1926-04-29

REPORT PRESENTED

[Stage Direction]
Annual Report of the Board of Grain Commissioners for Canada for tlhe) crop year ended October 31, 1925-Mr. Robb.


Mr. J. A. CLARK (Vaneouver-Burrard) moved:: That subsection (c) of section (3) of rule 89 by which a penalty of $200 is imposed on private bills presented to the House after the twelfth week of the session be suspended for the present session of parliament, and that pursuant to the provisions of rule 115 this motion be referred to the select standing committee on Standing Orders for a report thereon.


Mr. ROBB:: Explain.


John Arthur Clark: Briefly, the explanation isthis. No private bills at this session were filed within the prescribed time. The matter was referred to the private bills committee,., and that committee recommended that the

Questions
penalty of $200 be remitted. However, they overlooked this phase, that when bills are presented there is another penalty payable, and it was purely an oversight on the part of the committee not to recommend that thi3 penalty also be remitted. I might say that those bills which have been presented might still be withdrawn and taken to the Senate and thus escape this penalty. The penalty has been withdrawn in one respect, and I suggest there is no reason why it should not also be withdrawn in the other.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

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

Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: 1.	Has the Board of Audit reported from time to time the result of the inquiries made as provided for in section 15, of the Audit Act, chapter 30, 13 and 14, George V?
2.	If so, are these reports to be presented to parliament?


Hon. Mr. ROBB:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Report on Quebec Harbour Commission was tabled last session on a motion for return. Other reports have not been moved for.


SOLDIER SETTLEMENT BOARD-LAND PURCHASES
Mr. DONNELLY:: 1.	For how many soldier settlers was land purchased by the Soldier Settlement Board in township 17, range 9, and townships 17, 18, 19, range 10, all west of the 1st meridian?
2.	How many of the said soldiers are still on the land purchased for them?
3.	What is the description of the lands which have been resold after being abandoned?
4.	What price has been paid by the new purchaser in each case?
5.	Is W. W. Kennedy, M.P., a member of the firm of Kennedy, Kennedy and Kennedy, of Winnipeg?
G. Was he a member of the firm when the warrants, for sale of the lands, were made payable to that firm of lawyers?


Hon. Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: 1.	48.
2.	9.
3.	SWJ-22-17-10-W1.
NE| & Pt. of SWH-19-10-W1.


SWf-9-19-10-AVl.
[Stage Direction]
4.	$4,700.
4,500.
4,000.
5.	Yes.
6.	Yes.
14011-185^

Mr. WHITE (London):: 1.	What is the policy of the government in regard to reforestation ?
2.	Has any expenditure been made? If so, what amount?
3.	Has any area been secured or set aside in any of the provinces for this work, and, if so, to what extent?


Hon. Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: 1.	(a) On the forest reserves in western Canada, comprising over twenty-two million acres, administered by the federal forest service, timber is sold under conditions designed to provide reforestation by natural regeneration. This method is much more economical * and, in the long run, more satisfactory than clear cutting and artificial planting. Areas which have been entirely denuded by exploitation and fire can only be re-established to forest cover by seeding or planting, but, owing to the high cost of this work and the' limitations of the forestry appropriation, only experimental plantations have been made so far.
The total area so planted to date is 325 acres.
The policy of the government is to extend these forest reserves so that eventually they shall include all non-agricultural lands capable of supporting tree growth, and to provide for their maintenance in a forested condition by natural regeneration, except where entirely denuded areas demand artificial methods.
(b)	For the establishment of shelter belts on the farms of the prairie provinces, the forest service has for many years operated two tree planting stations, at Indian Head and Sutherland, Saskatchewan. These stations have a capacity of five to six million trees, and cuttings per year. For encouragement in planting, this stock is distributed free,, except for express charges; the consideration, required of the recipient is that he shall prepare and establish the plantation along definitely approved lines, and that subsequently he will give it the necessary cultivation until it is fully established.
Over a period of 25 years, a total of 80,499,455 deciduous and 1,374,418 conifers have been distributed; 75,141 plantations, aggregating .34,053 acres have been established, of which' 70 per cent have been successful, 15 per cent fairly so, and 15 per cent failures due to improper treatment.
(c)	In eastern Canada the forest service has no administrative responsibility on crown lands, the latter being held by the respective provinces. However, for the purpose of advancing forestry methods, the federal forest
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service conducts experimental and research work relating to the regeneration of timber. In some cases this is done independently, in other cases in co-operation with the provinces or the industries.
2.	The appropriation to the forest service in the last fiscal year was $1,185,000.
(a)	$842,000 is spent in the protection administration and improvement of forest reserves. It is possible to segregate the proportion expended in reforestation as an entity, because the management of these lands, including fire protection, all have a bearing on reforestation.
(b)	$75,600 is spent annually in operation of the tree planting division.
(c)	$50,000 is spent in silvicultural research and experimental work in eastern Canada.
(d)	The balance of the appropriation is
absorbed:	(1) Operation of the Forest Products Laboratories at Montreal and Vancouver, (132,400) these institutions carrying on research and tests on wood and wood products; (2) $233,611 is devoted to fire protection on timber lands of the west not as yet dedicated as forest reserves; and (3) numerous other activities of the forest service aimed at the promotion of forestry throughout the Dominion.
3.	The federal government has full control of forestry matters in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the railway belt and Peace River block in British Columbia. In eastern Canada, permanent experiment stations are established as follows:
(a) Petawawa Military Reserve, Ontario, 133,360 acres; (b) Lake Edward Station, Quebec, 3,200 acres; (c) Lake Tremblant Station, Quebec, 1,500 acres; (d) Lake Kenogami Station, Quebec, 200 acres; (e) Bathurst Station, New Brunswick, 500 acres; (f) Cains River Station, New Brunswick, 200 acres; (g) Salmon River Station, New Brunswick, 400 acres; (h) Miscellaneous areas under temporary control only for limited and specific studies.
The foregoing relates to the work of the federal forest service. The provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia also operate services which exercise somewhat similar functions on the lands over which they have control.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-INCOME DEFICIT
Mr. CAHAN:: 1.	What -was ibhe net income deficit of the Canadian National Railway lines in Canada for the year ending December 31, 1925T

2.	What was the net income deficit of the Canadian National Railway lines in the United States for the year ending December 31, 1925?
3.	What was the net income deficit of the Central Vermont Railway for the year ending December 31, 1925?
4.	What was the total income deficit for all Canadian National Railway lines, including Central Vermont Railway, for year ending December 31, 1925?


Hon. Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	$41,073,105.37.
2.	$371,659.05.
3.	$822,755.29.
4.	$42,267,519.71.	[DOT]



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	What has been spent for the past eight years per annum, to maintain:-
(a)	Department of External Affairs?
(b)	The High Commissioner's office in England?
(c)	The League of Nations, including salaries and contributions ?
(d)	For expenses of delegates to the League of Nations, and to whom?
(e)	What salaries are now paid, and to whom for the league?
2.	What was the total cost to Canada of the Wembley exhibition?
3. What sum was spent on the new site purchased, and on the building to house the High Commissioner's office in London, and what is the cost per annum for maintenance?


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-P.E.I. SERVICES
Mr. MACDONALD (Kings):: 1.	What train services were in operation on the
Prince Edward Island branches of the Canadian National Railways during the month of February last between the following points: (a) Charlottetown and Borden;	(b) Charlottetown and Summerside;	(c)
Charlottetown and Souris; (d) Mount Stewart and Georgetown; (e) Summerside and Tignish?
2.	How many days were each of the above services performed on schedule time, how many days and on what dates were the trains late, and how many days and on what dates did they fail to reach their destinations, giving statement for each service respectively ?


IMPORTS FROM AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
Mr. DAVIS:: 1.	What quantity of the following products have been imported from Australia and New Zealand since the treaty between Canada and these two countries came into effect, and what was the total value of each of these products: beef, pork, mutton or lamb, canned meats, poultry and game, extracts of meat, lard, beeswax, eggs, cheese, butter, canned vegetables, canned fruits, comb or strained honey, fruit pulp, tallow, dried, evaporated or hydricated fruit, specifying kind?
2.	Of the above importations, what amount 'has been cleared from Customs to date and what amount has not yet been cleared?
3.	What amount of the above products have been exported from Canada to New Zealand and Australia to date since the coming into effect of the said treaty?

Automobile Duties



CUSTOMS INQUIRY

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. THOMAS McMILLAN (South Huron):: May I inquire of the Prime Minister, in view of the most damaging evidence which has come to light regarding the conduct of officials high in the public service, and more particularly the members of the Civil Service Commission of Canada, what is the attitude of the government and what steps do they intend to take in this vitally important matter?


An hon. MEMBER:: Well played.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: What about the minister?


Mr. SPEAKER:: I would point out that it is against the rules to bring before the House matters which are still pending before a committee until that committee has reported to the House. Bourinot, fourth edition, page 274, is clear on the subject.



CIVIL SERVICE SALARIES REVISION

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Vancouver Centre):: May I ask the Minister of Justice if the government have come to any decision in regard to the report of the Civil Service Commission on the revision of salaries which was promised some time ago?


Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice):: No decision has yet been reached.



AUTOMOBILE DUTIES

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Sir GEORGE PERLEY (Argenteuil):: Last Friday a large deputation from Oshawa and elsewhere came to Ottawa to interview the government regarding the proposed changes in the tariff on motor cars. Speaking to this delegation the Prime Minister is reported as follows-I quote from the Ottawa Citizen of April 24th:
He assured that delegation, however, that the government had obtained expert advice before making the reduction and that the most careful consideration was given to the matter. It was not an impulsive act, he 6aid.
In view of the great interest taken in this question throughout the country, I think it wTould be very helpful if the Prime Minister would make known the name of this expert and would lay on the table of the House all papers and documents connected with such consultation and advice. I would ask the right hon. gentleman if he will do this.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, in answer
to my hon. friend I would say that, as he is aware, there are in the departments of the government members of the permanent service who have over a period of years given a great deal of attention to, and are regarded as experts upon, tariff questions. One gentleman in particular, Mr. Russell, of the Department of Finance, is not only an expert adviser to this government, but was also an adviser of previous governments, and he has had perhaps a larger experience in tariff matters than any other individual in Canada. He is one of the officers I had in my mind when I told the delegation the other day that the matter had been carefully gone into by advisers. Mr. Russell has had conferences, I understand, with officers of the Department of Customs and of the Department of Trade and Commerce with relation to the many bearings of the tariff upon motors in this and in other countries. I am not in a position to say what documents or data he may have in his possession; I would have to ask my colleague, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) about that, but what I did say to the delegation, and what I would like to repeat here, is that not only this year, but last year, when the subject was discussed in the House, the government undertook at that time to have its officers look into the question of the duties on motor cars, and a considerable amount of data and opinion has been gathered in the interval. That is what I had in mind when I referred to the matter.


George Halsey Perley: Would the right hon. gentleman be willing to bring down any papers there may be without my having to ask for them on the order paper in the usual way?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As I said a
moment ago, I would have to leave to my colleague the Minister of Finance the decision on that point,



RULES OF THE HOUSE

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. A. L. BEAUBIEN (Provencher):: In
view of the fact that a committee was appointed last year to study the rules of the House with a view to revising them, and that the committee brought in its report in the dying days of the session, may I ask the government if it is the intention to appoint a committee again this year to make a study of that report with the same end in view?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would say to my hon.
friend that the government has thought of having a conference between the leaders of the different groups in the House as to the

The Budget-Mr. McMillan
advisability of reconstituting this session a committee to deal with the matter of the rules of the House. Naturally we are not anxious to prolong the work of the session, but the government is of the opinion that it would perhaps help to shorten matters materially if the rules of the House were amended in accordance with some of the recommendations of the committee of last year The committee would have to be reconstituted to permit of action being taken on a report by the present parliament. When my right hon. friend is again in his seat I shall have a word with him concerning the possibility of agreement upon reconstituting the committee with a possible change of personnel.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, April 28, the debate on the motion of Hon. J. A. Robb (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into committee of Ways and Means, and the proposed amendment thereto of Hon. R. J. Manion.
Thomas McMillan: Mr. Speaker, when the House adjourned at six o'clock last evening I was in the act of saying that our Conservative friends tell us we should not encourage the importation of foreign manufactured goods, that we should produce at home everything which possibly can be produced at home, and so to such a degree discourage international trade. In my humble opinion no greater mistake could be made by any Canadian government. If there is one particular in which this government is entitled to the highest praise, it is its wonderful success in the healthy development of international trade, whereby it demonstrates its faith in the fundamental principles of true economics, namely, that in order successfully to build up markets abroad for our constantly growing surplus of Canadian production of every kind we must also be prepared to accept goods in return. It is a well know fact that high tariff duties will prevent international trade, and thus kill the opportunity for return cargoes, which must be encouraged to obtain reasonably low ocean freights. The hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) told us the other day that other countries of the world were imposing very much higher tariff duties, and in this way shutting us out of their markets. His statements are not borne out by the facts. When

the hon. gentleman spoke the other day he quoted from a report published in 1924, although in saying that I speak subject to correction. Is he not living in the realms of antiquity! May I recall for his benefit the words of Thomas Carlyle when he said:
The race fo.r life has become intense. The runners are treading on each others' heels. Woe be unto him who stops to tie his shoelaces.
So that while my hon. friend has been tying his shoelaces he has taken too long to do it, and the world is going ahead. While the report from which the hon. gentleman quoted, according to my understanding, was published in 1924-*


Mr. MANION:: No, 1925.


Thomas McMillan: may I read from a
report, which I think is the latest authentic publication extant, the report of the Trade Commission, under the chairmanship of Sir Arthur Balfour, presented to the Baldwin government in June, 1925?


Robert James Manion: The report from which I
read was published in 1925 also.


Thomas McMillan: While it is a fact that
at the close of the war foreign countries, more particularly the countries of Europe, did impose high tariff duties, they are beginning to realize the mistake they made by so doing:
The political settlement following the war nearly doubled the number of independent customs administrations in central and eastern Europe, and also that the administration of restrictions has been largely in the hands of comparatively new arid inexperienced authorities; the burden thus imposed on trade will be readily imagined.
Nor is it necessary for us to pronounce any opinion on the justification or efficiency of the measures taken during a period of abnormal crisis.
The report goes on to say:
We therefore rejoice to note that there is now a tendency to recognize the evil effects of customs prohibitions as an instrument of fiscal policy, and to reduce the number of such prohibitions towards the minimum necessary to ensure public security, health and morals, and other objects of essential national importance. Since the latter port of 1923 great progress has been made in Czechoslovakia in removing restrictions, and that Hungary removed all her import restrictions at the beginning of 1925. The intention of Germany to sweep away the greater part of her prohibitions is expressed in the recent Anglo-German treaty. In France, Italy, Poland, and a number of other foreign states few obstacles at present remain to British trade arising from import prohibitions.
And then the report makes this statement:
The conclusion emerges that, taken as a whole, the ad valorem incidence of overseas tariffs on British goods has slightly declined since 1914.
Then again:
The board of trade calculation brings out clearly the remarkable fact that the main increases of tariff rates

The Budget-Mr. McMillan
on British exports have been within the British Empire, where the average ad valorem incidence has risen, by nearly two-thirds, while dn foreign countries, despite the great increase in the United States tariff, the average ad valorem incident has decreased by one-fifth, the net result, on balance, being a slight decline, as stated above.
The figures speak for themselves, and may I also say that aided by the handi of a beneficent Providence, and under the wise direction of the King government, fortified as it is by such a noble band of true and loyal supporters, not only to my right but behind the government, Canada's international trade will not refuse to grow. This is shown by the following figures: During the four years since this government assumed the reins of power our entire foreign trade has risen from 81,501.000.000 in 1921-22 to over $2,255,000,000 for the year ending March 31 last, or an increase during those four years under the present government of over $750,000,000. Furthermore we have the very favourable condition that exists to-day, a favourable trade balance of over $401,000,000, and what is still better, our Canadian dollar is away above par on the New York exchange. Consider this present condition of Canadian trade with what it was during the last full year of the Meighen government wdien we had an unfavourable trade balance of over $29,000,000, and the Canadian dollar was worth only eighty-five cents on the New York exchange.
We have heard a great deal from hon. members across the way regarding the unpatriotic and most radical expressions which emanate from our friends of the Progressive party. I have no brief for the Progressive members but I resent any insinuations that the opinions which they have expressed in this Plouse will not tend in the highest degree towards the progress and betterment of this country. These men from the west-both Liberal and Progressives-as well as my hon. friends further to my left, represent the very soul of honour, and they have shown us that they have the highest and truest interests of this country at heart. No wonder when our friends of the Progressive party had a chance to come in and view the situation, and when they saw the band of men over here behind such a leader, they said: "There are the kind of fellows we want to co-operate with."
This question of international trade has become a burning problem in the United States of America. Many writers and economists there are beginning to ask how long * a nation can continue to sell goods abroad without making purchases. The majority opinion is insistent that gold cannot be piled up indefinitely, and that pay must be taken
in goods if the foreign trade of the country is to be maintained. As the situation in the United States stands to-day, it is only a question of time when they must radically change their present policy of high protection. They are faced with the necessity of holding their foreign trade markets and also with the greater difficulty of safeguarding some $9,500,000,000 invested in other countries, the payment of which can only be effectively secured through the medium of returning trade. The American government to-day is now spending over $3,500,000 annually to retain those foreign trade markets, and even at that it finds those markets slipping away. In view of the following facts:
1.	That the American government will be compelled to open her markets to foreign goods, and materially modify her international trade policy in order to safeguard her enormous investments abroad.
2.	That her people need and will continue to need in greater quantity much of our Canadian surplus of agricultural productions.
3.	That freedom to that great consuming population with so many wealthy people would open the world's best market right at our own door.
4.	That it would be a real solution of our economic maritime difficulties.
5.	The fact that in the face of the high tariff walls now existing between these two countries, over $1,070,000,000 worth of trade out of our entire foreign trade of $2,255,000,000 is now done with the American people shows: first, that the people of both countries are desirous of encouraging further mutually beneficial trade, and second, it shows the power of natural trade laws, which is an indication of the only rational trade policy. Therefore, I urge the government to do everything in reason to cultivate the most friendly relations with the American government, with a view to arranging for favourable trade relations between the two countries whenever the opportunity may afford; and to that end, the Canadian government should have its trade representative in Washington. I urge this the more because in 1911 the United States government passed an act giving to Canada reciprocal trade in cattle, and a nominal tax of one-quarter cent per pound of beef. That provision remained in force for eleven years. In 1915 congress put cattle and beef on the free list, giving our Canadian farmers the benefit of that great open market. At the same time they placed wheat, flour, and potatoes on the tentative free list. Canada during those years never showed any apprecia-

The Budget-Mr. McMillan
tion, but kept an ad valorem duty of 25 per cent against American cattle and three cents a pound against American beef. After such treatment the American government quite naturally withdrew the provision. Of course Canada had then a Conservative government in power.
In the case of such an arrangement as I have indicated, care must be taken-and this government deserves credit for having taken every precaution-to preserve the health of Canadian herds. The department must also be ready to grapple with any destructive pests and to prevent them getting a foothold through importations. Consider the destruction the corn borer has wrought because precautions were not taken in time. There is also the bean weavil, and other pests, and it is the urgent duty of the government to go the limit, if need be, even to place an embargo on any foreign importations which might endanger the health and success of this profitable and most desirable crop.
The more we study the problem of Canadian agriculture and the vital necessity of placing and maintaining on the land a sufficient farm population, the more do we realize that the problem is basic and all-important to the progress and development of the nation. Although it may seem almost chimerical, yet what is needed in this country is such a readjustment of national ideas, as will place agriculture and its claims to the best intelligence and the highest skill of our people in the very forefront of national thought; and when this re-awakening is sufficiently emphatic, there will then be no more hastening away from the farm, but rather such a just conception of agriculture as our main resource and our most dignified and independent vocation as will attract to its just aim in the improvement of methods, the increase of yields and the clearing away of the unjust economic obstructions which lie across its path, the wisdom and the science and the willing hands of millions who may then obtain a just remuneration for their labour, and also be able to hand on to posterity an unimpaired inheritance.


Mr. H. C. HOCKEN (Toronto West Centre):: Before dealing with the budget-


Mr. J. L. BROWN (Lisgar):: The remark I would address to the House-


Hewitt Bostock: I saw the hon, member for Toronto West Centre first.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Before proceeding to discuss the budget, I would like to make a few observations in reply to my hon. friend from
I Mr. McMillan.]
South Huron (Mr. McMillan). I think I should in the first place congratulate him upon having the opportunity to make the speech he has delivered to us in this House. He is entitled to great credit for his perseverance over a period of ten years to enable him to enjoy this opportunity, and, possessing that Scottish quality of determination that we all admire, he finds himself to-day able to say things which are to me reminiscent of discussions I have heard in the general store at Seaforth. I consider the hon. gentleman in a class by himself in this House. He is a hard-boiled free trader, pretty nearly the only one in the House.


Thomas McMillan: Allow me to say that under present conditions it is quite impossible to have free trade in Canada.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: That does not alter my characterization of the hon. gentleman. He is a hard-boiled free trader, and if conditions in this country permitted it, we would have absolute free trade if my hon. friend had his way. Is that right? Silence gives consent.


Thomas McMillan: Would the hon. member like me to answer?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Yes.


Thomas McMillan: If the hon. gentleman
will only turn up the records of parliament when a certain large deputation waited on the government of Canada in December, 1911, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier was Prime Minister, he will notice that when we asked for reductions in duties we said also that we were willing to resort to direct taxation, if necessary, in order to meet any reductions which we called for. Might I also say that I believe I was the first man to mention that at that convention?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: That does not alter my statement. Absolute free trade is the goal to which my hon. friend proceeds. As for direct taxation, I observe that now that we have direct taxation by this government, the particular class to which my hon. friend belongs is not notable for the contribution that it makes in the way of direct taxation.


Thomas McMillan: I am only sorry that it is so.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: What taxes his class pays are paid through the tariff, and if we remove the tariff, it would pay nothing at all.


Thomas McMillan: Oh no.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I admire the courage of
my hon. friend. He impresses me as being a man of convictions, and having the courage to stand up and declare those convictions

The Budget-Mr. Hocken
much more freely and definitely than most men holding his views. I am always able to get along with a man who has convictions, and who will stand by them. It is the wobbler with whom it is hard to get along. My hon. friend charged this party with insincerity and I will deal with that a little later on.
He quoted Mr. Henry Ford as an advocate of free trade. Mr. Henry Ford has made about two billion dollars under protection; he has put himself into a position of financial strength that enables him now to say: I can make machines under free trade and I believe there ought to be free trade. He would do now what the British people did. In Great Britain they had protection until their industrial supremacy was established, and when that time arrived they said: Now let us have free trade. That is exactly the position of Mr. Ford to-day. I do not think a man who has made two billion dollars under a protective policy is one who can be quoted favourably as an advocate of free trade. I would ask my hon. friend: What did free trade do for the farmers of Britain? Is British agriculture in a state of prosperity today? Has it been in a state of prosperity for forty years?


Thomas McMillan: That cannot be answered in a word. The British farmers have been able to show to the world what we ought to do in regard to live stock production and they are not dependent on their own production of agricultural foodstuffs. For twenty years I went back and forth and I am conversant with conditions in Great Britain. The best farmers there are doing as I have been doing all my life. They have never been selling one cent's worth of agricultural produce, unless it is a little wheat. In addition to what they grow they are buying largely of foodstuffs from foreign lands and feeding animals on their own farms, in this way building up agriculture to the highest possible extent. The British farmers to-day are able to show to the world that they can lead the world, more particularly in live stock production.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I think I ought to remind the hon. member that we are not in the corner store in the town of Seaforth and a discussion in parliament is conducted in a somewhat different manner. The fact however remains that about forty per cent of British land capable of being tilled is in grass, and there can be no doubt that the agricultural industry in Britain is, and has been for forty years past, greatly depressed. If free trade is good for the farmers in Canada, why is it not good for the farmers in Great Britain? The farmers
of the United States are more prosperous in that most highly protected country in the world than the farmers of Great Britain. Those who argue in favour of free trade for the farmers ought to cast their minds a little further than the horizon bounded by the county of Huron. Let them look over the world and find out where the farmer is prosperous; let them view the tariff conditions under which those farmers live, and I submit it will be found that the most prosperous farmers are to be found in protectionist countries.
I was sorry to hear my hon. friend belittle the fruit and vegetable grower, who is a land holder of small dimensions but who is one who works harder than any farmer in the west, harder than most farmers in the east. The only way in which a man can make a living on a fruit and vegetable farm is by bending his back and cultivating every inch of his land. These men are maintaining families on ten and twenty acres. You can go througn all the older part of Ontario and you.will find fruit and vegetable growers with ten to twenty acres, maintaining as many people on that acreage as are to be found on 200-acre farms in other parts of the province or in the west. Surely that man, who works not part of the year but every day of the year and who maintains his family on a small acreage, is entitled to just as much, if not a little more, credit than the man who has a large area of land to cultivate.
My hon. friend became quite eloquent in discussing the burdens that are placed upon the poor working people of the towns and cities by a protective policy. How does he account for the fact that about ninety per cent of these poor working people, these poor mechanics and others with their little homes and families, voted for a protective tariff on the 29th October last? Throughout all industrial Canada with the exception of Quebec-and conditions there were somewhat peculiar, because the policy voted upon in that province was not the fiscal policy of the country at all

the issue was the tariff. In the province of Quebec the issue was conscription. In Manitoba, in the Maritimes, in Ontario and in British Columbia the issue was the tariff, and in every industrial centre the people voted strongly for the policy of Imy right hon. leader (Mr. Meighen). If, therefore, the poor people for whom my hon. friend is so highly concerned know what is best for themselves, it is quite clear that they believe in the policy of protection. My hon. friend may talk free trade in this House, as Michael Clark of Red Deer, did, session in and session out, and he will make no impression upon the
The Budget-Mr. Hocken

government nor upon the country. The people who have the intelligence to see the situation in which we are placed, alongside a highly protected nation competing with us in so many things, will agree that the protective policy is necessary for Canada.
The budget has evidently been prepared for the purpose of impressing the public of Canada with the idea that this country is prosperous, and that it was prosperous last year. A substantial reduction is made in taxation, and it is attributed by the government, through the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb), to the increased prosperity that prevailed in the year 1925. I maintain, however, that the country is not prosperous; it was not prosperous last year nor the year before, and it is not prosperous to-day. But to make my point I will take the figures of the railways. There is no better barometer of trade than the railways; if trade is good traffic is good, and if traffic is good the railways are prosperous. I find, as I have discovered myself, that business depression has reflected in the railway reports was more severe in 1925 than in 1924, and I take the ground that the relief in taxation afforded by this budget is by no means equal to the extra burdens put upon the people of the country by the government.
I take the report of the Canadian Pacific Railway and from it I quote the following:
The gross earnings for the year increased $853,849 over those of the previous year. Working expenses, however, decreased $2,073,684, resulting in net earnings, before deducting fixed charges, of $40,154,775.
The report goes on to say:
The relatively small increase an gross earnings is largely accounted for by the depression which existed in Canada during the first part of the year, the effects of which in general traffic were only overcome by the excellent harvest, to which is largely due an increase of $10,354,946 in the gross earnings during the last half of the year over the corresponding period of 1924.
But for the abundant harvest, therefore, the earnings of Canadian Pacific Railway would have been $10,000,000 less than the year-previous. If that is an evidence
4 p.m. of prosperity I should like to have it explained to me by some member who has a keener mind than I possess. It is to my mind absolute proof that the year 1925 was not equal to that of 1924. The same report goes on to say:
From a shipping standpoint the year 1925 .... was perhaps the worst of which there is record, and the result of the operations of your Atlantic and Pacific fleets were unsatisfactory, particularly in passenger revenue. The number of immigrants carried by all lines was less by over 40,000 than in 1924. Notwithstanding a decrease in expenses of $706,951 the net earnings from all traffic were substantially less than those of the previous year.

So that the opinion of this great railway company, upon whose board there are some of the ablest businessmen in Canaan, is that the year 1925 was much less prosperous than the year 1924. I notice from the report that the grain traffic carried by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1925 was 263,000.000 bushels or 31,000,000 bushels more than in 1924.
I will admit that agriculture was more prosperous in Canada in 1925 than in 1924. but the fact is that general business suffered more serious depression. And that fact is borne out by the railway figures.
I take the Canadian National Railway report in which some interesting disclosures are made. For example, I find the following statement:
The results for 1925 may be regarded as generally satisfactory and were due to a combination of increased gross earnings and decreased expenses. From January to June inclusive, the gross earnings in 1925 were less than for the corresponding months in 1924. The movement of the large western crop made itself felt towards the end of the year with a consequent increase in gross revenue of 3.9 per cent for the year. In the face of the decreased business which obtained during the greater part of 1925, every effort in the direction of economy was put forth and maintained throughout the whole of the year. These efforts resulted in a decrease in expenses for the year of $5,637,143.25.
So that it was due to the efficient management of the Canadian National Railways that the showing was so favourable this year. I find in the same report that the Dominion government's estimate for all grains in the Canadian grain crop for the calendar year 1925 was 1,126,113,000 bushels or an increase of 33.5 per cent in the crop. In other words, the farmers of Canada in 1925 had 375.371,034 bushels more than in 1924. That includes all grains, and it is fair to assume that on the average the grain crop would run about $1 per bushel. We may therefore fairly estimate that $300,000,000 was earned by the farmers of Canada last year in excess of the year before. Yet the railways in their general traffic did not do nearly so well as they did in the previous year. The report of the Canadian National Railways makes this statement: The grain movement to the head of the lakes was increased by 9.9 per cent, and in addition to that 9,000,000 bushels were shipped out at Vancouver. It will be found that this movement of grain accounts for all the increase that was enjoyed by the two great railway systems of the country. My argument, therefore, is that the traffic arising from sources other than the carriage of farm products was substantially less in 1925 than in the year before, so that in consequence we had a greater degree of general business de-

The Budget-Mr. Hocken
pression last year. Take the passenger earnings of the railways. The passenger earnings of the Canadian National Railways decreased by $615,516. The number of passengers carried by the Canadian National Railway system last year showed a decrease of 1,032.641, or 4.5 per cent.
We all rejoice in the growing prosperity of our national railway system, but the credit for this belongs-I do not think the government will be bold enough to claim it- to the efficiency of the management and to the loyalty of the 95,000 employees. This efficiency is indicated by the fact that with an increase of $9,000,000 in gross earnings

all from the abundant harvest-there was a decrease of $6,000,000 in operating cost.
I should like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the depression in general traffic resulted in a decrease last year of slightly over 3,000 employees on the Canadian National Railways and of 1,500 on the Canadian Pacific Railway. So that railway employees to the number of 4,500 lost their positions, or, if not, they worked half or part time. When 4,500 men connected with these two great railway enterprises, employing in the case of the Canadian National
98,000	men and, I presume, a proportionate number for the smaller mileage of the Canadian Pacific, are without work for a year, or are working only half time, it cannot be argued that this country is in a prosperous condition.
But, Sir, I think of all Canadians my right hon. leader (Mr. Meighen) should rejoice most over the prosperity of the Canadian National Railways. As was pointed out by my	hon.	friend	from	SouthWellington (Mr. Guthrie), the right hon. gentleman had	a	desperate	fight	beforehe succeeded	in	merging	the	Grand
Trunk and the Canadian Northern into one great national railway system. He was not assisted by hon. gentlemen opposite. I sat in the House during that period and I know the pessimism that prevailed among the Liberal party with regard to the future of the Canadian National Railways, and that pessimism has continued almost down to the present day. But in spite of all the opposition which he encountered the right hon. leader of this party perservered in his efforts and succeeded in establishing this great railway enterprise-a railway system run by the people and for the people. To-day, Sir, we see it rapidly approaching the time when, as he predicted, it will meet all its fixed charges, and become a valuable asset. Indeed, a prominent railway man has stated that it will be an asset equivalent in value to paying off our national debt.
Mr. Speaker, let me discuss for a moment or two the decrease in taxation. We are told that during the past fiscal year there was an increase in revenue of $29,965,000, in consequence of which the Minister of Finance is relieving the country of $25,000,000 taxation- entirely by reducing the income tax. But I should like to point out to the House that the collections of excise taxes last year amounted to $85,000,000. There are no reductions in those taxes. On the contrary, the sales tax was raised from 3 per cent to 6 per cent by the present government, and afterwards reduced to 5 per cent-at which figure it still stands -as against 3 per cent under the government supported by the Conservative party. That means the government since 1921 has added 40 per cent to our excise taxes. That percentage of $85,000,000 represents $34,000,000. So while the administration say, "We are reducing your taxes by $25,000,000," they stand convicted of having raised the taxes of the people to the extent of $34,000,000, or if we take their estimated figures for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1927, $95,000,000, they will collect an additional $38,000,000 of taxation during this period. And yet they ask for the applause of the people. Well, they are not much entitled to it.


An hon. MEMBER:: They are getting
it.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I doubt that very much.
A government which increases taxation by $39,000,000, and then comes seeking credit for a reduction of $25,000,000, is surely not in a strong position to ask for the thanks of the heavily burdened taxpayers of this country. What the government should have done in addition to decreasing the income tax-and that is something for which the country has been clamouring for a long time as being long overdue-was to cut off that 40 per cent of excise taxes. Then we would have had our taxes approximating very close to those which were collected by the Conservative government. The present administration put on the receipt tax and took it off, and then said, "What a good boy am I!" And that tax was entirely a tax imposed by this government. The cheque tax was added to enormously. Originally under the preceding government it was two cents on all cheques; under this government it is two cents on every fifty dollars. Therefore I submit that the excise tax collected last year was 40 per cent in excess of the sales tax collected in 1921.
I go further, Mr. Speaker, I say that of all taxes collected the most burdensome is the sales tax. It is felt most heavily by the consumer, it is felt in every home, and when it is
The Budget-Mr. Hocken

finally paid it comes close to a 10 per cent tax on many of the necessaries of life. It i3 a more grievous tax to bear than the income tax-which does not touch the average home- or the tariff tax, which if it falls at all on the people at least gives them in return steady employment; and without steady employment, even if one had no taxes to pay he would still be poor indeed. So that the tax felt most seriously by the people is the sales tax, which this government has increased to an extent equivalent to an increased collection of $38,000,000. So I do not give them very much credit for that.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the government is evidently expecting a great deal of gratitude from the people for reducing the taxes on automobiles. My friends to the left have been charged with forcing the government to make that reduction. For myself, I do not think that is the case. The Progressive party made its arrangement with the government at the beginning of the session, and the programme brought down in the Speech from the Throne is the programme which the Progressives insisted upon as being necessary to gain their support. But in connection with this induction in motor duties something happened. There was some other influence brought to bear upon the government, or else the government was simply dealing with those constituencies in which motor factories existed in a fashion that was called by one of that party at one time "cold justice," or, in other words, getting even with them. I think my hon. friends to my left see the wisdom, and the fairness, of the amendment introduced by my hon. friend from Fort William (Mr. Manion). His amendment says that before this reduction is made it should be submitted to the Tariff Advisory Board. That is a board of so-called experts, and if they are not experts, they can get expert help.


Mr. EVANS:: Why not submit it to the tariff commission of 1920?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I would hardly expect this government to submit it to any body but one of its own creation. They would not submit it to the tariff board of 1920 surely; they would not have confidence in them. Apparently they have no confidence in their own board either. They have appointed three men of some eminence in the country, but they have not sufficient confidence in them to submit to them this very first tariff change that comes up for settlement. In the Speech from the Throne there is a direct statement that there would be no reduction in duties, nor interference with the tariff,

until the board of experts had considered each proposed change and made their recommendations. But only a few days afterwards, comparatively speaking, the government go back on their promises and make a cut in the automobile duties the effect of which neither they, their experts, nor any other person can know without a most exhaustive and expert investigation-a cut that, in my opinion, is calculated seriously to impair one of the basic industries of this country. I submit to my friends of the Progressive party that a fair position for them to take is that this question of the duties on motor cars should be submitted to that tariff board. That is all that is being asked in the amendment moved by the hon. member for Fort William. That is not only fair, Mr. Speaker, but that is the record on which my hon. friends of the Progressive party rest to-day.


John Evans: That will come for the next cut.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: My hon. friend says that that will come for the next cut. If they can stand for this cut, why will they not stand for the next cut without reference to the tariff board? Why will they not stand for every cut? Is my hon. friend expecting any more cuts?


John Evans: Sure.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: What on?


John Evans: Automobiles.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: After automobiles, what next?


John Evans: Boots and shoes.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: And then what?


John Evans: You want to know too much.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: If my hon. friend knows what is going to happen, I would like him to tell me. He says the first cut is on automobiles, .then there is to be a cut on boots and shoes, and then when I press him he says:	I will not give the rest away. What
the government is going to do in regard to other industries he is going to keep concealed in his mind.


John Evans: The government know.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I would say that on this question my hon. friend ought to be one of the best posted men in the House, because he has given great consideration to tariff reduction, and he ought to be in touch, if not directly, at all events through his leader, with the tariff intentions of the party to which he is for the moment giving his support.

The Budget-Mr. Hocken
We stand to-day, Mr. Speaker, in the position where a great industry in this country, an industry with ramifications through all our commerce, is threatened with serious impairment, and it is threatened without investigation, without taking expert advice, and absolutely contrary to the pledges of the government as contained in the Speech from the Throne.
Just here, Mr. Speaker, I would like to reply to the remark of my hon. friend from South Huron (Mr. McMillan), who charged this party with insincerity. Whatever faults we may have on this side, and I am free to confess that we are not quite perfect, we can claim this, at least, that our leader and his followers are sincere in the policies which they present to this House, and they have been all through their existence. What is the record of my hon. friends opposite? I am going to sketch it, Mr. Speaker, for the information of my hon. friend for South Huron. They adopted a platform in 1919 in which the party pledged itself to lower duties. They went to the country in 1921, and they sent their agents among the manufacturers, and told their candidates that they could assure the manufacturers that the duties would not be lowered. First they pledged themselves to the country to reduce duties, and then they go to the men affected and say: We will not reduce the duty. Then they come into this House and sit during two sessions and keep their pledges, not to the country-they break their pledges to the country-but they keep their pledges to the manufacturers. There follows another session, and then comes reduction of duty. They pledge themselves to the country to reduce duties, and they pledge themselves to the manufacturers not to reduce duties. Then they come into the House and they do reduce duties. If my hon. friends can find anything like sincerity in such conduct as that, I am at a loss to understand their mentality. We had the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George, Mr. Marler, in the last parliament stand up in this House and declare that he had been authorized by the leaders of the party to tell the manufacturers in his riding that the duties would not be lowered, and he protested most vehemently in this House against the reduction of duties made in the first budget of my hon. friend the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb). If that is not insincerity, what is? If that is not a wobbling course, what is a wobbling course? Then we come to this session, and in the Speech from the Throne the government says to the people of this country, to the manufacturers as well as to all others:
Before any reduction in duties is made, the question of each industry shall be submitted to an expert Tariff Advisory Board. But scarcely is the ink dry on the document containing that pledge, before the government brings down a reduction of duties without submitting it to the tariff board. No such insincerity as this, Mr. Speaker, has ever marked the course of any government, or ot any party, since confederation. The government stands convicted by the record, by the statements of their own members, and by their legislation, as a government in which sincerity has no place whatever.
I want particularly to say a few words in behalf of an industry that is making a losing fight for existence in this country. Three years ago I brought before the House this question of protection for the magazine and periodical publishers in Canada, not merely for their sake, Mr. Speaker, but for the sake of Canada, for the sake of the young men and the young women of Canada, to prevent the denationalizing of the spirit of Canada. The late Minister of Finance, Mr. Fielding, stood in his place in this House and gave his approval to the suggestions that I then made, but nothing was done. I have brought this question before the House since, but without having any relief given to this industry. A large deputation of men representing this industry came down to Ottawa this session, but they could not get a hearing, so that the government stand to-day with regard to this industry as treating it as one that is of no consequence in Canada.


James Alexander Robb: Will my hon. friend allow me to put a question? Does he say that a deputation came here and could not get a hearing?
Mr. HCCKE1N:	That is my information.


James Alexander Robb: Who is ithe informant?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I can give the minister
the names of the deputation. They could not get a hearing before the budget was brought down.


James Alexander Robb: Will my hon. friend allow
me to make this Statement. I recall that there were two gentlemen .who, I am told, represented they were lobbyists paid to bring this matter to the attention of the government, and who camped on the doorsteps of ministers; but at no time has any delegation been rdfused a hearing by this government that I know of.


Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: Who were
the lobbyists?


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend is altogether
too inquisitive.
The Budget-Mr. Hocken


John Wesley Edwards: I do not
think that I am. The minister asked the hon. member who is speaking to give the names of certain persons. I am no more inquisitive than the hon. minister; my question was just as pertinent as his.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: The statement made is:
We tried to make arrangements with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to bring a delegation down composed of representatives of such national bodies as the Canadian Authors Association, the Canadian Clubs, the I.O.D.E., National Council of Women, Pulp and Paper Association, Ink Makers Association, Engravers Association, Typographical Unions, Canadian Manufacturers Association, Associated Boards of Trade, Association of Canadian advertisers, etc.
The above mentioned ministers could not give us an appointment until after the budget was down.
I propose to show the volume of American periodicals coming into this country and it is simply staggering. That volume has increased from $881,621 in 1912 to $2,776,885 in 1924 and 1925, an increase of 200 per cent in a period of thirteen years. There are over 300 of these publications coming into this country free, and there are over 20,000,000 copies of American made magazines and periodicals entering Canada every year. There are over 20,000,000 copies of twenty-five different publications coming into Canada yearly, while the total circulation of American magazines in this country is over 40,000,000. Foi every' single Canadian magazine purchased in Canada there are eight copies of American magazines purchased. In addition to that, from fifteen to twenty million copies of weekend papers, and of daily papers, published in the United States are coming into this country with all the influence of Americanism which they can exercise. I will give you the Canadian circulation of one paper, a very salacious one. The Buffalo Times circulates 1,460.264 copies in this country every year. I have before me a piece of advertising from that publication which is of the most suggestive and dangerous character. It advertises that it is telling the story of the Princess Chimay and the Hungarian gypsy musician Rigo, with respect to' whom an international scandal prevailed for years. This scandal, in all its nauseating details, is told by the gypsy musician himself. Is that the kind of stuff we ought to have in Canada? We are told that obscene literature can be rejected by the customs. Still, that paper is not barred, and there can hardly be anything worse than the gypsy Rigo story in the Sunday Times.
This tremendous importation of American magazines makes it impossible for Canadian magazines to live. One after another they

are going out of existence and leaving the entire field to American publications. My information, and it comes from an authentic source, is that the Curtis Publishing Company of Philadelphia has opened six branches in Canada lately for promoting the sale of their Saturday Evening Post and their Ladies' Home Journal, and their objective is 500,000 copies of the former magazine every week. That is the objective of the Curtis Publishing Company, and that magazine comes into the country free. It comes in by reason of a conflict of two items in the customs tariff. But it is within the power of this government to cancel one of these items-item 184-and that would leave them in a position to collect 25 per cent duty on that magazine. I have a list here, a copy of which I presume is in the possession of other hon. members, of twenty-five different publications. One of these circulates 145,000 copies a month in Canada, another 113,000, the Saturday Post 101,000 weekly, the Cosmopolitan 69,000, the True Story-one of the most salacious of all the American magazines-90,000, the total being
1,002,000	copies. That is the kind of material coming into Canada without paying duty.
The Saturday Evening Post is a publication of 226 pages of which 40 per cent is reading and 60 per cent advertising matter. If that 60 per cent of this particular publication were sent in without the reading matter it would pay a tax, under our tariff, of fifteen cents a pound, but because it is mixed up with a certain amount of literary matter it is allowed to come in free. It is within the power of the Minister of Customs, with the consent of the government, to remedy this thing to-day, or to-morrow, by making an amendment to the customs tariff eliminating item 184.


Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: Would it carry the same weight then as the advertising matter?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Yes, it would carry more. Let me read item 169, of the customs tariff to the following effect:
Books, namely: novels or works of fiction, or literature of a similar character, unbound or paper-bound or in sheets, but not to include Christmas annuals. . . . British preferential tariff, fifteen cents a pound; intermediate tariff 22\ cents a pound; general tariff 25 cents a pound.
That is the item under which this stuff should be imported, but it is not. It is classified under item 184 of the tariff which reads this way:
Newspapers, and quarterly, monthly and semimonthly magazines, and weekly literary papers, unbound	free

The Budget-Mr. Hocken
All that is necessary for this government to do is to wipe out item 184, which in any case absolutely contradicts item 169. The last named item says there shall be a duty on these things; item 184 says there shall not be any duty. But in order to make item 1S4 apply the Minister of Customs has to say that that book is not bound. Now that book is bound, but the Department of Customs says it is not bound. If they said it was bound they would have to pay a tariff of 25 per cent. It is bound as much as a great majority of magazines published in this or in any other country are bound. In my judgment it is a bound book, and should come in as a bound book, but the tariff under which it comes in says that if it is unbound it will come in free, and an arbitrary ruling of the department which has been in existence for many years makes it possible for the American publisher to flood this country with his work, to the detriment, not merely of the public, but of the men who turn out these magazines, of the workmen engaged in the work, and, more than anything else, of the people of Canada who are being Americanized by their reading matter more than by any other or all other influences put together.
But I was going to explain why Canadian publishers cannot compete. In the first place here is a magazine of 262 pages. Every cent of overhead cost in the production of that magazine is paid for by the American circulation. There is a cover that will cost them 81,000 to begin with. Then there are all the editorial expenses, the payment of the writers, all the cost of ilustration, of making plates and all that goes into the preparation of the magazine. This copy coming into Canada does not bear one fraction of a cent of all that cost. It is all borne by the two million circulation in the United States. This is the by-product of a great magazine factory. All the cost they are put to is the paper and the printing that is put in the magazine. The advertiser who pays $7,000 a page for his announcement makes up the difference between the actual cost of the paper and the price for which it is sold in Canada. How can a Canadian magazine compete with that? The publisher here has to pay the cost of editing, the cost of the writers of the articles, and what chance have the Canadian authors to get into Canadian magazines? ' None at all. They have to pay rent and taxes, pay for type setting and everything, and they have to do it in competition with men who do not have to pay any of these expenses. Surely it requires but a moment for a man of perspicacity to realize that while these conditions exist the
Canadian magazine is an impossibility, and I submit the Canadian periodical press is very desirable. But these are not all the handicaps they labour under. The materials that enter into Canadian magazines are all taxed. If they import their paper it is subject to a duty of 25 per cent. If they import ink they have to pay 20 per cent. There is a duty of 20 per cent on engraving and a duty of 20\ per cent on art work. There is a duty from 10 per cent to 25 per cent on machinery and a duty of 15 cents a pound on advertising plates. All these things have to be paid for by Canadian publishers, while they are all covered by their competitors who circulate in competition with them in Canada.
Another feature of it, Mr. Speaker, which to my mind is very interesting is the effect it has upon Canadian goods. In this magazine I have in my hand we have ninety-four pages of advertising-some of the most alluring and attractive advertising that you will find any place in the world, all advertising American products and making a market in Canada for American gooods, and not a single Canadian manufacturer can place his advertisement in that magazine. He will have to pay the cost of two and a half million circulation to get
100,000	circulation. The thing is absolutely prohibitive to the Canadian manufacturer, and it works out, according to one manufacturer whose statement I have here, very injuriously indeed. I will quote from Mr. Newman, chairman of the Picton Board of Trade. He says:
I might mention the county of Prince Edward is putting out about one-half of the canned vegetables manufactured in the Dominion of Canada. The county of Prince Edward puts out the best tomato in the world. Yet we are using ten or twenty times the amount of American-made Campbell's tomato soup, which our country is so famous for producing. The Canadian canners put up a tomato soup the equal of any other, but the American soup is purchased because of the large full page colour advertisements in the American magazines. The housewife looks at that, and it makes her almost hungry for tomato soup, and she goes down town without considering where it is made, or considering that she is employing American labour, and makes her purchase. Or she calls up on the 'phone, and orders Campbell's soup.
I have no interest in any publication; the Prince Edward Board of Trade is not interested in a publication, but we are interested in that demand which American publications are creating in Canada for American-made goods, and the fact that Canadians are using so much of the class of goods which can be just as well purchased in Canada.
That is the effect, according to the chairman of the Picton Board of Trade, upon one industry. I do not think there is an hon. member in this House, who, from his own experience, does not know that what Mr. Newman says is absolutely correct, and if it affects all our industries similarly, is it any
The Budget-Mr. Hocken

wonder that there is business depression in Canada? Our manufacturers cannot get their product advertised, while their American competitors have the most attractive advertising to be found in any country in the world, these advertisements are put into the homes of Canadians duty free and their goods are thus put into competition with Canadian goods. I have a statement here which says that over 25,000,000 pounds of advertising comes into Canada each year in these publications. If that came in unmixed with a little literary matter it would be subject to a duty of 15 cents a pound, but they mix it up, and they get an arbitrary interpretation of a certain clause in the customs tariff, and in it comes, to drive out of employment the workmen who would otherwise be engaged in such work, and to ruin scores of publishers, to my certain knowledge, who have endeavoured to establish Canadian magazines. In that way this whole country is left to the mercy of Americans promulgating their own ideas of nationality, and their own ideas, sometimes, of morality. I will quote another author, Colonel Owen Lobley, of the Holland Varnish Company, a large Canadian manufacturer who, speaking on the menace of imported advertising, said:
Gentlemen, the popular foreign magazine is one of the most powerful and pernicious aids to peaceful penetration. Persistent advertisements attract the attention of our families to foreign products. Stories and articles are moulding the minds of our young people along American lines, and towards American ideas and ideals. What progress can a "Produced-in-Canadacompaign make against resistance such as this?
And I will give you a quotation from an American source, none other than J. I. Britain, United States Consul General at Winnipeg. Speaking of the American magazine advertising he says:
The advertisements in -these magazines are perused with considerable advantage to the advertiser as they keep before the public numerous lines of American merchandise.
These are authorities, these are men who have been up against it and who are entitled to speak. During the past few years these Canadian publications, in addition to others, have been driven out of existence: Canadian Weekly, Canadian Courier, Women's Century, Pictorial Review, Every-woman's World, The Listening Post, and a host of relatively smaller publications. The effect of this is understood by national and social societies of the country. The National Council of Women passed this resolution:
Whereas, the efforts of the Canadian Magazine Association to have a duty placed upon United States magazines are entirely in line with the resolutions of the I.O.D.E. adopted at the annual meeting; be it therefore resolved that we, the national executive

heartily endorse the action of the Canadian Magazine Association and pray the government to take early and favourable action thereon.
This is one by the Canadian Club:
Resolved:	That our executive is of the opinion that
every effort should be made to encourage literary effort in Canada, and it is felt that a protective tariff on imported magazines, more particularly those from the United States, would result in lessening the importation of magazines many of which are of an undesirable type and would promote the production of Canadian magazines edited from the Canadian viewpoint.
I might go on with quotations from the Typographical Union, manufacturers' associations and others who are more or less affected by the flooding of Canada with this pernicious kind of literature. There is no desire, no intention to exclude, and a tax would not have the effect of excluding any good United States magazines. A duty of ten or fifteen cents a pound on the Century or Harpers' Monthly or any other good magazine would not be a serious tax and would not prevent them from coming into this country. People in Canada who want that type of magazine would be glad to pay for it, if in return they could secure the exclusion of the villainous literature that comes in duty free at the present time.
One thing I object to is the utter disregard of the present government for the welfare of this country as it is affected by this importation of United States magazines. I myself have been arguing the matter for four years. My arguments met with the sympathetic approval of the Minister of Finance, and I have yet to be told by any member of the government or any member of the party that the restriction of this flood of United States literature would be unwise. They all agree with me but they will not do anything. Surely this is something that should have the sympathetic attention of a government that wants to keep Canada a part of the British Empire, that wants to keep Canada from annexation to the United States. How long can we stand the literary penetration of this country by United States writers? That is a question that my hon. friends should ask themselves. How far is this responsible for the exodus from this country to the United States, which is painted to our young men and young women as a land of promise, with higher wages, better conditions and good times?


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: Is the hon gentleman aware that this question of the peaceful penetration of Canada by United States writers is sanctioned and countenanced by MacLean's Magazine, a journal which reprints stories and articles from the Hearst journals of the United States?

The Budget-Mr. Hocken


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I have no such knowledge, and I do not believe it to be so.


Edward Joseph Garland: It is so. I can show the hon. gentleman the articles to which I refer.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I know intimately the
publisher of MacLean's Magazine and I know the proprietor; there is no stronger advocate of the duty on United States magazines than he is.


Edward Joseph Garland: That may
be, but he reprints stories out of Hearst's Cosmopolitan.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: The hon. member will nnd that they are written by Canadian writers.


Edward Joseph Garland: No.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Yes, and he is using the
clause in the Copyright Act by which he can get possession of these stories. He is paying royalties to Canadian writers who sell their product first to United States magazines, and why? Mr. Stringer and other Canadian writers can sell their stories to the Cosmopolitan and other United States magazines for five times the price that any Canadian publisher can afford to pay. Naturally they go there, and until the Copyright Act was changed and it was made possible for a Canadian publisher to get a license to publish anything that was published in United States and was refused publication in Canada, Mr. Stringer's work could not be published in Canada; it appeared only in the paper that bought it. But under present conditions of the Copyright Act, MacLean's Magazine or any other magazine can go to headquarters and say: I want a license to publish that, and the authorities of the Copyright branch will say: We will give you a license and you pay tMe author so much. It is possible now to force United States magazines to have these Canadian writers' articles published in Canada. What is the result? Canadian publishers do not have to take out a license. The fact that it is possible for them to get a license enables them to make an arrangement with United States publishers to get stories of Canadian writers.


John Livingstone Brown: In this matter I have a
good deal of sympathy with the position the hon. gentleman has taken; but from the standpoint of peaceful penetration of Canada with United States ideals is it not the case that the magazines that might most be feared for that reason are among the higher class of magazines, and those which from the point 14011-186
of view of their moral standard we would never think of objecting to; and that magazines that are really salacious in character and that we would like to exclude from Canada are not to be feared from that standpoint at all?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I appreciate the attitude
of my hon. friend. Would he call the Saturday Evening Post the better class of United States magazines? I believe my hon. friend is speaking of the Geographic or Harper's or the Century. All these papers sell at a price of twenty-five or fifty cents a copy and a duty of ten cents a pound would not mean anything to them at all. The publisher could absorb the duty, or if he did not, the Canadian purchaser would not object to paying it. We want those high class magazines in this country. I do not believe they are as dangerous as the [Saturday Evening Post, for instance, which is the most dangerous from the standpoint of penetration.


John Livingstone Brown: From the standpoint of
morals?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: No, from the standpoint
of making our young people believe that the United States is the place to live in. This is true not only of the stories but of a number of articles that appear in this magazine. Then there are the Cosmopolitan, True Stories- three hundred Of them, all telling the same story: "Come over to the land of the free, the land of promise."


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: Would the hon.
member mind going a little further and specifying some of the publications which he would characterize as belonging to the class of villainous literature?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I could give my hon.
friend a long list of them if I had time, but for the moment I will mention Snappy Stories.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I was thinking of
others. One that goes into many homes is the Ladies Home Journal, which I presume is one of the outstanding United States publications. Does the hon. member regard that as undesirable, or not?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: That is not at all undesirable from the moral standpoint.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The hon. member, I take it, objects to certain American magazines on two grounds, first, for moral reasons, and secondly because they purvey American sentiment. Would he exclude papers of the type to which I refer?



The Budget-Mr. Hocken


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I am not arguing for the
exclusion of anything that is not obscene and immoral. I would admit the Ladies Home Journal, which is an excellent publication; but I do say that it ought to pay a tax. But one of the arguments against the Ladies Homo Journal is that, to a larger extent even than the Saturday Evening Post, it is an advertising medium, and as such affects our business relations. I do not think that it is pernicious on the ground of denationalizing our Canadian sentiment. If it does this it is only to a very small degree. I repeat, I believe the Ladies Home Journal to be an admirable publication.	But why should we not have a
Canadian woman's home journal? As a matter of fact we have one published in Toronto by the Consolidated Press, and if that paper were not obliged to compete with the Ladies Home Journal it would do twice the business; it would be twice its present size and its advertisers would derive twice the benefit they now get from it.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Could the hon.
gentleman, as a publisher, give us an idea of what it would cost to produce in Canada a paper of the style of the Ladies Home Journal?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: And size?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: It could be nothing but a rough guess, But I should say that to produce
100,000	copies it would cost probably $50,000 or $60,000, and you could not raise the price of advertising in Canada to enable you to secure that revenue. The manufacturers in Canada could not afford to pay the advertising rates that would make the publication of such a magazine feasible, whereas in the case of the Saturday Evening Post the advertisers pay as high as $7,000 and $8,000 a page. Why, it was computed that in one issue of that journal a short time ago there was over $1,000,000 worth of advertising. It was a little larger in volume than the magazine I have here, and the rates were so enormous that in that one issue the advertising amounted to the total I have mentioned.


James Shaver Woodsworth: In that case a
magazine of that kind, if produced in this country under present conditions, would have to be sold at thirty or forty cents per copy.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: It could not be sold for
fifty cents in Canada, taking all overhead expenses into account.


James Shaver Woodsworth: One more question and I am through. Do I understand the hon.

member to advocate putting on such a tax as would raise the price of a publication of that description to thirty, forty or fifty cents?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: As my hon. friend will see in Hansard, what I have advocated is that section 169 of the tariff be enforced, and that we be given 25 per cent protection. However, if my hon. friends opposite are not willing to concede 25 per cent, then 5 p.m. they might give us 15 per cent or 10 per cent. At any rate, let them give us something, so long as they acknowledge and adopt the principle of protecting the Canadian publisher, not only for his own sake but-because this goes much further than the welfare of the individual-for the good of Canada as a whole. Those men who have money invested in Canadian magazines can withdraw it and go into something else, as in fact they have done. They do not suffer materially; they may lose some money, but they can go into something else. But it is the great masses of the people that suffer, and that is my principal objection.
I have a wThole mass of material disclosing the views of Canadian newspapers, and while I will not read very extensively from it, there are two or three things which I think should certainly be put on Hansard. For instance, I take the following from the Vancouver Morning Star:
The Morning Star in a recent cartoon, pointed out how the very children of Canada are being led away across the border, in their mind at least, by a new Pied Piper in the guise of the cheap American magazine. The menace of this seduction to national distinction, national aspiration, national pride, and even national independence is serious. The mentality and morale of impressionable young Canadians, which should be kept clean and apart to their own land, is being merged in the reeking gas cloud of the lower Americanism. Crime featuring and salacious magazines from across the line are flooding every Canadian news-stand and book shop so that one is hard put to it in the pile of them to pick out a single copy of a Canadian, or even of a British magazine. Something should be done and done quickly to dam this trash which is flowing over the border; demoralizing trash which is deplored by the best type of Americans as well as by Canadians.
I went into a news-stand in Toronto on one occasion and asked for a copy of MacLean's magazine, and although the storekeeper had not a single copy in his place he had, stretched across a large frame on one side of the store, about 100 American magazines. He had not a single Canadian magazine on sale, because he could make more profit out of his salacious literature.


An hon. MEMBER:: Where was that?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: In my own city, but I presume the same is true everywhere. I have

The Budget-Mr. Hocken
figures here showing that some 2,000 copies of one magazine alone are sold in Ottawa. The newspaper goes on:
When Canadian politicians adopt the new national policy of preventing the export of raw materials to American manufacturers in order to make them make them in Canada then Canada will have, among other things, the best and cheapest paper in the world, because she has the best and cheapest supply of wood pulp.
The article is a column long but I will not read further from it. Let me now quote a few words from Saturday Night:
The Canadian field for Canadian periodicals and in a measure Canadian newspapers is being lost. That is to say our periodical press is being strangled to death by United States competition. There are printed today in Canada a far less number of publications than was the case when our population was half of what it now is, and those that are left are struggling for an existence for the most part. . .
Slowly but surely Canadian publications are being crowded to the wall, and each day the position becomes worse. United States periodicals are practically given away to the readers in Canada, the national advertisers, with headquarters in the United States, footing the bills. Presumably they get their money back by the sale of American goods to Canadians.
A certain United States weekly publication now making a drive tor more circulation in this country is selling for $2 per annum, of which amount $1.80 goes to the canvasser. The white paper in this journal could not be bought in the open market for less than ten cents per copy-
Whether they are referring to the Saturday Evening Post or not, the fact is that there is ten cents worth of paper in this issue I have here.
-to say nothing of the many dollars expended in one way and another before the finished product reaches the reader. And our postmen are becoming round shouldered carrying them around.
What are we going to do about it? Why, nothing of course.
It really looks as if the editor of Saturday Night were in the confidence of the government. They are not going to do anything about it.
It would be a burning shame to place, for instance, a tax on the advertising in United States periodicals coming into Canada.
i think the editor is ironical, Mr. Speaker.
Of course, it would save many millions of dollars now expended for goods, mainly luxuries, made in the United States, and it would add millions of dollars annually to our wage bills, because we could then employ our own people in place of driving them away. Somebody might even have to start a new ink company, or a new type foundry, or a new paper mill or two. And lastly, but not least, we might teach our people to be steadfast Canadians in place of secessionists.
In a generation simon pure Canadian publications, with very few exceptions, will be scarce as the dodo. They simply cannot survive under such conditions.
But I want to give another quotation. This is from the Globe, that old Liberal journal which is eighty years old and still going strong. It says:



H011-186J

[Stage Direction]
Sooner or later the Canadian government will be obliged <to take cognizance of the vast circulation of United States publications dn this country. They are strangling the publishing industry here, depriving Canadian workers of millions of dollars' worth of employment; they are "Americanizing" Canada by means of the reading material offered; they must have a very grave effect on Canadian industry in general, owing to the tremendous amount of advertising of United States products carried in their columns.
The Orillia Packet says:
By all means let us have a duty on the American publications that are flooding Canada, to the extent of more than a million copies a week. It is one new tax to which no objection can be taken.
The Kitchener Record, with which my hon friend from North Waterloo (Mr. Euler) i3 more or less closely connected, says:
Acting upon the contention that the Canadian publishing trade is suffering from outside competition, the-delegation suggests the imposing of a tariff of 10 cents a pound on all periodicals and week-end magazines entering Canada. It is estimated that the consequent revenue would be approximately $5,000,000.
Now, my hon. friend the Minister of Finance ought to listen to that. Does he want $5,000,000 extra revenue?
James Alexander Robb: Certainly; and I must get
$5,000,000 additional revenue if I am to meet the demands of the city of Toronto for new federal buildings.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Well, the city of Toronto, through its representative, is giving my hon. friend the means of getting the money, and having done that I think there should be no objection to his spending it in that city.


Mr. HOWARD:: Does my hon. friend know how many tons of Canadian newsprint are used by the American papers that come into Canada?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I am dealing with periodicals and magazines which do not use newsprint. But, Sir, $5,000,000 is a lot of money and we ought to have it.
Now, I am taking up more time than 1 expected to-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: 
Mr. JOHNSTON (Long Lake):: Does my hon. friend notice that the number was considerably less after the budget was brought down?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: What was the date?


John Frederick Johnston: I cannot give the exact date at the moment. It was late in the month.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: My recollection is that it was during the month of April.


John Frederick Johnston: Yes.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: These figures are for the month of March.


John Frederick Johnston: I was referring to the last week.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: The last figure of 452 was only for part of the week ending March 29.


John Frederick Johnston: The good news of the budget had gone before.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: How did it get out?


Robert James Manion: A lot of our people had gone also.


Charles A. Stewart: Don't wory; they are coming back.


Robert James Manion: You cannot find them.


Charles A. Stewart: They are
showing up everywhere.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Here is something, Mr. Speaker, that the publishers of Canada have reason to feel aggrieved about. I have a statement signed by the secretary of the Magazine Publishers that it was known in the United States two weeks before the budget was brought down that there was to be no change in the tariff so far as American magazines were concerned. Yet in Canada the men interested in this particular industry could not get a word of information. The publishers' organization in the United States printed a bulletin weeks before this tariff was brought down in which they said they had it on reliable authority that no tax of the kind was going to be imposed. There is the printed document.


James Alexander Robb: If my hon. friend will allow me-has he read in the Financial Post of last week the compliments paid to the officials of the Finance and other departments of government because there was absolutely no leak, no person knew what was in the budget until it was brought down?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I can only conclude, Mr. Speaker, that the American publishers have a special aptitude at mind reading, for they issued a bulletin in which they indicated something which absolutely turned out to be correct.
Now, Sir, the moral effect of this flood of magazines is something which we ought to take cognizance of. In this connection let me quote from a letter which appeared recently in the Montreal Gazette, signed by "A Catholic Reader". He says:
It is a pleasure to turn to the fine, public-spirited letter of a Montreal physician, Dr. Korenberg. As a medical man, he states:	"Nothing can so easily and
surely demoralize our children (and grown-ups) as constant reading of scandalous and filthy literature. Constant reading of such journals by our young generation, and by our older generation as well, will tend definitely to mould their character, their opdnions and their outlook on life in a very undesirable (to put it mildly) cast."
Now, what have the Americans to say of their own magazines that are flooding this country? This is written by Frank R. Kent, the Washington correspondent of the Baltimore Sun, and it appeared in The Independent, a journal published in Boston:
"And not only have we produced a great smut crop of a coarseness peculiarly our own," he says, "but the more obscene of the French papers have now been translated into English and appear on the news stands along with the originals. When you stop to analyse, scrutinize, and cheek up, there is here presented more reason for apprehension as to the future than any other single symptom in America to-day.
"The place to fully appreciate its proportions-"
And this applies to Canada quite as much as to the United States.
"-is in the smaller cities and towns, with populations ranging from 20.000 up to 100,000-towns, for instance, like Fairmont, West Virginia-"
Or we might say Hamilton, Ontario:
-where one news dealer sells 2,200 copies of every issue of a single monthly, exclusively devoted to stories of sex experiences and the nude in art; or like Steubenville, Ohio, where out of 110 periodicals on sale in a single store, 60 were either out and out a prurient type or bordered on the libidinous line.
"It is not the cheap and sexually suggestive fiction magazines, although these are many and rotten, that constitute the real shock troops of these paper battalions of literary indecency so much as the smaller and more compact non-fiction affairs frankly and exclusively given over to obscenities. Some of these are published in Chicago, some in Philadelphia, but most of them in Newark, New Jersey, and are issued by the same individuals under different corporate names. They mainly contain a rehash of the dirty stories and jokes told in the smoking rooms of puQlman cars or hotel lobbies.
"If you want to know whether these things are widely read, all you have to do is check up with any intelligent news dealer dn any city, big or little, in any part of the country. The candid ones will not hestitate to tell you, not only that the demand for this sexual literature is enormous, but that there is no such thing as oversatisfying it. Those who buy

The Budget-Mr. Hocken
one of these periodicals will buy every similar one on sight. The more you feed it, .tihe keener it gets. That is why there is a constantly increasing number of these things. As fast as one lewd venture is launched and successfully established, a little twin brother, under a different name and in a dress of a different colour, is sent out and is equally successful with the same clientele."
That is the kind of stuff a large part of which is coming into Canada free, because of the conflict in the items in the customs tariff, and that is the kind of stuff that our young people should be protected from. If it is not the duty of the government to protect the people of this country from that kind of thing, I would ask the members of the administration, who else will do it? How is it to be done? To my mind, it is one of the most important duties the government has to perform.
I go this far, Mr. Speaker. If there is one thing under modern conditions that a nation should endeavour to do, it is to establish and develop a periodical press. I base my argument, Sir, upon this fact, that to a very large extent the periodical press has taken the place of books. A very much larger and increasing proportion of our people all over the country are reading magazines and periodicals of various kinds. The amount of book reading is less in proportion to-day than it ever was, and it is due to the periodical press taking the place of books to a very large extent. It is possible for a periodical press to develop national sentiment in a way that no other form of publication can do. It goes out weekly or monthly, it contains articles building up the national sentiment, strengthening the national spirit, and it goes to the people who read it this week, and next week, and the next week, all through the year. Like drops of water constantly falling upon a stone, it makes an indelible impression. The young mind filled with national sentiment built up by the reading of a Canadian periodical press would remain forever Canadian, but if, instead of being cultivated by a Canadian press, the young mind is cultivated by an American press, it acquires American ideas instead of Canadian ideas. I venture to say, Mr. Speaker, that the young people of Canada to-day know more about President Coolidge than they do about the right hon. leader of this government. The name of Mackenzie King is not in literature that is read in Canada as much as the name of President Coolidge.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not in Ontario?


Horatio Clarence Hocken: Not in any part of the
country. Besides, Mr. Speaker, this is not a joking matter, as I see it. I may be all astray in my opinion, but to my mind this is
one of the most serious questions that a government can take up. If we are not to protect the young people from obscenity, which is our duty; if we are not to make law3 that will develop and strengthen national sentiment, how can we expect that Canada will remain Canada? If we want to protect our people and provide against a secessionist sentiment, we must get our young people to learn what Canada means to them, what we have in Canada, and why Canada should be built up. Teach them that Canada is as good a country to live in as there is in the world, if not better. But we are not teaching them that, and we are allowing our neighbours to the south to teach them something entirely different.
I say, Sir, that the periodical press occupies a position in the world to-day that it never did before, and Canada has no periodical press. Canada ought to have one, and Canada can only get one if there is a certain degree of encouragement given in restricting the flood from a neighbouring and a foreign nation, and then providing, so far as can reasonably be provided, for a flood of Canadian periodicals.


Edward Joseph Garland: May I ask a question? The hon. gentleman has been very fair to us so far, and I hope he will extend this courtesy to me. A moment ago I asked a question with respect to stories appearing in Hearst publications being reprinted in MacLean's Magazine. The hon. member replied that MacLean's reprinted only stories by Canadian authors. The hon. member was w'rong. I have in my hand MacLean's Magazine of the issue of March 15, in which there appears a story entitled "Here Comes the Bride," by Fanny Hurst, a story of the Bowery, the East side of New York City, reprinted from the Cosmopolitan.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I am not acquainted with the lady. I do not know whether she is a Canadian or not.


Edward Joseph Garland: I am informed that she is a United States Jewess.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: If it is a particularly fine
article and it does not affect our national spirit I do not see why MacLean's should not publish it. But Mr. MacLean's idea, as expressed to me personally, is to develop and encourage Canadian writers. By reason of the Copyright Act you can get the works of Canadian waiters, and so far as possible, he gets Canadian writers in his paper in every case rather than American writers. He is a strong Canadian, a strong imperialist, and he as much as any man in this country is trying to stem the tide of this avalanche of American publications.
The Budget-Mr. Hocken

I want to point this out to the House: We are a young country, we are yet in the formative stage. Our future depends upon the present and the rising generation, more so perhaps than is the case in most other countries. That makes it increasingly important for us to see that the present and the rising generation are not denationalized in sentiment, but that on the contrary they should have their Canadian spirit and Canadian sentiment highly developed. So that we are perhaps in a different position from any other country in the world in that respect. We are to-day laying the foundations, and they must be laid in the minds and in the hearts and in the intellects of the people; that is the only foundation for a nation. I venture to say, Sir, that the province of Quebec is the only province in the confederation that can be said to-day to have its ideals fixed, and that is due to the fact that it has been made impervious to American influences. Premier Taschereau told us a short time ago that the attitude of the people of Quebec to day was the same as it was three hundred years ago. That makes them impervious to this Americanizing. Then again, all these magazines are printed in English, which is not read fluently by a great many people of the province of Quebec. Therefore these American magazines cannot permeate that province in the way in which they can all the rest of the provinces. But every other province in confederation is in a state of flux so far as its national sentiment is concerned. That sentiment is not fixed, and it is being fed by the *most pernicious anti-Canadian literature that is printed anywhere in the world. We are rapidly imbibing American ideals, and that must inevitably weaken and ultimately destroy that definite Canadian sentiment which it is *our duty to strengthen. If Canada is not to 'be absorbed by the republic our government must take measures to protect our people from this infiltration of Americanism.
We all deplore the exodus of our young people across the border; it is an economic loss that no country can stand for any length of time. The first members of a family who cross the line act as a sort of magnet to all the other members of the family, drawing them at one time or another to the substantially better conditions that are said to prevail in the United States. In my opinion the flood of American periodicals that enter Canada is doing nothing more or nothing less than rob this Dominion of its native-born citizens who have free and unlimited entry to the republic. All they have to do is to get a certificate of birth, and over they go without 
any further question. We are being left with a population born elsewhere than in Canada, much of it very desirable, some of it not quite so desirable. In any event a Canadian-born citizen has greater potential value to this country than a man from any other part of the world. If there is any of the population we should endeavour to preserve, it is the native-born Canadian, and we are not doing that.	.
I am not arguing that our relations with tin United States should be any other than inti mate and friendly. We have lived beside then for over one hundred years without any dispute that could not be settled by arbitration Our social, our business, our fraternal relations with the United States are about as intimate in the case of some provinces and states as are the relations between the different provinces of Canada. I have no objection to that; I wish to encourage it. I happen to belong to two or three international organizations myself. But it is one thing to maintain friendly and intimate relations of that character, and it is something entirely different to allow our young people to be tempted or to be influenced in such a manner that they come to think more highly of the United States than of their own country. Unless we are willing to watch our country drift into annexation with the United States we must do something to strengthen a national Canadian sentiment, and as I have argued before, nothing will be so effective in enabling us to do that as a strong Canadian periodical press that . will emphasize the advantages of our own country and make 'Canadians proud of their native land. We should, as far as possible, guard against the cultural as well as the economic penetration of this country by the United States.
To those who favour our absorption by the republic to the south my argument will have no weight; but with all who desire that Canada should remain a member of the British commonwealth this must be a question of the first importance. I present it to the House not for the first time or for the second time. I urge the government once again to sit down quietly and consider solemnly the ramifications, the evil results that are following and will increasingly follow the continued free entry of American magazines into this country.
I realize the differences we have in Canada, yet I believe we have an opportunity to build up one of the greatest countries in the world. We have the soil, we have the resources of all kinds, and we have a climate that ought to make men just a little better than they are in

The Budget-Mr. Brown
any other part of the world. But we can only succeed if we make Canadians proud of their country-so proud of it, in fact, that they will be willing to make some little sacrifice to live in this Dominion. Unless we can do that the great republic to the south, with its 110,000,000 of people, with its better financial opportunities awaiting all the time, will attract the very cream of our population. Our only hope, our only remedy, is so to cultivate a national sentiment among Canadians, particularly young Canadians, that they will be proud of Canada, they will resist the appeals that come from the other side of the international boundary line, and will say: As for me and my house, we will remain Canadians.


John Livingstone Brown: Mr. Speaker, the remarks that I wish to address to the House on this occasion will be directed not so much towards the budget itself as towards certain criticisms that have been made of it, and trade conditions in general in Canada. It is not my purpose so much to build up a constructive argument as to endeavour to show up some of the fallacious arguments that have been used. If we can do that I think perhaps we shall have laid in some measure the foundations for a better understanding of the situation that confronts us.
I might make a few remarks, however, upon the budget itself. I shall not refer at all to the general financial situation; but speaking of the matter of trade conditions in Canada it has been pointed out, and very properly so, that the satisfactory conditions that prevail in this country are dependent in large measure upon the splendid harvests that have been reaped by the farmers in all parts of the land. It is only natural of course that the government should be pleased that the two conditions should have coincided-that is, the continuance of the government in office and the splendid harvest that has been reaped. It is only natural that hon. members on the government side should refer to that fact with pride and take some satisfaction out of it. On the other hand it is only natural that their opponents should belittle as much as possible the activities of the government and give all the credit to Providence. Now, we in the west who have received these large crops recognize that Providence has blessed us wonderfully during the past two years. We also recognize that the large exports of wheat that are going forth from this land have been brought about by the co-operation of Providence with the hard-working diligent farmers of the Canadian west.
I should like to call attention again to some very wise remarks that were made by the
hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) in which he showed the position which the Canadian west is occupying now in the economic life of the Dominion. Perhaps this was never more strongly stated than in an address that was given by Sir Henry Thornton, president of the Canadian National Railways, as reported in the Montreal Gazette of Saturday, January 9, 1926. This address was delivered in November last, and I wish to refer to only two or three sentences. He points out in the course of this address that during the early part of last year the Canadian National Railways did not show a very strong position as regards the business done, but that towards the middle of the year conditions began to improve. He then goes on to say:
About the middle of July, however, a definite firm undertone in Canadian business began to manifest itself, so that the decrease in gross earnings has now been wiped out and an increase in gross of approximately $7,000,000 will be shown at the end of the year.
At the beginning of July it was perfectly manifest there was going to be a magnificent harvest in the west, and naturally that made itself evident in the immediate increase of the business of the country. Again he says:
The crop conditions for the year undoubtedly helped the position, but a large measure of success is due to the healthy growth of business in general in all parts of the Dominion. Because of the important part played by 'the crops in Canada's general business conditions it seems inadvisable to go beyond the first six months of next year in venturing any predictions. Given an average crop, however, I believe that the sound undertone which has made itself felt in Canadian business during the latter half of 1925 will continue to increase in strength during the first half of 1926.
Perhaps it might not be amiss for the government and all of us to take the warning given by Sir Henry Thornton when he said that it might not be wise, in the matter of predictions, to go beyond the first six months of the year-another recognition of the fact that the prosperity of Canada is very closely bound up, indeed absolutely dependent upon, the prosperity of the farm.
It is a matter of pride on the part of all Canadians that our National railway has reached the status that it has now attained. For my part-and I think I speak for those, in the main, who sit in this comer of the House-we never criticized the action of the government of the day in taking over the railway lines and beginning the amalgamation of them into a united whole. We recognized that it was a matter of necessity that such a step should be taken, and for my part I am inclined to give credit to those who controlled the government of the day. But when these lines were taken over they were
The Budget-Mr. Brown

not in a position to compete effectively with the Canadian Pacific railway, and while hon. members claim that credit should be given to the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) for having brought about the amalgamation, we should also remember that he has taken the position that we should not spend one dollar more in the way of equipment. I think he has used expressions of that kind on different occasions. We in this House have voted large sums of money during the past few years for the equipment of the National lines, and that equipment is now such that the railway will become a very effective competitor with the Canadian Pacific. For the next few years I do not think it should be necessary to spend any very considerable amount in equipment in order to make it possible for the Canadian National to compete with the other road.
I had intended to speak at some length on the question of the income tax, but the hon. member for Nelson (Mr. Bird) expressed pretty nearly my sentiments in regard to that matter. It is seemingly a popular move that the income tax should be reduced. I note with approval, however, that the government has acted in certain respects as some of us have argued during the past few years. I notice with particular pleasure the provision in regard to the tax upon dividends. We have been arguing that distinction should be made between revenue derived from investment and revenue derived from salaries or from business. For my part I cannot agree with the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion); I cannot work up a great deal of sympathy for that hypothetical widow who has to pay an increased tax on an income of $5,000 Which she receives from dividends. There are a great many widows in the country for whom I have a great deal more sympathy than the widow who receives an income of $5,000 from her husband's estate.
I would like to commend the government for taking a step in the direction of another principle we advocated, namely, that for the purposes of taxation the income of the husband and wife should be considered a joint income. They have not perhaps gone as far in that respect as some of us have advocated, but a step has been made in that direction and I think the policy is eminently sound.
It is quite obvious that different views are held by hon. members in this House in regard to these matters. One feature of the income tax as set forth in the proposed change was condemned by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. McQuarrie), and that is the feature that made the strongest appeal to me as praiseworthy. The hon. 
member criticized the proposal that carrying charges on unproductive property should no longer be exempt. I commend that change most heartily. I do not see why a man speculating in land, for instance, or having any other unproductive property, should be allowed to deduct the carrying charges when he makes his claim for exemption.
The postal reductions have been received generally with a measure of favour, and perhaps the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) expressed what was a very common attitude toward the postal service when he said it was one that should be rendered to the people at cost, and that the government should not make any excessive profit out of it. I know that that position is very generally taken by people, and I am not going to combat it; but I would like to present another point of view to which we might give some consideration. It should be remembered that the government is rendering many services to the country at less than cost. It might very well be argued, if that is the case that some of these services which show a small profit might be continued in order that other unproductive services might be continued-provided always of course that these services should not be in any degree burdensome on the-country. That, to my mind, is a point of view that might very well be considered..
That is all, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say in. regard to the budget itself. I wish now to make some references to certain arguments-that have been used in this House that seem, to me to be absolutely fallacious. I wish to refer to some statistics that have been given, upon which the wrong conclusions have been based and from which false inferences have been drawn. Perhaps one of the chief offenders in this respect was the hon. member for Frontenac-Addington (Mr. Edwards) in his speech yesterday. Speaking generallv in regard to these statistics, I think the fault is a very common one: hon. members will go to the Bureau of Statistics, get figures which may be absolutely correct, and place them on Hansard, but the conclusions they draw from them are absolutely wrong, and when we make any criticism in the matter they tell us that the figures are taken from government reports. The hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. McGibbon) was good enough to say a few weeks ago that he had more confidence in Mr. Coats as a statistician than he had in the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown). I agree that Mr. Coats is a better statistician than the hon. member for Lisgar; it is not with Mr. Coats that L have any quarrel. My quarrel is with those

The Budget-Mr. Brown
who take the figures Mr. Coats compiles and use them in such a way that they lead to wrong conclusions and result in altogether unwarranted inferences. Hon. gentlemen fall back upon the principle that figures do not lie. Figures do not lie-but hon. gentlemen can complete the quotation. Indeed, when some of	these	hon.	members	engage	inmathematical calculations I cannot but be reminded	of a	little	algebraical	puzzle	weused to have put before us by which it could be absolutely demonstrated that one is equal to two.	The	question was to	find	thefallacy-because thei'e was a fallacy in it; anyone would know that one was not equal to two.	The fallacy	lay in this, that	on
each of the two sides of the equation you found a factor that was equal to nothing, consequently the whole thing was equal to nothing. Everybody, I think, unless it be the hon. member for Frontenac-Addington, will be prepared to recognize that once nothing is just as much as twice nothing.
I am sorry the hon. member for Frontenac-Addington is not in his seat, because I wish to direct my remarks particularly towards some of the figures that he placed on Hansard only yesterday. When he gave those figures to the House I could not be sure just what he was trying to get at; I could not see -what particular fish he was trying to catch in the muddy water he had stirred up. But a little later on he showed clearly what he was trying to do. On page 2880 of Hansard we read this:
Mr. Evans:	Does the hon. gentleman imply that
we get more in Canada for our wheat than we do in the world's markets?
Mr. Edwards (Frontenac):	I did next imply that,
I stated it. I gave you the figures which I have taken from the government's own reports, and inasmuch as you are supporting this government very faithfully I do not suppose you jwill question the correctness of any of those reports.
Mr. Brown: The figures may be reliable but a very wrong inference may be drawn from them.
Mr. Edwards (Frontenac):	That is a matter of
judgment. I presume my hon. friend will admit that if there is a wrong inference drawn it will be on his part.
I admit nothing of the kind. I propose to show the utter fallacy of the figures compiled by the hon. member for Frontenac-Addington, who was good enough to say to our hon. friends opposite that they belonged to the kindergarten class, the Saskatchewan kindergarten. I propose to show that the hon. member for Frontenac-Addington is not even in the kindergarten class, but in swaddling clothes. Let me say to the hon. members from Saskatchewan: Do not be discouraged if you should be spoken of as "young cubs" and "kindergarten kids." Some of the old
"ginks" on this side at least think we can discern in you some qualities of statesmanship, and possibly when you grow older you will be wiser. I remember when the hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Rogers) was spoken of as the "boy"-and look at him now. He will remember that in the early days when he was campaigning in southern Manitoba. But to go back a little further into history, you all know the experiences of Disraeli, how he felt he had made a mess of it when he first spoke in the House, but said that there would come a day when he would be heard. To go back a little further, hon. members will remember that the great William Pitt was at one time taunted by his great opponent Walpole with his youth and inexperience, and Pitt in the course of his remarks used words something like these- I trust I may be forgiven if I do not quote them exactly, for it must be about forty years since I saw the printed page:
Whether yoirth may be attributed to any man as a reproach I shall not, Sir, assume t*he province of determining, but surely age may justly become contemptible when the opportunities which it brings have passed a.way without improvement. The wretch who having seen the consequences of a thousand errors continues still to blunder is surely an object either of abhorrence or of contempt, and deserves not that his grey hairs should secure him from insult.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


John Livingstone Brown: WThen the House rose at six o'clock I had been endeavouring to offer some words of encouragement to the "kindergarten class" from Saskatchewan, urging them not to take too seriously the criticisms that had been made by the hon. member for Frontenac-Addington. I had pointed out to them that some great statesmen had overcome the weaknesses of their early youth. Disraeli, for example, in spite of his first failure in the House of Commons, became famous, and the great William Pitt, although taunted with his youth and inexperience, rose nevertheless to be one of England's greatest prime ministers. As a further word of encouragement, I would say to the "kindergarten class" that with patience-and perseverance they may possibly develop not merely into Beaconsfields and Chathams. but even into statesmen of the high eminence of the hon. member for Frontenac-Addington.


John Wesley Edwards: Do*'t forget yourself. My hon. friend should not be so modest.
The Budget-Mr. Brown


John Livingstone Brown: I had called the attention
of the House to the fact that the hon. member for Frontenae-Addington has advanced an argument in regard to the prices of grain in Canada. I could scarcely conceive it possible at first that the purpose he had in making that argument was what he told us, but he admitted it himself. That purpose was to prove that, the western farmers received, for that portion of their wheat which was sold in the provinces in which there was a shortage, a greater amount than they received for that which was sold on the world's market.


John Wesley Edwards: I did not
say so.


John Livingstone Brown: The hon. member did not
say so?


John Wesley Edwards: No.


John Livingstone Brown: Then I shall have to quote Hansard again:
Mr. Evans: Does the hon. gentleman imply that we get more in Canada for our wheat than we do in the world's markets?
Mr. Edwards (Frontenac): I did not imply that, I stated it.


John Wesley Edwards: Exactly.


John Livingstone Brown: (Reading):
I gave you the figures which I have taken from the government's own reports, and inasmuch as you are supporting this government very faithfully I do not suppose you will question the correctness of any of those reports.
Mr. Brown: The figures may be reliable but a very wrong inference may be drawn from them.
Mr. Edwards (Frontenac): That is a matter of judgment. I presume my hon. friend will admit that if there is a wrong inference drawn it will be on his part.


John Wesley Edwards: It may be.


John Livingstone Brown: Let us go back to the figures the hon. gentleman adduced in support of his contention. At page 2878 of Hansard this is what we read:
It has been said that the price of wheat is fixed in the United Kingdom. Taken as a general statement, I think that that is true-


John Wesley Edwards: Hear, hear. Mr. BROWN (Reading):
-but I believe it is subject to some modification. The average price of wheat for all Canada in 1924 was $1.22; in Manitoba, $1.24; Saskatchewan, $1.21; Alberta, $1.20; Ontario, $1.27. Each of these provinces had an exportable surplus, comparatively small in the case of Ontario, but very, very large in the west. Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had a shortage. In Quebec the average price for the whole year was $1.66; New Brunswick, $1.78; Nova Scotia, $1.61; Prince Edward Island, $1.59. There was a shortage in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick of 4,216,000 bushels.

The hon. gentleman endeavoured to show from these figures-if he did not, then I do not know what meaning he intended to convey -that that portion of the crop of the west which was sold to make up the shortage in these other provinces was sold at higher prices than were paid for the other portion of the crop that went upon the world's markets. So he stated in that first extract I read. Now the veriest tyro in mathematics will see the fallacy of his contention; one has only to look at it on the surface to detect it. Let me call the attention of the House to the hon. gentleman's mistake. He says that the average in Canada was $1.22; that the average in Manitoba was $1.24, in Saskatchewan, $1.21, and in Alberta, $1.20. In other words, the average for the three prairie provinces was $1.21$. I am not building up an argument on averages, for there is nothing more fallacious than some reasoning upon that basis. Indeed, I sometimes think that it would be well for us if that word averages were entirely deleted from our vocabulary.


John Wesley Edwards: Does the
hon. member question the correctness of those figures?


John Livingstone Brown: I shall deal with that in a
moment. The school-boy's definition of an average was that it was something that hens laid eggs on. It seems to me that it might be just as well, for all the good it does, to confine the word to that meaning. You will notice that after stating the averages in the three prairie provinces the hon. member went on to quote the higher prices in other parts of the Dominion-Ontario, $1.27, and the other provinces, respectively, $1.61, $1.66, $1,78. Now the most elementary mathematician could see that if you added the higher figures to the average I have already given, of $1.21$, the quantity included at these higher prices must be infinitesimal. That of itself shows the absolute absurdity of the argument that the hon. gentleman has made. Let the House consider it. We have an average of $151$ for the three prairie provinces, then $1.66 for Quebec-I need not deal with the other provinces. Why, anybody knows that if you have any appreciable quantity at those prices you are going to raise the average away above $1.22. The whole thing is so palpably absurd that I think I was justified in consigning the hon. member not only to the kindergarten class but to swaddling clothes.


Mr. EDW  ARDS@Frontenac: Now, may
I ask my hon. friend again-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.

The Budget-Mr. Brown


John Wesley Edwards: I am not
asking hon. gentlemen opposite in the kindergarten class, I am asking my hon. friend. Does he dispute the figures which I gave as to the average price?


John Livingstone Brown: No.


John Wesley Edwards: Very well.


John Livingstone Brown: I said this afternoon that my quarrel was not with the statistician. I pointed out the unfailing custom of these gentlemen to my right that when we questioned their figures they would point to their being contained in a government report. My quarrel is with the hon. gentleman who misused the figures. I said figures do not lie. Neither do they. I have the highest respect for the exact science of mathematics. It is a most fascinating study, the relations of number, the invariable, unfailing rules of mathematics. But science is one thing and a pseudo scientist another. Figures are one thing and figurers are something entirely different. I do not dispute the figures for a moment.


John Wesley Edwards: Very good.


John Livingstone Brown: I am going to take up that point.	.


John Wesley Edwards: Thank you; that is what I was coming to.


John Livingstone Brown: I will give them to you. I did not get the full force of the hon. member's argument when he was presenting it, but in reading it over I saw at once its fallacy, and to confirm myself in my own opinion I got into contact to-day with the Department of Statistics. There I found that these figures did not mean what he said they meant. All that they mean is this: the figures for the other provinces simply referred to the local prices at which the locally raised wheat was sold in those provinces.


John Wesley Edwards: Absolutely correct.


John Livingstone Brown: That is all it means.


John Wesley Edwards: That is
right. I did not say it meant anything else. I did not imply that it meant anything else.


John Livingstone Brown: Very well, we will have to cut out this first selection.


John Wesley Edwards: No, all you need cut out is your interpretation of my figures.


John Livingstone Brown: I invite any hon. member to read the extract that I quoted from Hansard. It will be found at page 2880.
Mr. F'ORKE: Read it again.


John Livingstone Brown: I will.
Mr. Evans:	Does the hon. gentleman imply that
we get more in Canada for our wheat than we do , in the world's markets?
Mr. Edwards (Frontenac):	I did not imply that,
I stated it. I gave you the figures which I have taken from the government's own reports.
And so on.


John Wesley Edwards: Will my
hon. friend permit a question again? I thank him for his courtesy in doing so. He says he accepts the figures I gave as the average prices. Those figures for the eastern provinces by reason of some scarcity he must admit are higher than the world's market prices. That is all I said.


John Livingstone Brown: If-the hon. member had
confined himself to that I might have been willing to put his interpretation on it, but when in answer to the direct question by the hon. member for Rosebud-


John Wesley Edwards: Rosetown.


John Livingstone Brown: -Rosetown, he made the further statement, then he throws himself open to question. It is quite possible of course, and everybody admits it, that in a community where there is a comparatively small portion of wheat grown, those who own that wheat and are not able to come in contact with the world's supply will possibly get a higher price than the world's price. No one disputes that for a moment. But the hon. gentleman was not warranted in the conclusion that he drew from those figures.


John Wesley Edwards: Did I not
say-I want my hon. friend to be fair-that the general price of wheat was controlled in the world's market?


John Livingstone Brown: But he went on also to urge that because of this shortage in the other provinces, as he pointed out and admitted himself, we got more for that portion of our wheat that was sold in the Canadian market than in the world's market.


John Wesley Edwards: You have
admitted it yourself.


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: He is too old to learn.


John Wesley Edwards: And you
are too young.


Mr. McLEAN (Melfort):: That can be
remedied, the other cannot.


John Livingstone Brown: The hon. gentleman also on that occasion had another fling at that much maligned company, the United Grain Growers. It will be recalled that when the Hon. Mr. Crerar left the Union government at once

The Budget-Mr. Brown
a tremendous attack was started against him and against the company of which he was president. That was in the parliament elected in 1917. Amongst the leaders in that attack was the hon. member for Frontenac,-


John Wesley Edwards: Hear, hear


John Livingstone Brown: -ably supported by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens), the then member for Dufferin, Mr. Best, and I think the then member for Peterborough, Mr. Burnham, these hon. members led the attack upon Mr. Crerar because he had left the government. Now, that attack was carried on all through the prairies, and I want to remind my hon. friend that everything that could be done to prejudice the minds of the western farmers against Mr. Crerar and his company was done. Election pamphlets were sent out-not according to law, because they did not bear the signatures of those who circulated them, but we know who used them. They came through my constituency during the 1921 election. I do not know whether the hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Rogers), who was my opponent then, was responsible for their circulation in my constituency or not, but the fact is they were circulated there. I repeat, everything was done that could be done to discredit Mr. Crerar and that company. I want to remind my hon. friend that the people of the west, the people who had a grievance- if there was a grievance-and who understood the situation, answered the attack by turning down every candidate then supporting the government that appealed to the country; and it is a little too late in the day for the hon. member for Frontenac-Addington to come down here and get off this kind of stuff. It may be believed by people who do not know the facts of the case, but those facts are as I have stated.
Then the hon. gentleman spoke about overages in the terminal elevators. I can perfectly well understand how difficult it is for an eastern man to grasp this question of overages m the terminals, to see how an overage can be created except by fraud on the part of the elevator people weighing wrongly, and thus defrauding the farmer. But that is an entire mistake. If the hon. member or any other member would step into my office, in about ten minutes I could convince him of the fallacy of that position. I have not time this evening to discuss the question of overages in the terminals.


An hon. MEMBER:: Go ahead.


John Livingstone Brown: I will have to speak a little longer than I intended.


An hon. MEMBER:: Go ahead.


John Livingstone Brown: Understand, I am speaking only of terminal elevators.


John Wesley Edwards: Which I did not speak of at al.


John Livingstone Brown: Very well, then your figures did not have any concern with terminal elevators.


John Wesley Edwards: My figures were taken from the sworn evidence of Mr Rice Jones.


John Livingstone Brown: Which referred to the terminals.


John Wesley Edwards: Not at all.


John Livingstone Brown: They did. The hon. member just shows how little he knows about the subject. I think I am right in this. When we revised the Grain Act last session an amendment was added requiring country elevators to make returns of their overages, but until then such elevators had never been required to make reports. I think I am correct, and that the hon. Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) will support me in this statement. So the hon. member did not have figures for country elevators. The figures he had referred to terminal elevators.


John Wesley Edwards: I can give my hon. friend the evidence given by Mr. Rice Jones, which will support absolutely what I say.


John Livingstone Brown: If hon. members wish me to make a brief explanation, I can do it, although it will take me away from the subject with which I intended to deal. I shall not go into it fully, but will simply illustrate. Different factors may enter into that overage.
I admit at once that if a car of wheat goes to a terminal elevator and is wrongly weighed, -and remember, the weighing is done by a government weighmaster-the terminal elevator may benefit by that, and possibly some of the overage may be explained in that way. But that is not necessarily the explanation of overages.
Let me illustrate. A farmer sends a car of wheat down to the terminal elevator at Fort William. Passing through Winnipeg that car of wheat is graded by the inspector, and the amount of dockage determined. Let us suppose that a 1,000-bushel car of wheat is graded by the inspector as of a certain grade, with 4 per cent dockage; what does that

The Budget-Mr. Brown
moan? It means that the terminal elevator has to account to the farmer for 960 bushels of wheat on that car. But remember, that car of wheat has to be cleaned. In actual practice they do not clean a carload at a time, but for the sake of my argument we will suppose that they do. Now it is a physical impossibility for the elevator operator to run that car of wheat through his cleaners and take out 960 bushels of wheat for the farmer and 40 bushels of screenings; it is no more possible for him to do it than it was for Shylock to take one pound of flesh, neither more or less. Very well; you put the terminal elevator up against that responsibility. What does the operator do? He cannot afford to be short, for he would have to make up the difference out of his own pocket, so naturally he takes care that he has a slight overage. He cleans it just a little light; it may be that he has 961, 962 or 963 bushels. That extra amount constitutes the overage on that particular car, and of course in the aggregate the overages amount to an immense sum. I do not say that is the only way, but in large measure that is the way in which the overage is built up.
This question of overage is one to which we western people have been compelled to give a great deal of consideration. A few years ago an amendment was made to the Grain Act making this provision, that the government should take control of all the overage from the terminal elevators except one-quarter of one per cent. That provision was declared to be ultra vires because of its interference with property and civil rights, and so it never really came into operation. It was inserted in the Grain Act again last year when w'e revised the act, and provision was then made in the act that these elevators should be declared works for the general benefit of Canada, just in order to overcome that constitutional difficulty. As I have said, this question of overage has always been a serious one for the farmers. We have endeavoured to meet it, and that was the solution offered by the Canadian Council of Agriculture. I want to say this also-I am in a position to know, because I was a member of the council-that that solution was brought to the attention of the council by the United Grain Growers, which was a member of the council. If lion, members w'ere as familiar with some of these things as those of us who come from the west and are in constant touch with them, they would not make the wild and reckless statements they do. We naturally want this question of overages settled, but it cannot be settled in the way some hon.
gentlemen have suggested, and it cannot be settled unles there is an understanding of all phases of the question. I am quite certain that with his present knowledge of the grain trade the hon. member for Frontenac-Adding-ton cannot afford us any help in the solution of that problem. While I am on the subject of this much maligned company-


John Wesley Edwards: Before my hon. friend leaves the question of overages, does he dispute my statement that there were 357,000 bushels of overages sold for $418,000?


John Livingstone Brown: I am not disputing the figures at all; they are probably correct There was a larger overage than that even in the government elevator.


John Wesley Edwards: That is the amount that went to the United Grain Growers.


John Livingstone Brown: Why single out one grain company simply because of a prejudice against the manager of that company?


John Wesley Edwards: Was my statement correct?


John Livingstone Brown: I am not denying that the figures are correct. The point I am making is that the hon. member is drawing a wrong inference from them.
I want to say something further about this much maligned company. Many noble patriotic services were rendered this country during the war, and some things were done that were not so noble and patriotic. We have rolls of honour all through the country, and the records of this House will show that we might also have rolls of dishonour. But as to service rendered to the country, speaking only from the- standpoint of material gifts, there was none more worthy of note than that rendered by the United Grain Growers, who turned over their whole export business at New York for the handling of oats at cost price for the allies. I do not remember the exact amount, but it ran into many, many millions of bushels.


John Wesley Edwards: Was that the year they made 530 per cent?


John Livingstone Brown: They never made it.


John Wesley Edwards: Your own manager swore they did.


John Livingstone Brown: He did not do anything of the kind.


Mr. MULLINS:: Will the hon. gentleman permit me to read this letter?


John Livingstone Brown: No.

The Budget-Mr. Brown


Henry Alfred Mullins: For the benefit of the hon. member, I might say that I have a ticket here showing a difference of 50 cents a bushel as between the street and the track paid to the farmer by this company he is speaking of. They took 50 cents a bushel from the fanner.


John Livingstone Brown: If I had the exact details, probably I should find the hon. member (Mr. Mullins) wrong too. I was saying, Mr. Speaker, that this much maligned company turned over its export business and handled millions of bushels for the allies without one cent of profit at a time when graft was rampant in some parts of this country. I do not expect hon. members will ask the details.
I had intended to deal with the question of fertilizers because of some remarks that were made on this subject some little time ago. I have, however, taken up so much of my time with other questions with which I had not originally intended to deal that I shall have to reserve a discussion of this question for another occasion, except briefly to refer to the statements that were made. The statement was made in a general way that fertilizers were higher priced here since the duties were removed at the same time that prices in the world's markets were lower. I have some figures here which show that at the very best there is not the slightest foundation for such a statement. The inquiries I have been	able	to	make and the	figures Ihave been	able	to	secure, dealing	with thismatter as fairly as I can, show that there is absolutely no warrant for that statement, but as this question will come up again when the agricultural estimates are before us, I shall wait until	that	occasion to deal	with the
matter.
There are some other things I want to deal with. I want to come to some other hon, members who have put certain figures upon Hansard that I think will bear some criticism. The hon.	member	for Fort William (Mr. Manion) and the hon. member for East Algoma (Mr. Nicholson) have left themselves open, in my judgment, to very serious criticism. These two hon. members are still harping on the subject of imports. I was not able to understand all the figures that the hon. member for East Algoma put on Hansard, but the only conclusion I could come to was that he wanted to stop this trade altogether; I could not see any other explanation for it than that. Now if these hon. members really want to stop this trade altogether, I should like them to say so. They certainly want the tariff put up to such a height that it will stop that trade, so they say. Let me ask where we would get our revenue if that were done. That

is the question that used to be asked of us when we advocated a reduction of the duties: Where would you get the revenue? I remember when the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) was in Brandon in 1920 with the tariff commission. He was met there by farmers from all over the country. We advocated reductions in the tariff, and the invariable question was: Where would you get the revenue? And yet the arguments of these hon. members mean nothing Iks, if we carry them out literally, than that there will be no revenue from the customs tariff- at least not from this source. And then what about our revenue? I should like to know what system of taxation we are going to get that would be popular, or to which these hon. members will not offer criticism? The income tax has been condemned, the sales tax has been condemned, and now they want to shut off importation and we will have no revenue from customs duties. They have also denounced the "nuisance" taxes. Really, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what sources of revenue we should have left.
There is one statement made by the hon. member for East Algoma to which I want to refer. I will quote again from Hansard at page 2756. The hon. gentleman is reported there as saying:
Why, one industrial city the size of Hamilton consumes more beef cattle in a single, year than the whole Dominion exported last year, and that was the greatest exporting year we have ever had.


Thomas McMillan: They must sit up at
nights there.


John Livingstone Brown: To use a slang phrase, the
people of Hamilton are some beef eaters. A little investigation of the records would show that if that statement is true this is also true -that the people of Hamilton each consumed two live animals, and 244 pounds of beef as well.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


John Livingstone Brown: That is, that every man,
woman and child in the city of Hamilton ate two live animals and 244 pounds of beef.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


John Livingstone Brown: I will give the actual details.


John Wesley Edwards: They did
not eat them alive, did they?


John Livingstone Brown: The figures are for the
year. Now let me give the actual figures: Cattle, one year old, 42,506; cattle, more than one year old-that includes export steers- 175,578; total 218,084. The population of Hamilton is given in the electoral returns as

294M
The Budget-Mr. Brown
107,4S7. I have estimated my figures at about 110.000 to allow for good measure. Now, possibly I am going to forestall an argument; the hon. member may come back and say, "Well, Hamilton is a bigger city than simply the electoral division; it includes the suburbs.'' Very well, we will grant that and so double the population. I will give the population as 220,000, and still you have one beef animal and 120 pounds of beef for every man, woman and child in the city.


An hon. MEMBER:: You must remember
that a million tourists stop there every year.


John Livingstone Brown: Well, there is still a big
margin. I think I have allowed sufficient margin by doubling the population.
I am going to refer again to the hon. member for East Algoma later on in my speech.
I want to go back now to the hon. member for Fort William. The trade returns, he said, for 1925 show that we imported, largely from the United States, $149,201,000 worth of agricultural products that we could have produced on the farms of Canada, and we imported as well $236,000,000 of farm products such as cotton, tropical fruits, vegetables, and so on, which we could not produce in Canada. These figures, except that they refer to the wrong year, are correct as figures but have been wrongly interpreted as they have been used and as they have been presented to the country. I do not want to urge the point very strongly, but it is perhaps worthy of note that the figures the hon. member has given are for the year ending March 31, 1924. I do not know whether there is any significance in the fact that out of the three years that he gave -1923, 1924 and 1925-he chose the largest for the purpose of his argument. The exact figure, the figure I have used in my calculation, is $143,920,611. There is a difference of a few dollars between the figures as given in a monthly return issued by the Department of Trade and Commerce and the figures in the larger volume, Trade in Canada, for the same year, but the difference is so slight it can be ignored. One point I want to mention just here-and I have referred to it already-is that on this amount of imports we collected a total duty of $27,534,932, a by no means inconsiderable proportion of our revenue, and a sum well worth taking into consideration.
Now what about this $143,000,000? The hon. member tells us it is agricultural produce that could have been produced in Canada. My objection is not so much to the statement itself as to the implications of that statement, and sometimes the implications in a statement are just as important as a statement itself. The implication is that these were goods that we could have produced but did not produce. The fact is that we do produce large quantities of these goods. Some of them were exported, some of them entered into home consumption, and the conveniences of trade required that a considerable portion of the same goods that we have exported be imported. The convenience of trade brought about that situation and always will have that result, unless we either establish an embargo definitely or put the duty so high that it would amount to an embargo. So the implication that these were goods that we could have produced in Canada and did not produce is entirely wrong.


Mr. CAHAN:: The hon. member admits
we could have produced them?


John Livingstone Brown: Certainly I admit we could have produced some of them, but if we did, there are conditions that at present we do not know anything about that should be taken into consideration.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Such as?


John Livingstone Brown: The hon. member surely
knows he cannot base a sound argument upon any hypothesis of that kind.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Will the hon. member please explain. I should like to know the grounds for his statement.


John Livingstone Brown: I am going to analyse
these figures a little further. These figures include not only raw materials but goods manufactured and chiefly or fully manufactured. Mr. Coats is perfectly correct in his compilation; I do not find fault with him. but I do find fault with the way the figures have been used by hon. members. Tiie
figures are as follows:
Raw material	 152,258,600
Partly manufactured	 11,815,225
Fully or chiefly manufactured	 79,846,786
In that list of fully or partly manufactured goods we have the total wool products, and I think I have the correct figure, namely, $36,534,592, of the different manufactures that make up the vast total. In that list we find also alcoholic beverages and the figure of the imports is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $18,000,000 or $19 000.000. In discussing this matter I do not want to introduce my personal views in regard to liquor. I am willing to join with the hon. member for Fort William or anyone else in preventing the manufacture, sale and use of alcoholic liquor for beverage purposes, but
2m

The Budget-Mr. Brown
I am simply pointing out the fact that we did import that much liquor, and in that figure of 3143,000,000 odd, alcoholic liquors are included, because they might be produced from Canadian grain. For instance, in the footnote of the page from which these figures are quoted I find the following:
Canadian farm products refer in case of imports to ail commodities of which the basic raw materials are such as Canadian farms produce.
And of course alcoholic liquors are included because they might have been produced from Canadian grain. While I am not defending the traffic in alcoholic liquor, that traffic did bring in a revenue of $16,225532 for that year. Surely that is not an inconsiderable revenue. We had better not venture a statement as to the amount exported and the amount manufactured for home consumption.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Suppose they are manufactured in this country, could they not bring in the same revenue under the same duty?


John Livingstone Brown: Possibly in the case of
alcoholic liquors that would be so, but there is also an excise duty on the goods manufactured here. However, I am not urging strongly the question of revenue. I am objecting to their being included in this list. Turning more directly to the raw products of agriculture, I said that the import trade in agricultural products would always go on for the purpose of convenience. Let me illustrate this. We imported' hay in 1925 to the extent of $156,556, incidentally bringing in a revenue of $20,564. That was done for the purpose of convenience, because we exported in the same year $3,725,282 worth. So that the imports of hay were so insignificant as compared with the export that it only means we would have been inconveniencing our people if we tried to give absolute protection to the farmer who produced hay. Perhaps I should give a more extreme illustration, because it requires an extreme illustration to bring home the point We exported straw to the extent of $154,180 W e imported straw to the amount of $1,021 bringing in a revenue of $146. That was a matter of convenience. Is there any farmer from the western prairies, any member of the ' kindergarten class," who would advocate a prohibitive duty on the import of straw? W7e need only mention it to hon. members to show the absurdity of the idea. Further there is included in that list of agricultural products the following:
Horses for exhibition	 ggg
Live stock of other kinds	 56 5^1
lotal	 $1,743,400

These all go into the figures. I have no quarrel with Mr. Coats, but I have a quarrel with the man who would use these figures without such an explanation as I am making. Further items are :
Animals of all kind for the improvement of stock, goats, horses and sheep, 291,178.
I got these figures from the Department of Statistics. I notice another item, asses. Unfortunately we have been very negligent; I find there were none imported. Let us take a few more figures-I am not going to take them all. Take grains of all kinds; and I am going to use oats as an illustration. "We imported oats to the extent of $513,602, and incidentally obtained a revenue of $93,000 odd, but at the same time we exported oats to the amount of $16,044,436. Will any hon. member contend for a moment that in any degree these things work injury to the farmers? It is quite possible that in a few isolated communities some individual farmer might have had a supply of oats for himself and would have been able to charge his neighbour a little higher price in those local individual transactions if he had an absolute embargo or prohibitive tariff on oats, but the trouble is that these matters are considered from a parochial and sectional standpoint; hon. members refuse to take the wider view. I need only refer to the export and import of oats to prove that point. Then corn is included in the total figure.


John Wesley Edwards: Does the
hon. gentleman think it is fair that our duty should be five cents lower than the United States duty?


John Livingstone Brown: It does not make a particle of difference. I am not worrying about that at all.


John Wesley Edwards: Would the
hon. gentleman take it off altogether?


John Livingstone Brown: It does not make any difference, so far as protecting the farmer is concerned. If hon. members would kindly try to clear their minds of the idea that trade is necessarily war, and get it into their heads that trade is earned on for the mutual benefit of the parties engaged in it, we would get on a great deal further in the discussion.


John Wesley Edwards: Would we
take it all off.


John Livingstone Brown: Their ideas of trade are very much like those of a boy I once knew. This is an actual fact and happened in my district. The teacher in the school-and it was not a kindergarten, either-was trying to instruct the boys in the theories of trade. He was

The Budget-Mr. Brown
telling them that trade in its essence was the exchange of products: a man with a horse would trade the horse for something else that he wanted of equal value. Whereupon a boy in the class said, "-That would not be any kind of trade at all." The only idea of trade which that boy had was that he must be getting the better of somebody; a trade was not a trade at all unless one party was getting the better of the other. That is the fallacy that underlies all the arguments that come from these hon. gentlemen.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What is the hon. gentleman's idea of trade?


John Livingstone Brown: Mutual convenience, mutual benefit.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is it not far better to have that mutual convenience, mutual benefit and mutual profit in one's own country, than to have convenience, benefit and profit on only one side of the bargain as is the case when you trade with people outside of the country?


John Livingstone Brown: The trouble with hon. gentlemen again is that they single out one part of the community and say: We are the people.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I am afraid the hon. gentleman is depending upon his imagination for his facts.


John Livingstone Brown: I mentioned the question of corn and I want to deal with it. We import, large quantities of corn for purposes of distillation. I do not know whether it is better or worse than any other grain, but I will give the figures. We imported $874,306 worth in 1925, and incidentally we got a revenue from that of $58,436. As regards com not for distillation, which will be very largely for feeding purposes, we imported $7,780,919 worth. These hon. members are contending that all these imports are to the disadvantage of the fanner and the community generally. Who wants and uses that corn, and for whose benefit are we importing it? It is very largely for the farmers of Ontario. As a western farmer, as a member of a section of the country that produces for sale large quantities of feed grain, such as oats and barley, I am not going to come to parliament and ask that in our interests the Ontario farmers, who are all said to be protectionists, be deprived of getting that feed stuff, because the use to which they put it is of immense value to the people of Canada.
Another item is hides, and I will only mention the figures because I am going to deal with this matter a little later on. We 14011-187
exported $7,163,888 worth of hides and we imported $8,279,492 worth, or an excess of imports over exports of roughly speaking, a million dollars.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: What year is the hon. gentleman quoting from?


John Livingstone Brown: The year ended March 31, 1925.


George Brecken Nicholson: Not the calendar year 1925?


John Livingstone Brown: No. I have confined my remarks to the year mentioned by the hon. member for Fort William except that he took the year 1924. I am dealing with the year 1925, but both of us are using the fiscal year. I am prepared to admit that there may be a slight error in my additions, because I did not get these figures from the statistical department; I had to compile them myself from the larger work, Trade of Canada, but I was careful with my figures and there is very little error. We admit there is an excess of a million dollars of imports over exports in the matter of hides.


Mr. SUTHERLAND (South Oxford):: Would the hon. member give the figures in pounds?


John Livingstone Brown: I have not that at hand: I did not think it was necessary for my purpose. The hon. gentleman can easily get the figures himself.


George Brecken Nicholson: Has the hon. member
the figures for unmanufactured leather?


John Livingstone Brown: Yes. I am going to deal
with the whole question of leather a little later on. I might have said that the total importation of leather, manufactured and unmanufactured, that is included in that list of $142,000,000, amounts to $7,324,028, incidentally bringing in a revenue of $1,307,113.
I want to go on to some of the other items included in this total. We imported nursery stock to the value of $1,123,949. We scour the whole world for nursery stock for the betterment of our gardens and orchards. I find that one of the items which go to make up thjs total is rose bushes brought in from England. Will any one seriously contend that we should not be carrying on that trade?
As regards hops, we exported $236,176 worth and we imported $826,690 worth, incidentally bringing in a revenue of $199,051. That is a trade in which the exports and imports do not exactly balance, but it is a trade that is carried on for mutual convenience
9 p.m. and it is quite evident that we do not produce enough for our wants. Then there is the question of turpentine.

The Budget-Mr. Brown

Surely nobody will contend that turpentine- that is, for the purpose for which it As being used-should be included in that list; but we imported turpentine to the value of $823,593. I might mention animal manure, glycerine, and lard. As regards lard, we admit that $638,157 worth was imported, but we exported lard to the value of $1,681,462 and we incidentally got a revenue of $99,500 from the imports. Therefore even in the matter of lard, as regards which there has been some criticism, our exports exceeded our imports by a little over a million dollars.
The severest criticism has been made in the case of fruits and of course we admit that these fruits are being imported. We imported fresh fruits to the value of $5,035,328 and fresh vegetables to the value of $4,118,221, but our exports of fruits are in excess of our imports by very large sums. I want 'to be absolutely fair, and I might say that in connection with those fruits I took in account such things as these. I have been very liberal in making up this estimate because some things are included in it that I think properly might be left out, but because these or similar things are or might be produced in Canada, I included them. For instance, I have included imports of apples to the value of $867,826. I have included apricots, quinces, nectarines, wild berries, blackberries, gooseberries, raspberries, cherries, cranberries, currants, grapes. We imported fresh grapes to the value of $862,298. Our Canadian fresh grapes are on the market for only a very short period of the year and therefore it must follow that while this amount is included in our imports these are kinds and varieties that can not be produced in Canada. And yet, because grapes are produced in Canada, the amount is included here. The same thing applies to melons, the figure in this case being $320,885. It is true we do produce some melons in Canada, but does anyone seriously contend that we could meet the demand for melons with the home production? WTe can therefore reduce the total in connection with these two items by well over $1,000,000. Then there are pears, plums, strawberries and so on.
The figure I have here in regard to fresh vegetables such as onions, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages and others not otherwise provided for is $4,104,000. There is a slight variation between it and the figure I gave before, but that makes no difference. I find that the amount in the case of tomatoes is $903,816, and these imports come in at a time of year when we are not producing any tomatoes.

I know that tomatoes can be and in fact are being produced in Canada in hothouses. In conversation with a hothouse grower in Hamilton with whom I am well acquainted I learned that he was producing large quantities in his hothouse, selling them on the Hamilton market wholesale-at any rate, he did with his last crop-at $5 per fifteen-pound basket. Now these are the prices which the people of Hamilton are paying for hothouse tomatoes. They want to live up to that high standard and they expect us to give them protection for the industry that caters to their expensive taste. The imports represented in the figure I have just quoted are tomatoes that are sold through the country at a time when, with the exception of the hothouse fruit, there are none on the market. Is anyone going to say that we ought to stop that trade? I do not think so.


Mr. MORAND:: Did the hon. member
state the time of year when these imports come in?


John Livingstone Brown: No, but they certainly cannot to any great extent come into competition with our tomatoes once the local product is on the market.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: Most of the tomatoes included in that item are grown in hothouses in the United States where they are produced more cheaply.


John Livingstone Brown: I do not think that is relevant at all. As a matter of fact I think the hon. member is wrong, but from what I gathered from that Hamilton grower to whom I have referred and with whom I am well acquainted he does not fear competition from the American article even if it is grown in hothouses, for the simple reason that it is inferior in quality to the Canadian product. But I do not think that the tomatoes imported could be grown in hothouses judging from the character of the fruit itself. Those tomatoes are grown in the south and are picked in the green state and are shipper north. However, the fact that they may be produced in hothouses does not enter intc the argument at all.
Now I shall discuss for a moment or twc the hide situation. The hon. member for East Algoma made the statement that the western farmers were breaking their farms with teams of horses the harness on which was made out of hides taken off the backs of Argentine republic steers. And he appeals to our prejudice on that ground. Just let us analyse the situation. I stated before that our total imports of hides were $8,297,492, and the exports $7,163,888. I want to deal

The Budget-Mr. Brown
particularly with two of the larger items, showing the extent of our imports as compared with exports. Take cattle skins: the imports amount to $5,542,085, and the exports, $4,884,201, a difference of half a million or thereabouts. Now I took the trouble to ascertain the price per pound at which these hides were sold. I may observe, by the way, in connection with the hides we import that they come principally from three countries, the Argentine, Uruguay and the United States, the imports from other countries being practically negligible.


Mr. TOBIN (Wetaskiwin):: Was that for the year 1925?


John Livingstone Brown: The year ending March,
1925. These hides. which we import from the three countries I have mentioned are heavy hides that are wanted for a specific purpose. I am informed that certain tanners in Kitchener do not use a single pound of Canadian hides; they do not want them for the simple reason that they are altogether unsuitable for their purpose. They want the heavy hides that are produced in the southern countries. I find that we paid thirteen and a half cents per pound for those hides, while the hides produced in Canada brought only eleven and a third cents. Surely the difference between the two prices must suggest something to hon. gentlemen. Our tanners do not import hides at thirteen and a half cents per pound simply because they are foreign, when Canadian hides are sold to our neighbours for eleven and a third cents. They must have wanted the imported hides for a special use. The hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Mullins) will bear me out in this, for he and I have talked the matter over. He knows that I am right, as in fact he has admitted. The hides that Canada produces are suitable for certain purposes, but not for others. We use a very large proportion of the home product locally, and if ail Canadians consume as much beef as they do in Hamilton we must use an enormous amount of hides. Then it must be remembered that a lot of hides exported were exported on the backs of the animals. We cannot export the animal and keep the hide. These things have to be taken into account.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Does the hon. gentleman in the list of hides include those on the backs of the animals exported?


John Livingstone Brown: No, that is only by the way. I am simply referring to the fact that we do use large quantities of our home grown hides, and we use them for the purposes for which 14011-1871
we want them. We export the surplus that we do not need, and then we import other hides that we do want. That is my argument. We import them only because we want them, and are willing to pay the extra price to get them.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: And you suggest that we
cannot grow the heavier hides in this country?


John Livingstone Brown: Yes. In proof of my statement, there are tanneries that do not use a single pound of Canadian hides because they do not serve their purpose.
Some hon. members plead for the industries of Canada, and the hon. member for Mus-koka-Ontario (Mr. McGibbon) some little time ago spoke of tanneries that were closed up. Yet these hon. gentlemen, appealing to the prejudices of the farmers on this question of imported hides, are advocating a policy which would mean that these tanneries could not get the raw material that they want. The result would be the tanneries would be closed, the men would be out of employment, and we would lose a tremendously profitable business. That it is a profitable business I am going to show the House by further figures. In dealing with hides we must take into account leather. An hon. gentleman a little while ago asked about unmanufactured leather. I will give the figures. They refer to leather that we export, which business would in large measure be shut off if we did not purchase these other hides:
Harness leather	 $ 385,568
Sole leather	 2.324,961
Upper leather (probably very largely made
out of our own	local hides)	 4,580,892
All other leather	 92,467
Total exported	 $7,383,888
Now, bear in mind that the following figures are for our imports of unmanufactured leather, namely, $3,954,482 worth. In other words, our excess of exports is well over $3,000,000. I want to remind the House that of those exports there went to the United States -the country that we cannot compete with- out of the total of over $7,000,000 worth the very large proportion of $5,311,184 worth. This is the kind of trade that these gentlemen want to stop. At least, they would stop it if we carried out the policy they are advocating, for that would necessarily be the result of putting it into effect.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: How would the protective policy in Canada prevent your sending to the United States leather manufactured in Canada?
The Budget-Mr. Brown


John Livingstone Brown: It was not that feature of it I was condemning; it is the contention that we should not import these hides, that the farmers should be given protection against them. That is the point of the argument I am attacking. To secure raw material is just as necessary to the trade as it is to get the market where you have the leather made.
I must apologize, Mr. Speaker, for taking up the time of the House at such length.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh no.


John Livingstone Brown: I have said on many [DOT]
occasions that no man should speak for more than an hour. I have already overstepped my mark, but I have been led off into many highways and byways. However, I hope I have been able to prove the point I set out to prove. I said I was not going to develop a constructive argument, but that I wanted to demolish absolutely the fallacious arguments that had been advanced by members sitting to my right.


An hon. MEMBER:: You have done it.


John Livingstone Brown: I think I have been able to show with some degree of success the fallacies of the position that they take.
I said I was net going to deal any further with the budget, but I cannot refrain from making a remark in regard to the question that is brought up in the amendment-the reduction of the duties on automobiles. I want to point out, especially for the benefit of the hon. member for Marquette, the hon. member for Neepawa (Mr. Murphy), and the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hay), that in my election campaign I was opposed by a Conservative. He announced his policy and said that if he got into parliament he would stand for the reduction of the duty on autos. He declared, "That is our policy, that is what we will do."


Henry Alfred Mullins: That gentleman got defeated, did he not?


John Livingstone Brown: He was defeated; but a
man who was infinitely more honest in regard to the question of automobile duties was elected.


Henry Alfred Mullins: I mean your opponent
was defeated on that auto question.


John Livingstone Brown: I undertook to show that
no matter what this particular individual said, it was not his policy that would govern but the policy of the Right Hon. Mr. Meighen.
I do not think the people were at all deceived by the statement that he made. At least I took good care that they understood the facts of the case, that when a resolution was

introduced into this House a year ago for the reduction of the duty on automobiles the members of that party in large measure- there were six who voted otherwise and others took good care to be absent; anyway, they were absent-that the members of that party to the number of twenty-three voted against the reduction. I did not forget to let the electors know that. [DOT] On the question of the reduction of the duty on automobiles, I think I am safe in asserting that it will meet with the approval of the people of Manitoba, and I would just like to say for the benefit of my hon. friends that as I took good care that the people were not deceived at the last election, so we will take good care if we have to deal with the matter again to see that the situation is correctly presented to the people and that hon. members will not be able to escape on a technicality,


Mr. MURPHY:: Is the hon. gentleman insinuating that we tried to deceive the people on that occasion?


John Livingstone Brown: No, nothing of the kind. I am simply pointing out that we will watch with a great deal of interest the votes of hon. members from Manitoba on this particular question.


Henry Alfred Mullins: I am particularly well satisfied that you specified Marquette, because by your threats you might induce me to run next time.


John Livingstone Brown: If I was thinking of things
only from the political standpoint I would almost be tempted to hope that the hon. gentleman and his confreres would run, for I am sure they would not be elected. But since the welfare of the country demands that the budget be supported, I naturally hope they will have regard to the national welfare and support the budget, as I intend to.


Mr. J. F. POULIOT (Temiscouata):: Sir. several years after a member of this House had described one of his colleagues as "the gramophone of Mackenzie and Mann " anc several months before the appearance of the last article of the Montreal Star on the Con servative leadership, a most famous oratioi was delivered in Hamilton. May I quote the beginning of this speech in the Montreal Gazette of November 17, 1925?
"I do not speak the language of resentment or of bitterness. I speak only the language of truth when I say that never in the history of elections in this Dominion has a great party stooped to methods at once so dishonest and so dangerous as did the Liberal party in the late campaign in the province of Quebec/' declared the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen, Conservative leader, speaking at a banquet given here to-night by the Wentworth Conservative Association in honour of

The Budget-Mr. Pouliot
Gordon C. Wilson, member-elect for Wentworth. "While the Prime Minister," said Mr. Meighen "was talking unity in English-speaking Canada, and was presenting himself as its only true guardian and apostle his lieutenants were adopting every means known to the platform speaker or the pamphleteer to stir up all the old war animosities and to conjure new fears and new hostilities in the minds of the good people of Quebec."
In reply to this statement may I read part of an article headed "The Conservative Party" published in September, 1924, before this famous Hamilton speech?
Is the protectionist party poorly led? The late election (St. Antoine) seems to supply an affirmative
answer	A gathering of Conservatives weddeu
to protection from which men of note like Mr. Sauve and his eminent colleague, Mr. Patenaude-
He is not so eminent now:
-are conspicuous by their absence, denotes the weakness that neither excuse can explain nor conditions justify. Without unity there is no strength. Why these things are, all know. To paraphrase Chatham, "It is not repealing a piece of parchment that can restore Quebec; you must repeal her fears and her resentment." Leadership is not all, but it is much, as the radiant eras of Macdonald and Laurier attest. Few possess the personal magnetism which compels confidence and loyalty, and the golden tongue of oratory, and we cannot hope to soon look upon the like of these men again.
A convention of delegates drawn from all parties of Canada should be summoned in order that a declaration of principles be drawn up. a spirit of cooperation and confidence cultivated, local leaders consulted, and free expression given to party preference on the subject of leadership. It is the simple truth that for a long time the practice has been to attain the office of leader by descent-
I would like my hon. friends opposite to note those words-
-and not by selection by representative delegates, and it may well be worth while trying the latter method. For a surety, whoever may lead the party when the fight is on will possess greater prestige, greater authority and greater popularity, if he be the choice of a convention and can rally to his support all who believe the policy he presents best calculated to promote the welfare of Canada. It would be folly to pretend that such a situation now subsists.
That is not taken from Le Soleil or Le Canada, but from the Montreal Gazette, whose chief editor at that time was the present member for Mount Royal (Mr. White) in this House, a firm supporter of the right hon. leader of the opposition.
May I quote another short extract from another Quebec paper? This article is also headed "The Conservative party." It is the title that best suits that kind of article.


George Halsey Perley: If the hon. gentleman will allow me, the hon. member for Mount Royal is no longer the editor of the Gazette.


Jean-François Pouliot: He was editor when this article was written on September 9, 1924.


George Halsey Perley: One of the editors.


Jean-François Pouliot: The article reads:
The Conservative party, under its present leaders, is beaten now, before the next general elections start.
This was published, not in Le Soleil or Le Canada, but in the Quebec Chronicle, a Tory paper, of September 30, 1924.
I have another quotation from a letter to the Montreal Gazette, dated December 10, 1924, also before the famous Hamilton speech. I will read only the most interesting part of the letter, which I am sure several hon. members have already read. It is also entitled "The Conservative Party," but it is not written by a Liberal:
His defects (Mr. Meighen's) seem to lie in his apparent indifference to changes of public opinion, his dislike of new ideas, his reluctance to analyze current economic problems to which he is not accustomed and which tend to disturb the fixity of his own preconceived opinions, and his seeming lack of discernment and tact in dealing with his fellowmen.
Another apparent defect in Mr. Meighen's leadership is his overweening desire to preserve a semblance of personal consistency in his political opinions. The electors are only slightly interested in the aberrant mental growth of any individual, whether he be leader of the government or of the opposition.
Yet when Mr. Meighen comes to Quebec, his addresses seem to sound a note of challenge to each of his hearers to find any flaw or fault in the conduct, during the war, of the administration of which he was a member; and he thus provokes a division and vote upon issues which had best be deemed dead and buried and upon which he can never hope to procure in this province a popular verdict favourable to himself and to his colleagues of the old regime.
The Conservative electors of this province frequently express regret that the Conservative leader seems to regard the consistency of his own personal history as of so much more vital importance than the future progress and prosperity of the country, that, instead of utilizing existing conditions as a means of restoring the Conservative party to place and power, he ignores the problems of the present and creates widespread distrust by diverting public attention to the dead issue* of the past in respect to which he may never expect the approval of a large majority of the Quebec con-, stituencies.
As I said, this was published in the Montreal Gazette of December 10, 1924, and after having read that I am sure the right hon. leader of the opposition must have said to the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George, "Tu quoque, Brute."
The other day my hon. friend from Fort William (Mr. Manion) quoted a letter from a gentleman of the province of Quebec about home-made carpets. I asked him if the letter came from Mr. Patenaude, and he said:
No, but I do say this, that a lot better things come from Mr. Patenaude than from my hon. friend, judging by some of the speeches he has delivered in this House.
Well, I may be able to please my hon. friend from Fort William this time by quoting
The Budget-Mr. Pouliot

and allowing him to read in Hansard tomorrow morning, as he is not in his seat at the moment, a false argument made by Mr. Patenaude himself in his maiden speech at St. Laurent last fall, on the 19th of September. In that speech, which has been reported by all the papers, Mr. Patenaude stated two things which are contradictory, and which show his insincerity. First he said:
I do not intend to create a third party.
Next he said:
I am free of Mr. King aa well as of Mr. Meighen.
Now these two things are contradictory. If he was not going to create a third party, iiow could he be independent of Mr. Meighen and Mr. King? That is very hard to understand. May I quote to the House what took place at a joint meeting held during the last election?
A man in the audience asked:
If it is true that you are free of Mr. Meighen as well as of Mr. King, on which side, you Patenaude candidates, will you sit in the House?
We will stand up.
Anybody familiar with the rules of the House knows that no hon. member can stand in the House while another member has the floor. But so few Patenaude candidates were elected that this statement is not of any consequence. A man in the audience said:
"You say you will stand up if you are elected. That is too tiresome. To give you a change to rest we will force you to stay home."
Now, Sir, what was the real purpose of Mr. Patenaude in running as Liberal Conservative leader in the province of Quebec? Was he influenced by motives of patriotism? Did he act as the result of money considerations? No, I think it was capitalism that pushed him into the fight. The matter is very well explained in an article in the Montreal Gazette, and it seems that I am destined to quote mainly from Tory papers to-night. The article in question appeared in the Montreal Gazette of September 22, 1925, and contained the following statement:
Mr. Patenaude has entered the federal field to turn out the King government.
This with respect to a man who is supposed to be independent. The article goes on to say:
He has no praise for its work, no respect for its policy of drift, only contempt for politicians without stable views who count noses before they determine lines of legislation. Mr. Patenaude is not a Janus.
I do not know who wrote that article. I do not know whether it was the hon. member for Mount Royal (Mr. White) or somebody

else. Whoever the writer was he made a big mistake because if Mr. Patenaude was not a Janus he did not always tell the truth. I continue quoting:
He has not two faces looking in opposite directions, but is a man of fixed convictions and firm resolution, fit to be trusted. His platform is made of Conservative planks. While steadfast in support of the constitution and of the rights of Quebec, in the broad spirit as well as the narrow letter o<f that charter, he believes, as he well may, that a prosperous and contented French-Canadian province contributes enormously to the prosperity and contentment of the whole Dominion, in the general welfare of which he is deeply concerned. His return to a larger arena of political activity-
His return was stopped, by the way. -than he has recently engaged in is one of the most hopeful signs of the day, hopeful for the success of Conservative principles, hopeful for new policies in government, hopeful for the hush of provincial strife and the burying of issues long dead. It is the present and the future that concern Canadians. They are in a rut. The country drifts without strong leadership and sage counsel, such as men of the type of Mr. Patenaude can supply. Behind him, we bedieve, will rally men of good purpose and strong patriotism, men who are convinced that conditions cald for change of government. To all these the new provincial leader appeals for support, and that appeal, we are confident, will not be made in vain.
It has been made in vain. How did Mr. Patenaude's friends try to turn out the King government? The story is very interesting. I will read another quotation from the same Tory paper, and the gentleman speaking is not a Liberal but a die-hard Tory, Dr. Thibau-deau, of Two Mountains. His speech was made at a convention to choose a Conservative candidate, and Dr. Thibaudeau, who as I have said is a genuine Tory, expressed himself as follows:
Dr. Thibaudeau said his impression was that Mr. Fauteux, who was too good a man to risk a seat, would have a better chance elsewhere.
He was a bad prophet, that fellow. The report goes on to say:
A hint was then dropped by the speaker about the unpopularity of Hon. Mr. Meighen, for which reason he would support Mr. Frlion, who, being a new man had had no relation with the federal leader of the party.
Mr. Filion is Mr. Patenaude's legal partner, that is the reason why he is such a good man, according to Mr. Thibaudeau. The report goes on to say:
The convention should therefore consider the letter before them as final as regards the decision therein. He supposed, he said, that Hon. Mr. Fauteux had realized the unpopularity of Mr. Meighen would reflect on him in such a way as that it would be impossible to overcome in the country that obstacle to his election.
That- speech was made at the Conservative convention at St. Eustache, and is reported

The Budget-Mr. Pouliot
in the Montreal Gazette of September 28, 1925.
Now, may I quote a little interview that was published by Le Devoir of September 30, 1925. I will translate the interview, which is in French, for the benefit of hon. gentlemen opposite:
An old Conservative member from Ontario, very well known for his military and financial activities, was lunching last week with a Montreal friend.
"Colonel, are you interested in the elections? You are a die-hard Conservative."
"Yes, a Conservative, as there are very few now in politics."
"But they say that Mr. Meighen's party is very strong in Ontario."
"Not amongst the out-and-out Conservatives. He is not considered as a Conservative and he ihas none of the characteristics of the true Conservative. He is not safe. He falls into state socialism and seems to be a visionnaire. May I tell you a thing that will perha-ps surprise you; I, an old member, a veteran of politics, who hears the bugle call like an old war
horse, in election time, I go	hunting. And
several friends of mine will do the same. We wish that Mr. Meighen is beaten in his own constituency, sa that we might get rid of him once for all.
These sentiments were uttered by a gentleman clearly indicated as an old Tory member of the province of Ontario. This gentleman's name is not given in the paper but it has never been denied.


Mr. FOSTER:: He would be a great friend of the leader of the opposition.


Jean-François Pouliot: Well, I do not know
whether he ever made a horse trade, or whether he ever indulged in horse racing, but what he said is horse sense. If my hon. friend desires me to do so I will quote the words uttered by Sir Robert Borden in this House in 1915, and then he will hear those words again. May I quote now from the Montreal Gazette of September 19, 1925, a report of a speech by the right hon. leader of the opposition in Charlottetown. The right hon. gentleman is reported to have said on that occasion: The principles which the Conservative party had advocated in the last election campaign were intact, Mr. Meighen said. Conservatives came before the country with no broken pledges.
This was before the Hamilton speech. May I now give a quotation from the speech of a prominent Conservative gentleman, Mr. Thomas Louis Bergeron. It is reported in Le Soleil, of September 22, 1925. He said:
As for me in the present election, I support the Liberal candidate Mr. Sylvestre. Since 1917 I have fought with you, Liberals, against the ideas of the Conservative leader. Since 1917, did Mr. Meighen abandon his political ideas? I find the same men with him.
And sometimes when I look round at the House I am surprised to see the same men who were with Sir Robert Borden when he
was in the House. I should like to repeat to my hon. friends the old Greek proverb: "Tell me whom you go with and I will tell you who you are." It is old Greek wisdom. Some time ago there was an interesting editorial in the Toronto Mail and Empire. I went to the library to get it, but I found that the page had been cut out of the file. I was able to find the editorial, however, in a French paper, and I will give an extract from it in English for the benefit of my hon. friends: Referring to the leader of the opposition, this was published in the editorial page of the Toronto Mail and Empire of December 14, 1925, page 28:
He does not presume to tie his party up to a mode of procedure that has his present-day approval.
Some time ago my hon. friend from St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) made a short speech of five hours. I asked him when he adjourned the debate on Wednesday afternoon if he would be good enough to read also a part of his Toronto speech. This was a great speech, and I note it was published in ex-tenso in the Montreal Star the same day it was delivered in Toronto; that is good information service. I read from Hansard of February 17, as follows:
Mr. Pouliot: "Would the hon. member be good enough to read also part of his Toronto speech?
Mr. Cahan: As it is now six o'clock, I will reserve that for to-morrow, when I am perfectly willing to read the whole of it if the hon. gentleman will repeat his question.
As I did not repeat the question and he did not read the speech, I will have the pleasure of dealing with it myself. I have here a copy in extenso of the report in the Montreal Star of December 8, 1925.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Do you not think it was a very good speech?


Jean-François Pouliot: I cannot judge of it, and I must leave it to the House to judge. I am sorry the right hon. leader of the opposition is not here. He is the man who could judge of the appropriateness of the speech.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What is your opinion?


Jean-François Pouliot: I am sorry that some hon. members speak in a Liberal way and vote in a Conservative way.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: When has any issue embodied in the Hamilton speech ever been before this House in a vote?


Jean-François Pouliot: Louder, please.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The hon. member insinuated with respect to myself that I speak in a Liberal way and vote in a Conservative way.

The Budget-Mr. Pouliot
I ask the hon. member whether that applied to my speech. Was that not a good Conservative speech, and does it not meet with the approval of the Liberals of the province of Quebec also?


Jean-François Pouliot: I am very sorry that my hon. friend speaks against his leader and votes with him. That is the point. If he spoke in a Liberal way, how is it he never supported the Liberal party in this House?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The government has never introduced a real Liberal measure in this House to be voted upon since I came here.


Jean-François Pouliot: It is a very funny thing that when my hon. friend goes to Toronto, which is a Tory city, he thinks Liberal, and when he is in Ottawa he thinks Conservative.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: When he is in Toronto he speaks good Conservative doctrine and when he is in Ottawa he also speaks good Conservative doctrine, and in the province of Quebec he speaks also in the same way.


Jean-François Pouliot: I shall be very glad tc read his speech myself.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I offered to read it and I will be very glad if my hon. friend will read it,


Jean-François Pouliot: The right hon. leader of the opposition would be a little surprised at the language used by my hon. friend in Toronto, where he had no reason to meet with any kind of obstruction. On December 8, 1925, a year after the famous letter in the Montreal Gazette which has been quoted, he made that speech. It is directed against the leader of the opposition. It was late in the fall, just before the winter. This seems to be a yearly occurrence. I will read it:
It may be that the personal policy which Mr. Meighen recently announced at Hamilton, and more recently at Bagot, may temporarily turn the tide of local sentiment; but speaking also personally, with a quite intimate knowledge of the views and sentiments which generally prevail in the province of Quebec-
What does my hon. friend know about the sentiments which prevail in Saint Jean de Dieu, Notre-Dame du Lac and Saint Paul de la Croix?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Does the hon. gentleman want a reply to that?


Jean-François Pouliot: Yes.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I think that generally speaking I know the sentiment of Quebec quite as well a3 my hon. friend. I knew the sentiment of Quebec before he was born. I have lived

there and been in contact with a large part of Quebec as long as he has, and I think the statements I have made with regard to the sentiment of Quebec are amply justified.


Jean-François Pouliot: I will continue; I am very sorry for the interruption because it breaks the Charm of the quotation:
I do not believe that the Hamilton pronouncement will be regarded, either in Quebec or in the other provinces of Canada, as binding upon the conscience and judgment of the Conservative party as a whole, nor as controlling the discretion of parliament, whenever grave international complications may arise in the future. Nor do I believe that such a pronouncement made by a political leader, however able and esteemed he may be, will serve to remove permanently the estrangement which at present exists between Quebec and the majority of the provinces outside of Quebec.
This is honey or maple syrup in a barrel of vinegar.
Personally, I am confident that a clear understanding could be reached by which these vital interests could be dealt with effectively by the Conservative party of Canada, which has now the largest representation in the House of Commons, but that end and object can only be attained by maintaining unity and solidarity of the Conservatives throughout all Canada-
I do not know whether it i3 by speaking against the right hon. leader of the party that my hon. friend wanted to promote conj fidence amongst the members of the party. The letter continues:
-and, more than that, the unity of the Conservative party in Canada can only be maintained if and so long as the leader or leaders of the Conservative party shall avoid all mere temporary expedients.
The right hon. leader of the opposition must know that this comes from one of his supporters, one of his best friends who always votes for him. I would not dare believe that if it had not come from a Tory. If a Liberal had said that to me, I would have answered: You do not know Mr. Meighen. Mr. Meighen must be better than that. But this comes from one of his closest friends, a man who has voted with him since the beginning of this session, so what can I say. I say: He knows him very well; it must be true. What I would not believe from another fellow, I am bound to believe when it comes from the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan). He says he knows the people of Quebec very well. He is a psychoanalyst; he has studied psychology and he must know the leader of the opposition very well. When his name is mentioned in the papers, he is called not only by his first name and his family name, but it is always Mr. So-and-So, the eminent Montreal lawyer. I do not think that kind of lawyer defends his leader very much even in Ontario. I do not like to be disagreeable to my hon. friend;

The Budget-Mr. Pouliot
I respect him very much and this is why I am surprised that he has revealed such a secret. This is not what happened to Noah. When Noah was drunk, his sons were told to bring a blanket to cover him, but my hon. friend uncovers his leader. This is perhaps why he has lately defended the sale of liquor. The hon. member continued:
But that end and object can only be attained by maintaining unity and solidarity of the Conservatives throughout all Canada, and, more than that, the unity of the Conservative party in Canada can only be maintained if and so long as the leader or leaders of the Conservative party shall avoid all mere temporary expedients and all off-hand and captious decisions, and shall call to their councils for the due consideration of these questions the representatives of all sections of this wide Dominion.
Is it not great? This is one of the best orations I have ever read in my life.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What objection does the
hon. member have to it?


Jean-François Pouliot: I have this objection, that I think party supporters must have respect for and show loyalty to their leaders. That is my point. I show loyalty to my leader;
I am ready to defend him because I am proud of him. If my hon. friend is not satisfied with his leader, the only thing for him to do is to vote against him, come over to our side and vote with us.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: However much I may differ or may have differed from my right hon. leader, he is so far superior to any leader on the opposite side and his measures are so far superior that an independent man could not but endorse them.


Jean-François Pouliot: I have only one question to ask of my hon. friend. Were my quotations correct?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I think so, as nearly as I can remember.


Jean-François Pouliot: That is all I want.


Mr. BELL (St. Antoine):: When the hon. member refers to the leader of his party, does he mean the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Mackenzie King) or the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke)?


Jean-François Pouliot: Our party is the Liberal
party and we are very glad to defend our leader the Prime Minister, when he is attacked in such a dirty way as he has been attacked in Quebec by some of the Patenaude speakers. I am glad my hon. friend has brought the question up. I will answer him immediately by quoting an extract from a speech
by Mr. L. J. Gauthier, a former member of this House, and I am sure that this extract from his speech will not meet
10 p.m. with the hon. member's approval.
I am sorry the leader of the opposition is not in his seat. I would ask him if he approved of what was repeated throughout Quebec by the ill-fated L. J. Gauthier.
I dare not believe so. May I quote the following to the shame of that Patenaude speaker? I take this quotation from a small French Tory paper called "L'Homme Libre" under date of Saturday, September 12, 1925.
I wish to quote it because it was said in my constituency at Riviere-du-Loup, and I heard that fellow himself say the following:-
En remaniant la raaison de Laurier, en vendant sa bi-bliotheque a l'encan, je dis que M. King a porte une main criminelle sur l'idole de la race. La salle ou le grand homme d'etat travaillait a resoudre les problemes angoissants de l'avenir du pays, M. King l'a transformee en une salle de danse.	*
Et ensuite cette vieiHe canaille de Gauthier disait:
Ma reponse, la voici. Continuez a salir ma reputation; continuez a salir mes cheveux blancs, je conti-nuerai a combattre pour ce que je crois fit-re les meil-leurs interets de mon pays et personne ne pourra m'empecher de proclamer la verity.
May I translate this:
By making alterations to Laurier house, by selling Laurier's books by auction, I say that Mr. King has put a criminal hand on the idol of the nation. The library where the great statesman studied such important problems relating to the future of the country, Mr. King has changed it into a dance hall. . . .


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Jean-François Pouliot: Will any hon. member on the other side take the responsibility of what has been said there? They are good at shouting ''Hear, hear", but they are not good at getting up.
Continue to throw dirt on my reputation. . . .
This is the way the old dirty scoundrel was speaking:
Continue to throw dirt on my reputation, continue to throw dirt on my white hair; I will not cease to fight for what I think are the best interests of my country, and nobody will prevent me from proclaiming the truth.
This is one of the most infamous and direct lies uttered by a filthy liar who suffers from halitosis of speech. Laurier's books never belonged to the Prime Minister. They were left to Sir Wilfrid Laurier's nephew, Mr. Robert Laurier. They were his own property; they have never been the property of the Prime Minister, and Mr. Robert Laurier has given me some of those books which bear the signature of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The Prime Minister could never have sold those
The Budget-Mr. Pouliot

books; they did not belong to him; he never had them in his possesion, but this is the way that fellow-I do not say that gentleman because he is not a gentleman-spoke in the province of Quebec. He said that the Prime Minister had converted the library of Laurier house into a dance hall. This is absolutely false, for there is no dance hall in that house. It is a remarkable fact that Mr. Gauthier has never been invited to Laurier house since the Prime Minister's occupancy of it, and this perhaps may in part explain his ill feeling. This only gives you an idea of the sort of campaign that was conducted not only in the province of Quebec generally but in my own constituency. And to make his statements emphatic, to give to them a greater show of sincerity, he would say, "Look upon my white hairs and ask yourselves whether I would be untrue." Now that is the way in which the tariff was discussed in the province of Quebec.


An hon. MEMBER:: Is that all?


Jean-François Pouliot: I could mention a good many more instances. There are a large number of potato growers in my constituency and during the election the friends and supporters of Mr. Patenaude frequently told the farmers there that they might as well dispose of their product because they would never get more than a dollar a bushel for it in the event of Mr. King's coming into power. Many of the people, believing this, sold their potatoes, with the result that they suffered a great loss, while those who held on to their crop have been rewarded with prices of $2, $2.50 and $3. I see by L'Evenement of March IS that potatoes were selling at that time at $2.65, and-on April 27 the price was $3.65.
I do not think that the leader of the opposition was quite serious when he moved on June 2, 1925, the resolution from which I take the following:
To preserve and enlarge the Canadian market for Canadian farm products-this Dominion requires an immediate revision of the Canadian tariff on a definitely and consistently protective basis. That such revision should apply to natural products such as farm products, fish and coaJ with no less thoroughness than to manufactured goods.
If I understand English at all, I gather that the right hon. gentleman considered that it would be a boom to the farmers of Canada to have protection, and high protection. What did the same gentleman declare in the House on April 8? I will not weary the House with any long extract but I want to quote just a few words:
Mr. Ross (Moose Jaw):	You contend that if the
tariff is taken off the prices immediately rise?
Mr. Meighen:	We contend it and we know it,
because we see the facts.

Last year the right hon. gentleman told us that if we had protection for agriculture, as well as generally, Canada would be a paradise for farmers inasmuch as they could dispose of their products at very satisfactory prices. This year he says that if the tariff is removed the prices for farm products in this country will go up. Verite au dela des Pyrenees, erreur en deija. His two arguments are entirely contradictory: what he said on April 8 altogether refutes his own argument and the arguments of his friends with reference to tariff protection for the farmers.
It is not at all surprising that in the province of Quebec the Tory party has no considerable following; the fact is easily explained. When Sir Robert Borden was Prime Minister he made an important statement on April 15, 1915, as will be seen at page 2612 of Hansard of that session. I quote:
And let me say now, for the benefit of parliament, and particularly for the information of persons throughout this country who may be concerned in selling supplies or materials to the government, that if any man in Canada, be he Conservative or Liberal, proposes to commit any fraud or imposition upon the government and people of this country, or to be concerned in any attempt for that purpose, especially in connection with the war vote, he should remember that there are courts of justice in this country, and that the doors of the penitentiary are yawning for every man who commits such an offence.
I am free to refer to this matter, for in my own constituency, although I supported a candidate so long as he acted honourably, the moment he did wrong I denounced him, in spite of the fact that he belonged to the same party as myself. I was not in politics then but when he afterwards opposed my election I beat him by some 3,000 votes. He declared that I was a bad Liberal; but what did he do himself in the last election? Why, he supported the Patenaude Tory candidate.
If there are some very nice fellows on the other side of the House there are others who bear the stigma of graft on their forehead, and during the war, while money was spent legitimately in many ways, there was a great deal that was used for purposes of graft. What was done then was disgraceful and if it were necessary for me to-night to give a catalogue of the scandals that occurred between the years 1911 and 1921 my speech would cover a period of years. It would last at least ten years, for session after session during the Borden-Meighen administration some scandal or other was unearthed. That is why the people have no confidence in the Conservative party. There are nice fellows on that side, I admit; indeed I have personal friends among them. But there are also black sheep in the Conservative family. I do not suppose.

The Budget-Mr. Pouliot
Mr. Speaker, that anyone will raise a point of order in reference to what I am now saying; everybody knows that it is true, and it was a disgrace to the country that such a state of affairs should have been tolerated.


The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr. Marcil):: I must ask the hon. member to withdraw that remark. The term "black sheep" is not parliamentary.


Jean-François Pouliot: I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker.
I will use the word " golden fleece." Now I come to the question of the railways. I saw by Le Devoir of September 19 that the leader of the opposition had a proposal to settle the railway problem if he got into power. He is not in power and perhaps that is why we have not heard anything about it. Let me quote also, from the Montreal Gazette of September 14, 1925, a speech delivered by the right hon. leader of the opposition:
They-
That is, the Liberals
-have driven the Canadian National system into a financial bog under the pretence of giving it fair play, and from the swamp in which it is mired it can never be rescued by the government of Premier Mackenzie King.
Let me quote a little further from this report. The same gentleman said:
The government had asked for the resignation of the members of that board, and thrown them "out on the ash-heap". One or two of the members had been reappointed, but the new appointees of the government were inexperienced individuals who were given the appointments for political reasons.
When the board of management are able to show such satisfactory results, I do think they should be encouraged instead of being referred to in these deprecating terms. Let my right hon. friend give the board of management a chance. I have before me the last annual report of the Canadian National Railways, and it is so satisfactory that I am not surprised it has been so well received by the country. The board of management state that they do not wish to have any political intereference. They are right, and they are not. As the representatives of the people, it is our duty to ask questions about the Canadian National Railways before we vote money on their behalf. Whether they come before the House to ask for money because the stock of the Canadian Northern Railway was over-valued when that road was taken over as part of the National system is not the question. We should know why we are asked to vote that money, and even if some of the information required by members is of a confidential nature we should have it, at
least in a confidential way. We are in the position towards the Canadian National Railways that a banker is towards his client. He is interested in his client's business, and when that client comes to him for a loan, the banker has a perfect right to say, "Well, Sir, I will grant you the loan provided you furnish me with a satisfactory statement of your business." We are pretty much in the same position towards the National railways: we do not ask for information for our own personal benefit, but for the benefit of our constituents and for the country at large. I wish to give a word of praise to Sir Henry Thornton, who seems to be doing his best to conciliate the different interests in the Canadian National Railways. Under his management I am sure the system will to a great extent be a success.
Now a word with respect to the public service. There are some very capable people in the civil service, some who have grown up in it and are interested in their work, a work that enables them to help along the good government of this country. Such public servants deserve praise. But let me say that every civil servant should be judged according to his personal ability and that no secret society interference or other influence should enter into the consideration of his promotion.
Before closing, Sir, I should 'like to direct the attention of the House to two articles which appeared last November in the Montreal Gazette. One refers to an address delivered by Sir John Aird as retiring president of the Canadian Bankers' Association and is entitled "A Hopeful Outlook." The other article refers to the annual report of the Bank of Montreal for the year ending October 31 last, and is headed "An Encouraging Statement " The first article appeared in the Montreal Gazette of November 16, 1925, the second in the issue of November 27, 1925. We can look not only to the editorial page but to the financial columns of every newspaper, whatever may be its political views, and find ample testimony to the fact that Canada is rapidly improving her position, that the hard days are past, and that she is now entering an era of prosperity under the prime ministership of the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Mackenzie King.)
Some time ago, Mr. Speaker, I said that there are nice people on the other side of the House. I do not say that of them all, but of some, those I know best. That is my sincere opinion. While I do not admit the soundness of their programme, I think we should all unite in promoting measures for the national welfare, and I am sure the country would be all the better for this unity of action.
The Budget-Mr. Smoke


Mr. FRANKLIN SMOKE (Brant):: Mr. Speaker, one thing I have noticed to-night, and I have noticed it also on previous occasions is that there is a very great difference between the manner of the speaker who has just resumed his seat when he is outside and when he is inside this chamber. Outside he has a smiling face and charming manner, which certainly appeals to me and I am sure must appeal to other members who meet him. The tone of his address, however, in the House, Mr. Speaker, is so objectionable, even to his own colleagues, that I feel they must hang their heads with some degree of shame when listening to such remarks as those made by him to-night. If this is the way in which the national issues were discussed in his own province during the last campaign, we need not wonder at the decision then given by the people of Quebec. The question of the tariff apparently was never discussed there. I do not think that such an address tends to elevate the tone of this House. It would be a want of respect on my part to this House if I devoted any time whatever to remarks along that line. While his remarks appeared to cause some degree of merriment on the opposite side of the House, I should hope that the spirit of his speech does not appeal to the better sense of hon. gentlemen opposite.
As a new member of this House, though not by any means the youngest, I have thought it my duty not only to my constituents and myself but also, Sir, to you and the other members of this House to sit back and pay heed to the occasional words of wisdom which might' happen to fall from those better versed in parliamentary procedure and in the public business of the country.
I have been much interested and fully occupied in feeling my way about, in endeavouring perhaps, first of all, to learn the first principles of parliamentary procedure; perhaps next, in paying heed to the way in which those members of the administration who occupy seats in this House have sought, though sought in vain, to justify both their right to administer and their administrative acts, activity or inactivity; and next, in observing the way in which those who have criticized the government and its acts have performed their task. I have willingly sat back to listen to the older and more experienced members of this House and, indeed, to very many new members, and when I have observed the splendid way in which all these hon. gentlemen on this side of the House have acquitted themselves, I have felt

that my silence up to this point has been justified.
My constituents, I may say, do not expect me to take a prominent part in the debates of the House. They are very inexacting in this respect. I believe they will be quite satisfied if I do my share in the work they sent me here to do, namely, to give my support to our right hon. leader-and we do not ask lessons from the opposite side of the House as to our leadership; we are all loyally devoted to our venerated leader-in the splendid effort he and his supporters, and in fact the great bulk of the Canadian people, have made and are making to hurl from power the most incapable government this country has yet seen.
I did not come to this parliament imbued with the idea that all of our statesmen of the past have failed to grasp the essential principles of government, nor with the enthusiasm, often misdirected, of youth. I have attempted to read history and to study mankind, and to learn from these studies those lessons which only such studies can teach. We are heirs of the ages and should, from the wisdom of the ages, have acquired some wisdom ourselves. We should not forget that problems as great as we at present are faced with have presented themselves in all past ages since the beginning of time; and that the condition of things existing at present is the composite result of the best minds of all times. Our present constitution is the composite result of the labours of our forefathers and predecessors, arrived at after full discussion of all the pros and cons, and I am satisfied that the works of our forefathers have resulted in a constitution and a set of laws, perhaps not the best, but good enough until we or our posterity can evolve a better; and that we should go slowly in making changes.
What we have is the result of centuries of careful thought and development, and should command and receive some degree of veneration from the present generation, and changes made either in our system of government or in details should not be made hastily or without the best consideration we can give to them; we should not forget, in our haste for change, the struggles of the past from which our present laws have resulted. In this sense I claim to be a Conservative, and I am proud to admit allegiance to the party which adheres to Conservative principles- never averse to change when it is clearly shown that the change is for the better; but until so shown I prefer to stick to what has come down to us as a result of the experience of the ages.

The Budget-Mr. Smoke
We found ourselves called to assemble in the first session of the fifteenth parliament of Canada, presumably to do the business of the country. We found no business to do, or rather, no business which the government had ready for us to do. When we got here we found it was not the country's business but the private affairs of the members of the government that were to engage our attention ; and that until we said whether the right hon. gentleman who was Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) during the fourteenth parliament and several other hon. gentlemen, half of whom were and half of whom were not members of this parliament, should continue to administer the affairs of the country when the people of the country, by their votes at the polls in an election called at a time which the government thought would be favourable to them, and on issues selected by them, had expressed their want of confidence in the government, we should not do any business. And even after that question was decided, the government ruled that we should not do any business until a further period of six weeks, or such part thereof as might have remained, should have elapsed.
The Speech from the Throne does not promise the legislation outlined in pre-election addresses, all of which have been thrown into the discard. This government is consistent only in its inconsistency. It is impossible of characterization by even such an epigrammatist as George Bernard Shaw. As a government it is the laughing-stock of the civilized world.
There is a parallel to the situation here recently exhibited in New South Wales. I shall quote from the Spectator, London, of February 27, 1926, and by the way the editor of that paper was until quite recently-and he still is on the editorial staff-Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey, who kindly presented to this parliament and the people of Canada a bust of Lord Durham. The Spectator is perhaps the most high-class of English weeklies, and is respected by all English-speaking people in the world who know its traditions. It says:
Last week we wrote about the constitutional crisis in New South Wales. In the Times of Wednesday we read that events there have taken an unexpected turn. At the instance of Mr. Lang, the Labour Premier, the Governor, Sir Dudley de Chair, had consented to a swamping nomination of members to the legislative council. Mr. Lang was intent upon abolishing the council, which he calls a reactionary body, though in fact it has always interpreted its revising duties temperately. This nomination to the council of twenty-five new members was the largest ever made in the history of New South Wales. Mr. Lang assumed that his nominees would vote for political suicide. But he was mistaken. In vain he threatened that if the members of the council were obstinate he
would deprive them of the rights to prefix "Honourable1' before their names, and to travel free on the Sydney tramways. By a majority of six the council threw out the motion to restore the Abolition bill to the business paper.
We wonder what will happen now. Very likely Mr. Lang will ask the Governor for a fresh and still more swamping nomination. But by that time feeling in New South Wales will have grown even stronger than it is now against Mr. Lang's passion for having a so-called democratic state run by a Labour caucus. Mr. Lang has a tiny majority in form only; numerically he is in a minority.
Note the parallel:
-yet he has tried to pass a startling series of measures which were not mentioned at the elections. How strange that such things should be done with a straight face in the name of democracy!
The issues upon which the government chose to go to the people were outlined at considerable length by the Prime Minister in his Richmond Hill speech on the 5th of September last. Finding that the people, by their votes, did not approve of the policies laid down at Richmond Hill parliament was summoned for another purpose and a Speech from the Throne was placed in the mouth of His Excellency which ignored entirely the principles laid down at Richmond Hill. Not one single feature appearing in the Speech from the Throne was a real feature in the election campaign.
Among other matters featured in the Speech from the Throne was the selection of a Tariff Advisory Board, whose duty it would be to investigate all matters of tariff adjustment and to report to the government. The government took great merit to itself in professing to take the tariff out of politics, to the extent, at least, of having, before making any changes, the benefit of advice from the Tariff Advisory Board and its experts.
One of the most radical changes in the tariff which this country has seen in many years was brought down in the budget speech of the hon. the Finance Minister on the 15th of April, the result of which, so far as the government know and so far as anybody else can know at the present, may be the complete wiping out of an industry in which it is said ' from seventy-five to a hundred millions of capital is invested. In support of this change in the tariff the only reason the Finance Minister gave in the budget speech was that there seems to be a widespread opinion that the tariff on automobiles is too high. He did not say-for he could not say-that a thorough investigation had been made by experts qualified to pass judgment on the question and that this tariff change was justifiable. Thus, within eight days of the passing of the order in council reporting the personnel of the
295S
The Budget-Mr. Smoke

Tariff Advisory Board, this government flouted the board and announced to the world that, no matter what the Tariff Advisory Board may say or do, this government is actuated solely by a turbulent clamour that somebody in business in Canada is making a little more money than he should make.
These sudden changes in policy cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be justified on the ground of principle but only on the ground of expediency. It is a last desperate effort on the part of this government to hang on to the reins of office through appeals which they think will secure votes. In this connection we are reminded of the couplet appearing in the Bigelow papers, of James Russel Lowell:
A marciful Providence fashioned us holler
O' purpose that we might our principles swaller."
And also in the following from the same author:
"I du believe in prayer and praise To him thet hez the grantin'
Of jobs, in everything thet pays,
But most of all in cantin'.
This duth my cup with marcies fill,
This lays all thought o' sin to rest.
I don't believe in princerple,
But I du in interest! "
It is not my intention, however, to pursue the course which I have observed most frequently during the debates which have taken place in the process of arguing before this House the economic questions which were so thoroughly discussed in election speeches during the October campaign and to support it with statistics. It strikes me that that feature has been fully covered and if repeated further, should be by someone better qualified than I am. Rather than go into general principles, I would ask the House to bear with me while I inform it of the. local conditions which prevail in my own constituency and which are characteristic of a hundred other constituencies and try to point out some of the object lessons to which it would be wise , on the part of the government to pay some heed.
My riding, Brant, consists of about half rural and half urban population. As part of the city of Brantford and most of the suburbs dependent on the city are in my riding, I claim an equal interest-as I have an equal right-with the hon. member for Brantford to deal with the situation there.
It should be our effort to discover what wa3 the verdict of the electorate on the 29th of October; and if and when discovered, to give effect to it; and I can, I believe, best devote the time which I intend to take in this debate
,'Mr, &moke.]
by acquainting the House with local conditions.
To question the fact that the tariff was the great, and in fact the only, question which decided the result of the election in both Brant ridings, would be trifling with the matter, and I hope the House will appreciate this fact and bear with me in what I have to say.
Dealing first with the riding of Brantford, it will be remembered by some that in the general election campaign of 1921 Mr. W. G. Raymond wa3 elected as a Liberal by a majority of about 2,000. Brantford is, or at least it was prior to 1921, a great industrial city, and we all on this side of the House hope it will not be long before she is restored to her former proud and enviable position. The present Prime Minister was brought to Brantford in the 1921 campaign and on Mr. Raymond's platform gave the people of Brantford the assurance that no change would be made in the tariff which would injuriously affect Brantford industries, relying on which promises the electors of Brantford chose Mr. Raymond as their representative. These promises were not kept. When the definite vote came which resulted in so great a disaster to the Brantford industries and has practically closed many of them dowm, Mr. Raymond is said to have protested but the legislation went through notwithstanding his protest, and having made his protest Mr. Raymond after all supported the government in its general policy. The result to Brantford was the loss in four years of one-seventh of its population, most of whom formed part of the exodus of over half a million who went to the United States during that period. The condition as regards unemployment was deplorable and the financial loss cannot be computed.
At the general elections of the 29th of October last, the people of Brantford rose en masse, defeated Mr. Raymond by about 2,500, and elected for its representative a consistent advocate of adequate protection, who can be relied upon at all times to uphold the interests of his constituents not only when the particular measures intended to benefit the city are in question, but even if such should be the case, as it was in the last House, when its interests were jeopardized by the government in power, if the government should be the government led by our right hon. leader.
The result of this state of affairs in the city of Brantford was, of course, apparent not only in the three polling divisions of the city which form part of my riding of Brant but also in the suburbs and throughout the whole country, the latter for many reasons. Many of the suburban residents derived their living in

The Budget-Mr. Smoke
Brantford and were equally affected by the depressions in the city. Factory afteT factory closed down and the most of those that did not close down went on short time. There being such an exodus and so great a want of employment among those who stayed, the home market for the poultrymen and the market gardeners was demoralized and this class of the population suffered accordingly not only by a reduced population in Brantford and Paris but by the inability of those who remained to buy, due to the fact that they were unemployed and had perforce to draw in their belts in lieu of taking a hearty meal. The inequitability of tariff rates,- that is, those on produce coming into Canada as compared with the rates of duty on goods going into the United States,-was a great factor in the country districts. Importations from the warmer climates,-early fruits and early vegetables-to the Brantford and Paris markets satiating the appetites of the consumers before the domestic varieties could mature, affected the price of similar products in the country round about when later on their products reached the mature and marketable stage. This worked to the disadvantage of the home producer. It reduced the prices he was able to get for his early vegetables and, to the extent of the amount of foreign goods consumed, displaced just so much of the products of the Canadian farmer and the market gardener. People must eat. If they do not eat foreign goods, they eat domestic products. It may be what is left over from the last season's crop but if not as palatable, it is quite as nutritious or nearly so, as the imported article. The home market was completely demoralized. The fiscal policy was responsible for the slowing down or stoppage of the factories, caused much unemployment, and the exodus referred to. Is it any wonder that there was such a revulsion of feeling in both rural and urban sections of the country!
I have told the result in the riding of Brantford. Brant has, with the exception of ' two previous parliaments, been Liberal since confederation, the majorities being up in the several hundreds and sometimes over one thousand. The recent election resulted in a Conservative majority of 978 out of a total vote polled of a little over 7,000. It was recognized by the Liberal party that, there being a Progressive in the field, it would be impossible to elect a Liberal and after giving the matter consideration for the best part of a month, the candidate who had received the nomination from the Liberal convention withdrew and left the field to the Progressive
and myself, the machine Liberals trying, though ineffectually, to stampede all former Liberals into the Progressive camp.
To arrive at the result that was arrived at in the riding of Brant, this government must surely understand that at least 500 and perhaps 1.000 of their former most staunch friends and supporters changed their allegiance in the recent campaign. Is it the intention of this government to ignore entirely these staunch former supporters who always were quite as good citizens and quite as good Liberals as any who have remained in the Liberal party? They exercised some independence in their judgment. They saw the trend of affairs. It was not easy for them to renounce their allegiance to the Liberal party. Only those people voted Liberal in the last election who were either not thorough students of public affairs and who had been former Liberals and followed their party as a matter of course, or those who had been and would remain Liberals through thick and through thin no matter what those at the head of the Liberal party might say or do. I do appeal to this government to pay some heed to those Liberals who most reluctantly left their party in the last campaign and who would no doubt be glad to go back to their party if the leaders would only get their eyes open and listen to reason.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, it was the tariff that was the one and only issue in the good old riding of Brant. Liberal and Progressive speakers take great delight in accusing us of being in favour of a high tariff. This is a false accusation except in so far as it applies to the tariff on poultry and garden produce. On these I say and believe, with my honoured leader and all his supporters, we should apply the motto: "Brick for brick." As for manufacturing industries, however, our motto is: An adequate tariff to insure that an industry run efficiently and economically, shall be able to operate at a reasonable profit and that the tariff adjustments should be made entirely on this consideration.
Much ado is raised over the so-called "big interests." Do the people ever stop to consider that this term is greatly overworked? Nearly all the industries of any magnitude I know of are joint stock companies whose stocks are listed on the exchanges and whose stocks can be acquired on the open market. Few of the industrial stocks are quoted at over par, and anyone with $100 or so to invest can become part owner. As a matter of fact, it can be said of but few of our big industries that they are either one-man companies or
The Budget-Mr. Smoke

companies in which the stock is held by a few shareholders. The number of shareholders more frequently runs into the hundreds and the thousands. It is a rare thing for a so-called capitalist to invest all his money in one company. He is much more apt to invest in mortgages, bonds or debentures and be content with a smaller, though safer, rate of interest for his money.
I look upon capital as the greatest of blessings to the workingman. You can only get capital out of the hands of the capitalist by giving him the inducement of a larger probable profit from industrial concerns than from such safe investments as mortgages, bonds and debentures.
An adequate tariff which safeguards the investment of capital placed in the hands of efficient management insures work for the workingman, a market for agricultural products, and an adequate rate to the man or group of men who supply the money without which no industry can exist. Some plan of supervision and audit should be devised ' to see that the tariff protection afforded does not permit undue profits to be made or exploitation of the public. When such appear, the time will come for a reduction in the tariff but while this parliament has the power, it would be very unwise for them to exercise the power to make any alteration in the tariff unless and until some one or more experts fully qualified to make a thorough study of the question should advise that the change is desirable, will benefit the public, and will not do an injustice to those interests which are affected by the change. The word "adequate" is the most appropriate word that can be applied to such a tariff.
If there is one thing that has struck me since coming to this parliament, it is that there appears to be an unwritten law that you must not, on the floor of this House, call a spade a spade. What is apparent to the man on the street, and to which he gives free expression as to the relations existing between this government and the Progressive party in this House, upon whom the government are entirely dependent for a continuance in office, must not, it seems, be discussed in plain words on the floor of the House. Even at the risk of using language which may be challenged as unparliamentary, it seems to me and to everyone in the country outside the walls of parliament, whether Labour, Liberal, Conservative or Progressive, that the party in the House which pulls the strings ought to be in the place of power and in receipt of the emoluments of office and the honours

which go with filling such important positions. It says much for the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) that he is willing to forego all these honours, but only goes to show that he is a Liberal at heart and that the Progressive side of his nature is merely camouflage, as all other pretences are.
The Liberal party have been prone to refer to their principles as sacred, and to themselves as the great upholders of responsible government. We see here, instead of responsible government, a government carried on under the more euphonious, if less honest, name of co-operation. The government itself cannot carry on, however. They are shackled at every step by the chains which, in refusing to recognize the voice of the people, they have forged upon their owrn ankles. Is it not more patriotic to bow to the will of the people than to mark time, as they admitted they were doing before the elections, or to do even less than that if such a thing were possible; and it may almost be said that that is what they are doing at present. At one of the first sessions of this parliament in a burst of impatience, the hon. Minister of Justice, then acting leader of the House (Mr. Lapointe), reminded my right hon. leader of a sasdng of Oliver Cromwell to his supporters: "In the name of God, my friends, get it into your heads that you may be wrong." I say to the right hon. Prime Minister and his government: In the name of God, my friends, get it into your heads that you may be wrong in pursuing the course that you are pursuing.
In every election since confederation in which the tariff was the first issue, the cause of protection has won. The National Policy was first advocated about 1876 or 1877; it was an issue in the election of 1878 and it succeeded at the polls. In every subsequent general election up to and inclusive of 1891 the tariff issue, in one shape or another, was the paramount issue and in every case our party was successful. In 1896 the tariff was relegated to the background. Other issues prevailed and the result was a change of government brought in especially on the strength of the Manitoba school question, though other issues no doubt played a considerable part in the decision the people of the country arrived at. In no other election subsequent to 1896, until the reciprocity election of 1911, was the tariff a real issue, and in that election the Liberal party, which favored reciprocity, went down to defeat. We all know what happened to this government in the 1925 election.
We can quite understand the favour which the idea of reciprocity received in the mind of the Prime Minister of this country. Per-

The Budget-Mr. Lapierre
haps the greatest disservice that the Liberal party has ever done to Canada was in the Liberal convention here in 1919, when they selected the present Prime Minister as the leader of their party after the lamented death of Sir Wilfrid Laurier; as usual the United States has got the better of the bargain. They gave us a Liberal leader and a prospective Prime Minister, and they took from us five to six hundred thousand red-blooded Canadians.
May I make a special appeal to the French-Canadian element in this parliament? I notice, and I am sorry to notice it, a feeling among the French-Canadian element in this House of race antagonism, particularly toward the province of Ontario. Let me say to the French-Canadian members that I trace my ancestry back to one who came from France to Quebec nearly three centuries ago, and that the other strains in my blood come from other countries of continental Europe by way of the United States, those who came in this way leaving there at the time of or immediately after the American war of the revolution. I thus have no blood relationship with the English speaking portions of Canada, who derive their ancestry from the British Isles, and I therefore feel that I can, with some measure of reason, appeal to the French Canadian element of our population without having my motives impugned. Some things have been done in our past history which were not conducive to the entente cordiale which should exist between the two principal races which form a part of our population. I have never found in my lifelong association with the English speaking portion of our people any real antagonism to the French Canadian race. Across the floor I am glad and proud to see a second cousin of mine, a French Canadian, and I appeal to him, and through him may I appeal to the other descendants of the French race in this House, to align themselves with that party in this House with which, in the days of Sir John A. Macdonald, the people of Quebec were almost solidly in accord, and with his political successors who stand for an adequate protective policy for all classes in this country and for equal rights to all.


Mr. E. A. LAPIERRE (Nipissing):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to compliment my hon. friend from Brant (Mr. Smoke) on his splendid address this evening. So long as the discussion is carried on in the high plane which he attained to, we shall be taking the right method of arriving at decisions in this House at least in a friendly spirit.
The budget which has been brought down this session has received the approbation of all fair-minded Canadians. It is one that 14011-188



REVISED

[Stage Direction]
will appeal to the large masses of wage earners, to the farming communities and to the industrial people who are prepared to take their fair share of the great responsibilities that rest upon every Canadian. The budget speech was a clear and lucid exposition of the situation as it exists in Canada to-day, and it was a budget that cannot fail to make for greater prestige in the near future for this government.
The bringing down of a budget is always a difficult matter. In a country situated as ours is, with our tremendous area and with our interests varied and conflicting in different sections, the sanest and safest course the government can pursue is to elaborate a policy that will bring the greatest good to the largest number. In order to realize the difficulties which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) had to meet when he brought down this budget we have to turn a retrospective glance to the situation as it existed in Canada in 1921 when this government came into power. In 1921 our national debt was about $2,250,000,000; our National railways were creating an annual deficit of over $85,000,000; the merchant marine was costing Canada $12,000,000; we had a situation that was difficult for men engaged in all activities; agriculture was depressed in the west; there was unemployment all over Canada and instability of trade; our currency was depreciated in the markets of the world, and our situation generally was as bad as it had been at any time since confederation.
This year's budget is what I would term a "prosperity" budget. It is a workingman's budget. To-day the labouring man feels the improvement by the size of his savings bank account, and the farmer realizes that there is a general improvement by the high prices he is getting for his farm products. The manufacturer is also feeling the effects of the policy of this government by the increase in the number of his orders, and there is a feeling of confidence in the future and of stability that this country has not experienced since the period of deflation.
Canada has now entered upon a new era of prosperity. This has been admitted by some of our hon. friends on the other side of the House. This afternoon the hon. member for Toronto West Centre (Mr. Hocken) admitted that our Canadian National Railways had improved and he attributed 11 p.m. that fact to the loyalty of the 95,000 men in the employ of that railway. But as a travelling man who travelled many times over the length of the Canadian National Railways before its management

[Stage Direction]
The Budget-Mr. Lapierre
[Stage Direction]
was assumed by Sir Henry Thornton, I may say that we should at least give Sir Henry Thornton credit for the improvements which we find in our National railway system. If such a genius could take our National railways in the situation in which they were just before he took control and bring them up to their present state of improvement, I think the opinion of Sir Henry Thornton, with his great experience and his real genius for organization, should bear weight with the people of this country in regard to present conditions. I should like to read an article taken from the Montreal Herald of March 13, which states:
My faith m the future of Canada is deep-rooted and sincere. It passes the realm of statistics, which after all can picture only past performances, and finds its foundation and its support in the faith of the citizenry in contact with whom my duties have brought me in almost all parts of the Dominion during the past year. Further, the past year has permitted me to visit many parts of the United States and several European countries. Not only have these experiences allowed me to gauge for myself conditions here, but they have given me the opportunity fto look at Canada through the eyes of neighbours and business rivals, and I can say in all truthfulness that I have returned home imbued with a stronger belief in the greatness of our country's ultimate destiny than ever before.
I have been accused of being on optimist. I am more than an optimist. As far as the future of Canada and Canadians is concerned I am a superoptimist. For no country are the opportunities so splendid, the outlook brighter. Nothing, in my opinion, can prevent Canada grasping those opportunities except the people themselves, and failure is out of the question as long as Canada retains what she has to-day, the will to accomplish; the faith of her people and a clean national consciousness.
Conservatism is a very necessary and a very proper part of every business undertaking whether it is individual or national. Every ship must have an anchor. But when the ship gets under way an anchor which drags is not only an impediment to navigation but a positive menace. The apostles of conservatism who transcend their sphere of usefulness become only apostles of gloom. Canada has her apostles of gloom and because of their wailings and the dust they are flinging from their sackcloth and ashes, it might be well, before proceeding to the results of the pa9t year, to retrospect and see what progress Canada has made in the last two decades as compared with the United States which is used so extensively as our "weather" barometer.
That is the opinion of Sir Henry Thornton, whose unbounded faith in Canada is the result of a thorough observation of the conditions as they exist from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Surely the opinion of such a man at this present. juncture is one that must carry weight with the citizens of Canada. I have here a .business summary issued by the Bank of Montreal in which further evidence of the prosperity which Canada is enjoying to-day, and of the prosperity which lies in store for us, is very well exemplified. I quote:
The Finance minister was able to present a favourable balance sheet in respect of Dominion finances

and to point to an unusually large expansion of foreign commerce during the recently ended fiscal year. There was a surplus of revenue over expenditure of nearly $34,000,000 in the year's operations, a reduction of net debt of $22,353,000, and a marked increase in the operating profits of the Canadian National Railways, these having amounted to $30,443,000 in the calendar year of 1925 or about $13,000,000 more than in the preceding year.
The foreign trade of Canada continues to mount both in volume and value. In the year ended March 31, this commerce reached the very considerable sum of $2,258,500,000, of which $1,330,000,000 was made up of exports and $927,000,000 of imports, the favourable balance thus, being $402,695,000. So large a credit in the external trade of the year has been a potential factor in restoring Canadian currency to par.
Domestic business has not presented any novel factors during tihe current month, but the condition remains more satisfactory than in recent years and the spirit of confidence in the future appears to grow. Commodity prices are fairly steady and would appear to have been pegged at about 60 per cent over a prewar average, with inevitable fluctuation in price of one or another commodity. Railway car loadings and railway earnings are in excess of last year. Business mortality in the first quarter of 1926 was substantially less than in the corresponding quarter of the previous year, the number of failures declining from 669 to 593, with aggregate liabilities down from $10,683,000 to $7,566,000.
The estimated quantity of Canadian wheat remaining in Canada at April 1 was 161,376,000 bushels or 40,000,000 bushels greater than on the corresponding date in 1925, which fact gives promise of an active shipping season, and continued expansion of export trade. Building operations the Dominion over are much in excess of last year. It is too early in the season to forecast agricultural production but the acreage to be sown in the three western provinces this year will be practically the same as last. Live stock has wintered well and expectation is that the steady growth in the cattle export trade since the removal of the British embargo will not be interrupted. Cold weather has somewhat delayed farming operations in the eastern provinces. Immigration gives indication of reaching a larger volume than for a considerable time post. Taken as a whole, it can be said that the bright spots in the business situation greatly predominate.
Let me contrast the foregoing with the condition that exists in the United States. We have heard many speakers opposite comparing Canada with the republic to the south of us, much to our own disadvantage Now, I am sure that every true Canadian resents these attacks on his native country, which must have an injurious effect upon business, as is evident in northern Ontario, for example. In northern Ontario we require outside capital to develop industry. Can we expect to attract that capital for the development of our tremendous resources in that northern country so long as these tales of woe and of blue ruin are broadcast throughout Canada and elsewhere? The fact that we require that capital is well known to every member of this House. The Minister of Mines of the province of Ontario has a faith in that country which I should like to see shared by hon. gentlemen opposite. Recently he made the statement that $80,-

The Budget-Mr. Lapierre
000,000 could be spent in northern Ontario in development of that area which is so rich in natural resources. It is interesting to compare the conditions in Canada with those in the United States and right here I want to emphasize this important fact, that northern Ontario offers better opportunities and greater chances of success in life than does.any part of the United States. There is no part of the United States where a young man has the same likelihood of making a success of his life as he has in that section of Canada. The United States, we are told, is a country that has been greatly developed under a high protective tariff, but the conditions there are not so bright as some of our friends would have us believe. I have here a despatch from Washington to the New York Herald from the Washington correspondent of that journal. I quote the following:
The east, either through preoccupation with its own prosperity or for whatever reasons may be, failed to know what was happening among the farmers. At a moment when values of corporations were mounting on the New York Stock Exchange, the value of land was going downward. When manufacturing corporations were announcing stock dividends and eastern banks announcing lecord earnings, western banks and other institutions were embarrassed, in many cases to the point of failure, by tlhe decline in values of farm land, farm mortgages, and some farm crops. Now that Washington's attention has been called to it forcibly, the contrast between east and west is almost dramatic. The western condition includes an average of more than two bank failures a day; sheriff's sales in nearly every county seat; cuts in the rents of city houses and' apartments of as much as 50 per cent; an estimate by the Nebraska State Bureau of Crop Statistics that the purchasing power of the farmers has suffered a reduction of $62,000,000 this year.
This condition gives rise to a political mood just * beginning to express itself in attacks on the tariff, on the railroads, whose earnings and values go up as the farmers' go down; on the federal reserve system, and on "big business." It is in some degree similar to the condition which arose in the middle of President Taft's term, and which expressed itself in the election of a Democratic congress and in Roosevelt s attempt to prevent Taft's renomina-tion.
"The farmer's situation presents the greatest, most far-reaching and most perilous problem with which the American people are faced," declares B. F. Yoakum, chairman of the board of the Frisco Railroad System, and a recognized authority on the farmer's problems. According to Air. Yoakum, "the American farmer is in a worse situation to-day than at any time in his history."
Now, Sir, it is well for us when speaking as Canadians to remember that we are to-day producing more dollar for dollar than the United States did in 1880, with a population of 50,000.000. Unemployment in the United States averages 1,800,000, which is very much greater than has ever occurred in Canada. It is also well to remember-and this has been published throughout the United States-that more than 75,000 of its farmers have left their farms in the last- decade.	N
14011-188J
One of the most strking features of this budget, and one that has been commented on very generally, is the increase in our foreign trade during the past fiscal year. It reached the tremendous total of $2,258,000,000, made up of exports, $1,330,000,000, and imports, $927,000,000, leaving a favourable trade balance of $402,695,000. The principal gains in exports were shown in the groups of animals and animal products, wood and paper, nonferrous metals, and so forth. Our sales abroad of cattle increased $2,156,000; of cheese $10,000,000, of milk, fresh and condensed, $1,800,000; exports of lead reached $27,500,000; of nickel, $2,100,000; of zinc, $2,000,000; of gold, $9,000,000. Asbestos also showed a gain of more than $2,000,000. Of highly manufactured goods we sold $500,000 worth more of acids, nearly $100,000 more of cyanide, $400,000 more of cottons and $5,300,000 more of rubber goods. Our fisheries also shared in the expansion of export trade, shipments increasing by $3,946,000.
Examining our trade with various countries, we find that our sales to the United Kingdom increased by $42,000,000, while our purchases from her went up $9,000,000. The United States took $30,000,000 more of our goods, and we bought from them additional business amounting to $11,000,000. We secured marked additional business in Russia, $11,500,000; the Netherlands, $11,000,000; Germany, nearly $14,000,000; Brazil, $2,000,000; Belgium, $2,500,000; Argentina, $1,600,000, and New Zealand, $1,700,000.
A comparison of the figures of Canadian trade for the past two fiscal years of 1923 and 1925 with Latin-American countries in which bank branches were established-ample evidence that Canadian banks are doing much to foster and buiid up Canadian trade abroad
-is very interesting.	Take the	figures for
1923:		
	Imports	Exports
Argentina	$3,076,000	$4,445,000Brazil	1,391,000	1,929,000Colombia	365,000	151,000Peru	4,700,000	416.000Uruguay	310,000	286,000Venezuela	353,000	747,000Let me contrast those figures	with thebusiness for 1925:	Imports	ExportsArgentina	$6,263,000	$10,322,000Brazil	1,818,000	3,417,000Colombia	719,000	270,000Peru	3,533,000	929,000Uruguay	228,000	859,000Venezuela	175,000	1,065,000This, Mr. Speaker, is	one of the results of	the enlightened policy	of the i	government
which sends its trade representatives to these countries and thus brings about an expansion in our foreign trade.
The Budget-Mr. Lapierre
[Stage Direction]
But if there is one activity which is contributing very largely to the prosperity of Canada it is mining. I fear we have not given to this industry the consideration which its importance demands. The industry has prospered owing to the enterprise and intelligence of the people who have interested themselves in it; it has received no government aid. I believe that this industry should be fostered by the government, for in my opinion there is no factor that will go further to solve our problems, especially those of transportation, than the development of our mineral wealth. The progress made in our mining industry last year is scarcely appreciated by those who have not followed it very closely. I have before me the estimated production of 1924-1925. This is perhaps the best evidence we can have of the remarkable development, especially when we consider that most of these mining areas have not
been operated very much more than a decade. The estimated production is as follows: Estimated Production in 1925
	1924	1925
Metals	Value	ValueGold	. .. $31,532,443	$35,768,000Silver	.. 13,180,113	13,469,000Nickel	. .. 19,470.178	24,140,000Copper.. '	.. 13.604,538	15,813,000Lead	. .. 14.221.345	23,238,000Zinc	. .. 6,274,791	8,469,000Other Metals.. ..	.. 4,123,120	4,513,000Total	.. *102,406,528	$125,410,000
la order that we may fully realize the important bearing the mining industry has on other industries in Canada, I shall quote from an article published in the annual financial review of the Toronto Globe, dated January 1, 1923, which gives an estimate of the value of the 1922 mineral production of Ohtario and its distribution, as follows:
Estimate of Value of 1922 Mineral Production of Ontario and its distribution
Gross value of metallic production	$ 36,000,000
Gross value of non metallic production	 27,000,000
Gross value of mineral production in 1922	S 63,000,000
Dividends and Repayment of Capital-
Gold	$ 6,606,224
Silver	 2,165,000
Nickel	 534,746
[Stage Direction]
 9,305,970
Direct Taxes Paid-
To Ontario and Dominion	$ 1,300,000
Compensation Insurance paid	 225,000
[Stage Direction]
Amount otherwise disbursed	$ 52,169,034
About 54 per cent of this amount will represent value of supplies purchased and balance compensation of labour.
Supplies will therefor have cost about	$ 28,171,278
and Labour
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Taking cost of supplies in round figures at $28,171,000 the
Ball Mill Liners, Castings and Machine shop work	
Customs Duties	
Chemicals and Apparatus	
Coal	
Drill Steel	
Express	
Equipment	
Explosives	
Electrical Supplies	
Freight	
Hardware	
Insurance (fire)	
Lumber	
Legal Expenses	
Machine drills and parts	
Oil	
Power	
Pebbles	
Rubber goods	
Stationery and Office supplies	
Telephone and Telegraph	
Incidental expenses	
distribution will be about as follows:-
13-00% equals $			3,662,230
100			281,710
9-36	it	2,636,8064-34	it	1,222,6211-65	it	464,0000-95	it	267,6236-45	a	1,817,02511-95	u	3,366,4431-53	a	431,0008-21	a	2,312,8594-58	it	1,290,2323-27	a	921,1924-33	tt	1,219,8040-57	u	160,5742-27	a	639,4821-08	u	304,24718-95	a	5,338,4050-93	it	261.9900-48	a	135,2210-63	tt	177,4760-43	a	121,1354-04	a	1,138,108$ 28,171,000	
[Stage Direction]
The Budget-Mr. Lapierre
The $23,998,000 required to compensate labour, will have been disbursed approximately as follows:
Meats	
Dairy produce	
Flour, bread, rolled oats, beans.
Fruits	
Sugar	
Tea	
Coffee	
Vegetables	
Incidental groceries	
Fuel and lighting	
Rent	
Boots and shoes	
Clothing	
House furnishings	
Railway fare	
Help, doctor, dentist	
Insurance	
Charity, church, etc	
Papers and education	
Sundry	
11*19% equals $ 2,685,377	
12-79 "	3,069,344
7-27 "	1,744,654
1-43 "	343,172:
2-98 "	715,140'
0-85 "	203,983
0-39 "	93,592
3-39 "	813,532
0-87 "	208,783
9-41 "	2,258,212
16 09 "	3,861,278
2-86 "	6S6.343
11-43 "	2,742,971
2-86 "	686,343
2-86 "	686,343
4-76 "	1,142,305
2-38 "	571,152
2-38 "	571,153-
1-43 "	343,174
2-38 "	571,152
[Stage Direction]
In order to show the House what money is invested in the mining industry in this country, I shall give the expenditure at Copper Cliff in the Sudbury district from September. 1902, to December, 1920, as follows:
Labour and Salaries	 $35,900,000
Miscellaneous Supplies, not including fuel	13,915.000
Wood from local Contractors	 685,000
Freights to Railway Companies	 11,738,000
Contractors erecting plants and etc.. ..	2,014,000
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Our investment in plant in the Sudbury
district is as follows:
Smelter and Mine	and Power Equipment.. $14,651,000
Dwellings and	stores	 1,632,000
Hospital	 203,000
Club house	 61,000
[Stage Direction]
We who live in that section of the country, Mr. Speaker, realize what the future development of the immense mineral deposits we have in that north country means for the rest of Canada. We feel we are not exaggerating when we say that the future of the province of Ontario and of Quebec, notwithstanding their present great industrial development, rests in a very large measure upon the development of the tremendously valuable natural resources we have in that country. It is only within the last decade that real development has taken pla«e. Prom the very first start in Cobalt, the discoveries of valuable minerals have extended both east and west of the original discovery, and today in that great pre-Cambrian shield, which contains practically all the valuable minerals known to science, we have a source of greater wealth than is to be found in any other similar extent of territory known to civilization.
Reference has frequently been made in this debate to the woollen industry, and in every instance the present situation in the woollen industry has been attributed to the tariff. As a matter of fact the depression in the woollen industry has been world-wide. Just a few years ago the American Woollen Company, which has practically a monopoly of the woollen industry in the United States was forced, owing to the fluctuating prices of its raw material and to the general depression of the business, to close down one-half of its plants and to turn out of its factories from 15,000 to 20,000 of its employees. Similar conditions exist in Great Britain, where a general depression has existed in the woollen industry. In Canada the depression was felt much more acutely by those engaged in the manufacture of all-wool cloth. In Canada we have a very large number of small mills, but the modern tendency is towards concentration or mass production. In the manufacture of tweed, owing to the variation of styles and patterns, it was impossible for our small manufacturers in Canada to change their patterns or alter their designs as they could in establishments where there was mass production, or production on a very large scale. But there is another factor which has entered into the situation, and which has not yet been referred to in this debate. It is the discovery of a new textile known as rayon. This is becoming to-day an article of general use and its manufacture is progressing, perhaps, at a faster rate than any other industry at the present moment. In the United States rayon has replaced some forty thousand bales of wool annually, but the industry is, as yet, only in its infancy. Hon. gentlemen will have noticed that in the budget the Minister of Finance announces a drawback on rayon silk, or yarn,
The Budget-Mr. Lapierre
[Stage Direction]
and on rayon waste. In Canada to-day there are two corporations which will soon be manufacturing this article and no doubt in a few years it will become one of the great basic industries of the world. In order to afford an idea of the progress of the industry within the last few years I will read the following extract taken from the Artificial Silk Supplement of the Manchester Guardian Commercial of April 15, 1926:
World Production of Artificial Silk (Thousands of lbs.)
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1922
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1923
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1924
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1925
[Stage Direction]
Total
[Stage Direction]
.. 79,738
[Stage Direction]
97,000
[Stage Direction]
141,164
[Stage Direction]
197,000
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United States.
[Stage Direction]
.. 23,500
[Stage Direction]
35,400
[Stage Direction]
38,750
[Stage Direction]
50,000
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Great Britain.
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.. 15,340
[Stage Direction]
16,500
[Stage Direction]
23,947
[Stage Direction]
30.000
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Italy
[Stage Direction]
.. 6,292
[Stage Direction]
10,000
[Stage Direction]
18,480
[Stage Direction]
28.000
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Germany.. ..
[Stage Direction]
13,000
[Stage Direction]
23,672
[Stage Direction]
26.000
[Stage Direction]
France .. ..
[Stage Direction]
.. 6,292
[Stage Direction]
7,700
[Stage Direction]
12,333
[Stage Direction]
23,000
[Stage Direction]
Belgium.. ..
[Stage Direction]
.. 6,292
[Stage Direction]
6,000
[Stage Direction]
8,874
[Stage Direction]
13,000
[Stage Direction]
Holland.. ..
[Stage Direction]
.. 2,517
[Stage Direction]
2,600
[Stage Direction]
3,366
[Stage Direction]
9.000
[Stage Direction]
Switzerland..
[Stage Direction]
.. 1,888
[Stage Direction]
3,700
[Stage Direction]
4,004
[Stage Direction]
6.000
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The British
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production in
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1925 has
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been
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variously
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estimated at from 25,000,0001b. to 32,000,0001b., but it must have been somewhere in the region of 30,000,0001b. The imports during the same period were 11,551,6621b., and the exports 7,366,0291b., so that the total consumption of artificial silk in Great Britain was about 34,-000,0001b., or rather more than one-sixth of the world's production.
The American statistics for the consumption of artificial silk in that country are shown in the following table:
Per cent
Stockings	 23
Interwoven with real silk	 18
Ladies' underwear and lace	 16
Interwoven with cotton	 15
Knitted articles	 14
Ribbons, braids, etc	 8
Upholstery and house furnishing	 3
Plush	 2
Interwoven with wool	 1
Total,
Imports into the United States will probably total 12,000,0001b., in spite of a tariff wall of 40 per cent. Domestic production is estimated for this year as follows:
Lbs.-1926
Viscose Company	 45,000,000
Dupont	 12,000,000
Tubize	 8,000,000
Industrial Fibre	 5,000,000
Celanese	 3,000,000
Others	 3,000,000
Total	 76,000,000
Assuming a net profit of one dollar a pound, which the income-tax returns of the producers bear out, we have this new industry returning more profits during 1926 than the entire cotton industry.
Silk versus Artificial Silk in the United States of America
The inroad which the increasing use of artificial silk is making into other textile fields is a subject which comes up for discussion periodically. A few months ago the suggestion was thrown out that artificial silk had displaced 40,000 bales of wool in the woollen in-
dustry, particularly in hosiery manufacture, while similar statements have on various occasions been made by cotton and real silk interests. It is therefore of interest to see from the survey drawn up by the Silk Association of America that there has been a steady increase in silk imports into the U.S.A. for the last 30 years, and consequently of silk consumption in that country, notwithstanding the advent of artificial silk. In 1925, the year when artificial silk output broke all records in the U.S.A., the aggregate number of bales of real silk imported showed an increase of 26 per cent as compared with 1924. It does not appear from these figures that the growing consumption of artificial silk has had any effect on the demand for real silk.
This accounts in a very large measure for the depression that has existed in the knitting industry in recent months in Canada. We have not had sufficient quantities of artificial silk, which has become an absolute necessity to-day. Artificial silk is accepted now as an absolute substitute for real silk, and its manufacture must become in the course of a few years, as I have already said, one of the basic industries of the world. Now, Canada is particularly interested in this industry as pulpwood is the basis of artificial silk.
I have given these few details because I believe in the future of Canada. I think this country has entered upon an era of prosperity such as it has never known before. I believe that the interests of this country will be very much better served, and that emigration may be lessened, if we look at home for the development which is necessary to keep Canadians in Canada. As we look and see the improvements that are taking place daily, and as we view the prosperity that is in store for U3, let each of us, regardless of political affiliations, do our very best for the future development of our beloved country.
On motion of Mr. MacDonald (South Cape Breton), the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Robb the House adjourned at 11.40 p.m.
Friday, April 30, 1926