe that doubt can be thrown upon the quality of Nova Scotia coal, and not only upon the quality, but upon the cost of laying it at
Dominion Iron and Steel

the pit's mouth. A party of Progressive members visited Nova Scotia some years ago. We went down one of the coal mines in New Glasgow. We were told that that was the driest mine in Nova Scotia, and we were also informed that it was necessary to take out one ton of water for every ton of coal. Whether that is economical or not I do not know, but we are informed also that in some of the mines in Nova Scotia they had to elevate five tons of water for every ton of coal they took out. Then it would seem to be a fact that some of these mines are now extending out miles under the sea. Surely hon. members will admit the possibility that some of these mines-I will say only some of them-cannot be economically operated. If that is a fact, why not let us face it? It seems to be an admitted fact in regard to the mines in the Old Country. The newspapers tell us that some of the mines over there are in distress because they cannot be economically operated.
I understand the difficulties that confront us in a situation of that kind. It is not easy to move a population which has been built up around a certain industry, even when that industry can no longer be carried on economically. I appreciate that point and am prepared to give consideration to it.. But at least we want to know the facts, because it is only when we are face to face with the facts that we can hope to find a proper solution. The hon. member for Pictou did not do his case any good, but rather harm, when he took the leader of the* Progressive party to task for the statement he had made in reference to the quality of Nova Scotia coal and its availability. We were told, for instance, that some of the coal with which Nova Scotia has to compete, the Virginia coal, is loaded at the pit's mouth for about 90 cents a ton. One thing is certain, and that is that they are bringing large quantities of Virginia coal into the Maritime provinces We saw that when we were down there a year ago, and if the coal is of the quality they say it is, and if the mines can be operated as economically as they say they can be, then why the importation of Virginia coal into Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia itself? Let us know all the facts. If provincial pride conflicts with economic necessity they will have to put their provincial pride into their pockets and give the House and us from the west the fects so that we shall know how to face this question.
For my part, as I have already said, I am ready to give full consideration to policies that may seem to be necessary to meet the situ-

ation that has developed in the Maritime provinces. If it is true that their coal' is more given to slacking than some other coals, and that the cost both of laying the coal at the pit mouth and of transportation is unduly high, we will give consideration to those policies that are necessary to relieve that situation. Let us not have on the one hand evidence offered to us that would seem to throw doubt upon the quality of the coal, and on the other hand have men stand up in the House and find fault with those members who, trying only to arrive at the facts, make statements that meet with their disapproval. I may say again that the hon. member for Pictou did not do his cause any good but rather did it harm when he took the attitude he did in the House the other night.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Mr. Speaker, no one has less
reason to love the Dominion Coal Company or the Dominion Iron and Steel Company than I. I fought them at their formation for yeai-s and they followed me every time I contested a constituency. They had more money than I had and I went down. There is no doubt that the defeats I suffered in Nova Scotia were due to the expenditure of funds on the part of those associated with either the Dominion Coal Company or the Dominion Iron and Steel Company. But that is no reason why one should not approach the question with a fair and open mind.	.
The matter which is now up for consideration arises out of the fact that, on July 1 next, $5,159,000 of first mortgage bonds of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company will not pay their interest coupons, and that if the interest coupons are not paid on that date it is an absolute certainty that the interest will not be paid on $7,035,000 of consolidated mortgage bonds, interest on which is payable on September 1. Therefore it is perfectly clear that the Dominion Iron and -Steel Company is unable to operate with an operating profit sufficient to pay interest upon some twelve million dollars of its mortgage bonds. I understand the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) to say that the government at the present time has no suggestion of relief to make, but I would earnestly suggest to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) that this is a great industrial concern, and that the fact that it cannot pay interest upon its first and consolidated mortgage bonds for the coming year should not be clouded by the undoubted fact that in some of the stock, particularly the common stock, of that com-

Dominion Iron and Steel
pany, there may be water. With respect to the bonds one dollar of cash went in for every dollar of bonds outstanding. I think that is absolutely clear.
Mr. CAHI'LL:	Was there value there for
the bonds?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Value for the bonds and
much more. I am going to deal with that in a moment.


Frank S. Cahill: They are safe enough.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I do not know whether they are safe or not now; I am going to argue that point with the Prime Minister. If the announcement made by the Dominion Iron and Steel Company may be relied upon, this concern will be in the hands of a receiver during the summer months, and in the hands of a receiver they cannot operate unless the Prime Minister on behalf of this government will make some announcement which will induce the investment of sufficient funds to reconstruct that company on a sound and stable basis. If a receiver is appointed and no new announcement is made from the government, there is a fair possibility of that whole concern going down to wrack and ruin. If the Dominion Iron and Steel Company goes down during the summer months, if it is unable to induce capital to come in and assist in reconstructing the company on a sound financial basis, the Dominion Coal Company will go down with it, because the Dominion Coal Company cannot operate successfully unless it has a market for the coal which is now consumed by the Dominion Iron and Steel Company. I think that is a fair statement. I am trying to keep within the limits.
What has brought this about? It is brought about by circumstances and conditions arising out of the war. I am not going to talk tariff for the moment; I am trying to place the facts as I see them before the Prime Minister and the members of his government. In 1913 we produced in Canada on an average every month 84,000 tons of pig iron. Last year we produced 48,000 tons. In 1913, we produced 87,000 tons of steel ingots and castings. Last year we produced 63,000 tons There has been a great diminution of production. To what is that due? It is due I think to lower costs of producing similar products in France and Belgium. The Minister of Finance said that there had been no large imporations from either France or Belgium, but I think I can say without fear of contradiction that during the past two or three years the price in Belgium and the price in France have governed the price in Canada. Therefore to produce at all in Canada the
Canadian companies have had to reduce their selling price to conform to the selling price in France and Belgium.
A great part of that iron which enters into production both in France and Belgium came out of the Ruhr during the Ruhr occupation.
A very considerable part of it comes out of Germany by way of reparations, and although France and Belgium have it at a certain price, in order to realize they have been selling their products and obtaining less return for the iron than they have actually credited Germany with in the matter of reparations. Two years ago this summer I was in France and England examining into some contracts in which a client of mine was interested for the sale of iron products coming out of the Ruhr to England. As a matter of fact the prices offered under those contracts were so low that producers of similar products in England would have been driven entirely out of employment at that time. The British government intervened and prevented those contracts from being carried out, because they held that it was a great injustice to producers in England to allow those cheaper goods to come in under the circumstances so as to destroy, for the time being, British industries. We can in this country secure those products temporarily from Belgium and France at les3 cost than that at which we can produce them profitably in this country. It is stated, and I have no doubt it is true, that reckoned in terms of the gold exchange the cost of production of iron and steel in both France and Belgium is half what it is anywhere in Canada. I do not think there is any doubt about that. Indeed, in a review by experts of the United States which I saw some time ago it was so stated. This is due partly to depreciated currency. Anyone who has examined into conditions in France and Belgium knows that reckoned in gold-because the prices at which these countries sell here are based upon that standard-wages have not increased proportionately to the depreciation of the franc in either country.


Mr. HEAPS:: Is the hon. member sure of that fact?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I have it on the most reliable authority and I believe it to be true. Two years ago this summer I spent considerable time looking into the question with some of the best experts in England in connection with some contracts with which I was concerned. And I have seen large quantities of Belgian iron products coming into Canada. If I mistake not, last autumn I saw some iron for structural purposes being
Dominion Iron and Steel

landed in Montreal, and upon inquiry I ascertained that it was to be used in one of the government contracts. I cannot speak with personal knowledge of that, but I do know that a considerable quantity of this material is imported. The Canadian company to-day is obliged to meet the French and1 Belgian prices, and the cost of production has been so reduced in both these countries that their manufacturers can ship the product, pay the freight and the tariff as well, and sell cheaper than the Canadian producer can sell at a profit.
There is one other point to be considered. The duty on iron and steel has always been specific, and in 1913 it averaged, I think, pretty nearly 15 per cent; but with the prices now prevailing that specific duty reduced to ad valorem is only about 7 per cent. And that is without reference to any interposition on the part of the government; it is due simply to changing conditions of trade. The tariff against the French and the Belgian product is reduced one-half, and I suggest therefore that it is a fair matter for the consideration of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and his government, apart altogether from any question of protection or free trade. There is invested in this industry some $500,000,000 in round figures-I have the specific figures somewhere if they are called for. It is for the government to consider whether that industry should not have at least the same protection as it enjoyed in 1913 under the conditions which then prevailed, and, if we are to have a specific duty, whether that duty should not be raised so as to give the same ad valorem protection as was afforded at that time.
Another important question arises, a question which must meet the Prime Minister and1 his advisers at every turn in dealing with a matter of this kind. We have in Canada a population of 9,000,000, stretching across the continent, with a population ol 112 or 114 millions to the south, producing the same things that we produce. The United States, with 5 per cent of the population of the world, produces 50 per cent of the entire output of the world's manufactures, This is according to the latest statistics I have seen. They can produce, owing to what is commonly called mass production, much cheaper than we can produce the same standard articles in Canada for a market of 9,000.000. The government must therefore decide, parliament must decide, whether in face of that competition we shall endeavour as best we can to safeguard Canadian industries m which there are large invest-

ments. We may be compelled to pay somewhat higher prices in Canada than those that obtain in the United States in respect of many of these products. Personally I think it is wise for the country to do so, and it is for the Prime Minister to decide that question. I understand there is a broad line of division, but we must face it if we are to preserve the financial, the industrial and the commercial integrity of the country.
One word more. I can quite understand that the Dominion Iron and Steel Cofnpany might not be prepared to submit the whole of the Coverdale report to the country, but I understand1 that they offered to produce it for the consideration of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb). The Prime Minister and his colleague could have considered the report and decided whether there were certain matters which should be presented to the House and to the public and upon which they might base future action with regard to the company. There were, I know, certain other matters which might well be regarded as private and confidential and which it would not be fair to submit to their competitors. If I thought that the Dominion Iron and' Steel Company was not willing to have the government take from that report all matters really of public interest and which the government might reasonably require the House and the country to learn, and base upon these matters such action as they saw fit, I for one should feel reluctant to support the company. But I fancy there may have been some misunderstanding. I cannot understand that the representatives of the Dominion Iron and Steel would refuse to allow the government to take from the report all matters relevant and material to any decision which it might be called upon to make.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Would it be unreasonable to ask that the minister of the crown representing the province concerned should have the same right as his colleagues to see that report?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I should think so. At one time under an order of the court I spent six months with twenty or thirty accountants in going through the books of the Dominion Iron and Steel Company from A to Z, and I think I knew them at that time as well as any person could after such an exhaustive investigation. I know they contain matters which should not be brought before the public and before their competitors; but there were other matters disclosed by those books which I think are very relevant, and in my view the

Dominion Iron and Steel
government has the right to have those facts in order that it may be in a position to render an intelligent judgment in regard to future action with respect to this company. That far I am with the Prime Minister.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not like to interrupt my hon. friend, but may I ask him this question: Having gone through the books of the company, I think he referred a moment ago to its capitalization of $500,000,000; am I correct?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I was talking of all the companies engaged in the production of iron and steel products in Canada. I may have made a slip, but that is what I meant. Now I make this suggestion. It would be a most serious matter for Nova Scotia in particular, and possibly for Canada as a whole, if this undertaking in Cape Breton, Pictou and Cumberland, which may be termed a national undertaking, should go completely to the wall. I think it would be impossible to obtain the fresh capital necessary to place it on a basis where it could operate to a moderate extent, let alone to the full capacity of the plant, unless the government of the country announces some stable policy with regard to the iron and steel production of Canada. I do not want to put this offensively, but I say that company will go into the hands of a receiver unless there is some assurance that the industry will be safeguarded in a manner in which it is not now safeguarded against this foreign competition, and in that event, as a practical man, I think it would be impossible to obtain the new capital necessary to carry it on, on even the most conservative basis.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend seeks to place responsibility on the government of this country. Does he recognize no
responsibility on the part of the government of the province directly concerned?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Quite so, but so far as I can see, there is no announcement that the government of the province of Nova Scotia could make under present conditions which would create the confidence necessary in the public mind to secure the requisite fresh capital for the reconstruction of that company and the re-establishing of that industry. That was my point. I do not wish any unpleasant inference to be drawn from what I am saying; I simply want to state the facts because I recognize the government must take the lead. The responsibility ultimately will depend of course on the action of the parliament of Canada, but under present conditions it seems to me the government must take the lead. Here is a great industry being disrupted and
going to ruin, and unless the government acts very speedily I am afraid there will be no possibility of the redemption of that industry within the next few years. That is my sincere view. I am putting my own point of view before the Prime Minister, I am not endeavouring to throw any partisan prejudice into it at all, but I am simply trying to state the case to him with perfect frankness, because upon him really as the leader of the government there rests a very grave responsibility. Although I represent a constituency in Quebec and as a Conservative am opposed to him politically, personally I would go a long, long way to support any reasonably effective action that he and his government might take to save this industry from ruin.


Mr. W. F. MACLEAN (South York):: Mr. Speaker, as a protectionist I have been very much impressed by the statement made by the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) this afternoon that he and his friends would do what they could to support the government in applying a remedy to this situation. Let me suggest to the House what may prove to be a practical solution. Public ownership as applied in the province of Ontario to the distribution of power and light is of its kind one of the most marvellous enterprises I know of on the American continent. It is a great financial success, and to-day I am glad to say it has excited the envy of private enterprises competing against it.
Now, to my mind what Nova Scotia ought to do as a way out of this trouble is to handle the problem by way of public ownership- pool the leading mines, devote them to the production of electric energy near the pitheads and distribute that energy all over 9 p.m. the province for power and light, and ship the balance of the product of those mines to Quebec and Ontario for fuel. In this way the coal industry of Nova Scotia would be put on its feet, it would supply power and light for the province, and it would also supply fuel for Ontario and Quebec.
Now then, if the steel industry of Nova Scotia had the assurance of coal at cost, or very nearly at cost, produced from the pick of the mines that had been pooled, that of itself would be an encouragement to that industry. Then if the company had to be reorganized, capital would be forthcoming for the reconstruction of the steel industry. That is what we want to see. If they can have, as they have, a great steel industry in the United States, I say we can have a great steel
Dominion Iron and Steel

industry in this country. Evidence came out this afternoon that to-day the Americans are the greatest producers of steel at the cheapest price, and they sell it all over the world. They are the most protectionist country on the face of the globe.
Now, Mr. Speaker, by adopting this western principle of pooling the best of the coal mines in Nova Scotia we would get coal almost at cost; the coal industry would flourish, and it would enable us to insist that the men who work the mines get decent pay and decent houses to live in. That is another progressive idea, but it is worth while considering. This summer if we are to have a commission investigate the industries of the Maritime provinces, I should like to see it take up the coal and steel industries on the lines I have suggested. I am, of course, only stating it crudely to-night, but I am confident that in my suggestion there is contained the key to the solution of some of these Maritime grievances, for it will enable the miners to be paid good wages, and by the establishment of coking plants in Ontario and Quebec we can handle the coal of Nova Scotia, supply the fuel wants of the central provinces and get the advantage of all the by-products incident to the coking process. That will open a new vista for the people in the Maritime provinces. I am not going to take up any more time, but I just throw that out as a supplementary proposal. I think the government have 'been impressed by the debate this afternoon and will listen to the various suggestions that have been made, and I believe they will see that it is their duty to do something in the way of coming to the relief of Nova Scotia if this crisis of which we are told to-day really does impend, because it would mean a great injury to a great industry that we have in this country. If we want to go into the steel business, we must go into it in much the same way as the United States have done. We must encourage it, and perhaps the best way to encourage it was suggested here tonight, and as the Prime Minister says, probably the provinces ought to do something too. But probably the best relief would be by the bounty system. I know nothing that is better calculated to encourage an industry in a country than the bounty system, backed by the province and the Dominion. But some duty is on the government, so far as I can see, after hearing the debate here this afternoon, and is incumbent also, I think, on the province and on this House and the 
people of Canada, and especially the people of Quebec and Ontario, to take their coal from the Maritime provinces instead of sending their money to the coal mines of the United States.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Naturally, Mr. Speaker,
I am very deeply interested in this question and in the discussion which has taken place to-day. I want to commend my colleagues from Nova Scotia on the very fair and reasonable manner in which they have presented for the consideration of the House the problems that face us in Nova 'Scotia in regard to the steel industry. The discussion, however, has gone very far afield. We have drifted off into the consideration of whether Nova Scotia coal was good or bad, and into coal questions generally. All these matters have no relation at all to the vital issue before us. There is only one issue before us-small only having regard to all the other questions that have been referred to this afternoon and this evening, but in itself very vast and important.
Intimation was made to the government by representatives of the British Empire Steel Corporation that the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, one of their subsidiaries, was in such a position that they feared a receiver would have to be appointed. The reason they thought that course would have to be taken was on account of the information contained in the report of special accountants, known as Coverdale and Colpitts, who had made full and complete inquiries into the workings of the company and of all its subsidiaries. I happened to be present with my two colleagues, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb), when the president of the company conveyed that information to us, and I asked him what did he propose as a remedy. There were only two proposals that he made: first, that there should be a rearrangement of the law in regard to goods coming from countries where there was a depreciated currency; and secondly, he made an argument in favour of a bounty being granted upon coal that was used in the production of steel. He pointed out, by way of illustration, that the Steel Company of Canada and the Steel Company at the Soo, when they imported coal into Canada and used that coal in the manufacture of steel were entitled to receive and did receive a rebate from the government of 99 per cent of the duty that they had paid on the coal when it entered. Therefore, he argued that Nova Scotia should get a bounty of 50 cents upon

Dominion Iron and Steel
every ton of coal that entered into the production of steel. That would mean a .bounty of $2 a ton on every ton of steel. I stated to the president of the British Empire Steel Corporation that I could hardly see the logic of his proposition. In the one case you were rebating duties to companies importing coal, and you were not giving any subsidy at all, but in the other case you proposed to go into the treasury and give a subsidy of $2 a ton on every ton of steel manufactured out of Canadian coal, and that the proposal was one that we would have to consider very carefully. In view of the conditions which he said existed in the Dominion Iron and Steel Company, as disclosed of this report of Coverdale and Col-pitts, the government came to the conclusion that in order to have t'he full and proper information before us, in order to ascertain first, what was the cause of existing conditions, and secondly, what we ought to do, we could not move intelligently unless we had that report. I think the House will agree with me that that was a reasonable and proper proposal, and so my hon. friend and colleague the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) conveyed that information to the president of the company.
Hon. gentlemen who were here this afternoon have followed the correspondence which took place, in which Mr. Wolvin took the position that he would not produce the report. Finally, at a conference on Friday last he intimated to the Prime Minister and my colleague the Minister of Finance that he would produce the report for their private consumption only, and that they should not be permitted to communicate even to their colleagues in the government what was in the report. Now that is naturaly a very unreasonable position. Every hon. gentleman who has parliamentary or governmental experience knows that under the oath of office that every privy councillor takes, there are at all times important matters of confidential character which all members of the government have to keep secret in the public interest. We never thought of suggesting that the report should be given to us for the purpose of being thrown open to the public or anything of that kind, but simply and solely for the purpose of enabling us to know the cause of the present conditions, and what was the best remedy-^-because enough was said, and enough has been said in addresses to the shareholders of this company, to indicate that this firm of accountants did make certain findings and also certain recommendations as to the future.
The position of the government is this: We feel we are entitled, before we come to any
policy in regard to the matter, to a perusal of that report. It might be found necessary that certain portions of the report should be given to the House and the country in justification of any action we might propose to take or of any policy we propounded. I am sure that no hon. gentleman with any sense of responsibility would say that this government could act until we have before us the facts contained in that report. We are not insensible to the present position of the company; we appreciate the grave consequences that would follow to the province by the sea if this steel industry should fail, or as my hon. friend from St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) said, be ruined. The consequences would be serious not only to the section where this industry is located, but to all the other industries throughout the province. We are prepared to give the fullest and most sympathetic consideration to any proposition that can be made, and will endeavour to devise proposals in order that what is said to be impending may be averted. But we do think, and we submit to the House, that the president of the British Empire Steel Corporation should allow us to examine that report in order that, being acquainted with the facts, we migjht know what to do.


Robert James Manion: I shall take but a bare three or four minutes, to reply to a remark made by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woods-worth) as to the wages paid in the steel industries in Europe as compared with the wages paid in the same industries on this side. During his remarks, after he had mentioned that there were laws in Belgium forcing workmen to work eight hours per day, I asked him what about wages, and while he admitted that the cash wages were higher on this side of the water, at the same time he said that the wages they received in Belgium purchased as much goods as the amount of wages received over here. Now in 1924 I discussed this wage question in the House with the then Minister of Labour, Mr. Murdock; the then member for Red Deer, who is also the sitting member for that constituency (Mr. Speakman) backed me up, and we asked the Minister of Labour to put on record the wages paid over there as compared with the wages paid here. He said that he had these figures after a very thorough investigation had been made by the British Ministry of Labour. These figures are not figures obtained by the Canadian Ministry of Labour, by the Conservative party, by the Liberal party, the Progressive party, or the Labour

Dominion Iron and Steel
party, but figures obtained by the British Ministry of Labour after full investigation. And they are not cash wages, they are what are called "real" wages, that is the cash turned into food, clothing, rent and so forth. I have here the report issued by the Canadian Minister of Labour, Mr. Murdock, on May 20, 1924, and recorded in Volume III, page 2339 and subsequent pages, of Hansard of that year. Mr. Murdock points out that these are figures of the British Ministry of Labour. I mention that because he himself points that out. He mentions various lines of work in Europe and the real wages obtained by the workers in those occupations. The statement shows the wages paid in Belgium, France, Germany, England, in any of the European countries from Austria on the east right west to the British islands. It is pointed out that in no one of these countries does the rate of wages come within one-half to one-fifth of the rate of wages paid in Canada. I am going to give a couple of instances which bear out the statement, and I shall take the engineering trades, which are more or less related to the industry we have been discussing to-day-that is the iron and steel industry. I will only mention a few of the cities but I desire to draw special attention to Brussels, Paris, New York and Ottawa. I imagine most hon. members will realize it is important to understand what real wages are. That point arises because of an argument made on a former occasion by the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke). I repeat that real wages are wages converted into food, clothing, and shelter, the necessaries of life.


John Livingstone Brown: What is the index number?


Robert James Manion: In London the index number is taken as 100. The figures for the engineering trades are as follows:
London	 100
Amsterdam	 108
Berlin	 57
Brussels	 73
And it was of Belgium that my hon. friend was speaking.
Christiania	 104
Madrid	 83
New York	 162
Ottawa	 196
Paris	 58
Prague	 54
Stockholm	 79
Vienna	 62
Warsaw	 61
I will repeat just here these four: Brussels, 73; Paris, 58; New York, 162; and Ottawa, 196. It will be seen that the figure for Ottawa

was four times what the Paris figure was, and almost three times the Brussels figure. These are figures dealing particularly with the engineering trades that are most closely related to the industry we have been discussing to-day.


Mr. DUNNING:: Oh, no.


Robert James Manion: These trades are just as
closely related as any trades that are contained in the same report. They deal with fitters, iron moulders, pattern makers, and turners-occupations, I think, closely related to the iron and steel industry.


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


Robert James Manion: These trades have a great deal to do with the iron and steel1 industry; they are the closest to it that I could find for the purposes of illustration. What does my hon. friend say the closest occupation would be, that of men engaged in foundries?


Charles Avery Dunning: I think my hon. friend
will find: that none of the trades he mentions have to do with the British Empire Steel Corporation's problem.


Robert James Manion: 
Abraham Albert Heaps: What he said was that they were as high as they were in Sydney, Nova Scotia.	[DOT]


Robert James Manion: My hon. friend is right, the member for Winnipeg North Centre did say that. But in this record the wages are not given for Sydney, Nova Scotia. However, I have no reason for thinking that the wage rate is materially lower in Nova Scotia than it is in Ottawa. I presume the Ottawa figure is a composite figure for the whole of Canada, although I do not know whether that is actually the case. But the fact remains, as shown from figures compiled after careful investigation by the British Ministry of Labour, that the real wages-whether in the British islands or any other of the Continental Countries-are materially lower than the wages paid in Canada.
Motion withdrawn.


MONTREAL HARBOUR COMMISSION
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from June 11 consideration in committee of Bill No. 189, to provide for a loan to the Harbour Commisisoners of Montreal-Mr. Cardin-Mr. Duff in the chair.
Mr. CARDIN:: The other night the committee passed the different clauses of the bill with the understanding that I should give further explanations in regard to the report
supplied to the hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Rogers) with respect to the purchase of certain properties needed for the landing of the Montreal bridge on the island of Montreal. 1 must state that the harbour commissioners primarily considered it would be more advantageous to effect the purchase of these various properties by private sale, if at all possible, rather than by expropriation proceedings or any other method. The engineers, when preparing the estimates of the cost of the bridge, went into the valuations of the properties which it might be necessary to acquire for the approaches. These figures prepared by the engineers have been checked by the representative of the city of Montreal, Mr. Terrault- who, as a matter of fact, represents the city of Montreal on the advisory board which has been formed by the harbour commission, for the special purpose of advising the commission in all matters concerning the bridge. On this advisory board is also found the name of Mr. Vallee. He is an engineer of the provincial government, who supervises the construction of all bridges built by that government. Mr. Vallee is a member of the advisory board with Mr. Terrault. All these figures were also checked by Mr. Beique, real estate man in Montreal, a man of experience in his trade. They were carefully gone over by Mr. Browne, a man having a thorough knowledge of real estate in Montreal, in fact I think he has been in the real estate business in that city for thirty-five years. The engineers' estimates regarding the cost of the acquisition of the property necesary for the approaches of the bridge in Montreal at first placed it at $1,400,000. Later on, after further examination, it was found' by Mr. Beique, that the amount necessary to purchase said property would probably be $1,645,000. The valuation as given out by Mr. Browne, was $1,560,000. On account of certain difficulties encountered with the proprietors of very large real estate properties the course of the landing was somewhat changed. A suggestion was made that there should be a change because the original plan involved the expropriation of property of very large value. It was in fact discovered that it would cost too much to expropriate this property at the price asked by the proprietors, therefore a change was made in the course to be followed by the approaches and the estimates were accordingly reduced to $1,184,800. Judging by the progress made up to the present in the buying of the property, the commissioner and those working for him in this connection are under the impression that the whole expropriation will not cost more than $1,000,000. Obligations have been undertaken

Montreal Harbour Commission
for about $750,000, and this represents much over one-half of the value of the property which will be required for the approaches; in fact, it is nearly three-quarters of all the real estate which it will be necessary to secure for that purpose.
In the sworn declaration which was read by the hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Rogers) the other night, the civic valuation of five properties is given, probably based on the valuation of these properties to determine the price at which they should be bought. According to my information, the civic valuation is never taken as a basis for the valuation of property. In fact the city of Montreal has made numerous expropriations and particularly, in one instance for what is known as the boulevard Saint-Joseph. Expropriation proceedings were carried on, and it can :be fully established to-day that the price that was paid in these expropriations was nearly five times the amount of the civic valuation in that locality. The same thing has happened in other instances. For example, in the expropriation of land needed for the Windsor Street station, the Canadian Pacific Railway paid as high as $22 a foot for property which was never assessed at such a high price. The same thing occurred in many cases in the expropriations carried on by the same company on Notre-Dame street. On the occasion of the sale by auction of the old fire station on St. Catherine street, near Bleury, which was sold for $61.75 a square foot, the assessment was one-third of this amount. The old High School was sold at auction for $1,385,000, and the assessment was about one-third of that amount. The property at the corner of Laurier avenue and St. Lawrence boulevard was sold at $12.50 a foot, five times the city assessment. In fact the' city valuation has never been taken as a basis for determining the price which is to be paid for properties to be expropriated.
I will now give the committee the information given me' by those who are negotiating for the harbour commission in trying to acquire property by private sale. Take the first case mentioned in the sworn declaration, P-31, P-32, P-33, this property has a frontage of 127 feet on Notre Dame street, 124 feet on Craig street and 31 feet on Delorimier avenue and is entirely built upon. It has a frontage on three streets, it is shallow in depth and contains an area of about 5,000 feet. The first price asked for the property was $75,000. According to my information, this property had been valued' by Mr. Julian and Mr. Chausse

at a price of $100,000. There had been numerous interviews with the proprietor and the first option which had been obtained was for $60,000. It was afterwards discovered that half of the property belonged to a man named Gilbert residing in Belgium. After negotiations the property was bought for the sum of $45,000, which was a very favourable price indeed, because in the same locality Molson's, the brewers, had paid the sum of $10 a foot for a similar pietce of land, and on top of this, there is the question, of the buildings. Therefore, according to my information and the representations which have been made, the price which has been paid for this property is quite correct. To show that we did not rely too much upon the civic valuation, I may say that Mr. Bernier, who made the sworn declaration, gives the civic valuation of this property as $22,500 and he says,:	My own
valuation would be $35,000." That shows that he doe's not himself place very much reliance upon the civic valuation of the property. Has he more experience than others? Is he entitled to more credit for his valuation? Nobody can say, but according to information given already and prices paid for properties situated in the same locality, I think we are right in concluding that thq price of $45,000, paid for a property covered by buildings and situated iu practically the centre of the eastern part of the city of Montreal, is not very high.
As regards property P-491, it has a frontage of 80 feet on Delorimier avenue by 120 feet deep. It is only 42 feet from St. Catherine street, and it is practically St. Catherine street frontage. If the owners of the property fronting on St. Catherine street had acquired this property, we would have had to pay $12 a foot for it. According to the ratio of values, this property is worth $9 a foot. The owner has been asking $8, and the price paid by a representative of the harbour commission is $6.50 a foot. The civic valuation of the property is $18,500, and Mr. Bernier says:	"My own valuation would be
$38,600." According to the sale of similar properties in the vicinity, the price which has been paid, namely $78,000, is fair and reasonable, and even a low price. We are told by men of experience that if we had gone through the ordinary expropriation procedure we would have paid a higher price for this property, in addition to the cost of expropriation, and we would have incurred all the delays of such a procedure.
As regards property P-492, it has a frontage of 36 feet on St. Catherine street and is within 40 feet of Delorimier avenue on the

Montreal Harbour Commission
transfer corner. It has only a depth of 42 feet, all built upon with a meat and sausage business fully equipped, doing a trade amounting to $120,000 a year. The owner asked at first $65,000 for the property, good-will, loss of business, removal of fixtures, and an ice plant installed which would thus be rendered useless and which had cost $12,000. The commission has paid $22,500 for the property itself, and they have allowed the sum of $18,500 for the loss of his business, removal of fixtures- Loss of trade, and so on, which amount certainly could have been obtained by the proprietor in any expropriation proceedings. Mr. Bernier gives the civic valuation of this property as $9,500 and says that his own valuation would be $25,000. This shows once more that the civic valuation can not be of any help in determining the value of properties.
As regards property P-493, Mr. Bernier gives the civic valuation as $48 000 and he says that his ora valuation would be $75,000 and that he is informed that the said property has been bought privately by the harbour commission for the sum of $125,000. This is not correct, because the said property is being expropriated; it has not yet been bought, and the price will be determined under expropriation proceedings.
As regards property P-294, it has a frontage of 46 feet on St. Catherine street, and it contains an area of over 3.000 square feet. It is fully built on with a brick building. The price originally asked by the proprietor was $75,000, which was entirely out of the question. By gradually negotiating with the owner, the commission got the price down to $47,500, and the deal was finally put through at $44,500. The building cannot be erected for $30,000, not to speak of the cost of the ground. This building is valued at $35,000 by the same party who valued P-492 at $25,000, although the land is double the size and the building is a brick building, three storeys and basement. Even basing the value on the same valuation, the area being double, the man should have valued this property at not less than $50,000, plus a certain amount on account of the difference in value between the north and the south side of St. Catherine street and the difference in value between a brick building and a wooden building.
I am afraid that some people may have been disappointed because they have been deprived of an opportunity to make some money out of the purchase of certain properties which were needed for the building of the approaches to the bridge. My information goes so far as to permit me to state
that the man, whose name is mentioned on the certificate of research which was produced or read by the hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Rogers) the other day, has been trying to get in touch with the proprietors of a certain number of properties in order to act as their agent and has even promised certain proprietors a large profit in the case of the property being expropriated by the harbour commission. To show that the purchases which have been made are really advantageous, I may say that one of the proprietors agreed to give a Mr. Julien, probably the man whose name is mentioned on the certificate of research, authority to sell his property or to act as his agent. He signed a document setting forth the conditions upon which he was prepared to part with the property. He fixes the price at $12,000, and he says to the agent in effect, "If you cannot get $12,000 you will receive no fee for your services in this transaction." I am informed that said agent asked the harbour commission the sum of $14,000 for the same property which has been acquired by the commission, through its own agent, for $9,500. This is one illustration of the good work which the commission is doing.
Attention has been called to the fact that, according to the certificate of research, no mention has 'been made of the prices at which these properties have been acquired. In the matter of price, the only indication that appears is the phrase, "One dollar and other considerations". May I observe that a general statement of this kind is nothing new. Wherever properties are purchased on an extensive scale, it is the practice to omit from the deeds any reference in direct terms to the price paid, inasmuch as it would be to the disadvantage of the company or the person making the purchase or, in the case of the crown, the expropriation to have it made public just what was .paid in any instance. The price is kept secret between the buyer and the seller, and this avoids any possibility of exorbitant demands being made subsequently for other properties. This is the procedure which, as a general rule, has been followed in connection with expropriations.
It has been pointed out further that apparently ail these properties have been purchased in the name of one particular individual. There is nothing extraordinary about this. We are trying to secure these properties privately, and when they have all been acquired it will be easier to transfer them to the harbour commission if they have been

Montreal Harbour Commission
purchased through one and the same person. It will mean only one deed of transfer to the commission.
This is the situation according to the information which has been submitted1 to me, and before concluding I feel bound to convey to the hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Rogers) my appreciation for the fairness he showed the other evening in stating the case which he presented to the committee.


Mr. ROGERS:: I appreciate the compliment, and of course I want to be fair. I want the minister to understand that I am not in any way opposing the construction of the bridge nor the work that is going on. At the same time, when the minister comes to parliament asking for a vote of $12,000,000, it is naturally the duty of someone to ascertain how the money is being spent. When I asked the' other night how much of the right of way had been purchased, the minister said none, and lie repeated that statement twice or three times. Now he says it is all purchased, to the extent of $700,000. Surely it is time to ask questions in view of such conflicting statements. My hon. friend has not mentioned how much property situated on the site originally planned has been bought and paid for and which is not now required. Perhaps he could give us some information on that point; it would be very valuable just now.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: It is just possible that I
was not altogether wrong in the statement I made the other evening, for the purchases have not been completed by the commission. All the work is being done at present by its agents. I admit frankly, however, that when the matter was last before the committee, I was not familiar with all the details of the transaction. I am not quite clear now on the question the hon. gentleman asks, as to how much property has been bought on the old site.


Robert Rogers: The minister is aware that the bridge is not being built on the site originally planned. I have here the plan originally made and I can submit it to him. The bridge follows the old survey up to a certain point and then branches off. and considerable property has been bought along the original site up to that point. I expected that the minister would be able to give us some information in that regard to-night.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I have no information in
that respect. I am under the impression that no property has been bought along the line of what is supposed to be the original site. I am informed that when it was discovered that it would be necessary to acquire certain properties which were of relatively high value, and that expropriation proceedings would have to be taken, the engineers of the commission looked over the plans and made some changes in connection with the approaches to the bridge. There has been no change so far as the bridge itself is concerned. The line of approach has been curved, so to speak, and I have no information as to any property purchased along the original site. What property we have bought lies along the line decided upon lately by the engineers.


Robert Rogers: My information is that a
considerable amount of property was purchased along the old line.
'Mr. CARDIN: No. According to the first estimate the expropriation would involve about $1,500,000, or $1,600,000, and when the harbour commissioners were faced with the high prices which they would probably have to pay for five or six properties, they made the change to which I have referred, and which reduces the estimate by some $400,000. So the estimated value of the properties, which was at first put at $1,600,000, has, by the change, of course then approved, been reduced to $1,182,000, and now judging by what we have purchased already we expect that the total expropriations will not cost more than $1,000,000. But I repeat, I am under the impression that no other property has been bought than those which will be absolutely necessary for the building of the approach, according to the line which has been established lately.
Mr. ROGER'S: I should like to give my hon. friend some information as to the properties which were purchased covering the old site before the change was made. They are the following:

Montreal Harbour Commission
Cadastre		Sulb-Div.	Civic No.
171			1069
194		1	942-944
P. 195			946-956
P 196			5 to 7
196-197-	198		978-994
199			992-998
470			1194-1198
	and		10-16
P 497		8	7-11
471			13-17
472			1190-1192
471			1150-1176
P. 489			1200
	and		IB to 11
			South of
P. 495			46-48
496		3	50-56
498			1106
			Two last properties
499-499		1 & 2	1125-1129
P. 500			1582
P. 502		5-10	1-23
503		27-31	
Street	Price ipaid
Craig St. E	 $20,000
Delorimier	Ave	
18,000Delorimier	Ave	
15,000Erie St	
6,000Delorimier	Ave	
27,000Delorimier	Ave	Delorimier	Ave	Kent St	
29,380Kent St	
9,200Kent St	
7,000Delorimier	Ave	
18,500Delorimier	Ave	Delorimier	Ave	Tansley St	
35,000
St. Catherine St.
Campion St	 45,000
Campion Sit	 11,000
Damontigny St	 12,0.00
not required on old course of bridge
Detmontigny St	 11,500
Delorimier Ave	 64,000
Patterson Ave	 19,500
Burnet and Dorion St	 28,000
Those are not required at all in connection with the bridge as now laid out. I have received this list from a reliable quarter, and I cannot understand why my hon. friend has not with him more information in verification of what is necessary for this work. He talks of expropriating this land, but according to his own statement it was acquired by private sale.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: There are a few other expropriations under way at the present time.


Robert Rogers: There may be, but it has all been done by private treaty. Then you have the properties deeded by a lady who acknowledges that she has received one dollar and "<3ther valuable consideration". Is it fair to come to this House for $12,000,000 without a clearer and more definite statement to support the application? If there is the slightest doubt that this is not being carried on in the best interests of the harbour and in accordance with honest dealing with the people's money, we shall be in a very serious position. My hon. friend should realize that and make sure that he has been furnished with accurate information, because from what he has been able to place before the committee to-night, it will be very hard for me, as I am sure it will be for other hon. members on both sides of the House, to consent to the passing of a bill to place in the hands of a body of men the expenditure of millions of dollars when those men apparently have not used good judgment in the administration of the money that has already been entrusted to them. I think my hon. friend will himself agree with 14M1-284
me that he should have a great deal more information and that considerably more care should be taken in order that all the facts may be placed before parliament, because this is the only opportunity we will have in this House of getting any knowledge of how the money is to be spent. We have discovered that the price of the right of way apparently is very exorbitant. It goes without saying that civic assessments are no criterion of property values, especially in the city of Montreal. We are anxious to get the facts. The other night- my hon. friend told us that no property had been bought at all; to-night he admits that $750,000 worth has been acquired for the right of way. Now he tells us that no property has been purchased for the original site that will not be required as a result of the change of plans beyond $250,000 worth; but I have just given a list of properties purchased on the old, original site that will not now be required. I for one have not the slightest desire to delay the passing of the bill, but, as I say, this is the only chance for parliament to get reasonable information as to the expenditure of the money asked for.
Last week my hon. friend told' us that the city of Montreal was paying one-third and the province of Quebec another third. I think he must be mistaken, for as I understand it the legislature of the province has passed legislation on behalf of 10 p.m. the city of Montreal and on its own behalf that each will be responsible to the extent of $150,000. The other night the minister told us that this



Montreal Harbour Commission
bridge will cost $15,000,000. I do not suppose he will get the money at less than 5 per cent, or an annual charge of $750,000, and if the city of Montreal 'and the province of Quebec are to ibe called upon to pay only $300,000, the Dominion will be responsible to the extent of $450,000 annually. So if we allow this bill to go through we will be called upon to pay* a great deal more than we originally agreed to be responsible for, the first arrangement having been for a contribution of a third by the city of Montreal, another third by the province of Quebec, and1 the remaining third by the harbour board through the Dominion.
The minister is good enough to acknowledge that the evidence I produced the other night was quite correct. I think he will find that the further evidence I have placed on Hansard to-night is equally reliable. Therefore -before he asks us to proceed with this bill I hope he will get some definite information on the points I have referred to, and if he does, I can assure him there will be no delay in passing this measure so far as I am concerned.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Mr. Chairman, I think it is my duty, in view of the question that has been raised with regard to the price of lots, and that has been dealt with by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, to say some Words in his support. My own position is this, and I took this position in the campaign, that I was reluctant to see the bridge added on as a part of the harbour works of Montreal. We in Montreal regard the harbour -works as a great national undertaking, and if they cannot be justified as a great national undertaking they cannot, in imy opinion, be justified at all. As a national undertaking they must be kept clear of any shade or shadow of wrongdoing, any shade and shadow of graft or fraud. When it was represented to me, therefore, as a member from one of the Montreal constituencies, that a higher price had been paid with regard to those lots which have been dealt with specifically to-night by the hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries, I made the most careful examination that I could to ascertain the- facts, and I am in duty bound to say that I think that the purchases of those lots are free from any wrongdoing, and that the facts which I obtained after a careful inquiry are in entire accord with the explanation made here tonight by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. I am dealing now specifically with lots P-31, 32, 33, 491, 492, 493 and 494. In the exercise of their discretion they may have paid a higher price than they possibly should have paid. It may have been that

by closer bargaining they could have taken a few thousand dollars off the price, but I will say that, having done everything I could in the way of inquiring and investigating whether there was any shade or shadow of fraud or wrongdoing in connection with those lots, I became convinced as an independent member of this House that there was nothing of the sort.


Mr. McGIBBON:: What about the old
lots?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: They were not reported to me, and I do not know what lots were bought.


Peter McGibbon: There were a quarter
of a million dollars' worth.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: In the reports that were
made to me, it was these lots I have mentioned that were specifically referred to as matters that were open to debate. With regard to the others, I do not know. But I will say this, that in connection with the Montreal harbour works I think the accounts of that body should be audited from year to year by the Dominion government auditor. I do not think that is a matter that should be open solely and exclusively to a private auditing by the auditor who is engaged and is under the sole direction and control of the harbour commissioners. I think that change should be made.
There is no doubt that if one were to tell the truth-and I dislike to say it for fear of casting suspicion where no suspicion might lie-in connection with the contracts for the construction of the bridge in all its ramifications there has been a very great deal of gossip in the city of Montreal and a great deal of suspicion aroused as to the way in which those contracts were placed. Yet I am bound to say this:	I have been as persistent in trying to ascertain -the facts as a member could be, and I have not yet been able to find any fact that would warrant me making any charge against that commission. But I would be satisfied, and I am sure the citizens of Montreal would be better satisfied, if the accounts of that board were audited by the Auditor General or one of his representatives.
There is one other matter, and then I am done. In order that the commission may carry out its work as a great national work, I do not think the board of commissioners should be entirely changed with every change of government. The very fact that each succeeding government accepts the resignations of all the commissioners then in office and appoints an entirely new -body of commissioners from those of its own political

Montreal Harbour Commission
faith-from, if I might use a word that was allowed this afternoon by Mr. Speaker, its own henchmen-tends to discredit the work of the commission in the eyes of many of the people of Canada. If another government does ever come into office, or if a vacancy should occur in the present board of commissioners, I trust that the government will see that one member of that commission is nominally of the political faith of the opponents of the government. There is no reason why the government, being responsible for the work, should not have a majority on the commission, but it would give just a bit more confidence in' the commission if there ' was a minority on it representing the old regime. The board would then carry on always with a majority representing the government, who have the responsibility, but ' with at least one member of the old regime who knows what has been done and who would act as a. binding link between the two successive boards.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The west is vitally
interested in this harbour. It supplies . primarily the products from which the tolls are exacted that ensure the payment of the interest upon the securities that are emitted by the board and guaranteed by the government of Canada. It is not conducted, or 'should not be conducted, as a money-making enterprise. The harbour board is the creature of statute, a statute of this parliament. It issues securities; we pay them the money, and we have not yet any control over that expenditure. The Public Accounts committee of this House may not examine those accounts. We may not appoint a firm of auditors to audit them. That is the law at the moment. During the last session of parliament a large sum of money was voted for the construction of a bridge at Montreal. We are now being asked to vote the large sum of $12,000,000 for harbour purposes. It is true that we get for that $12,0100,000, securities which are issued by the harbour board, and those securities doubtless will have the interest paid upon them regularly. But I can say this to the Minister of Marine and to the Prime Minister, there is abroad in western Canada the idea that this harbour board's affairs are not conducted as they should be, that this country should have the right to audit those accounts in order that the rates charged might, if possible, be reduced and thereby render the charges on the shipment of grain from western Canada to the markets of the world cheaper than they, are now. That is the impression that prevails. There was, for instance, in one of the news-14011-
papers-it was carried as a despatch in many of the newspapers- last fall during the time of the election a very disconcerting paragraph. It indicated that the expenses of the election were being paid out of the funds that were derived out of these transactions. Now that is calculated to have a very injurious effect.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Will my hon.
friend make a charge to that effect?


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, but I will tell you
what I am coming to. It is too late this session, but if I am here next session I am going to ask for a commission or parliamentary committee to investigate the operations of the harbour board for reasons that I am going to state. Those reports, I say, were circulated throughout western Canada and they found credence in many minds. There is one way in which this impression can be removed, and that is by a full, free and thorough audit by competent men of the accounts of the board, or by the submission of its accounts to the Public Accounts committee of Canada.
Let us look at this question of acquiring land. Land acquired by a public body is, of course, capable of being acquired by expropriation or by private treaty. I do not know what the law of Quebec may be, but in the other provinces, of whose laws I have some knowledge, it is customary to file a plan, and to vest the property, under the Public Works Act of Canada, or under the Railway Act, either in the railway or in the crown, as the case may be. Then there i3 a procedure whereby the price can be settled before a judicial tribunal or before a board of arbitration. But if private negotiations are carried on without the plan being filed, in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred the price paid would be and is excessive. In this instance the minister has been speaking to-night of expropriations, yet I find, after listening to his remarks, that in many instances there was nc such thing as expropriation. What happened was that in a number of cases they proceeded to negotiate by private treaty for the acquisition of lands that were used for the rights of way to this bridge on either side. Now, had a plan been filed and, to use a term in vogue in United States very largely, the land been condemned by the filing of the plan, then the price to be paid would be settled in one of the manners I have indicated. In this instance the proceedings have apparently been carried on by private negotiation or treaty, with the result, the minister asserts, that substantial sums of money had been saved. May I point out to him that the filing of the plan and the condemnation of the land, and expropria-

Montreal Harbour Commission
tion proceedings are What should be done under the law in all cases where the people of Canada are finding the money and a body over which they have no direct jurisdiction is spending it. I submit this axiom with respect to a matter of this kind: No public body that derives its moneys from this parliament should be permitted to carry on its operations except by strict regard to the law, which means that when property has to be acquired it should be acquired by condemnation and by expropriation in the manner provided by law. I submit that to the minister for his consideration.
I said a moment ago that grave suspicions were aroused because of articles that were circulated in the public press, not in one paper but in the public press generally, with respect to the relationship of the construction of these harbour works to the elections. If it were not at this time of the session I would make this motion:
That the accounts of the harbour board be referred to the Public Accounts committee for the purpose of enabling them to be investigated.
One should not make rash promises, for life is uncertain, but I do think that if I were privileged to be in this House another session I should make such a motion in the interest of western Canada. As a matter of fact there should be no necessity for such a motion; such a provision should be made by statute. It should be part of the law that where this country finds the capital sum for great public ports amounting to forty and fifty millions of dollars, as in t'he case of the city of Montreal, the expenditure of that money should be subject to the scrutiny of the representatives in parliament of the people most affected. I know of no part of this Dominion that is more interested in the harbour of Montreal than western Canada; and if these moneys are not expended with the most scrupulous care, with the most exacting care, with respect to every dollar that is obtained, it follows that the tolls that are imposed for the use of the harbour facilities will not be as low as they otherwise would be, and as a result of that western Canada will suffer. I admire greatly the harbour facilities in Montreal but I find great difficulty in understanding why we are now asked for $12,000,000 while at the same time we are talking of providing further accommodation at Hudson bay that will limit the [DOT]use of those facilities. In addition to limiting the use of the facilities at Montreal there is this also to be borne in mind: We have created a harbour board at Vancouver. Notwithstanding the harbour facilities that are being created on the Pacific we are now being

asked for $12,000,000 additional for Montreal when much of the grain traffic that used to flow to Montreal is now going to Vancouver. I can recollect the first shipment of grain that ever went from Vancouver through the Panama canal; I happened by accident to be associated with the enterprise conducting it. That is not so very long ago, but I have seen that traffic steadily develop and increase until there are now many million bushels of grain going from Vancouver to Europe through that canal. To the extent to which those facilities are used, to that extent there is a less demand made upon the facilities of Montreal. The [DOT] Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) may shake his head, but that carries no conviction. I know whereof I speak; I happen to know the facts with respect to this matter and it is not a matter of imagination. I had to do with the first cargo that went by the route in question.
There is one further question to be considered in relation to this matter. American grain is being sent through our ports. That is not an unmixed blessing. Some people say, "Expand your facilities in order that you may get more American traffic". But we have had our grain in western Canada held up because our facilities were being used by American grain. That is not hearsay either, that is a matter of record. Now if we are going to increase these facilities for the purpose of1 offering them to American grain and American commodities, thereby prejudicing t'he right to move our own commodities, then the less we do of it the better. However, the important point is the passing of the grant of $12,000,000.
I have given a little more than ordinary business consideration to the harbour of Montreal and its accounts. I have given some little attention to its cold storage facilities, to the charters of railway companies and others with respect to that harbour. I have studied with some little degree of care the various transactions that have taken place by which the present condition has been arrived at. I have seen the votes of this parlaiment last year. I am now called upon as a member of this House to express my approval or disapproval of this vote and I wholly disapprove of it at this moment. I wholly disapprove of it, first because I have no adequate and proper information vouched for by the auditors of this country, the shareholders or owners of these facilities in the ultimate analysis, that will enable me to say that the tolls charged are just and reasonable tolls having regard to the just and reasonable charges that should be made against that harbour. Secondly, I have not had presented to me any evidence that would warrant me in agreeing to a vote of

Montreal Harbour Commission
twelve millions at this moment, having regard to the condition of this country. If the movement of grain and other products westward, and the movement of products from Europe through the Panama canal to Vancouver for distribution on the prairie-that is the return cargoes-are to increase as they have, and if the Prince Rupert monument-I call it the monument-is to bear the inscription which was originally intended, obviously these facilities would not be so greatly required. But if indeed it is to be, as it now is, a monument to political necessity and business incapacity, then these facilities may be required. But when you think of that great property being rented for $100 per annum, one can readily understand the circumstances which should bring a blush of shame to the cheek of every Canadian, one can understand why parliament is asked to vote money for this purpose. But I go further and say that if I have the opportunity, I shall certainly demand, in the interests of western Canada, that the accounts of that harbour board are no longer left in the hands of a political body which changes, as the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George sa3's, with each government. The audit of accounts should not be left in the hands of auditors appointed by such a board. These accounts should be subject to the scrutiny in every detail, either of the Public Accounts committee of this House or of auditors independently appointed by parliament for the purpose of safeguarding the expenditures made by the people of this country on Montreal harbour, whose money it is and who are merely advancing it on the strength of securities the interest upon which is defrayed and the sinking fund provided out of tolls exacted to a very substantial extent in the final analysis against the products of western Canada that is in the case of the outgoing traffic-and on the manufactured goods and other commodities that come into the harbour of Montreal for shipment to every part of the country. Every pound of freight that goes to the prairies, every bushel of grain that leaves the prairies and goes to the harbour at Montreal, is making a contribution to those facilities and therefore helping to pay the interest on the $12,000,000 we are asked to advance to-night.
For those reasons, considering the paucity of information at the command of the minister, the lack of information, and the necessity of obtaining this information, I am compelled to accord my disinclination to approve of this expenditure this session. I do think
that in the interest of the country as a whole and this parliament in particular, these expenses should be and must be audited or referred to the Public Accounts committee before we conclude to vote money by millions, as we are doing, for this harbour.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I want to associate myself with the suggestion made by the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett), to this degree at least,, that the accounts of the Montreal harbour board-and I rise for the purpose of adding to that the accounts of the Vancouver harbour board also-should be placed under the control of parliament. I will illustrate the necessity of that, or I will add to the illustrations already given, by pointing out that in the case of my own city, Vancouver, I am confident that there has been some very grave and gross extravagance in the construction of the works there during the last few years. I do not wish at this time to attack the department or the harbour commission of Vancouver, but I say, with equal emphasis to that of my hon. friend Who has just spoken, that these accounts should be subject to the scrutiny of parliament, and I certainly will welcome the motion he mentions for next session. I suggest to him now that he should add to that, "other harbour boards organized similarly to that of Montreal."
I may say, to show to the minister and the hon. members representing the Montreal district that there is no malice in my mind toward that city, that when the Vancouver harbour commission was organized I had to do with it almost entirely; in fact I introduced the bill, or got the government to introduce the bill, and at my own expense had the original bill drafted. I modelled it after the Montreal harbour board scheme, so that I approve of it. I have great respect of the record of the Montreal harbour board and its accomplishments, but that does not, I think, bar us from offering constructive criticism of its actual administration and suggesting a change in that one respect which I think would bring a great deal more confidence to the mind of the public generally. These great public bodies, spending millions of public money-d speak now particularly of the Vancouver and Montreal harbour boards, whose organization is practically identical-should subject themselves to the scrutiny of parliament through the Public Accounts committee, and I believe also through the Auditor General's department. Perhaps it is too late in the session to deal with a matter of this kind.

Montreal Harbour Commission
but I would suggest to the government that between now and next year the department having to do with these two commissions should prepare a careful presentation for the Public Accounts committee of the major capital expenditure in both harbours during the last four or five yiars. I know that in the case of the Vancouver harbour it will be difficult to explain some of the extravagant expenditures, and I may also add this: once there is extravagance in connection with a capital expenditure, that saddles for all time, or for a great many years, on that port the necessity for raising an unnecessary amount of money to pay the annual charges in the way of interest and sinking fund. This in turn is raised by the tolls upon the shipping, and thus the rates are increased beyond what they ought to be, if there is extravagance. Consequently it is very necessary to keep those expenditures down to the lowest possible point.
1 Mr. BENNETT: Would the minister consider this amendment to the bill, which it might be possible to introduce on the third reading:
That the expenditure of the money hereby or heretofore granted shall be subject to audit by an auditor to be appointed by the parliament of Canada and to investigation by the Public Accounts committee of the House of Commons.
I mention that for consideration by the minister, and between now and the third reading of the bill he might be able to agree to it. I am not sure of the exact language which should be used, but that is the sense of what I have in mind.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I am pleased to agree to
the recommendation which has been made by the bon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan), the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) and the hon. member 'or Centre Vancouver (Mr. Stevens): I am sure the harbour commission of Montreal, of Vancouver or elsewhere will have no objection at all to submitting themselves to a more direct control by parliament. We are following the practice that has been established since the corporation was formed, and, so far as they are concerned, I do not see any objection at all to an audit of their books; in fact they have been audited. In the course of last year the Auditor General went to Vancouver and made an audit of the books of the harbour commission. He went to Montreal and made an audit of the books. there. I think at the present time these harbour commissions come under the Audit Act.
	J


Richard Bedford Bennett: Their accounts do not'
come before the Public Accounts committee. Many things are audited, but they never come before the Public Accounts committee of Canada. Things disclosed before the auditor would not come before the House for acceptance by that body.


Mr. CHURCH:: I think it is a matter of congratulation that the port of Montreal is receiving such a large increase in business, tonnage and receipts. The government have spent $44,000,000 on the harbour and now propose to give them $12,000,000 more, making a total of $56,000,000. The Montreal harbour board had jurisdiction over the channel of the rSver between Montreal and Quebec from 1854 to 1890, when it was transferred to the Department of Public Works. In 1894 the control of the river channel between Montreal and Quebec was transferred to the1 Department of Marine and Fisheries where it remains to-day. I think it is the desire_ of every Canadian that the harbour board shall1 have money to carry on their work. Any remarks I have to make will not be in criticism of the work because every Canadian desires to see this national port grow and progress. On the deep channel from Quebec to Montreal the're was spent in all $44,000,000, which added to the $56,000,000 will make $100,000,000 spent on the Montreal 'harbour and approaches; add to that the million spent on railway terminals and railway facilities, expenditures amounting to perhaps $50,000,000 or $60,000,000 for railway approaches. I think this port should be taken out of politics and managed from the commercial aspect, and the same should apply to Quebec and Vancouver. The minister should consider whether there should n-ot be a nonpolitical board established to manage the affairs of all the federal and national ports, bo that there would not (be a change of board every time there was a change of government, thus making for continuity. If the Canadian National Railway board should be a non-political1 organization, so should our national ports. It is an economic and business question, not a political one. In my opinion, a general act should be passed applying to all these harbour commissions and it should be brought up to date, providing for capital charges, sinking fund, interest and everything else. This board have spent $56,000,000 and they have a sinking fund of one per cent of the loan or only $1,000,000, or one fifty-sixth of the total amount of their capital. This is far too low and it is not proper financing. I do not wish to offer any criticism because I

Montreal Harbour Commission
believe the port of Montreal is going to go ahead by leaps and bound's in the volume of business brought to Canada. I believe every assistance should be given the board to function in a businesslike manner. The present commissioners under the .party system of control are no better or worse than those under the Conservative administration, and I believe they have the interest of the port at heart. I know some of the commissioners and I believe they give a great deal of their time and attention to this work as did their predecessors. In my opinion this great national port should be conducted from the commercial aspect and taken out of politics altogether.
Another feature of the matter that should be dealt with is this. This question was discussed at a 'convention of port authorities when they were here from all over the world from England and other places. Some arrangement should be made for a civic boulevard, park and recreation scheme along this magnificent stretch of river and the island of Montreal in unison with the harbour. I hope they will not make the same mistake that was made in regard to the port of New York, where conditions are somewhat similar to those at Montreal. Recently three commissioners were appointed by the state of New York and three by the state of New Jersey to look after the port of New York. They have jurisdiction over 800 miles of territory around the island on the ocean and rivers. They have found that it is too late to reclaim the water front; that they should have started fifty years ago, and I hope this board will not make the' mistake that has been made in other places but will redeem forever the whole water front. They should construct a proper boulevard and harbour driveways and parks to provide breathing spaces for the working people of the1 great city of Montreal. Some time ago at the convention I discussed this matter with the president and members of the commission and suggested that a harbour survey be made on these lines, not only from the business standpoint but from the standpoint of beautifying the waterfront and affording a breathing space in the near future for the masses of the people of Montreal.
The minister should bring down some better capital financing of this particular project. Certainly a million dollars is not enough for a sinking fund for $56,000,000 of debt, and as regards the interest charges and capital there should be some refunding scheme for this debt. The various loans should have a refunding basis. This money is not a guarantee of bonds; it is a direct .advance of cost up to
$58,000,000 to the board. We should not depend upon the 'harbour board audit or a departmental audit of the accounts of this board. We should have a professional auditor appointed by parliament to audit the work of this and other boards and report to parliament direct, in order to see that the Canadian people have received value for their money. The Toronto commission do not get one cent from this government; all the money they spend is money' guaranteed by the city. All the money spent in that port by the Dominion government since confederation amounts to $8,000,000 although the revenues are from $90,000,000 to $96,000,000 a year. As regards the three ports, Montreal, Quebec, and Vancouver, a general act should be passed and brought up-to-date to provide for a uniform system of audit, a uniform sinking fund, and a uniform method of financing the work, and of refunding and repayment of the loan. [DOT]
The hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Rogers) referred the other night to some sales of land, and he read an affidavit. I believe the port on the whole has done very good work under all governments, but we must not forget that it is operating a public trust. I have confidence in the minister and the department but I believe we should have an independent audit made once a year by someone responsible, not to the board, not to the department, but to the high court of parliament.
I notice the operating receipts of the port are increasing very rapidly. Something should be done to prevent the discrimination which has been brought out in this particular debate against the port of Montreal for the benefit of Portland and other ports in the United States. I do not believe the port of Quebec has ever had a chance. It was a seaport before Montreal. In 1854 Montreal was no more a seaport than Hamilton, Belleville, or Port Oolborne on lake Ontario. It was made a seaport by deepening the channel between Quebec and Montreal at an expenditure of nearly $50,000,000. We in Ontario claim that this deep waterway system should be extended to the head of the lakes.
In my opinion Montreal is not what might be called a free port; it cannot be a free port because they have to pay interest and sinking fund but they should try to work up to the time when the port may become a free port. Although Canada receives $4,000,000 in revenue, that is only a small drop in the bucket of what would accrue to Canada if Montreal could be a free, port and attract not a thousand but two thousand ships. The largest ports

Montreal Harbour Commission
in the world have been turned into free ports; they came to the point where they had to become free ports in order to draw trade and commerce to them. These ships go out to the seven seas and if they draw trade to Canada in the way in which they should draw it, a mere $4,000,000 or $5,000,000 would not amount to very much in comparison with the increase in trade which would1 help t'he city people and the farmers of the country as well. I hope the day will come when we shall have a nonpolitical commission in charge of this and other ports. As regards the port of New York where politics had been rampant, a new act was passed whereby the Governor of New York appointed three commissioners and the Governor of New Jersey appointed three, but they control little or nothing. They have had a survey made of the port and they are working up to the time when they hope that great port will be taken out of politics, the same as all the United States ports on the great lakes.
The people of Canada want value for their money and I hope the time is not far distant when the authorities will get together and see if something can not be done to take these great national ports of Montreal, Quebec and Vancouver, which are doing splendid work for the country, out of politics and administer them from a commercial standpoint.


Murray MacLaren: What percentage is paid into the sinking fund annually?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: One per cent of the loan.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I drew to the
minister's attention the other evening the fact that as things are now we do not know what is being done with our money. The matter came up in connection with some man in Quebec drawing a salary of $12,000 a year, and my hon. friend agreed entirely with the simple proposition that we have a right to know what disposition is made of the money which we either vote directly or grant by way of endorsation. All that he has to do is to provide that the accounts in connection with the moneys which we place in the hands of the commissioners from time to time may be submitted to the Public Accounts committee. There can be no objection whatever to such a provision. If the present practice is not right I am sure the minister wants to make it so.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I have no very serious
objection to that.


Robert Rogers: Then let us agree to that and pass the bill.


Mr. BELL (St. John):: Can the minister
give us any information as to salaries paid to officials other than harbour commissioners in Montreal and Quebec?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Unfortunately I cannot
give that information to-night, but I will submit it to-morrow.


Henry Lumley Drayton: How shall we
best carry our agreement into effect? Would it not be better to insert the amendment now rather than leave it to the Senate?


Murray MacLaren: It is desirable to have
on Hansard the particulars regarding the salaries. How are we to get those particulars if the minister has not the information here to-night?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I will make a statement
to-morrow.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is satisfactory.


[Stage Direction]
Preamble agreed to.
Title agreed to.
The CHAIRMAN:: Shall I report the bill?


Henry Lumley Drayton: We cannot
report the bill if the minister is to make a statement to-morrow.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Is it wise to delay the
passing of the bill merely pending the submission of information regarding salaries paid to officials in Montreal?


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is not what I have in mind. I am thinking of an amendment which would enable the Public Accounts committee to look into the expenditures of the commission. I am sure the minister wants to incorporate such a provision in the bill, and the sole question is, at what stage it would be most suitable to submit the amendment. I suggest that we leave the bill where it is.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: If I understood the hon.
member (Mr. Bennett) rightly, he offered two suggestions. One was that the accounts of the commission should be submitted to the Public Accounts committee and the other was that an absolutely non-partisan audit should be made, an independent auditor being appointed. This latter proposal is already embodied in the law.


Richard Bedford Bennett: When I made that suggestion I did not have an opportunity to qualify it, having -been interrupted. What I was going to point out is this: an audit may or may not mean any-

Montreal Harbour Commission
thing; it may mean merely the production of pieces of paper as receipts for certain moneys expended. What we desire is an opportunity to investigate the accounts represented by those vouchers or pieces of paper, and that can be done only by the Public Accounts committee. When I mentioned the audit I was not clear whether or not the country exercised any control in that regard. I had not read the statute at the moment, but I know now that the government may, if it desires, audit the accounts. But that is not sufficient. What is wanted is an investigation into the accounts themselves, and whatever may be necessary for that purpose should be added as section 6 of the bill. It would save time if the amendment were made now, because if the bill is reported there will have to be a motion on the third reading to refer it back to the committee. I suggest that we leave the bill in committee and in the meantime have the minister draft a suitable amendment. I could draft one myself, but probably it would be better for him to have it done by his law officers, as it would then be satisfactory to himself.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Report progress and ask leave to sit again.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: When the bill was in committee the other evening, it was agreed that all clauses should go through and progress be reported, on the understanding that an opportunity would be given later to discuss the question of expropriation. It was understood between the hon. member for South Winnipeg and myself that the matter should be left in abeyance in order to have that question considered subsequently. Personally I have no serious objection to the suggestion of my hon. friend from West Calgary, but I hardly think it would be well to adopt now an amendment which would have the effect of changing the present system.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It would not change the system.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: If hon. gentlemen insist, I should prefer to get out of the committee stage and have the matter taken up on the third reading to-morrow. As I have said, it had been understood that we should go into committee again only for the purpose of considering the question of expropriation.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not know anything about that understanding, but what has come up to-night turns surely upon that very question; it follows logically from what it is understood we were to consider. There seem to be differences between the hon. member for South Winnipeg and the minister, and we want to have some machinery by means of which those differences can be adjusted. The minister agrees that there should be a remedy, and if an amendment is to be made we may as well make it now. The usual thing is to move such amendments while the bill is in committee.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Does my hon. friend think it would be fair to insert such an amendment in this bill?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Then the port of Montreal will be an exception inasmuch as such an amendment would not affect Vancouver. We cannot touch other ports with this bill, and if we adopt the proposed amendment it will leave open to the Public Accounts committee the accounts of the Montreal Harbour Commission, and of that commission alone.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Let us amend the Montreal bill in this respect and the minister can do the same thing in the case of Vancouver. For my own part, the sooner he amends the Vancouver act, the better.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The committee has overlooked an act introduced by Mr. Fielding, who was then Minister of Finance, and passed in 1923, for the express purpose of supervising just such expenditures as those which are incurred by harbour commissions. The statute in question was assented to on June 30 of that year and I quote from it the following actions:
The 'board may inquire into the financial affairs of any commission or other public body the operations of which are carried on by appropriations from the treasury of Canada or which are aided by grants or loans from the said treasury, and shall make any recommendations which in their judgment will tend to a more effective control of the expenditure.
The Minister of Finance may extend the powers of the board to include inquiry into any other undertaking or service belonging to or receiving aid from the government of Canada as he may deem to be in the public interest.
Each member of the board shall for the purposes of inquiry under this act have all the power and authority given to the Auditor General of Canada as respects the various departments of the Dominion government.
These are the most important clauses, and-


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend, though, I think will agree with me that that was merely a temporary bill.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No.

Montreal Harbour Commission


Henry Lumley Drayton: I think he will find that that is the case. My recollection is we extended the term of the Board of Audit.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: This is still
part of the statutes of Canada.


Hugh Guthrie: It was repealed last year.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think the essential parts are there.


Hugh Guthrie: There was a new act last year.	[DOT]


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes, I happen to know how it was brought up again and why. I had been urging on my hon. friend the former Minister of Finance the necessity of a pre-audit, and out of that idea came this audit board. Apparently we are not at one yet, therefore it seems to me all the more necessary that we should rise and report progress.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend from South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) has been kind enough to draw my attention to the statute of last year repealing the previous statute, and to tell me that it contains the essential features of the latter. For instance:
The treasury board may from time to time extend the 'powers of the board to include inquiry into any other undertaking or service which has received or is seeking aid from the treasury of Canada as may be deemed to be in the public interest.
That covers it.


Henry Herbert Stevens: No, my right hon friend will notice it does not meet the case at all. It merely says that the Treasury board, a section of the government, may ask the Board of Audit to look over certain acccounts that they themselves are interested in. We are asking that there shall be preserved to parliament the right to examine those accounts, which is obviously different. The Minister of Marine and Fisheries has agreed that the suggestion is a sound one. It only remains to draft a clause and incorporate it in the bill. We suggest that in order to save time the committee now rise to give the minister an opportunity to prepare the necessary clause, which can be placed in the bill when it is again in committee, and we can then give it third reading.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Mr. Chairman, in view of the representations that have been made, I have no objection to move that the committee rise and report progress.
Progress reported.


DEPARTMENT OE LABOUR The House in committee of Supply, Mr. Duff in the chair.
Labour-Combines Investigation Act, $30,000.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Will the minister inform the House if any prosecutions have been ordered as a result of the investigation under this act into the New Brunswick Potato Dealers' Association?


Hon. J. C. ELLIOTT (Minister of Labour):: On June 9 a report was made that a combine existed in regard to the marketing of potatoes in New Brunswick. This report 11 p.m. was remitted to the Attorney General of New Brunswick on June 11, 1925, and on September 15, 1925, it was again remitted to the Attorney General of New Brunswick in the new administration.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Has any action been taken by the Attorney General of New Brunswick?


John Campbell Elliott: Not so far as we are aware.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Has any action been taken by the government? The time limited by the statute has long since elapsed.


John Campbell Elliott: No further action has been taken.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Does the department intend to take any further action in the premises?


John Campbell Elliott: It is left with the Attorney General of New Brunswick to act.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Supposing he refuses to
act, is it the intention of the department to act? It has power to do so.


John Campbell Elliott: That has not been considered.


Mr. FLEMMING:: What was the cost of the investigation?


John Campbell Elliott: 


Richard Burpee Hanson: How was the amount distributed?


John Campbell Elliott: In this manner:
McLellan and Hughes:
Legal services	$2,197	50Expenses	
232	08

 1,785 27
Witness fee and expenses-
W. W. Boyce, $2.15	 2 15
Printing-
6,502 copies of report, "Investigation into alleged combine limiting competition in the marketing of New Brunswick potatoes"	 1,015 69
1924-25 expenditure	$1,129.16


Richard Burpee Hanson: Who is Mr. Jackson?


John Campbell Elliott: He was a special investigator engaged.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is he an official of the
department?


John Campbell Elliott: I do not think so.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He is a lawyer, is he
not?


John Campbell Elliott: I understand not.


James Kidd Flemming: I would like to ask
the minister in regard to the method of conducting investigations under this act. I have no disposition to go into the merits of this particular case, but my understanding is that when charges were made that certain firms had violated the Combines Act, an investigation was ordered and the parties who were complained against had no opportunity of meeting their accusers and no opportunity of being present when evidence was being taken, no opportunity of questioning or cross-questioning witnesses, and no opportunity of presenting any evidence in their own defence. Is that the policy of the department in conducting investigations under this act? It would seem to be most extraordinary. I remember very well at the time the Hon. Mr. Jones of Woodstock was acting for the accused, and he complained most bitterly that they were not allowed the opportunity to cross-question any witnesses, or to submit any evidence in their own behalf, or to do the things which ordinarily an accused person is allowed to do. I would like to know what is the policy of the department in conducting investigations of this kind. It seems so wholly and absolutely contrary to the principles of law and right and justice. A man accused ought surely to have the chance to see who his accusers are. He surely ought to have the opportunity of cross-questioning witnesses who give evidence, and the opportunity of giving evidence in his own behalf. Then you can have a fair investigation as a result of which you may reach a reasonably proper conclusion. Without that the investigation would be utterly devoid of the merit which an investigation conducted in accordance with the principles of law would have. No one knows at what time some other firm of reputable dealers might be accused of violating the principles of the act, and it seems highly important to know that at least they would be accorded what we would call fair play, an opportunity of cross-questioning witnesses, and of giving evidence in their own behalf. One cannot imagine that the commissioner investigating would not want that very thing done if he wanted all the information, and wanted to go to the very root and bottom of the case and get the facts. Surely that is what he would require to be done. But I understand that in that case it was absolutely not done.


John Campbell Elliott: Of course a good deal had to be left to the initiative of the investigator in each particular case. I wonder if my hon. friend is not overlooking the fact that this matter has not yet been brought to trial. Of course at the trial both sides will be represented. I take it that the inquiry up to the present in the case to which my hon. friend refers is merely an investigation by officers of the department, or by investigators on behalf of the department, to ascertain whether or not a combine exists, and whether or not there is such a set of circumstances as justifies a prosecution being instituted. Once the trial takes place the defendant will be represented and will have the right to cross-examine witnesses and to produce evidence on his own behalf, but up to the present no trial of that kind has taken place. It is merely an investigation to find whether or not in the opinion of the department officials and investigators a combine really exists.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I think that the hon. member for Yictoria-Carleton has understated, rather than overstated, the circumstances surrounding this case. These gentlemen were charged under the act, and an investigator was appointed. The performance can be characterized, I think, as a star chamber performance. This produce association, or the members of it who were charged, employed counsel, but he was not admitted to the hearing. Witnesses w'ere taken in one by one. The department was represented, I may say, by able counsel, but only one side of the case was heard. It was not even a preliminary examination such as you might anticipate before an indictment is laid. Counsel for the defendant and his witnesses were excluded, and an ex parte investigation was held. I want to ask the minister if that is the policy of the department, so that the public may know in the future what they may expect. By reason of the action of the investigator,
Sppply-Labour

the case I think has been robbed of any semblance of fairness. There certainly was not an opportunity on the part of the accused to make out even a semblance of a defence. They were not allowed to be represented, and there was no cross-examination by counsel for the defence of the witnesses produced for the affirmative. The whole proceedings we considered were very unfair. I would like to know if that is the way in which this act is to be administered in the future.


John Campbell Elliott: So far as I am aware, no complaint has reached the department that this or any other investigation under this act has not been conducted in accordance with the act.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Complaints have been
made.


John Campbell Elliott: My hon. friend's complaint is the first that I have heard in connection with it. The act practically prescribes the manner in which the inquiry shall be conducted. Section 19 says:
The proceedings of the registrar and every commissioner shall be conducted in private, ibut the minister may order that any portion of the proceedings1 before the registrar or any commissioner shall be conducted in public.
Section 20 says:
Whenever in the opinion of the minister, the public interest so requires, the minister may apply to the Minister of Justice to instruct counsel to conduct the investigation before the registrar or any commissioner and upon such application the Minister of Justice may instruct counsel accordingly.
I would point out-and I am saying this without having, as I say, considered that question at all before, because I have heard no complaints-that the practice that was adopted in this case was the same, I am told, as that which w'as adopted some years ago in Ontario when a certain prosecution took place there. I think it was the plumber's case.


Henry Lumley Drayton: No. I was in
the plumber's case. Take another one.


John Campbell Elliott: I am referring to the
case where they seized all the documents. Was not that the plumber's case?


Henry Lumley Drayton: That was done in that case. In the plumber's case the documents were seized but those accused were given the right of being present. I think my hon. friend's predecessor held that, although the proceedings were to be private, a man under suspicion should have the right of being represented by counsel.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Especially when the crown is represented by counsel. I am not concerned with the merits or demerits of these controversies but I do submit that to carry on these investigations without giving the right of representation to the accused is not in consonance with the principles of British justice. As to whether complaints have been made or not, the deputy minister can say if the political head of the department at the time in question received many complaints. Because many of the gentlemen connected with these cases were political friends of the government. The government counsel in New Brunswick is one of their most important supporters there, and I will venture to say that he brought this matter to the attention of the then administration in no uncertain manner. I should like to know if there were not complaints brought to the attention of the then minister against the manner of this investigation. The deputy is there and he can inform my hon. friend.


John Campbell Elliott: The deputy says he does not recall complaints being made specifically. He says there w'as a feeling expressed in certain quarters of the nature the hon. gentleman has just stated, but it is the first I have heard of any criticism of that kind. By that I do not mean that there may not have been many complaints, but they were not brought to my notice before.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. gentleman was
not here then.


John Campbell Elliott: I may say without any hesitation that I cannot see how any injustice would be done, under the Inquiries Act or any other act, by letting everybody concerned, particularly the man who is accused, have the fullest possible opportunity of conducting his defence, just as a man at a preliminary trial has the right of being present and of crossexamining witnesses if he wishes. The man who is accused has a right to a fair trial under any circumstances. I am very glad that hon. gentlemen have brought this matter to my attention and I will see that in future investigations everybody concerned shall have a fair deal.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am very glad to hear
the minister say he will take that course. I assume that the public can take it for granted in the future that in these investigations there will be a full right of defence. That is all we ask for.


Mr. ARMSTRONG (Lambton):: How many investigations were held last year and how many convictions resulted?

Sppply-Labour


John Campbell Elliott: In the fiscal year 1925-26 the number of formal applications received was seven. In three cases it was reported that no combine existed. Investigations are still in progress in three cases, and in one case the application has been withdrawn. One was referred to the commissioner and five inquiries were conducted by the registrar, and the application was withdrawn in one case. The number of investigations conducted by the department without formal application was ten. The only convictions that I am aware of are those that took place in connection with the prosecutions of the Nash concern. I think my hon. friend is familiar with them.


Ernest Frederick Armstrong: In western Canada.
Mr. ELLIOTT': My hon. friend knows the results in the Nash case so I need not refer to them again. They were very satisfactory, I think, from the standpoint of the people who complained at any rate, and I hope from the standpoint of the public generally.


Thomas Langton Church: Has the minister read a
decision of the Privy Council on the Industrial Disputes Act which would indicate that legislation with respect to combines is ultra vires of this parliament? I raise the question that the money being voted for this purpose is going to lead nowhere. There is no country in the world where trusts are flourishing like they are in Canada to-day. When the British North America Act was passed there were no such things in Canada as combines, gentlemen's agreements, or interlocking directorates, and under that act matters relating to property and civil rights were confided to the provinces. I venture to say that if an appeal is taken on the Combines Act to the Privy Council a judgment similar to that given in the industrial disputes case will be rendered, on the ground that it conflicts with property and civil rights and employer and employee. The Industrial Disputes Act from cover to cover was ultra vires of this parliament, and the same is true of the act we are now considering. The Privy Council held that the Industrial Disputes Act conflicted with property and civil rights in the provinces, interfered with contracts between employers and employees, and dealt with properties wholly in the provinces. I believe the eight-hour day legislation, except as to day labour on Dominion works, is beyond our competence for the same reasons.
In 1921 we were told that the Conservative party were the creatures of the big interests, and that if the Liberal party were returned
to power they would turn down the combines. "Death to the trusts" was the slogan of the Liberals at that time. But what action did they take when they came into power? They introduced legislation to put an end to the Atlantic combine and an investigation was made into the question which lasted for weeks. But the ocean combine is still doing business and carrying on a land office business at that. In the United States they have the anti-Sherman trust law and they have been carrying it out most effectively. The coal, bread, and sugar combines were dealt with and the Standard Oil Company was brought to book. Judge Landis fined the Standard Oil Company fifty million for breach of the anti-Sherman act. They secured results over there, and they got some measure of control in the regulation of rates. But what control have we got in this 'country.? In 'Canada where we had seventeen banks we have now twelve; various banks have been amalgamated, and we have the manufacturers' trust, the transportation trust, the ocean combine, the bread combine and many other combines. The Liberals said, "We will bring these combines to time if we are continued in power." Did they do so? No. Did they put proper provisions in their charters? No. There is a clause in the Criminal Code with reference to these matters providing for prosecutions of restraints of trade, but how many prosecutions have taken place under that provision in the code? None. How many investigations have they held under the Combines Act? There has been one prosecution out at the coast, the fruit case, but if this case was taken over to the Privy Council I believe the Combines Act would be declared ultra vires. I hope it will be a long Defferred Day in Canada when we will abolish appeals to that greatest of courts, tire Privy Council.	I
am not satisfied with the details of this vote this year or last year. There has been a prosecution of some fruit men, and results of the prosecution went into the lawyers' pockets. That is all the result. More mergers have been consummated under the present government than were ever formed in Canada before. A prosecution of the milk combine was started in Toronto and the judge would not accept the bill of indictment. The milk dealers sat down at a table and arranged it among themselves. They said, "You sell here" and to another man, "You sell there", and so on, and in effect they agreed to enhance prices. One would ask, "What are you selling for", and the other man would tell him, and they all agreed and said, "We will all sell at the same price". They sat down around the
Sppply-Labour

table and fixed the prices, and of course in that way those prices were enhanced. A prosecution was attempted; an. application was made. I think before Mr. Justice Kelly, and he would not accept the bill of indictment on the crown's advice in 1921.
A little while later, in 1923, the Minister of Labour in 1923, brought down a measure which was passed in this House. Of all the machinery that was ever coined or invented by a government that was the most wonderful. It was a dream; it should have been placed in the Victoria Museum, to show to future generations the activity of the present government in prosecuting combines. What do they require to do? If they believe a combine exists under the act they send a man up to see some of the officials of the Labour department. I would not wish to criticize the young Minister of Labour; my criticism does not relate to him but to the act. You have to get at headquarters to destroy the combine. This act is due to the manner in which our charter, the British North America Act, has been framed. Those who drafted the act had not in mind special agreements, interlocking directors, (gentlemen's agreements and lawyers' agreements. I do not believe it is possible that the act will come within the four corners of section 92 of the British North America Act. they have a different constitution in the United States. I fail to see that any useful purpose will be served by spending $30,000 and I venture to say that if the minister got the opinion of the Justice department on this particular act he would find that it is ultra vires for the same reason that the Industrial Disputes Act was declared ultra vires.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Conciliation and Labour Act, $35,000.
Mr. NICHOLSON:: Would the minister explain the Conciliation and Labour Act?


John Campbell Elliott: The amount of $35,000 is the same as voted last year. The appropriation is intended very largely to meet the cost of printing, binding and distributing the Labour Gazette. That is the greater part of the expenditure. From this appropriation also is paid the salary of some sixty to seventy persons employed as correspondents. The salaries are not very large, running from $125 to $300 per annum, and these correspondents are scattered all over the country. Their duties are to report to the department matters they think of interest relating to the industrial situation in their particular community and matters of general interest to the department. Small payments also are occasionally made

for special work in connection with surveys, statistics, or conciliation in labour disputes. Travelling expenses for that purpose are met from this vote. It is the same as last year. I could give my hon. friend further details if he wishes. Last year for correspondents the salaries ran to $9,663. Hon. members will see that between sixty and seventy persons are employed. The details of expenditures were as follows:
Correspondents' salaries	 5 9,663 14
Services, fees, etc	
3,343	99Printing and Stationery	
16,713	14Sundries	
2,336	35Total	
$32,056 62
That was up to March 17, 1926.


George Brecken Nicholson: The item has no reference to conciliation work at all. The item specifies conciliation and labour. I took it for granted it had something to do with conciliation and labour disputes, but apparently it, is a miscellaneous item covering printing.


William Duff: Carried.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not think we can pass that item so quickly. I thought a question was being asked of the minister, and when the answer is given I should like to make a few remarks.


John Campbell Elliott: I was going to say that, in attempting to effect conciliation between the different parties who seem to be getting at variance in labour matters, it is necessary to know about the cost of the various articles in that particular community, what the industrial conditions are, and those are the services for which those correspondents are paid. Then there are four or five fair-wage officers employed. Their salaries are in the civil government estimates, and I think this only covers the expenses in connection with them. In any of these disputes they inquire as to what wages are being paid and what relation those wages bear to the cost of living in the particular community, with a view to enabling them to arrive at a conclusion as to whether or not the wages under all the circumstances are as nearly as possible what are fair.


Murray MacLaren: Do I understand the
fair wage officers are paid out of this vote?


John Campbell Elliott: No. Part of their disbursements are paid I understand.


Murray MacLaren: Out of this vote?


John Campbell Elliott: No, I believe it is out of the fair wage vote.

Sppply-Labour


George Brecken Nicholson: Is there in reality anything being carried on by the Labour department in the character of practical conciliation as between employers and employees where disputes arise? I know that I would be out of order if I undertook to discuss item No. 2S8, Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, but I would like to get from the minister a statement that would indicate exactly the position the Labour department is in as regards matters of dispute arising between employers and employees. It must come under one of these two items; if this means what it says, it means conciliation and it must mean as between employer and employee.


John Campbell Elliott: Very valuable work is being done by these fair wage officers who are selected on account of the experience they have and their peculiar fitness for this particular work. Their services have contributed much to the prevention and settlement of disputes between employers and employees in a number of cases. They are doing valuable work for the department and for the cause of conciliation.


George Brecken Nicholson: Will the minister cite for the benefit of the committee something of the character of the work that these men are doing, or a special instance that would give some idea of the work to bring about a better understanding between employers and employees where disputes may have arisen?


John Campbell Elliott: In connection with disputes in the coal fields of British Columbia, Alberta and eastern Canada, these men made investigations and gave to that matter close attention with very beneficial results. Perhaps I could give some cases with which my hon. friend would be familiar. I find on reference to the Annual Report of the Department that Mr. Harrison in the Vancouver office was successful in securing an adjustment of wages and rates affecting workmen employed on the construction of the subway at Edmonton which was being built under agreement between the municipality and the Canadian National Railways. The dispute had previously led to a strike of several weeks' duration in mid-winter and had been the subject of protracted discussion between the authorities concerned and the workmen's representatives. Mr. Compton, resident fair wage officer in Toronto, spent a great deal of his time during the winter in connection with labour questions arising on contracts for the Welland ship canal, which are dealt with in the report of the Department of Labour. Thomas Bertrand, resident fair wage officer in Montreal, investigated
eleven industrial disputes in the year, involving 258 employers and 3,640 employees. Assistance was rendered wherever possible in securing working agreements between the parties affected. In several instances mediation through the departmental officer was instrumental in preventing threatened interruption of work.


George Brecken Nicholson: Under what authority are those men working? Is it purely a voluntary effort on their part, or have they any statutory authority behind the work they are doing?


John Campbell Elliott: As regards conciliation
they work under the Conciliation and Labour Act.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Perhaps it is hardly fair to criticize a new minister, but I should like to say a few words in regard to the department and the way in which it has been conducted in the last few years. It seems to me that the previous minister had as his object very largely to cut down wherever he could, to make all sorts of small economies involving the curtailment of the real work which ought to be done by a department of this character. Anyone who has had anything to do with the publications of the Department of Labour in the United States will know how much more extensive the work carried on by that department is than has ever been attempted by our department in Canada. Years ago when I had to make some investigations in connection with the interprovincial bureau of which I had charge in the west, I found that I could go to the United States bureaux and obtain very full information with regard to almost any phase of labour conditions, but with regard to Canada the situation was almost hopeless. There were very few investigations; we had contented ourselves with reports of studies which had been made in other places. If this Department of Labour is going to take any real part in the solution of the industrial problems of this country, we ought to have a staff of well-equipped investigators continually making researches and studies of various kinds. I can not but contrast this department, we will say, with the Department of Agriculture, where various experiments with regard to diseases and the welfare of animal and plant life are carried on on a most extensive scale. We have in connection with our industries theihselves an industrial research council which is doing very fine work in making researches and experimentations along various lines. If it is of so great importance for us to experiment with regard to industries or to investigate the whole situation
Sppply-Labour

with regard to plant or animal life, I cannot see why we should not pay a little more attention to the various conditions which affect the labouring population of this country. We have for example our casual labourers drifting about from one part of this country to another. Who knows anything about them? Who knows the reason for their movement? Who is making any attempt whatever to stabilize the labour market. It is all very well, as we note in the next item, to have a department devoted to co-ordinating the employment bureaux, but we shall have to go a great deal further than that. Why should not someone make an examination, for example, into the question of seasonal labour? Undoubtedly in this northern country we must always face the problem of seasonal work. We cannot change our climate. We require a very much larger force of labour in the summer than we do in the winter months and we are content smiply to turn these labouring people out when the fall and the freeze-up come, and allow them to shift for themselves. As individuals they cannot do very much, but if there was a department which was alive to the situation there would be all sorts of studies going on as to how we could dovetail certain types of summer work into certain types of winter work which ought to be developed in this country. According to recent magazine articles, even our friend Henry Ford, who is so versatile, is turning his attention to the employment of some of the factory workers on the farms. At times when factories are slack, the workers can pass to the farms where their services are required. I give that just in passing as a possibility that might be developed by an alert and capable labour department.
There are one or two specific matters that I should like to mention. In the publication to which the minister has made reference we have tables given us as to the cost of living. In connection with our investigations on the minimum wage question before the committee this year we found that the officers of the department had investigated only part of the cost of living; that is, a certain minimum for food, clothing and shelter is recorded, but nothing whatever is said as to the other items which must enter into the matter if a family is to maintain a reasonable standard of living as we understand it. It seems to me that the present way of stating the living costs gives us a very false impression. Frequently this family budget is taken as a basis for estimating certain wage schedules; yet on the face of it, and according to the testimony of officers of the department, it does not really
[Mr. Woodsworth.J
represent the cost that is necessary in order to maintain a family. I would suggest to the minister that those statements be changed and that provision be made for other items that are necessary if a workman is to maintain anything like a decent standard of living.
We have the Labour Gazette, and if I am rightly informed as supplemental to the gazette, there is a publication called Labour Organization of Canada, of which the fifteenth annual report contains a great deal of valuable information. I should like to call the attention of the minister to the very large space given to the discussion of certain aspects of labour that really are not very prominent. Among the regular labour organizations, for example, I find one whole section devoted to revolutionary labour societies, such as the Red International of labour unions, the Communist Party of Canada, and so forth. Some pages of this, I notice, were reproduced in Toronto Saturday Night practically in toto, and already they have been quoted extensively in this House. I submit that we have a right to expect the department to give us a somewhat more balanced account of labour as it really exists. I know there are some people who are very much afraid of the "red menace." I remember two or three years ago the students of Toronto University invented a new yell. Some of the graduates of universities will understand what a college yell is, and this one ran something- like this:
Revolution!, Riot! Blood and gore!!
Down with the capitalist evermore!
One! Two! Three!
Who are we?
B-O-iL-IS-H-E-V-I-K-I! !
That song was actually reported to the police of Toronto, and I cannot see how it possibly escaped being recorded in this document as one indication of red tendencies prevailing among the students of our universities.
Mr. McG'IBBON: Will the hon. member tell us when that was adopted as the college yell of Toronto university?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I heard it sung by some of the students of that university.


Peter McGibbon: That is not what the hon. member said.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I said they discovered or invented that yell.


Peter McGibbon: You said they adopted it.


James Shaver Woodsworth: There were some hundreds of students singing it.

Supply-Labour


Peter McGibbon: That is not the university yell.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am sorry if I said anything that would imply that it was. Certainly I did not intend to suggest that it was the official yell of the university of Toronto. But I did hear some of the students shouting it and it goes to emphasize the point I am making.
In this document, which covers the whole country and which is used as a basis for the investigation of labour affairs in Canada, we have one section devoted to labour in politics, and again great prominence is given to a communist organization. I am rather jealous of this because I belong to another organization which at election time is more or less opposed by the communists. Yet I find that our organization, which actually has two representatives in this House, is honoured with two lines out of twenty or thirty pages. I do not think it is fair.	[DOT]


Charles Avery Dunning: It is outrageous.


An hon. MEMBER:: Out-page-us.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Out-page-us, if you
will. I do submit that we should be given more than two lines out of twenty or thirty pages, especially in view of the fact that we have two representatives in the House. It seems to me there is a little bias evident in some other respects in this document. I do not know what officer is responsible for it. A list is given of the labour papers in Canada, among which I notice the Weekly News of Winnipeg, a small publication in which, as it happens, I am interested, inasmuch as it prints most of what I write. But there is another paper much older and with a very much wider circulation, the One Big Union Bulletin, which is not even mentioned in this official list of labour organs in this country. The minister just now calls my attention to the fact that the information that the official paper of the One Big Union is the O.B.U. Bulletin and is published in Winnipeg is given on another page. It is not included in the list of labour papers. This may be an oversight, but I suggest that where a little paper, such as the one in which I am personally interested, is included-and I am glad of that fact-this other and more extensively circulated publication should certainly not be omitted, and this omission would seem to indicate either ignorance of the actual labour situation or a prejudice against particular labour unions. I call attention to these facts not with the idea of denouncing the department, but rather with a view to encouraging a little more accuracy and a somewhat more extensive investigation
in dealing with the labour situation in Canada. I am convinced that there would be much less apprehension of and a great deal less prejudice towards certain sections of the labour movement if that movement were better understood by the large majority of the people.


Peter McGibbon: I am rather sorry for the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elliott) when the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) has to come to his defence. I want to ask that hon. member, who prides himself upon being a representative of labour in this House, what he has ever done or advocated in parliament to help any man get a job. I have followed the hon. gentleman's course in this House for four or five years and-


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not know whether I am on the witness stand or not. I thought we were discussing an item in the estimates, and I have been trying to point out certain matters in relation to labour which I think ought to be considered. If, however, I am to 'be questioned and criticized, under cover of this item, because of what I have said either *in this House or elsewhere, I shall expect to be given an opportunity of replying to the hon. member.


Peter McGibbon: The hon. member will have all the time he wishes to make his reply. As I say, he prides himself upon being a representative of labour in this House and on every occasion that offers he informs us that his one object in life is to help the labouring man. Now, the hon. gentleman has been in this House for four or five sessions, and I ask him, through you, Mr. Chairman, what he has ever done or advocated during that time to help the cause of the labouring men of Canada. As a matter of fact, he has supported policies that have driven tens of thousands of our workingmen from their jobs and many of us to-day are representing constituencies that have been so affected. It is time, Sir, that those who advocate the rights of our labouring men put forward something constructive to help those men earn their daily bread and maintain their families. I have watched the members of this House-


John Livingstone Brown: Mr. Chairman, what item are we discussing?


William Duff: Conciliation.


Peter McGibbon: I am glad, Mr. Chairman, that I am able to stir up something in this House at this late hour. Hundreds of thousands of our workingmen have had to leave Canada to get jobs in the United States.

Supply-Labour

I represent a constituency where four or five years ago we had industries employing hundreds of men, but to-day those industries are practically at a standstill. All this has been due largely to the policies of this government, supported on every occasion by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. I for one get tired of hearing advocated those policies that take the bread away from the wives and families of our workingmen. I hope before this session closes those hon. gentlemen who claim to speak for labour will do something towards insuring our workingmen a living in this country so that they may be able to maintain their wives and families.


Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: Mr. Chairman,
while the matter I am about to mention perhaps does not come under this item, yet when we were discussing it last year the Minister of Justice promised to give it his attention. In 1924 the employees of our penitentiaries were brought under the Civil Service Act, and were told that in order to secure the benefits of superannuation they would have to contribute to the fund 5 per cent of all their former pay. The hon. minister's predecessor promised to take this matter up because in several parts of the Dominion he had received complaints of a similar kind. I do not think it is a fair position to require these old employees to pay anywhere from $1,200 to $1,800 to become co-partners in 1he civil service superannuation scheme, when they may, perhaps, without a minute's warning, lose the gratuity which they have already earned. It was proposed that only a portion of that gratuity should be contributed to the superannuation fund. Has the department done anything in this respect? I may add that I shall discuss the matter again when the estimates of the Department of Justice are under consideration.


John Campbell Elliott: The matter is new to me.
I understand it relates to the Justice department. I shall be very glad to take it up with the Minister of Justice and see if anything has been done.


Arthur Edward Ross: Will the minister
promise before the estimates of the Justice department are brought forward to consult with the Minister of Justice? The Deputy Minister of Justice knows all about the matter.


John Campbell Elliott: I shall be very glad to do so.


George Brecken Nicholson: Mr. Chairman, to revert for a moment to the question I asked the minister before, is there any statutory author-
ity for these investigators or conciliators to act in adjusting disputes between employers and employees?


John Campbell Elliott: Section 12 provides for
the disseminating of accurate statistical and other information relating to conditions of labour, the collecting and digesting of all information possible and putting it into suitable form so as to show the conditions of labour, and the conducting of inquiries into important industrial questions upon which adequate information may not be available, and so on. There is no doubt that under this section and sections 6, 7 and 9, there is ample power to prevent disputes by conciliation.


George Brecken Nicholson: The minister misunderstands my question entirely. I was not referring to the collection of information with regard to the conditions of employment generally; that is purely a statistical matter. His answer leads me to the conclusion that in regard to this item it is not a question of conciliation between employers and employees, but that it deals merely with the collecting of information as to existing conditions. There was a time when the department did real valuable service in effecting conciliation between employers and employees in genuine disputes, but through precipitate action taken a few years ago the department has been placed in a position that to my mind now renders it impotent in cases of that character. My own view is that unless the Department of Labour or the government responsible for the department undertakes to re-establish the Conciliation Act, which would more properly come under item 238-Industrial Disputes Investigation Act-the Department of Labour might just as well go out of existence, because all we are getting from it now is merely a matter of statistics. In that connection may I say that this is one of the departments that creates the multiplicity of statistics that have to be furnished where two or three sets of the same statistics are furnished to different departments of the government. If this whole work were turned over to the chief statistician, I am confident that it would be done much better, and all the information we now get would be available.
So far as the work for which the Department of Labour was really designed, .is concerned, namely, to be the medium through which and by which disputes between employers and employees could be conciliated, the situation now is that the department is doing nothing of that character whatever. If there is anything to which a Minister of

Supply-Labour
Labour might direct, his attention, it is I think to bring about a common understanding between the federal and provincial authorities by which there could be a federal measure of genuine conciliation, something of the nature of the Industrial Disputes Act, which has been declared ultra vires of this parliament, because the number of disputes that will arise between employers and employees that cannot be dealt with by provincial authority is very great. As a matter of fact having had some little experience on both sides of the question, I would say that the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act as it previously existed, and as it was previously carried out, was one of the best acts this country ever had. Surely there should be some way by which the federal and provincial governments could get together and reach the point where the federal department could be given authority to carry on as they did before. As it is now, when you talk about conciliation or about the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act you are talking about something that in reality does not exist, because the so-called investigators have no legal authority whatsoever to intervene in a dispute between an employer and his employees.


Thomas Cantley: The minister referred to
a man by the name of Mr. Quirk. Would he state what are his duties, where he has been employed, and with what result?


John Campbell Elliott: Mr. E. McG. Quirk lives
in Montreal. He is not on full time, but is an investigator engaged for special work as the necessity arises, and where there is danger of a dispute or of a strike his services are called into requisition with a view to seeing the parties, doing exactly what is covered by the sections to which I have just referred. If they do not accept his suggestions and his good offices, he cannot force them upon them, but he is the kind of man, and I think the others are of the same kind, who has had a lot of experience in that sort of thing, and I think his offices have been valuable.


Thomas Cantley: If I am not mistaken,
he was down in Cape Breton a year ago or less, prior to the last strike. Did we have any results following his visit?
Mr, ELLIOTT:	No, but I suppose he is
not the only man who failed to bring about conciliation there.


George Brecken Nicholson: Will the minister say
whether he, as head of the Labour department, has any intention to make a real effort 14011-285J
to bring back into existence a general conciliation measure,, or is he just going to allow the thing to drift on as it is now, leaving the department utterly impotent in the fact of iany dispute that may arise-because that is the situation in reality. If I am wrong I would like the minister to point out where I am wrong, but nothing that has been read so far gives the conciliator or investigator or anyone representing the federal Department of Labour any authority whatsoever to intervene in a dispute as between an employer and his employees, and I submit that if there is anything to which the department should give its attention it is to re-creating the condition that prevailed before the Industrial Disputes Act was declared ultra vires of this parliament.


John Campbell Elliott: 
George Brecken Nicholson: The minister has confirmed exactly the view I expressed, namely, that in relation to disputes the department is
Supply-Labour

in exactly the same position as any private individual, if both parties to the dispute agree. If disputes arise, conciliators may be appointed, and these conciliators will do all they can to bring the two parties together, but in relation to the character of the work that was previously done by t'he department, they are helpless. That is the situation, as the minister has put it.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Fair Wages and Inspection, $5,000.
Murray MacLaren: Would the minister give us some particulars? Does this vote include payment for a fair wage officer for the Maritime provinces? I think the minister is aware that there is considerable dissatisfaction in the Maritimes over the absence of a fair wage officer, and many organizations have made representations on this point. They say there are numerous instances of labourers not receiving the pay which they should receive, and that there is no proper supervision of checking up infractions of the regulations by employers. I would ask the minister therefore if this vote will include the employment of a fair wage officer for the three Maritime provinces.


John Campbell Elliott: My understanding is that
at the present time there is no fair wage officer who has been resident in the Maritime provinces. I think an officer from Montreal has made several of the investigations that took place down there. I quite agree with what has been suggested, that the fair wage officer should be as representative as possible, and I would take into consideration my hon. friend's recommendation. If it is thought that matters relating to these provinces cannot be covered with the present number of [DOT]officers or that some distinct representation should be given, my hon. friend's statement -will be considered. No complaints, I am told, Slave reached the department on t'he subject from the Maritime provinces.


Murray MacLaren: May I point out that
the officers now employed do not meet the situation satisfactorily at the present time. The labour organizations have given me assurances to that effect and I think that what they say is true. There are two or three fair wage officers in the Dominion at the present time, are there not? One or two in Montreal, one in Ontario and one in the west?


John Campbell Elliott: There is one in Vancouver.


Murray MacLaren: I think there is a good deal to be said in favour of appointing another officer to carry out the general policy of the department, and also to guard the interests of the workingmen in the Maritime provinces.


Thomas Cantley: I would ask the hon.
gentleman who has last spoken if he thinks it is really necessary that the government pay attention to anything in the Maritime provinces.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
International Labour Conference, $10,000.
James Shaver Woodsworth: Would the minister give us an outline as to what this conference has done?
Mr. ELLIOT!:	This conference is just
going on and no report 'has yet come to me of what has taken place there so far. The expenditure under this head1 arises out of section 13 of the Peace treaty. It is probable that the 1926 conference will deal with various matters.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Who are Canada's
representatives?


John Campbell Elliott: Doctor Riddell and Mr. Lucien Pacaud are the two representatives of the Department of Labour.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is that Mr. Pacaud of the High Commissioner's office?


John Campbell Elliott: Yes.
Sir HENRY pRAYTON:	What was the
amount spent last year?


John Campbell Elliott: The amount spent last
year was $9,571.


James Shaver Woodsworth: May I ask what
action the Labour department proposes to take this year in order to give effect to the Peace treaty and to the various conventions that have been adopted since that time? We all recognize that in a federal country this is a very complicated problem, but still we are under obligations to carry out the provisions of the Peace treaty. Is there any definite action being taken to-day or is it contemplated in the near future?


John Campbell Elliott: Conferences have taken
place, and are contemplated in some other cases, with the various provinces in regard to carrying out the terms of the convention, but nothing of a very concrete character has yet been arrived at.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Or will be.

Supply-Labour


Mr. WOODS WORTH:: This matter has come up again and again, for example with regard to the eight4iour day, and matters of that kind. We entered into a solemn obligation and this treaty is as binding on Canada as it is upon any of the other countries involved. We are under a solemn obligation to carry the treaty out and yet the minister stands here to-night and says there is nothing very definite to announce. It seems to me that is not a very satisfactory attitude for him to take. I would ask him if some definite action could not be taken this year that will enable us to carry out fully our international obligations in this regard.


Robert Rogers: Give him a chance. He
is new to the job.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Joint industrial councils, $3,000.
James Shaver Woodsworth: Several years ago
immediately after the war, a great deal was said with regard to industrial councils, and a number of publications were issued by the department dealing with the Whitley plan. I Should like to know what this $3,000 is used for-what has been done and what is proposed to be done?


John Campbell Elliott: Part of this allowance
covers the payments that have been made to the gentleman to whom I referred a moment ago, Mr. E. McG. Quirk, who at various times has conducted special investigations for the department. He is not paid a salary and the amount asked is to cover living allowance and transportation expenses. The expenditure for the last fiscal year was $2,175.94.


James Shaver Woodsworth: These amounts
then are not being spent for the purpose of setting up industrial councils, they are being spent on general conciliation work? Am I correct?


John Campbell Elliott: They are councils as between employers and employees.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Surely the minister
loes not intend to give the committee to understand that When a man goes out to try to conciliate two parties he is setting up a permanent institution that should be generally recognized as a joint council? I ask the minister whether it is his intention to set up anything like a Whitley council or to attempt to do so in the civil service itself? There at least since we are an employer of labour we might become a model employer.


John Campbell Elliott: No decision to that effect
has been reached up to the present time, but it is just possible that the work of this particular branch will be enlarged in the future.
I am hoping that such will be the case.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It seems to me
that we might expect the minister to go further than that. A year or so ago we had a strike by certain postal employees in a number of eastern cities. We were then told that it was a dreadful thing for civil servants to strike. But there seems to be no means by which the civil servants can bring their grievances before any tribunal and thus effect a settlement. A great many private industries have already set up joint councils on which there are representatives of both the employer and the employees, and these joint councils have, we are told, done something to settle minor disputes. They have done a great deal to allay friction. If we take the position that the civil servants are in a somewhat different position from other employees and ought not to resort to a strike or anything of that kind, then there should be the most adequate provision for councils by which they could bring their grievances to the proper authorities. I should like to see this plan carried out, especially in such an institution as the postal department. I would ask if the minister could not use his departmental machinery to make inquiries and investigations with regard to that matter, and to induce the department and the cabinet generally to adopt this arrangement as a means by which we could more effectively carry on the public service.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Technical Education Act, $3,000.
Abraham Albert Heaps: I see lower down on this
page of the estimates a sum of $1,100,000 for technical education in Canada. Will the minister be good enough to give us a brief outline of what that is?


John Campbell Elliott: This is an expenditure of
money that is apportioned among the provinces under an agreement. The act is the Technical Education Act, and it provides as follows:
(1) For the purpose of promoting and assisting technical education in Canada, the following sums, aggregating ten million dollars, shall Ibe appropriated, and paid out of the consolidated revenue fund of Canada during each fiscal year for the period of ten years beginning with the year ending the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and twenty, namely,-

Civil Service Salaries
(a) During the fiscal year ending the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and twenty, the sum of seven hundred thousand dollars;
(ib) During the fiscal year ending the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-one, the sum of eight hundred thousand dollars;
(c)	During the fiscal year ending the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two, the sum of nine hundred thousand dollars;
(d)	During the fiscal year ending the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three, the sum of one million dollars;
(e)	During the fiscal year ending the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-four, the sum of one million one hundred thousand dollars;
and the like sum of one million one hundred thousand dollars during each of the succeeding fiscal years until the expiration of the fiscal year ending the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine.
(2) Such sums, subject to the conditions of this Act, shall 'be allotted and shall be paid quarterly as grants to the Governments of the several provinces as follows :-
(a) The sum of ten thousand dollars shall be paid in each year to the government of each province;
Ob) The remainder of the appropriation for each year shall be allotted and paid to the governments of the respective provinces in proportion to the population of the said provinces respectively as determined by the last federal decennial census.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Public Printing and Stationery-printing, binding, etc., the annual statutes, $10,000.
Henry Lumley Drayton: Does the minister not think we have done well enough? We have finished Labour and we are going into a new department. It is half past twelve.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We will take
one item of soldiers' service re-establishment.
Soldiers' civil re-establishment-capital, $10,000.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Then one item of the Health Department.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Oh, no.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjourned at 12.28 a.m. (Tuesday).
Tuesday, June 15, 1926.