1927-02-28

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEES


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice):: moved:
That the name of Mr. Ladner be substituted for that of Mr. Cantley on the select standing committee on marine and fisheries; That the name of Mr. Young (Saskatoon) be substituted for that of Mr. Cayley on the select standing ' committee on miscellaneous private bills; that the name of Mr. Cayley be substituted for that of Mr. Young (Saskatoon) on the select standing committee on public accounts; that the name of Mr. Edrvards (Waterloo) be substituted for that of Mr. McRae on the select standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Ernest Lapointe: That Messrs. Bancroft, Black (Yukon), Carmichael, Clark, Edwards (Ottawa), Fiset (Sir

Questions
Eugene) Howden, Kay, Ryckman, and Wilson (Wentworth) be appointed to assist His Honour the Speaker in the direction of the restaurant as far as the interests of the Commons are concerned and to act as members of the joint committee on both houses on the restaurant;
And that a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint their honours therewith.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

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

Mr. BANCROFT:: 1.	Since when has there ceased to be an officer of the government known as the inspector of binder twine?
2.	By what department is the inspection of binder twine, under the sales and inspection act, carried on?
3.	How many inspections were made in 1926?
4.	What quantity of binder twine, if any,
was confiscated ?	.
5.	Was any binder twine found to be improperly labelled or deficient in length? _
6.	Has the government given any consideration to the need of improving the inspection of binder twine?	, ,
7.	Has the government considered raising the
standard required under the sales and inspection act?	.
8.	Hoes the government intend to fix the net weight of binder twine contained in a bale?


Hon. Mr. MOTHERWELL:: 1.	Since August 1, 1924, the inspection of binder twine has been assigned to the forty-three inspectors of seeds, feeding stuffs, fertilizers, and coininodities that are under the inspection and sale act.
2.	Department of Agriculture.
3.	101.
4.	None.
5.	Yes. Imported twine was not released from bond until properly labelled as to weight and quality.
6.	Yes. The system of inspection of binder twine was reorganized three years ago.
7.	Yes. Because of the variability of the per cent of moisture and in consequence the length per pound of binder twine, it would seem desirable to change the standard from the number of feet per pound to the total number Of feet contained in the ball, and to establish a minimum standard of breaking strength for binder twine.
8.	In as much as length and strength of twine in a ball rather than weight of bail are the important considerations it would seem advisable to follow policy outlined in reply to questions No. 7 rather than fix net weight of balls or bales.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-REPAIR SHOPS
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Have the Canadian National Railway shops at Stratford and Belleville been closed, or are they to be closed?
2.	What sum was spent by the Canadian National Railways in 1922 or since on repair shops and plant at Port Huron?
3.	What was the total capital cost of the said plant, and the annual cost of maintaining same, by years?


Hon. Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	No.
1922		.. . .$13,995 98
1923		.... 28,393 23
1924		.... 16,496 76
1925		.... 15,977 14
1926		.... 2,869 94
Capital cost.. ..	.. $1,090,000 00
Maintenance,-	
1922		.. ..$ 8,489 23
1923		.... 19,320 94
1924		.... 23,386 22
1925		.... 7,182 80
1926		.... 23,107 26


THE DUMPING ACT-ENFORCEMENT
Mr. YOUNG (Weybum):: 1.	How often has the dumping act been enforced between July 1, 1922, and January 31,1927?
2.	What evidence was in the possession of the customs department at the time of each enforcement, that dunping actually existed?
3.	What was the number of cases between July 1, 1922, and January 31, 1927, in which the dumping act was applied after the value for duty had been fixed as provided in section 47a of the customs act, and the particulars in each case?
4.	What was the number of cases between July 1, 1922, and January 31, 1927, in which the dflmping duty lias been refunded by the department after it had been collected.


Hon. Mr. EULER:: 1.	There is no statistical record of the entries on which dumping duty has been collected.
2.	Dumping duty is applied by port officers in accordance with the regulations respecting the appraised fair market value and the selling price to the purchaser in Canada as set forth in section 6 of the customs tariff act.
3.	and 4. (Answered by No. 1).


TRADE UNIONS AND CH. 125 REVISED STATUTES
Mr. BOUCHARD:: 1.	How many trade unions have availed themselves of the provisions of chapter 125 of the revised statutes, an act respecting trade unions?
2.	How many registered trade unions are now in existence?
Questions


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.	Number of trade unions registered since the revised statutes of Canada, 1906 came into force, 28.
2.	Nine.


GERMAN REPARATIONS
Sir GEORGE PERLEY:: With reference to the investigation into claims for losses sustained by the civil population in the war, which was begun by Mr. Pugsleyand is now being continued by Mr. Friel:
1.	How many claims were presented?
2.	What was the total amount claimed?
3.	When will the investigation be completed and a final report made?


Hon. Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.	1,510.
2.	$55,672,934.23.
3.	An interim report covering 1,497 claims, totalling $41,505,787.80 has been submitted by the commissioner. There still remain thirteen claims for assessment, and the commissioner reports that "there are in these cases such masses of documents, evidence, briefs, calculations by experts, accountants, etc., that it will take further time to deliver intelligent decisions."


ENTERPRISE POSTMASTERSHIP
Hon. Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: 1.	Is there a vacancy in the postmastership at Enterprise, Ontario?
2.	If so, when did such vacancy occur?
3.	Has it been advertised, and when?
4.	From whom have applications been received ?
5.	Has any appointment been made, and, if so, when, and who has been appointed?
6.	Are any of the applicants returned soldiers?
'	7. Who is acting postmaster at present and
are his services satisfactory?


Hon. Mr. VENIOT:: 1.	Yes.
2.	13th January, 1927.
3.	Advertised from 22nd to 29th January,
i927.
4.	(a) G. A. Cooper; (b) W. P. Covert; (-c) W. S. Fenwick; (d) O. B. Jackson; (e) Mrs. S. D. Lockwood; (f) P. J. Murphy; (g) Mrs. Anna Wiseman.
5.	No permanent appointment made yet.
6.	Yes-G. A. Cooper.
7.	Retiring postmaster still in charge.


YARKER POSTMASTER
Hon. Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: 1.	Is there a vacancy in the postmastership at Yarker, Ontario?

2.	If so, when did such vacancy occur?
3.	Has it been advertised, and, if so, when?
4.	From -whom have applications been received ?
5.	Has an appointment been made, and, if so, when, and who has been appointed?
.6. Are any of the applicants returned soldiers?
7.	Who is acting postmaster at present and are his services satisfactory?


Hon. Mr. VENIOT:: 1.	Yes.
2.	13th November, 1926.
3.	Yes from 16th to 25th November, 1926.
4.	W. A. Martin, T. W. Tomkins, J. A. Wells.
5.	No permanent appointment made yet.
6.	Yes, T. W. Tomkins.
7.	T. W. Tomkins since 31st January. No complaint received.


ODESSA POSTMASTERSHIP
Hon. Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: 1.	Is there a vacancy in the position of postmaster at Odessa, Ontario? If so, when did it occur ?
2.	Was the vacancy advertised in the usual way, and when?
3.	From whom were applications received?
4.	Were the several applicants rated in order of merit by the district superintendent of posal service, and when?
5.	What was the rating in order of merit?
6.	Why has the vacancy not been filled?
7.	What is the postal revenue of Odessa office?
8.	Who is acting postmaster and are his services satisfactory?


Hon. Mr. VENIOT:: 1.	Yes. 28th June, 1926.
2.	Yes. 5th July to 12th July inclusive.
3.	(a) W. C. Snider, (b) R. A. Hamm, (c) S. W. Clarke, (d) W. J. Pooke, (e) D. O. Frink, (f) S. J. Smith, (g) U. V. W. Snider, (h) R. D. Schermerhorn, (i) S. F. Hillier, (j) W. R. Lake, (k) A. J. Smith (withdrew application), (1) M. G. Lee.
4.	Yes. In his reports of 3rd August and 15th December, 1926.
5.	As in No. 3.
6.	Held first at request of Hon. Dr. Edwards, then on instructions of Postmaster General. Case now before commission.
7.	$1,389.13.
8.	Percy Raymond Clark. No complaint received.


TREASURY BILLS
Mr. SPENCER:: 1.	What amount in treasury bills has the government of Canada given the Canadian banks from July 1, 1926?
2.	What was the average percentage charged the government by the banks for this service?

Questions


Hon. Mr. ROBB:: 1.	None.
2.	Answered by No. 1.


BUTTER IMPORTS, 1926
Hon. Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenae):: 1.	What quantity of butter was imported into Canada during the calendar year 1926 from each of the following countries: United States; United Kingdom; Australia; New Zealand?
2.	What quantity of these imports was the produce of the countries from which imported?
3.	What were the rates of duty and amounts collected in the case of each?
4.	Was a higher rate of duty collected in the case of Australia than the 1 cent per pound provided for in the trade agreement with Australia, and, if so, what was the rate?
5.	If a higher rate, under what authority, and what was the date of the passing of such authority and the date from which it applied?
6.	What quantity of Australian butter has been shipped from Canada since the increase of duty was applied and to what countries was it shipped?
7.	Was duty collected on butter so transhipped or was a refund made, and, if so, what was the amount collected or refunded?


Hon. Mr. EULER:: Numbers 1, 3 and 4.
Statement of imports of butter from United Kingdom, United States, Australia and ]\ew Zealand entered for consumption in Canada during the calendar year 1926, showing the rates of duty applied and amounts of duty collected at each rate on imports from each country.
Country whence imported	Lb.	Value	Rate of Duty	Duty collectedUnited Kingdom	490,655 28,000 2,280,142	$ 174,681 10,714 847,527	3c. per lb	
3c. per lb. less 10%	
4c. per lb	
4c. per lb	
lc. per lb	
4c. per lb	
lc. per lb	
3c. per lb	
4c. per lb	$ cts. 14,716 65 756 00 91,205 68Total United Kingdom	
United States	2,798,697	1,032,922	106,678 3399,127	40,230	3,965 08Australia	
<<	1,630,972 1,364,768	592,945 503,043	16,309 72 54,590 72Total Australia	2,995,740	1,095,998	70,900 44New Zealand	
li [DOT] M	1,196,689 921,524 1,075,169	428,551 338,865 493,372	11,966 89 27,645 72 43,006 76Total New Zealand	3,193,388	1,260,788	82,619 37
2. Information regarding countries of origin is not available from department statistical records.
5. Under authority of customs tariff and customs act, when importations do not conform to requirements for admission at minimum rates.
6 and 7. No foreign butter on which import duty was paid, was shipped out of Canada in 1926. Foreign butter was shipped out of bond in Canada during 1926 to the following countries:
Country	Cwt.	ValueUnited Kingdom	1,364	$ 50,223Jamaica	626	26,300Newfoundland	25	1,055Bermuda	306	13,568British West Indies, other	298	12,477British Guiana	145	6,089Barbados	74	3,204Country	Cwt,	ValueTrinidad	.. 209	9,083British Honduras .. ..	.. 28	1,009St. Pierre	.. 155	5,758Haiti	.. 35	1,615Costa Rica	.. 118	5,022Virgin Islands	1,867Panama	.. 37	1,516United States	.. 3	169Japan 	. .. 11	446China	. .. 3	130Information is not	available as	to the
amount of Australian butter included in these figures.


DIAMOND JUBILEE CELEBRATION
Mr. THOMPSON:: In view of the educational and inspirational value thereof, has the government considered the advisability of issuing to the school child-

Vegetable Growers-Orientals
ren of Canada, a medal, or other suitable memento, to commemorate the diamond jubilee celebration of the birthday of our dominion?


Ernest Lapointe: The government has referred to the national committee which has recently been established all suggestions which have been received as to methods of commemorating the diamond jubilee of confederation, and will take the same course with respect to the present suggestion.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. ARTHURS:: 1.	Has any action been taken by the government of Canada to inquire into the levels of the various Great lakes as before and since the Chicago drainage canal has been opened, and whether the later increased flow through such canal has adversely affected Canadian harbours or channels?
2.	If so, when, and to what extent?
3.	Have instructions been given to our new minister or ambassador to Washington to make a claim for damages sufficient to cover the cost of dredging, etc., if such levels have been covered, involving additional costs to Canada, or has such claim been formally made?


UNOPPOSED MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. STEVENS:: For a copy of the report made during the past year by Mr. A. R. Tibbits, Supervisor of Harbours, regarding the conditions obtaining at Vancouver, together with a copy of all documents, letters, telegrams, instructions and statements passing between any minister of the government and the said Mr. Tibbits or the chairman or secretary of the Vancouver Harbour commission and the said Mr. Tibbits, and all schedules and appendages attached to or forming part of the said report.


PELLY POST OFFICE, Y.T.
Mr. BLACK (Yukon):: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, reports, petitions, correspondence or communications since January 1, 1924, between the government of Canada, the Postmaster General, any member of the government, deputy minister or any official of the government, and any person or persons, relating to the position of postmaster or postmistress at the post office of Pelly, in Yukon territory.


BRITISH COLUMBIA VEGETABLE GROWERS
[Stage Direction]
ALLEGED PREFERENCE TO ORIENTALS [DOT]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. S. F. TOLMIE (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I should Tike to draw the attention 	.
of the government to a statement appearing in the press which has received wide publicity, and which casts an unfair reflection on the white producers of agricultural products in British Columbia. This despatch appears in our local papers and was sent from Vancouver on February 25 by the Canadian press:
Inability of white farmers of British Columbia to supply vegetables of quality available for shipment to China for consumption of troops stationed there, was given by R. G. L. Clarke, Dominion fruit inspector, here to-day, as the reason for their purchase from Chinese growers of the province. Twenty-five tons of potatoes and 14 tons of onions were shipped to the British authorities at Shanghai from here three weeks ago on the liner Empress of Asia, while ninety tons of potatoes and fifty tons of onions will be forwarded on the Empress of Canada which sails for China to-morrow. All of this produce is said to have been grown by orientals.
Mr. Clarke, who stated that he had purchased the supplies on behalf of the British government, said he was aware of their origin, but had been unable to secure other products of fit quality and that all his decisions in the matter had been approved by his superiors in Ottawa.
Protests against the alleged discrimination against whites have been forwarded to both the federal and provincial governments in Ottawa and Victoria by several Vancouver dealers.
This, Mr. Speaker, is a very serious and unfair reflection on our white growers of agricultural products in British Columbia. From years of experience out there I have found that they are capable of growing vegetables not only as well as but better than the orientals. I would ask the minister if he has any light to throw on the matter.


Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, some four or five
weeks ago the High Commissioner's office in London entered into cable communication with my department with regard to certain supplies for the orient. Inasmuch as the liner the Empress of Asia was lying in Vancouver harbour at the time the order had to be filled immediately.
There were three outstanding considerations before us in filling that order: first, quality of goods, second price, and third, the despatch with which we could fill the order. If it was not filled in time, then of course the vessel would sail without the goods. I had a number of wires along the lines indicated by my hon. friend from Victoria (Mr. Tolmie); but inasmuch as the more important of the telegrams received were sent in code, I inferred that the High Commissioner's office deemed it advisable not to give any unnecessary publicity to the matter just at this time. Consequently I shall ask my hon. friend not to press me any further in

Rabies in Montreal
the matter. If he will call at my office or see me in the lobby I will give him sufficient information to serve his purpose, while not betraying the confidence reposed in me by the High Commissioner's office. The office in London did not ask me to make inquiries as to who grew the potatoes; they simply required the three considerations I have mentioned, namely, price, quality and despatch.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: Is it the intention of the
government, dn the case of repeated orders, to give the white grower the preference if possible?


William Richard Motherwell: If the price and
quality are right.


RABIES IN MONTREAL
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. L. G. BELL (St. Antoine):: I would
call the attention of the government to an item that appeared in the newspapers in Montreal on Saturday, to the effect that there would be an anti-rabies drive against all dogs found on the streets of that city. This is a very serious matter for all dog owners of Montreal inasmuch as they are unable to obtain the muzzles prescribed by the government officials. Furthermore, it is reported in the newspapers that the authorities have despatched inspectors and veterinaries, with the result that these dogs will be killed without the owners having any redresis. I would ask the minister in charge of this particular branch of government what the intention is in the matter, and to make some official statement in view of the fact that the public of Montreal have received no information except what appeared in the papers on Saturday.


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friend, I gather,
wants to know what we are going to do in regard to carrying out the muzzling order issued twelve months ago as a result of an outbreak of rabies in Montreal. The enforcement of this order is not easy in a city of such proportions. Dogs suffering from this affliction have been finding their way into other places and spreading the disease to such an extent that in some parts of the province of Quebec the situation is grave. Word has reached the foreign authorities and as a result the export of our foxes has suffered, one foreign country refusing to accept our live foxes. The time has come when we must enforce the regulation more strictly, especially as the provincial authorities of Quebec have drawn our attention to the fact that this has not been properly done so far. Instructions have been
given to the officers of my department to round up all unmuzzled or improperly muzzled dogs not on the leash, for the purpose of destroying them, of course in a humane way, under the auspices of the Humane Society. That order will be observed, I trust. It is the only way to eradicate the disease. . It took eight months to round up eight cases of rabies in the Ottawa district, and we have been at it twelve months in Montreal with the result that I have outlined; and unless we carry out the order more strictly, not only will the disease spread to other provinces, but it will affect human being3 as well. A hundred and forty cases of human rabies are being treated at the present time, and from the disease two deaths have so far resulted. It is therefore incumbent upon the department to carry out the order as rigidly as possible.


MONTREAL, OTTAWA AND GEORGIAN BAY CANAL COMPANY
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
George Halsey Perley: In connection with the Georgian Bay Canal bill which is to come up for consideration tomorrow evening, I would ask the government to let me have a copy, or place one on the table of the House to-morrow, of an official letter on the subject dated January, 17, 1925, from the Deputy Minister of Justice to the Deputy Minister of Public Works.


Mr. CAHAN:: As a point of order may I
observe that the bill in question was discussed on Friday evening, but was not disposed of. Does it take precedence of all other private bills until it is disposed of?


Ernest Lapointe: I will make the necessary inquiries
about the supposed letter and let my hon. friend know.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: For the information of the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan), I may say that the bill will keep its place on the order paper as though it had not been debated on Friday evening.


Mr. E. J. GARLAND (Bow River):: I
would ask the government to table also a report, which I understand is now in the hands of the Department of Public Works, made by the engineers some time in 1925, I believe, with reference to this project.


CALGARY LIVE STOCK INVESTIGATION
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Simon Fraser Tolmie: May
I ask the Minister of Agriculture when we may
684	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
expect the report with reference to the investigation. of the Calgary Live Stock Exchange and Calgary stockyards? I understand that certain amendments are to be made to the Live Stock Act and we ought to have this information before that subject is taken up. The minister may inform us at the same time whether all the live stock interests will be given an opportunity to be heard before the agricultural committee or elsewhere before the amending bill is dealt with in this House.


William Richard Motherwell: Just as rapidly as my staS can
copy out the various reports and documents the order will be filled. I asked my deputy this morning what the prospects were and he thought we should be able to comply with the request some day this week. I expect that the amendment to the Live Stock and Live Stock Products Act, referred to by my hon. friend will be submitted to the agricultural committee and of course, following the usual custom, any party interested will have an opportunity to be heard before the committee.


THE BUDGET
[Stage Direction]
Continuation of debate on the annual financial statement of the Minister of Finance.
The House resumed from Friday, February 25, 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 Mr. Coote.
Mr. A. MacG. YOUNG (Saskatoon): There is a matter of great importance to our province which I desire to bring to the attention of the House this afternoon; but before doing so I desire to make a few observations with reference to some of the speeches already delivered in this debate. I take this early opportunity of saying, as one member of the House, that I regretted very much indeed the speech delivered the other evening by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Brady) so far as it had reference to the late member for that constituency, Mr. Stork. I came to this House last year a new member, unacquainted with that gentleman, but during my stay of six months here I got to know him better and I always found him in every way honourable. Indeed, I think I may safely say that every member of the last parliament found Mr. Stork an honourable member of the House. It was unfortunate, I think, that the present member for Mr. Stork's riding, in the sermon he delivered some days ago in this chamber, should have seen fit to suggest that his predecessor had been dishonest in his representation of his constituency in parliament, and

that he had not presented the facts to the House. I for one wish to place myself on record as being quite resentful of these remarks. It ill becomes any member of this honourable chamber to cast such aspersions upon a gentleman who enjoyed the confidence of those whom he represented here. Mr. Stork is not here to speak for himself, and when his opponent has already put him down it does not come with good grace from him to speak as he has done. I think perhaps if we were a little more careful in some of our imputations it would be better for the most of us. Referring now to the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens), I was very much surprised to hear him suggest that the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Forke) changed his seat from one side of the House to the other and entered the government apparently for a consideration of $14,000. Again I place myself on record as being most resentful of that sort of imputation in this House. I do not believe any man belonging to any group of this House would change his allegiance for any monetary consideration of that kind; we do ourselves a great injustice by making statements of that character in this chamber. Too often we hear from the public platform that men in public life are crooked, and perhaps we cannot blame the public so much if we in this chamber suggest that hon. members of the various groups are not perfectly honourable. I believe the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Brady) is perfectly sincere in his views, and I also think I am quite safe in saying that the gentleman who preceded him as member for that constituency was quite as sincere. Because men hold opposite views is no reason for suggesting that their views are dishonest.
For a few moments now I would like to refer to the remarks of the hon. member for Toronto West Centre (Mr. Hocken), who spoke of a matter which I consider to be of very great importance, dealing with the class of literature coming to Canada from the United States. Again I wish to place myself on record as being in sympathy with a portion of his remarks; I am quite prepared to say with him that I wish to see literature of an immoral character kept out of Canada, whether it comes from the United States or from any other country, but there was one peculiar thing in the remarks of the hon. gentleman. He seemed to mix up immorality in literature with protection, all in the same breath as though he, being a man with a very systematic mind, wished to group together those things which should go together. He held up a magazine which he had described as being obscene and then said in effect, "It

The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
comes in free." AVhat was the idea; did he want it to be just a little higher price, a little more expensive? Does he want a higher tariff, so that only the rich can afford to read that obscene literature? In my humble opinion he has taken tlhe wrong ground altogether; he should have said such literature should be prevented from coming into Canada if it is obscene and immoral. I was also very much interested in his argument with respect to the difficulty of printing things in Toronto. He pointed out how difficult if was to do that work there, and took us across to Buffalo to show us how much money could be saved, but his argument at the same time was for protection on those works published in Canada. In developing his argument he said in effect that the price of paper in Toronto was the price of paper in Buffalo plus the duty and plus the freight, and for a few moments he made as fine a speech on free trade as I have ever heard. But he ended in this way, "I do not object to the manufacturer having that protection, but I also ask that the publishing houses should have additional protection." First of all he wants to give protection to the machines and paper and then to the men printing the paper; he wants the whole thing pyramided. And what is he to do with it? We who are the unfortunate consumers have to pay the whole bill; that is one of the difficulties in the argument of the hon. gentleman. If he had confined himself to the question of preventing that class of literature from coming into Canada I think he would have had the sympathy of every member of this House, but when he includes that with higher protection we must disagree.
I would like to go one step further; as a member of this House and a citizen of Canada I am sorry to see so many things on the front pages of our newspapers coming from the United States. There are many little items whidh seem to amuse the people of the United States very much, such as the troubles of Mrs. Aimee Semple McPherson. I assure the House that such things are not of interest to me, but day after day we take up the paper and find pictures of one or two half-wits together with the stories of the crimes they have committed. If the hon. member for Toronto West Centre would pay attention to the prohibition of this class of literature I would be very pleased to give him my support;
For a few moments now I wish to discuss the amendment moved by the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote), and first I would like to look at the amendment itself. The words are:
Whilst recognizing the advisability of certain minor changes proposed, this House regrets that
the budget as presented by the honourable Minister of Finance contains no effective provision for the reduction in the high cost of living, in so far as such is due to the protective tariff:
That the budget shows a further departure from the principle of direct and visible taxation based on the ability to pay.
And further that no systematic effort is being made to reduce our national debt, the interest on which absorbs so large a proportion of the revenues of the Dominion.
I particularly wisih to refer for the moment to the last line of the first paragraph, ". . . in so far as such is due to the protective tariff."
I wish to compliment the draftsman of that resolution in the selection of those particular words, which have a very definite purpose and peilhaps some definite meaning, with Which I will deal a little later. Then appear the words, "That the budget shows a further departure from the principle of direct and visible taxation based on the ability to pay." In other words, the suggestion is apparently made that there was regret because of the reduction in the income tax effected by the budget last year, and that now things are getting much worse and we are to have a further reduction. I want to tell the House that I found nothing which gave the common, ordinary people, for whom I stand and whom I represent in this House, greater satisfaction than the fact that they were relieved of that responsibility last year, and until recently I had understood that all hon. members in that particular corner of the House were in agreement with what was then done. I am rather surprised to see how the Robb budget of last year has been handled by certain hon. members in that comer of the House, because last year everyone was apparently satisfied. There are hon. members in this House to-day who were very glad to crawl or creep back to the House tied to the apron strings of that budget; last year they tried to ^hout from the housetops that they were supporters of that budget, and that it was an excellent budget. This year we have another such budget, but this year we have the amendment I have already read.
I would call your attention now to an amendment brought up in this House last year by the present Prime Minister, which was as follows:
That the Speaker do not now leave the chair but that it be resolved that in the opinion of this House the fiscal policy of the government, as enunciated by the present Prime Minister when leader of His Majesty's opposition, would prove detrimental to the country's continued prosperity and prejudicial to national unity.
686	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
We had a vote on that amendment last year, and if we look at the result, in the "nay" column we find such names as Anderson, (Toronto High Park); Chaplin (Kent); Church, Coote, Garland (Bow River) Ryck-man, and others. I take it that every hon. member who voted on that resolution was just as honest about the matter as I was. The attitude of those who voted against this resolution was that the fiscal policy of the government, as enunciated by the then Prime Minister when leader of His Majesty's opposition, would not prove detrimental to the country's continued prosperity, would not prove prejudicial to the national unity. At page 5201 of Hansard of last year, I find the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) reported as saying:
On the point of order, by no stretch of the imagination can the hon. member who has just resumed his seat claim that the motion which has just been made deals with the fiscal policy of the country. It cannot deal with the fiscal policy of the country when moved as a political motion.
Edward Joseph Garland: Hear, hear.


Mr. A OUNG (Saskatoon):: The hon. gentleman says "hear, hear". We are going to go here and here and there and there before we are through. Now it is very interesting indeed to read this particular resolution and the votes recorded on it and then to find that it was a political resolution. Of course it was a political resolution. What are we doing in this House? We are doing things political. That is why we are here. After all is said and done what is politics? It is simply transacting the business of the country, and I accept that definition of the resolution.
IS ow I want to get back for a very few moments to the amendment to the resolution which we are discussing this afternoon, and I want to find out what it means. Before doing so I wish to read one more quotation from a speech by the hon. member for Bow River last year. The hon. gentleman is reported at page 5207 of Hansard for 1926 as follows:
That being the case, I say that we would be ill-advised indeed to fall into any trap that maj be set tor us by hon. gentlemen to my right iust as we would have been ill-advised to fall intc the trap set by the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Davis), or by any other hon. member who moves a political motion. So far as I personally am concerned, I will weigh every question on its merits, and if I detect in it a single trade of political motive, distinct altogether from the interests of the country, I shall have no hesitation in voting against it.

Now, we are-going to apply that principle to the present day and generation, and I want to ask the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote), if he is in his seat, if he expects his amendment to carry? I observe that the hon. gentleman is not in his seat, therefore I ask the hon. member for Bow River if he expects the amendment to carry?


Edward Joseph Garland: Most certainly.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: That is very
well. Now if the amendment carries what does it mean? It means that this government must necessarily resign, and the opposition will be called upon to form a government. That is what it means. It means that the hon. member for Bow River, if I understand him aright, would hike back to the province of Alberta and there hide himself at the very bottom of the deepest pit. There is no man here who does not know that this amendment is moved for one reason and one reason only. I myself have listened most carefully to speeches made in the west on the political platform, of the general policy of the members of the Progressive party and I have had very little disagreement with it. As a matter of fact we have seen so much eye to eye with regard to tariff policy that I never wasted my time discussing the matter. I am a low tariff man unquestionably and always have been.


An hon. MEMBER:: Will you vote for
the amendment?	[DOT]


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I will tell my
hon. friend about that in a moment. Well, now, what is the purpose of this amendment? We have heard it said already this session: it does seem that the old traditional Liberal party is stagnant. The Conservative party have got some working agreement, some plan of cooperation with the Liberals, and they and the Liberals are working together. We ' are the only part-y that are standing true to our principles.


Edward Joseph Garland: Hear, hear.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: Yes, "hear,
hear." Has that ever been said before? Was that ever said on the hustings in Saskatchewan, was it ever said on the hustings in Alberta, was it ever said on the hustings in Manitoba, that "We are a party separate and distinct from the Liberal party or the Conservative party. They are the parties that vote more frequently together than any other parties, and in order to show such cooperation we must have this kind of amendment." That
FEBRUARY 28, 1927	6S7
The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
is the sole purpose of this amendment. That is the reason my hon. friends have moved it so that they may get out on the hustings in western Canada and say that the Tories and Liberals are voting together more frequently than any other parties. We might as well tear off the veil of hypocrisy so that my hon. friends may not make this plea on the hustings in western Canada hereafter. Personally I am so entirely in agreement with the low tariff policy that I do not argue the question in western Canada at all. But I am not in favour of any man proclaiming such propaganda as I have described, from the housetops, and trying to make people be-!ie*ve that because members of different parties happen to vote with each other sometimes they are necessarily acting in cooperation with each other.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: Is that all my hon.
friend and his colleagues told their people in Saskatchewan with regard to the actions of two or three members on this side of the House last session?


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I had intended
to spare! the hon. gentleman but now that he has invited attack, let me tell him what I did say. There were certain times last year when certain hon. gentlemen-some of whom are! absent to-day but most of whom are present-were voting-and I would say to the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Campbell) that, if one happened to notice, on the two occasions when the vote really meant the killing of the Liberal government there was no mistaking where he stood on those votes. It was perfectly safe for those hon. gentlemen to vote in the matter of the Robb budget, but there was no doubt at all as to where they stood when the votes meant the killing of the Liberal government.
I should like to say a word or two upon the subject of cooperation. I was very much surprised indeed to hear what my hon. friend from Bow River, always very genial and always very eloquent, said. He indulged in some very peculiar insinuations. In the first place hei was awfully worried about this or that member from Saskatchewan, and how they were going to act with respect to this amendment. He was wondering what we were going to do with this awful budget, a "static" budget, I think he called it, brought in by the Minister of Finance. I am going to try and relieve the mind of my hon. friend a little bit on that question. In the first place personally I am never worried about identifying myself with some particular resolution. The people back home whom I have the honour to represent know how I am going
to vote. I have spent twenty years of my life in that district, and I have always taken an honest, independent stand on public questions. What is true of myself is true of every other member from Saskatchewan. WThen we have something to say we are not afraid to say it.
Last year I said very frankly that I was not very elnthusiastic over the tariff board. I am not now enthusiastic over the tariff board.
I am going to tell you why. Please remember that anything I may say has no reference to the personnel of that board. The tariff board was not asked for by myself; it was asked for, I believe, by the Canadian Council of Agriculture, it was asked for by other bodies; and theoretically it see'ms to be an institution which would be of good service to all concerned. However, the tariff board was * created, and I for one say that I am going to be sufficiently fair to this or any other board to give it every possible chance to function. We must be reasonable and fair, and we must do all in our power to use that instrument for the greatest good of the greatest number of the people of this country. 1 wish, however, to be on record as saying that if at any time that board is to be used as an instrument or agent to hide! behind in order to increase the tariff, I would say: Get thee gone and give way to honest men. We can never give the functions of this House over to that tariff board or to any other tariff board that may be created. I want to be perfectly frank in that regard.
But what is the situation? Am I worried about the present budget? I want right now to compliment the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) on the budget which he has introduced.
I think he has brought in a splendid budget. The tariff board was created last year; it started up its machinery, and it is gathering many facts. When anything is in its initial stages you must give it time to do its work thoroughly. Hon. members who were here last year know that last year's session was perhaps the most strenuous that this House ever experienced. What followed? We had an election on the 14th September and most of us were not idle from the time we left here in July until after the 14th September. In addition to that the ministers of the crown had to go back to their constituencies for reelection. Later on there was held in the old country an Imperial conference which was attended by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), two of the ablest men this country has produced. After their return from the conference the House opened before the end of the year and I am going to ask:	Just
688	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
what was the situation? Let me call to the defence of what I am about to say the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote). Last year he said in this House: I am tired and I want to go to bed, or some words like that. He said that it was beyond his physical endurance to remain here any longer. Nevertheless here is the hon. gentleman who is now moving this amendment, worrying about the fact that we are not going ahead a little faster in reducing the tariff.
What about the poor ministers of the crown? We have to work ten to sixteen hours a day. They are working about twenty-six-two hours overtime. They are working night and day. They were running the election; they were going to the Imperial conference; they are responsible for the whale government of this * country, and yet after all the strenuous work we had last year up to the very end of the year, my hon. friend expects that we should be prepared with a large measure of tariff reductions. If we are going to give this tariff board a chance to function, we must give it ample time to gather all the facts. Surely for this year we can be sufficiently generous to the Minister of Finance if he wants a little rest and has not had time-


Mr. EVANS:: Will the hon. gentleman
state to the House exactly what the Canadian Council of Agriculture asked for in the way of a tariff advisory board or anything of that kind, and what duties and powers they would confer on that board other than what it 'has now?


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I am very sorry I have not all the details my hon. friend asks for. I did not think for one moment the Canadian Council of Agriculture was asking for a tariff board that would increase the tariff.
I understood the reverse.
Mr. EVAN1S:	The hon. gentleman has
created a wrong impression regarding the Canadian Council of Agriculture.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I do not think so. I do not wish it to be inferred that I understood the Canadian Council of Agriculture were asking for a tariff board! in order that the tariff might be increased. They were not asking for it for that purpose. Now that the tariff board has been created, it should be given an opportunity to make good.


Mr. BIRD:: Is the hon. gentleman sure
that the Canadian Council of Agriculture ever made that request?


Alexander MacGillivray Young: That has been stated over and over again in this House and I take it that such is the case. After all the. strenuous time we had last year, this amend-

ment criticises the Minister of Finance for not bringing in further reductions in the tariff. We must foe honest, fair and reasonable with the board and we must give it a proper chance to function. If it can demonstrate that it is really acting in the interest of the masses of the people of this country, I for one am prepared to be behind it.


Leslie Gordon Bell: When the hon.
member stated that we must be fair, honest and reasonable in regard to the tariff board, did I understand him to say that he was in favour of the tariff board as long as it did not increase the tariff?


Alexander MacGillivray Young: So long as the
tariff board is a fact-finding body, confining its work to fact-finding, and it is not persuaded and swayed by philosophers bringing in opinions of those who claim they know. That is one of the difficulties and why I am watching it carefully. Amongst the manufacturers each branch has an expert whose duty it is to find out in just what way they can get a little more protection. I ask: What representation on the tariff board has the great mass of unorganized opinion?


An hon. MEMBER:: Nobody.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: What have my hon. friends in that corner done? The hon. member for Maple Creek (Mr. Spence) has assumed almost the whole responsibility on his shoulders up to the present time. He is the only man of all of us who has been really carrying the burden of endeavouring to represent the great mass of unorganized opinion. That is where my fear arises. These experts in all branches of manufacture are present. What for? With the idea of lowering tariffs? Not very much, except in a few cases where this is happening: Some of the manufacturers find that the things they have to buy are protected, and they want the protection removed from these things. It is the most selfish organization I know of.
I wish to say a few words to-day about grain rates which come under the jurisdiction of the Board of Railway Commissioners, and I desire to give a review of the situation as we find it operating in western Canada. In 1925 the parliament of Canada passed this statute which was assented to on 27th June of that year:
(5) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 3, the powers given to the board

That is the Board of Railway Commissioners.
-under this act to fix, determine and enforce just and reasonable rates, and to change and

The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
alter rates as changing conditions or cost of transportation may from time to time require, shall not be limited or in any manner affected by the provisions of any act of the parliament of Canada, or by any agreement made or entered into pursuant thereto, whether general in application or special and relating only to any specific railway or railways, and the board shall not excuse any charge of unjust discrimination, whether practised against shippers, consignees, or localities, or of undue or unreasonable preference, on the ground that such discrimination or preference is justified or required by any agreement made or entered into by the company: Provided that, notwithstanding anything in this subsection contained, rates on grain and flour shall, on and from the date of this act, be governed by the provisions of the agreement made pursuant to chapter five of the statutes of Canada, 1897, but such rates shall apply to all such traffic moving from all points on all lines of railway west of Fort William to Fort William or Port Arthur over all lines now or hereafter constructed by any company subject to the jurisdiction of parliament.
(6) The board shall not excuse any charge of unjust discrimination, whether practised against shippers, consignees, or localities or of undue or unreasonable preference, respecting rates on grain and flour, governed by the provisions of chapter five of the statutes of Canada, 1897, and by the 'agreement made or entered into pursuant thereto, within the territory in the immediately preceding subsection referred to, on the ground that such discrimination or preference is justified or required by the said act or by the agreement made or entered into pursuant thereto.
That is an act of parliament that was assented to on June 27th, 1925. On the 5th day of June, 1925, an order in council was passed, No. 886, which with the permission of the House I shall put on Hansard:
[P.C. 886]
Certified copy of a report of the committee of the Privy Council approved by His Excellency the Governor General on the 5th June, 1925.
The committee of the Privy Council have had under consideration the final disposition of the petition to the Governor in Council of the governments of the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba by way of appeal from a general order No. 408 of the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada (hereinafter referred to as the "board"), dated the 14th day of October, 1924, under which certain tariffs of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and Canadian National Railways were disallowed and required to be withdrawn from operation.
In and by the said petition the petitioners seek to have the above-mentioned general order of the board rescinded and further to have the discrimination which would be created by the reinstatement of the tariffs disallowed by the board removed by lowering other rates to the level of the rates in effect on Crowsnest commodities, so-called, prior to the effective date of the said order.
Upon the hearing it appeared that the petitioners had appealed to the Supreme Court
of Canada to have determined certain questions of law and jurisdiction of the board arising in connection with the board's general order above-mentioned. The committee, being of the opinion that, whatever the power of council might be in the premises, it Was essential that it should be advised as to the exact situation in reference to these questions of law and jurisdiction before finally disposing of this matter, and that the operation of the said general order of the board should be postponed pending the outcome of the said appeal to the Supreme Court, recommended m part that the said general order of the board be varied so as to provide that the tariffs therein referred to should again become oper-ativc and remain in effect until further order of the board following the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the said appeal to it. Effect was given to this recommendation by the issue of order in council (P.C. 2220) dated the 25th December, 1924.
It appears that the Supreme Court of Canada, after argument in which were heard not only counsel for the present petitioners and the railway companies interested but also counsel for the province of British Columbia, the maritime provinces, the cities of Edmonton. Alberta, and Saskatoon. Saskatchewan and Brantford, Ontario, and after reserving judgment, directed that the questions submitted to it be answered as follows: -
Question 1.-Whether, as a matter of law, the board is empowered, under the jurisdiction conferred upon it by the Railway Act, or otherwise, to authorize railway rates upon the railway of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company in excess of the maximum rates referred to in the Crowsnest Pass Act, being chapter 5, 60-61 Victoria, statutes of Canada, and in the agreement therein referred to, upon the commodities therein mentioned.
Answer.-No.
Question 2.-If the court shall be of the opinion that the Crowsnest Pass Act or agreement is binding upon the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada, then, according to the construction of the Crowsnest Pass Act, section 1, clause (d), and the agreement made thereunder;
(a)	1. Are the rates therein provided applicable to traffic westbound from Fort William and from all points east of Fort William now on the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's railway?
Answer.-No.
(a)	2. Are such rates confined to westbound traffic originating at Fort William and at such points east of Fort William as were, at the date of the passing of the act and (or) the making of the agreement, on the company's line of railway?
Answer.-Y es.
(b)	Are such rates applicable to traffic originating at points east of Fort William which were, at the date of the passing of the act and (or) the making of the agreement, on any line of railway owned or leased by or operated on account of the Canadian Pacific Railway?
Answer.-In order that the traffic provided for by clause (d) should fall under that clause it must originate at Fort William or some point east thereof which at the date of the agreement was "on the company's railway".
(c)	Are the rates therein provided applicable to traffic destined to points west of Fort William which are now on the Canadian

690	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
Pacific Railway Company's railway, or on any line of railway owned or leased by or operated on account of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company?
Answer.-In order that the rates prescribed in clause (d) should apply the destination of traffic otherwise within that clause must be a point which was. at the date of the agreement, "on the company's main line or on (some) line of railway throughout Canada owned or leased by or operated on account of the company".
(d)	Are such rates confined to traffic destined to points west of Fort William which were, at the date of the passing of the act or the making of the agreement, on the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's railway, or on any line of railway owned or leased by or operated on account of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company?
Answer.-Yes.
Question 3.-Whether, as a matter of law, the board is empowered, under the jurisdiction conferred upon it by the Railway Act, or otherwise, to authorize rates upon the Canadian Pacific Railway on grain and flour from all points on the main line, branches or connections of the company west of Fort William, to Fort William and Port Arthur, and all points east beyond the maximum rates specified in the Crowsnest Pass Act and agreement, and referred to, in chapter 41, statutes of Canada (1922).
Answer.-No.
Upon the hearing before Your Excellency in Council it appeared that the re-establishment of the rates provided for in the Crowsnest pass agreement upon the limited list of commodities and between the points specified therein had brought about considerable variations in the rates applicable thereto prior to the 7th July, 1924, and it was urged on behalf of a large section of the Dominion, and in particular by counsel for the cities of Edmonton, Alberta, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and the maritime provinces, as well as representatives of responsible trade organizations in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec that the establishment of these rates would disrupt the rate structure built up under the control of the board since its creation, with consequent serious injury to trade relationships throughout the Dominion.
It was also urged that sources of supply had changed since the agreement was made and that certain commodities which were formerly shipped in large quantities from eastern Canada to the prairie provinces are now largely supplied either by local industries or from British Columbia, which latter province, it was alleged, would be cut off from a large part of its natural market by the permanent restoration of the Crowsnest rates.
It was further urged that the continuance of the Crowsnest rates (so-called) would compel the Canadian National Railways to make similar reductions from all competitive points, and thus involve a serious loss in revenue to them which would have to be made up from other government sources and further postpone the time when it would be possible to make any general rate readjustment or to solve satisfactorily the problem of the National Railways.
The committee observe that the agreement in question was made at a time when the Canadian Pacific Railway Company was the only company having a through line of railway extending through the prairie provinces and British Columbia, and before the creation of the board for the control of railway rates

under the provisions of the Railway Act of 1903 and subsequent acts; and further, that the underlying purpose of the rate control inaugurated by the Railway Act of 1903 was to do away as far as possible with all unjust discriminations and undue preferences, and to secure a fair and reasonable rate structure, which, under substantially similar circumstances and conditions would be equal in its application to all persons and localities.
The committee are of the opinion that the policy of equalization of freight rates should be recognized to the fullest possible extent as being the only means of dealing equitably with all parts of Canada, and as being the method best calculated to facilitate the interchange of commodities between the various portions of the Dominion, as well as the encouragement of industry and agriculture and the development of export trade.
The committee are further of the opinion that to give effect to this policy, and considering the submissions made by counsel and important trade organizations representing different provinces and localities in the Dominion as to the disadvantages that would be suffered by such provinces and localities by any partial or incomplete consideration of the freight rate structure, a thorough and complete investigation of the whole subject of railway freight rates in the Dominion should be carried out by the Board of Railway Commissioners, the body constituted by parliament with full powers under statute to fix and control railway rates.
The committee are further of the opinion that as the production and export of grain and flour forms one of the chief assets of the Dominion, and in order to encourage the further development of the great grain growing provinces of the west, on which development the future of Canada in large measure depends, it is desirable that the maximum cost of the transportation of these products should be determined and known, and therefore are of opinion that the maximum established for rates on grain and flour, as at present in force under the Crowsnest pass agreement, should not be exceeded.
The committee are further of the opinion that, before such investigation is undertaken it is essential to ensure that the provisions of the Railway Act in reference to tariffs and tolls, and the jurisdiction of the board thereunder. be unfettered by any limitations other than the provisions as to grain and flour hereinbefore mentioned.
The committee therefore advise that the board be directed to make a thorough investigation of the rate structures of railways and railway companies subject to the jurisdiction of parliament, with a view to the establishment of a fair and reasonable rate structure, which will, under substantially similar circumstances and conditions, be equal in its application to all persons and localities, so as to permit of the freest possible interchange of commodities between the various provinces and territories of the Dominion and the expansion of its trade, both foreign and domestic, having due regard to the needs of its agricultural and other basic industries, and in particular to:
(a)	The claim asserted on behalf of the maritime provinces that they are entitled to the restoration of the rate basis which they enjoyed prior to 1919;
(b)	The encouragement of the movement of traffic through Canadian ports;

The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
(c)	The increased traffic westward and eastward through Pacific coast ports owing to the expansion of trade with the Orient and to the transportation of products through the Panama canal.
The committee further advise that legislation be introduced at the present session of parliament, making it clear that tile provisions of the Railway Act of 1919 in respect of tariffs and tolls shall, save in the particular above mentioned, be operative notwithstanding any special acts or agreements and removing ail doubts to to the validity of tariffs heretofore filed.
The committee submit the same for Your Excellency's approval.
E. J. Lemaire,
Clerk of the Privy Council.
That was an order in council directing an inquiry into the general freight rate system throughout Canada, When I came to this House last year as a member, I said something about .this extension of the Crowsnest pass agreement. I had interviewed some of the numbers of the Board of Railway Commissioners, and before coming here, as a member of the executive of the Saskatoon Board of Trade, I along with other members of the board had sent out many inquiries to all the boards of trade in the province, and later we made representations to the Board of Railway Commissioners with regard to what we believed was a discrimination in the rates as between the northern part of the three prairie provinces and the southern part; in other words, we believed that the board had not made a proper application of the statute which I have just read. On December 12th, 1925, I wrote a letter to the chairman of the Board of Railway Commissioners, and on December 22nd, 1925, had a reply from Commissioner Vien, which reads as follows:
In the absence of the chief commissioner, Mr. Burpee his secretary, has handed to me for reply your letter dated December 12th in reference to Crowsnest pass rates. I find that you have put to the chief commissioner the following questions:

1.	Does the Crowsnest pass agreement, as enlarged, order that railway rates on grain and flour, eastbound, shall be the same at all railway points equidistant from Fort William?
2.	Have schedules been filed with the commission by the railway companies?
3.	Do they show that the rates are equal?
4.	If this is proven to the commission, will the board order the railway companies to refund to shippers, all overcharges?
In answer to question No. 1, it will be remembered that Crowsnest pass agreement, as regards grain and flour eastbount, provided only that there would be a reduction in C.P.R.'s then existing rates and tolls of .03 per 100 lbs., and that no higher rates than such reduced rates would be charged after the dates mentioned in the agreement.
It will be readily seen therefore, that it does not necessarily follow that railway rates on
32649-44J
grain and flour eastbound shall be the same at all railway points equidistant from Fort William.
You speak of the agreement as enlarged. Please note that the only enlargements are those contained in 15-16 Geo. Y, c. 52, s. 3, ss. 5-6.
By subsection 5 it was provided that the rates of the agreement would thenceforth apply to traffic moving from all points on all lines of railways west of Fort William or Port Arthur, over all lines then or thenceforth constructed by any company subject to the jurisdiction of parliament.
The rates were not altered, but they were made to apply over a wider field.
Subsection 6 provides that a charge of unjust discrimination shall not be excused by the board, even as regards the Crowsnest rates, on the ground that such discrimination is justified or required by the act or the agreement.
I will read that again:
Subsection 6 provides that a charge of unjust discrimination shall not be excused by the board, even as regards the Crowsnest rates, on the ground that such discrimination is justified or required by the act or the agreement.
If the board were not at the time, it became by this subsection empowered to compel the railways to cease unjustly to discriminate against shippers, consignees or localities, if any such unjust discrimination were satisfactorily established before the board.
In answer to question No. 2, I may state that the schedules have been filed with the commission by the railway companies, on the 7th of December instant. In answer to question No. 3 I may state that these schedules do not show the rates are equal-
Even at that date there was mo question in the minds of the board. They say that the schedules do not show that the rates are equal. The letter goes on:
-at all railway points equidistant from Fort William. They show the contrary, and as you are aware, the board issued its general order No. 420 of July IS, 1925, directing the railway companies to file such tariffs as were necessary to implement tile provisions of s. 325 of the Railway Act, 1919, as amended by 15-16 Geo. Y, c. 52. The railway companies are on record as stating that their tariffs are in compliance with the legislation.
Subsequently, there were complaints that the rates are not in all cases the same from stations equidistant from Fort William.
This matter was to have been spoken to at sittings of the board at Ottawa, September 29th, 1925, but, for the reasons mentioned at pages 1983 et s. of vol. 444 of the record, it was agreed not to go on with the complaint, pending the production by the railway companies of the tariffs in effect prior to and at the time of the coming into force of the Crowsnest agreement.
This information has now been received, and is being furnished to counsel for the provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. It is understood that there will be a hearing to receive the submissions of all parties interested, after which the board will consider the same and reach a decision.
692	COMMONS *
The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
As to question No. 4, it is not quite clear in my mind whether the commission has jurisdiction to order the railway companies to refund to shippers overcharges; this question can be determined only upon hearing of all interested parties on this matter.
I hope that this covers specifically what you had in your mind in writing to the chief commissioner.
The next thing that happened was that the province of Saskatchewan and t'he city of Saskatoon had legal representatives appointed in order to press the claims of that portion of the country. I may say here that Saskatoon is in the centre of the northern portion of Saskatchewan which is affected by these rates, and as such we felt that in so far as we in the city could do anything to help in this situation, the duty devolved upon us to do it. The city believes that its .interests are so inextricably interwoven with the interests of the country districts that we are simply one and the same thing; we cannot take any other viewpoint. So we had counsel appointed to represent our interests before this board. They appeared before the board and presented their whole case.
On August 25, 1926, I was in Ottawa, and again I visited the Board of Railway Commissioners, and made representations on behalf of that section of the country, begging and praying that the time would not be let slip by and another crop be moved without getting the 'benefit of the reduced rates to which we felt we were entitled in that part of the country. On September 27, 1926, 1 sent the following wire to the secretary of the Board of Railway Commissioners:
Please advise when we may expect decision re inequitable rates under the Crowsnest pass agreement as extended. One crop has been moved without the farmers of northern Saskatchewan getting benefit under said agreement. Is the railway commission going to permit another crop to be moved before final action is taken?
On October 12th, 1926, I received the following letter from the secretary of the Board of Railway Commissioners:
I am directed by the board to confirm the deputy chief commissioner's telegram to you of the 7th instant, which read as follows:
"Your telegram to secretary of board, dated September twenty-seventh brought to my attention to-day. Board unable to state definitely when final action can be expected for various reasons set out in letter that follows."
Thomas Vies.
I am also directed by the board to add the following:
That in your telegram you state-"one crop has been moved without the farmers of northern Saskatchewan getting the benefit under said agreement. (Crowsnest pass agreement.)

That if you are under the impression that last year's crop moved under the present rate through inaction on th.e part of the board, this impression is mistaken and somewhat erroneous.
That the Railway Act was amended by parliament at the session of 1925, and the amendments were assented to on the 27th of June, 1925, extending the application of the Crowsnest pass agreement to grain and flour moving from all points on all lines of railways west of Fort William to Fort William or Port Arthur; over all lines now or hereafter constructed by any company subject to the jurisdiction of parliament.
That on the 8th of July, the board issued its general order No. 420, directing that "the railway companies, subject to the jurisdiction of parliament, file such tariffs, effective within fifteen days from the date of this order, as may be necessary to implement the provisions of the said section of the Railway Act, 1919, as amended."
That rates were thereupon put in by the railway companies which they claim, are in compliance with the order of the board, and the provisions of the amendment of 1925.
That such rates are claimed by interested parties, to be an evasion of the legislation in question and, it is contended that they do not carry out the provisions of the amendment or the order of the board.
That the complaints of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were received by the board in the form of the two following applications:
" Application of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan that rates on grain and flour to Pacific coast ports within Canada for export as published in C.P.R. tariff C.R.C. No. W. 2788 and C.N.R. tariff C.R.C. No. W. 432, be corrected to basis of equalization proportionate to distance as such grain and flour would carry if moving eastward for export as provided for in order No. 36769, dated 2nd September, 1925, and,
" Application of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan that the Board set a mileage scale of what rates on grain and flour to Pacific ports within Canada for export should be based on a reduction of three cents per hundred pounds from C.P.R. main line rates as same existed immediately prior to enactment of 6061 Victoria, ch. 5, being an act to authorize a subsidy for a railway through the Crowsnest pass and that such rates shall apply to' all such traffic moving from all points to all lines west of Fort William either to Fort William or Port Arthur or to Pacific coast ports within Canada over all lines constructed by any company subject to the jurisdiction of the board."
(Files Nos. 32812.1 and 30686.2).
That these two applications were set down for hearing at Ottawa on the 29th of September, 1925, and were listed on the docket under letters N & O.
That for the reasons mentioned at pages 1983 and following of volume 444 of the record, at the request of counsel appearing on behalf of the western provinces, it was agreed that these applications would not then be proceeded with, but that they would be spoken to at a later date.
That at the request of the same parties, these applications were again set down for hearing at Ottawa on February 16, 1926, and they were then heard by the full board.

The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
That even if a decision had then been rendered, most of the 1925 crop had already been moved, and therefore up to that time, if any delay took place, it was at the request of the western provinces.
That your telegram then continues-"Is the railway commission to permit another crop to be moved before final action is taken."
That on the 23rd February, 1926, the board rendered an oral judgment in open court.
That three commissioners held that those applications should be dealt with independently of the general rate investigation, that the applicants had made a prima facie case, and that, under section 319 of the Railway Act, on the railways was the burden of proving that the lower tolls charged on C.P.R. main line did not amount to unjust discrimination against shippers located on C.P.R. northern branches and C.N.R. lines.
That the other commissioners held, on the contrary, that those two applications should not be disposed of independently, but should be dealt with as part of the general rate investigation, and should be spoken to in the course of the then impending western trip of the board.
Vide record, vol. 453, pp. 2132 and following.
That the board being evenly divided, no order could be issued upon these two applications, independently of the general rate investigations,
That after several weeks being taken up in April and May by the Bell Telephone enquiry, and-
I wish to say u few words about that in a moment.
-other matters, the board undertook its western trip, and spent the major part of June and the whole of July in western Canada.
That at the various sittings held, counsel appearing on behalf of several western interests and of the western provinces, filed with the board a mass of documentary evidence, and undertook to give copies of same to counsel appearing on behalf of the railways.
That when the question arose of fixing a date for the final hearing in the general rate ' investigation, counsel appearing on behalf of the railways complained that they had not received as yet (and as late as the 10th instant!, several of the exhibits above mentioned, and that they could not complete their preparation before such exhibits were furnished to them.
That no date can be fixed for the final hearing until such time as such exhibits are received by the railways, and steps are being taken to urge counsel representing western provinces to expedite this matter.
That the board is presently engaged with the investigation of the Bell Telephone Company which is likely to last for another period of four or five weeks.
That a date will be fixed at the earliest possible moment, for the final hearing, and all matters involved, including the two applications above mentioned, will then be dealt with in due course.
Yours truly,
A. D. Cartwright,
Secretary, B.R.C.
Dr. A. M. Young, M.P.,
Saskatoon, Sask.
I replied to the secretary of the board, thanking him for his letters and said-


Mr. GUTHRIE:: Before my hon. friend
reads that letter, might I ask him a question for my information? Is the discriminatory rate as against northern Alberta and northern Saskatchewan in force to-day?


Alexander MacGillivray Young: It is still in
force. I will come to that later. The letter which I wrote to the secretary of the railway board was as follows:
I thank you for your letter of 12th inst., I wish to protest in the strongest manner possible against the unwarranted and unnecessary delay in having the orders issued with respect to rates on grain and flour under the Crowsnest pass agreement as enlarged. I have read your letter very carefully and regret to say that it does not contain a reasonable excuse.
The Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada was brought into being for the purpose of having such matters as this dealt with expeditiously. It is well known that the board had the necessary power to hasten this decision had it so desired. The people of this part of the country cannot be expected to suffer this injustice to continue without offering a most vigorous protest.
I wish to urge that this matter be given immediate attention and that judgment be delivered at the earliest possible moment.
On the same date I wrote to the Hon.
J.	G. Gardiner, Premier of Saskatchewan. Let me say here that the government of Saskatchewan has been doing everything possible, and I may add that the premiers of Alberta and Manitoba too have been urging on the railway commissioners that this matter be dealt with and finally decided. This is my letter to Mr. Gardiner:
I have been in correspondence with the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada with respect to' the delay in issuing judgment in connection with railway rates on grain and flour under the Crowsnest pass agreement as enlarged. The following paragraphs appear in their reply:
"That at the various sittings held, counsel appearing on behalf of several western interests and of the western provinces, filed with the board a mass of documentary evidence, and undertook to give copies of same to counsel appearing on behalf of the railways.
"That when the question arose of fixing a date for the final hearing in the general rate investigation, counsel appearing on behalf of the railways complained that they had not received as yet (and as late as the 10th instant) several of the exhibits above mentioned and that they could not complete their preparation before such exhibits were furnished to them.
"That no date can be fixed for the final hearing until such time as such exhibits are received by the railways, and steps are being taken to urge counsel representing the western provinces to expedite this matter."
It is scarcely understandable that counsel for the prairie provinces should delay one day in furnishing whatever exhibits were necessary. 1 would be glad if you would give this matter
694	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
your immediate attention and have instructions issued to counsel for this province that the matter be attended to.
So far as I can see it, there is not the slightest justification for the delay which has occurred with respect to this whole matter. Farmers in northern Saskatchewan are being penalized two cents per hundred pounds on grain in comparison with those who come under the old agreement.
Please do all in your power to see that this matter is speeded up as much as possible.
Under date of October 21, 1926, Mr. Gardiner wrote me as follows:
I am in receipt of your letter of October 20 referring to your correspondence with the Board of Railway Commissioners with respect to the delay in issuing judgment in connection with reducing rates on grain and flour under the Crowsnest pass agreement. This matter has been under the direction of Honourable J. A. Cross, attorney general. I can assure you that everything that this government can do in the matter has been done.
I am forwarding your letter to Mr. Cross and suggesting to him that if he can do anything to prevent any delay by making requests to other governments, it be done as soon as possible. I agree that this matter should be cleared up at the earliest possible date.
Yours sincerely,
James G. Gardiner.
I have also a letter from the Hon. J. A. Cross, Attorney General, Saskatchewan, dated October 23, 1926, in which he expressed himself to me aa follows:
Premier Gardiner has just passed to me your letter to him of the twentieth instant relative to freight rates on grain. The information which you have received from the railway board has recently come to our attention, and so far as I am aware, is without foundation. The matter of equalisation of freight rates on grain and flour in this province was argued before the Board of Railway Commissioners at Ottawa in February last, and since that time we have been pressing for a decision. The board is now evidently attempting to make this application a part of the general rates inquiry. We have, like yourself, become very impatient and extremely annoyed at the delay in connection with this matter. I am passing a copy of your communication to W. H. McEwen, Esq., who has been acting as counsel for the province. I am asking Mr. McEwen to write you more fully on the subject.
Yours faithfully,
J. A. Cross.
Mr. McEwen wrote me and this is his letter:
Copy of your letter of the 20th of October to the Hon. J. G. Gardiner has been forwarded to me by the attorney general, wi th a copy of his letter to you in reply. If you should happen to be in Regina at any time in the near future I would consider it a favour if you would call to see me so that I could explain this situation to you personally. It is somewhat difficult to tell the whole story by correspondence.

However, briefly the situation with regard to alleged unjust discriminatory rates on grain and flour to Fort William is as follows:
Following the amendment to the Railway Act in 1925 the board issued its order requiring the railway companies to file tariffs on grain supplementing the provisions of that statute. Both railway companies took the position that their present tariffs complied with the provisions of the statute, and published Crowsnest rates on grain. Considerable correspondence followed between the Hon. Mr. Cross on the one hand, and the Board of Railway Commissioners and officials of the railways on the other. Nothing could be obtained by correspondence and finally the situation developed to the point where the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta made an application to the Board of Railway Commissioners at its sittings at Ottawa on the 16th of February for the removal of the discrimination complained of.
You are aware that in the meantime the board had been directed to conduct a general investigation into freight rates. On the hearing at Ottawa in February the complaint of the provinces wras fully developed, but at the conclusion three members of the board took the position that the matter of discriminatory grain rates could not be dealt with apart from the general rates enquiry. The three other members of the board took the opposite view, namely that our application was properly before the board, and that the question of proper grain rates could, and should be disposed of apart from the general rates enquiry. Under these circumstances it was obvious that our application could not succeed apart from the general rates investigation, and what we asked for and hoped to obtain was a decision of the board refusing our application, as the board was evenly divided. This order was not made immediately following the application, and although we have been trying to obtain such a order so that we might appeal therefrom to the Governor General in Council, up to the present date the board has simply refused to deal with the application at all, and I am lately informed that they take the view, with the exception of Commissioner Oliver, that our application will be dealt with as an application in the general rates investigation, and disposed of at that time. This is very unfortunate. We are still considering what we can possibly do to secure a judgment from the board one way or the other, but at present it looks as though no judgment will be available until after the, argument in the general investigation, and the decisions in that matter.
Now I desire to refer briefly to the paragraphs quoted in your letter from the communication you received from the Board of Railway Commissioners. These paragraphs were doubtless intended as the board's excuse for having failed up to the present time to fix the date for the final argument in the general rates matter. You may possibly have seen a letter of the 13th of October written by the secretary of the board to Mr. J. M. Stevenson where a somewhat similar attitude is adopted. In that letter, however, you will see that the board

The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
states that since early in June it has been continuously engaged, and that the Bell Telephone enquiry will take four or five weeks yet.
It is true that during the western sittings numerous exhibits were filed. I desire only to speak for the province of Saskatchewan, but I think this statement is also true with respect to the board of trade at Saskatoon represented by Mr. Stevenson. At the hearing in Regina I filed a considerable number of exhibits and at that time furnished all persons who were present at the hearing with copies of the exhibits in question. Each railway got at least two copies of each exhibit which I filed. This statement is subject to qualification. The Western Canada Live Stock Union had made a submission in the general rates investigation and three or four witnesses appeared at Regina in support of that submission. I assisted in the presentation of this case for the stockmen in conjunction with a somewhat similar case which had been submitted by the province of Saskatchewan. Some of these witnesses, however, in giving their evidence, filed certain graphs, of which they had only one copy, and of which I had received no previous notice, and had no copy myself. These graphs are all on file in Ottawa where they can readily be seen by counsel for the railway companies who appear to spend a large proportion of their time at Ottawa, and in or around the board's quarters at that place. It is quite impossible for me to supply railway counsel with copies of these exhibits for the reason that I have no copies of them myself. I have notified the secretary of the board of this fact, and have told him that if he will return these exhibits to me at Regina. I will have photographic copies of them made, and supply these to the counsel in ques-
1<Jt is quite possible that the railway counsel are making this an excuse for being unprepared to go on with the main argument in this case, but I have noticed that throughout the inquiry the railways have always been anxious to find some excuse for putting off the conclusion of this hearing as far as possible. I personally have no apology to offer in this connection.
Yours faithfully,
W. H. McEwen.
On November 3, he sent me this short note): Dear Sir:
Re General Rates Inquiry-Grain
For your information beg to state that on the 1st inst. I wired the Secretary of the Board of Railway Commissioners as follows:
"Refer to your letter ninth ultimo file 34123 my reply 22nd ultimo. If you prefer not to forward exhibits 8 to 22 inclusive here authorize you to have photographic copies prepared our expense furnishing to us and for railways and board."
Yours truly,
W. H. McE wen,
Counsel for the province of Saskatchewan.
I have taken a long time to read from the documents, but the matter is so important that I want all the facts to be on record. In
order that there shall be no misrepresentation of anything that was actually done I have taken the trouble to have everything set down in black and white. I want to be fair to the commissioners because I shall have something to say about the present board before I am through. I have here a record of the Board of Railway Commissioners dated Ottawa, Ontario, Friday, 22nd October, 1926. It bears the names of the commissioners present at the particular hearing reported herein. The commissioners were all present but one. I read:
[File 34123.13]
Re General Freight Rate Investigation
Submissions of the Harbour Commissioners of Quebec, Que. L. A. Cannon, K.C., for the Quebec Harbour Commission.
Mr. Cannon: Mr. Chairman, if I may have the leave of the commission? I appear on behalf of the Quebec Harbour Commission, and beg leave to address the board for a few minutes on a question that we think of vital interest to my clients. It is concerning the submission made on behalf of the Quebec Harbour Commissioners, and which now forms part of the investigation in the general investigation of the freight rates question:
The board knows that this matter has been in abeyance now for quite a while. It was started under an order in council of June 1925. We were heard here last March and we all had hopes early last spring that we might get some result from the submissions made by the Quebec Harbour Commission. Unfortunately, the leaves are now falling, the fall has come and we have not even been able to have a date fixed for the final hearing. As far as that goes, and as far as the Quebec Harbour Commission is concerned, you will recollect that we practically closed the case in Winnipeg last June and that the only thing that remained to be done was to cross-examine or to re-examine Mr. Mallory, the witness of the Canadian National Railways. Now I notice that we may not expect a date to be fixed now. I understand that in the general freight rate investigation some exhibits have to be filed, but in this matter of the Quebec Harbour Commission we would like, if possible, to have a rate fixed for the transportation of grain that would apply-wc have not been able to apply it to the 1925 crop and our chances with the 1926 crop are that it will not be moved under the new conditions, but we would like if possible to have something that would work in 1927. On behalf of the Quebec Harbour Commissioners I would feel obliged, and I would respectfully submit, that a date may be fixed for the final hearing of that application, at the same time, if it is possible, for the date to be fixed for the hearing on the merits of the general investigation of the freight rates.
The Chief Commissioner: Mr. Cannon your observations to the board are of course quite properly made, and they are somewhat in line with other communications that the board has
696	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
lately received. It might be well, I think, if we review for a moment the condition of affairs as far as this board is concerned.
You may remember that the procedure under the general freight rate investigation was started by an order in council, but the matter in which you harbour board is more concerned seems to be the rates upon grain moving eastward under legislation of last year by an amendment to the Eailway Act. That amendment was assented to in the latter part of June, 1925. Early in July following, within ten days from the date such assent was given, this board held a formal meeting and issued an order directing the railways to conform to the provisions of that legislation. I have not the order before me, but the board as a precaution took upon itself to direct the railways to conform *with the provisions of that amendment, although it was their duty, apart from such order, to recognize the legislation and to govern themselves by it. The board ordered that within fifteen days the railways put in tariffs to comply with that legislation. Certain tariffs were put in, and it was objected by parties interested, principally the province of Saskatchewan and Alberta, that the rates which were so put in and which have special reference to the interests which you are appearing for, did not comply with the order of the board, nor with the amending legislation.
Thus there was a straight issue between the railways and the provinces mentioned. The board did not hestitate in having that matter brought before it, and in September-on the 29th of September, my brother Commissioner Boyce recalls to my memory*-the parties appeared before the board, and the representatives of the western provinces commenced to develop their case. It transpired almost immediately* that they were not in a position to proceed because they had not before them the tariff schedules of 1897. It will be remembered that there is no particular yardstick whereby* one may measure all Crowsnest pass rates, but these rates were fixed under agreement following legislation at a reduction of three cents per hundred pounds from the rates which prevailed on the C.P.R. main line before that date. It therefore became necessary to find out what the rates were which previously prevailed. In order to do that, the tariff schedules of that year had to be considered. Tariff schedules since the formation of this board in 1904, are filed here, but tariff schedules in existence prior to that year, are not filed here, and therefore the applicants were not able to turn to the records of the board and to avail themselves of the necessary information but had to ask the railways to furnish it. When it was apparent that this information was a part of their ease, they asked the board to direct the railways to produce that information and the board so directed. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company, through their representative, Mr. Flintoft, expressed doubt as to whether the tariff of 1897 could be obtained; he said that it was long out of date, but he thought there was in existence a copy of such tariff somewhere in the west. We directed that all possible efforts should be made to find it, and that when found it should be submitted at once to our traffic officer. It took some time to do this, but such delay, I am anxious to suggest to you, was not by any means the fault of the board. However, the tariff 
schedule 1897 was eventually found, and as soon as the parties were ready again, the board entertained their motion. It was not until b ebi uary that the necessary data had been gathered. On February 16 the parties came before the board and they then developed their case. It was soon apparent that in considering the amending legislation which was the basis of the application, different ideas prevailed, and the members of the board by no means hesitated to express tlieir opinions. As I say, it was on the 16th of February that the case was resumed, and on the 23rd of February, having listened to all the parties, the board immediately expressed its view as to whether it was competent under the legislation and under the order in council to develop and decide the case apart from the general freight rate investigation.
It is a matter of common knowledge that the members of the board did not see eye to eye in that matter. Three members thought that it was so inextricably bound up with the general freight rate investigation that it should not be separately dealt with. The other three members took the opposite view. The members of the board did not hesitate for a moment-I want to emphasize this to you-to express their views, and the parties concerned had immediate advantage of those views. In the circumstances no judgment could be given, because the board being equally divided, the opinion of one section is equally as effective as the opinion of the other. The board found itself in such position, and that being so. no order could be made and no judgment could be delivered, there was nothing else to do but to go on with the matter under the general freight rate investigation.
While you have not intimated that the board has delayed judgment, that view has been expressed elsewhere, and I am taking the present opportunity to make it plain that the board did not delay judgment. The members of the board immediately made public their views in the matter, and left the parties to take whatever remedy they might be advised.
Now with reference to the conduct of the general freight rate investigation. Hearings began in January and continued with all speed. Besides this, the board has been extremely busy in other matters. Later a section of the board went west and began the western hearings under the general freight rate investigation. It carried with it a docket consisting of twenty-five to thirty cases involving the general freight rates, and thirty-five to forty cases of ordinary motions. On the 14th June the board faced that docket in Winnipeg, and then rapidly proceeded across the country from city to city. It sat in Vancouver from Friday the 9th July until the 14th, in New* Westminster on the 16th, Chilliwack on the 17th, Victoria on the 19th, and again in Vancouver on the 22nd. From the 14th June until the 22nd July, there were 39 days,-including five Sundays, leaving 34 working days. Edmonton was fixed for hearing on the 28th June, but that being election day in Alberta, that date w*as not open to us, thus leaving only 33 days. Now* in those 33 days, the board heard over 50 cases, sitting continuously 28 out of the 33 days, and travelling clear to the coast, including the journey up and down the Okanagan lakes, forcing the lawyers

The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
to sit long hours in the courtrooms, and working to the limit of their endurance. The board did, I assert, make all possible speed having regard to the importance of the inquiries, and to the necessary time that the representatives of different interests required. In addition to that, the board sat in Prince Rupert on the 2'Jth July, and then hurried home to join the other members of the board, who had been equally busy in routine matters, which are at the present moment piling up in almost dismaying proportions. When all the members of the board came together again, and as soon as was possible, having regard to the disturbed conditions prevailing, the hearing of this telephone case was begun, and it is over a month since we started this last part of the case. Notwith-tanding all that, we have not lost sight of the freight rates investigation. On the fourth of October, we summoned the representatives of the railways for discussion with a view to coming to an undertanding, and giving specific directions as to what further details they must furnish, and to fix a date for final hearing. We then learned that many of the exhibits of the western provinces had not been filed. Orders went out immediately from the board to all parties to file the exhibits by the 25th October.
As soon as these exhibits are filed-I am speaking now as an individual member of tlfe board, and any other member can add anything he thinks should be added to what I am now saying,-and the records closed, and the issues joined, a day will be considered for final hearing.
The time of the board has been fully occupied.. This telephone case has not by any means been completed. Those who are interested in the coal inquiry are asking the board for an appointment, and if our consideration is to be of any advantage to Ontario and Quebec in connection with the movement of coal to these provinces, surely the board ought to get at it before the cold weather takes its grip over the whole country.
Not one member of the board has taken a vacation this summer-I do not urge that any notice should be taken of that-but the amount of work the board has had to go through is some justification, if any justification is needed, for the condition in which many applications are now found to be.
Letters are coming to the board from various sections asking why their applications are not being given attention. We are naturally anxious that people should understand why matters which undoubtedly are of importance have not yet been determined. Many things pressing upon the board at the present time, have rendered it impossible for us to give attention to these important matters, although it would have been pleasing to the board to have been able to do so.
As soon as exhibits referred to are filed, or as soon as the time has expired in which we have directed them to be filed, the board will take up the question of settling them and fixing a date for the final hearing of the freight rate investigation and other matters involved.
In some quarters it has been said that the board has delayed its judgment in this case. There is not the slightest foundation for such statement. It is clear that no judgment as
such could be issued since the board was evenly divided, and that the opinion of each member was expressed without delay.
It has also been remarked that the benefit of the reduced rates on the movement of grain, as provided by the legislation of 1925, was not available for last year's crop. It must be remembered that the board without delay directed that such rates should be put in, and that the dispute as to whether the railways had complied with such order was not at issue before the board until February. And, as before stated, the opinion of the members of the board was expressed without delay, with the result that an order rvas impossible and will be impossible until the general freight rate investigation is completed.
The Assistant Chief:	After the very clear
statement of the chief commissioner, I do not know that I can add anything. Whatever considerations weighed with regard to the fixing of the general hearing must weigh in regard to this.
I appreciate the very clear manner in which Mr. Cannon always puts forward his position. At the same time I can not see how the hearing of this application can be disassociated from the general hearing of the freight rates investigation.
The Deputy Chief:	I have nothing to add
to what the chief commissioner and the assistant chief commissioner have said. I fully concur with the reasons that have been given, the absolute statement of fact made by the chairman of the board, which will be revealed by the files of the board.
If the representatives of the western provinces had been able-I do not blame them -but if they had been able to comply with the undertaking that they had taken in the west and filed these exhibits and given a copy of them to the railways concerned, I think they might have helped us in saving a few weeks time. Having received the promise that these exhibits would be filed, they appeared before us on the 4th of October and complained that they had not received these very voluminous and bulky statements, and that they were unable to come to a final hearing until such times as the exhibits had been filed with them. Orders have been issued for them to immediately comply, and after October 4tli, whether these exhibits are filed or not, speaking only as an individual member of the board, I would feel very strongly against another postponement.
Mr. Cannon:	That is what I was going to
suggest.. AVe are not in default in filing exhibits. Our case is practically ready for hearing. If the Quebec Harbour Commission's case is to be postponed indefinitely, as long as these very numerous exhibits have not been filed, we are" afraid that we can not be heard before next year. Nobody can tell when these exhibits will be filed.
The Deputy Chief: This far, even if the exhibits had been filed it would not have affected the situation very much, because the time of the board has been fully taken up. Thirty days notice has to be given to all concerned.	.
Mr. Cannon:	I quite understand that, sir.
The Deputy Chief: And that thirty days' notice must of necessity postpone the hearing for another thirty days from the date on which it will be set for hearing, and therefore I
698	COMMONS
The budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
was in hope that on the 4th of October, when the railways would be summoned, they would be in a position to accept a date on which to proceed and thirty days beyond as the final date when the hearing would be proceeded with.
Unfortunately we have not been able to set a date, and we shall be unable to set a date until after the 25th of October, but after that date I am strongly of the opinion that the earliest possible date should be set.
Commissioner Boyce:	I am in accord with
the facts and with the spirit of the observations made by the learned chief commissioner.
Commissioner Lawrence:	I have nothing to
add to the statements already made. I think they are correct and that they properly explain the situation.
Now we come to the viewpoint of the only representative on this board who comes from western Canada. I want you to listen to this:
Commissioner Oliver: I am very sorry to say that I have to disagree entirely with the view expressed by the chief commissioner. It would appear to me that the line of argument taken assumes to place the responsibility for the delay in handling the general freight rates investigation upon the delays which have occurred in connection with the special inquiry regarding western grain rates.
There is, in my opinion, no such connection. The general freight rates inquiry was authorized by an order in council of, I think, June 8. On June 27 an act of parliament was passed, which applied solely to east-bound grain rates from the prairie provinces to Fort William, and so far as the terms of the order are concerned, did not apply (with all due respect to the chief commissioner )to the rates between Fort William and Quebec.
That act of parliament being passed after the order in council for the general freight rates inquiry (if parliament is the- superior authority) must have taken the subject of grain rates east-bound to Fort William out of the general freight rates inquiry and placed it for consideration as a subject separate from the grain rates inquiry-, to be dealt with as a separate subject.
In regard to the hearing which took place on September 29, 1925, with respect again to the statement made, that hearing, in my understanding. was not a hearing in regard to grain rates east-bound, but a hearing in regard to grain rates west-bound, following upon an order of the board which had been passed upon the previous 2nd of September. As a matter of fact the hearing of September 29 was an appeal from the order of Septembr 2, passed by the board, and had no relation to the general freight rates inquiry; it had no governing relation to the question of east-bound freight rates. The question of east-bound freight rates came before the board at a full hearing beginning on the 16th of February. The hearing was very full, there was a representation by the two provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, the railway companies were represented, the argument was made, and the solicitors for the provinces moved for judgment, urged judgment being delivered, demanded that judgment be delivered, but judgment was not delivered. Had judgment been delivered in that case at that time, that case would be off the records, and it would not now be considered to be interfering in any way

with the general freight rates inquiry or with the rates on grain from Fort William to Quebec.
Because it was not disposed of then, it is still of course cumbering the record and interfering with the transaction of other business.
I submit, with all respect to the deputy chief commissioner, that the failure to give judgment at that time was not the fault of the western provinces in any way, shape, manner or degree. Nor was the failure to give a decision dependent upon or resulting from a tie on the board.
If the business of the country is to be tied yip by a tie on the board, certainly the usefulness of the railway commission is decidedly limited. Because there was a tie on the matter, or if there had been a tie on the essential question before the board, that does not say that there should not be a decision. The decision might be one way or it might be the other, but a decision was what was demanded by one of the parties to the case who are to-day blamed for not having had their case ready, or being reseponsible for the present postponement.
To that I take the most decided objection.
Now, sir, I have taken a great deal of time in reading these documents into the record and for the reason that I want these matters to be published in proper sequence in such an authoritative manner that no one shall have any doubts hereafter as to what actually took place.
Now I want to go back to some rather ancient history and to give some quotations from Hansard of 1902. First of all let me quote from a speech delivered by Hon. A. G. Blair, Minister of Railways and Canals at the time, as set forth at page 2437 of Hansard, on the occasion of the creation of the railway commission:
We have thought it necessary, in constituting a commission of this kind, that it should be so constituted as that we will be able to secure the very best material which our country affords for this purpose. We feel that we ought to afford the widest possible opportunity within it to make the choice, because, Mr. Speaker, as this question impresses itself upon my mind, the character, the capacity, the wisdom and the selection of the men is everything. Unless this country can afford us men of the right stamp, men of independence of character, of firmness, and of fairness, men who have experience in business, experience in railway operations, experience in law, unless the country can afford us these conditions, then, we cannot look with any reasonable hope to find that the operation of the commission will be successful.
Then again at page 2439:
We think it is desirable; indeed we think it imperative on us to prevent the possibility of persons who feel they may have grievances against railways not being able to have their cases determined within a reasonable time. We have therefore asked parliament to say that the decision of this tribunal shall be final, subject only to revision by the privy council, and that there shall be an appeal to no other tribunal.

The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
In the same volume of Hansard, at page 2453, Mr. T. O. Davis, formerly representative of Prince Albert, later Senator Davis, now deceased, spoke as follows:
As I have stated before in this House, it is a well known fact that the trade and business of this country have grown at such a rate that it is impossible for the railway committee of the privy council to handle the business it should handle in connection with matters of this kind that come before it. As a matter of fact we know, from our own experience in the west this year,-
That was twenty-five years ago:
-that the people there have lost a great amount of money from the fact that we have had no body of this kind to regulate the railways of the country.
We want a body appointed that will see that there is no discrimination in rates.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I have given these two quotations with the object of showing what was in the minds of those responsible for the passing of this legislation. And who was more capable of passing an opinion on a matter of this kind than the late Hon. A. G. Blair? He recognized that there must not be delay, that when a matter of this kind comes up before some body that body must be a capable one, it must be trained' in the law, it must be trained in business. But the thing on which the statesmen of that time were unanimous was that there must be no delay in giving out decisions. What have wre got in this particular case? Here we have a board and it is now investigating grain rates. I want to differentiate this afternoon very clearly between the general freight rates inquiry and the statute making the Crowsnest agreement rates apply over a wider territory. The order in council passed *on the 5th of June directed that there should be a general freight rate inquiry and to that, of course, I take no exception. But on 27th June, 1925- and if you notice it is now over twenty months since that was done-the parliament of Canada by statute said that the rates under the law of 1897, the Crowsnest pass agreement, should apply to all the other sections of Canada, and to-day, after a lapse of twenty months, those rates do not apply. It is true that several hearings have taken place. The hearing of the Bell Telephone Company's application for an increase in rates has taken place. That hearing was started on January 26th, 1926, and we already have the decision by the Board of Railway Commissioners with respect to telephone rates in this part of Canada. What is the difference between the two? The statutory provision in connection with the Crowsnest pass agreement removes a burden from the mass of primary producers in western Canada. The application cf the Bell Telephone Company deals with an increase in telephone rates of subscribers in eastern Canada. The Bell Telephone Company application has been heard and decided and the company has been granted permission to increase its rates. The statutory provision based on the Crowsnest pass agreement has not been carried out, and1 I want to say that when this parliament passes a statute no three members of the Board of Railway Commissioners or any other body has any right to set that statute at nought. The board before whom this hearing took place consists of six members, five of whom come from eastern Canada and one from the west. They divided on a fifty-fifty basis, and because of that the will of parliament is set at nought. Everyone knows that there is at present a discriminatory rate on grain in the northern part of Saskatchewan, the northern part of Alberta, the northern part of Manitoba. But we in Saskatchewan are affected to a greater degree than the other provinces because we ship more grain. It means the application of an additional two cents per hundred pounds on grain moving eastward to all that northern country. This represents to the primary producers, the farmers of that section of country, a loss of between one and two million dollars a year. Why are they suffering this loss? Because the Board of Railway Commissioners have r.ot seen fit, apparently do not wish to do so even at this late date, to permit a statute of parliament to apply to these railway rates. But the Bell Telephone Company have been given permission to increase their telephone rates although there is no specific statute of parliament behind them. If we were now, Mr. Speaker, in the throes of a campaign to raise a victory loan and the farmers of northern Saskatchewan, of northern Alberta and of northern Manitoba were being asked to subscribe to the loan and took, we will say, 82,000,000 of victory bonds, their action would be regarded as most patriotic and the investment would be looked upon as an excellent one. If they subscribed to that-and the farmers in my part of the country subscribed for and took. $2,000,000 of those debentures which were splendid, paying debentures-they would then be regarded as most patriotic people for taking an excellent investment. To-day, what do we see? We have the same farmers in that same portion of the country from whom is being taken annually unjustly and unfairly, the sum of about $2,000,000, just because the Board of Railway Commissioners
700	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Young (Saskatoon)
will not see to it that the railways put into operation the statutory rates as passed by the parliament of Canada.
Perhaps if I speak with some heat I may be pardoned. I am always very happy when I am speaking for the primary producers of this country, and all they ask is that they be given what the parliament of Canada said they should get. I am not arguing that the rates should be higher or lower. That is not the question at all. That question has been settled. We have been waiting for twenty months for these rates to be put into operation and for all we know we may have to wait for twenty months more. We have had two crops move under the discriminatory rates. Is that fair?
I come now to another matter and I want to quote just one more section from the Railway Act. Section 44 states:
The governor in council may, at any time, in his discretion, either upon petition of any party, person or company interested, or of his own motion and without any petition or application therefor, vary, change, or rescind any order, decision, rule or regulation of the board, whether such order or decision be made inter partes or otherwise, and whether such regulation be general or limited in its scope and application; and any order which the governor in council may make with respect thereto shall be binding on the board and all parties.
Further, section 45 states:
The governor in council may at any time refer to the board for a report, or other action, any question, matter or thing arising, or required to be done, under this act, or the special act, and the board shall without delay comply therewith.
I understand that an appeal from the Board of Railway Commissioners has been made to the government that the Crowsnest pass agreement as extended shall be made to apply.
I am now going to appeal to the Minister of Finance, to every other minister in the House at this moment, and, indeed, to all ministers of t'he crown that due consideration be given to the appeal made by counsel on behalf of the western provinces. I do not, as a general rule, approve appeals from the board to the government on matters of fact. If we get into a situation of that kind, it will be unfortunate. I do not blame the government for refusing appeals of that character. But here we have an appeal in which all that is being asked is that a statute of the parliament of Canada be lived up to, be adhered to.
I am going to urge again that this government give consideration to the appeal made, and that it direct that the Board of Railway Commissioners render judgment accordingly and see that all discriminations are removed.

What is the situation? We have before the Board of Railway Commissioners all the tariffs filed. We have gone to the limit. We have an array of counsel in the city of Ottawa before the board and all they are doing is bringing up all kinds of technicalities. This board should be primarily a business organization with some law in it. On the contrary it is, as at present constituted, a legal institution with practically no business in it. We want to have this condition of affairs reversed. I have always had and I hope I shall always have the greatest respect for the legal profession, but at the same time we have too many technicalities creeping into this board, which has too many lawyers on it. This board was created for the purpose, not of bringing in all kinds of technicalities, but of hastening decisions.
What is required to be done with regard to the statutory rates is simply this. Every schedule of the railways was available to the Board of Railway Commissioners and the statute said:	There shall be no excuse for
discrimination. Surely it was not necessary with those schedules before them to have all the counsel from western Canada come to Ottawa and have the board examine them. Some good might have been accomplished by their sitting down without any counsel and finding out whether discrimination existed. They cannot say that the trouble is that they did not have counsel, because, heaven knows! we sent enough counsel down. The counsel are here, but what are we getting?
I have taken a long time to place these facts on the record, but I believe they should be on record and every one should know what has taken place, namely, nothing but unwarranted delay. Before I sit down I again ask the government to request, to demand, from the Board of Railway Commissioners that judgment be issued immediately, or we may have to wait so long that another crop will have to be moved under these disermina-tory rates. If we cannot get speedy enough action from the present Board of Railway Commissioners, we must have a new board that will act with promptness.
I am going to make two or three suggestions and the first one is this. The board tell us very frankly that if they divide fifty-fifty, they cannot come to a decision. We must see to it that they cannot divide fifty-fifty, and we must therefore have an odd number on the board. In the second place-and I want to insist upon this as far as I have any power to insist upon anything-I want to see one-half of the board come from western Canada. To-day we have on the board six men, five

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin
of whom come from tfhe east and one from the west, and at this very moment from Fort William and Port Arthur west there are more miles of railway than there are in eastern Canada. Third, I want on the board rather than men of legal minds, men of business capacity who will deal with matters expeditiously, men who will not deliberately set aside an act of parliament.
Unless we get those things, the unrest which we have in western Canada in regard to this matter will not subside, but will increase. We cannot afford to allow a thing of this kind to delay any longer, and I am going to plead once more with the government to see to it that at the earliest passible date the defects that now exist in the Board of Railway Commissioners are removed.
In closing let me say that I am a very staunch admirer of the institution of the Board of Railway Commissioners. I do not know of anything which can replace it; but I have observed, and I am not alone in observing, that during the last several years the. board has been getting farther and farther away from being a board and closer and closer to being a court, the very situation it was created to obviate. I remember hearing one of the chief commissioners some time ago, when a poor unfortunate widow came before the board and a lawyer was sent up from one of the big corporations, saying to him: Stand aside; I want to hear what the poor woman has to say. We want more of that spirit on the board, and if we have it, the primary producers will not have to have their representatives in this House taking up the whole afternoon in laying their case before the House, because they will receive prompt justice. Let me again urge the government to take prompt and effective action.


Hon. J. D. CHAPLIN (Lincoln):: The hon. member who has just resumed his seat (Mr. Young, Saskatoon) took up the early part of his speech in reading several lectures to different members of the House, particularly the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote), because Of the fact that he put on the order paper a resolution which the government finds somewhat embarrassing. He referred to this resolution as a political resolution, and he deprecated the fact that anybody, and especially anyone from the west, should do a thing of that kind. He forgets that at the last session of parliament, almost during the dying hours of the session, one of the very things that was done was to introduce a similar resolution, and just for a moment I intend to refer to it. On the 30th of June, after the Mackenzie King government had been defeated, a resolution was brought in for the purpose of disturbing my friends to my left who had helped to defeat that government. Here is the resolution:
That the Speaker do not now leave the chair, but that it be resolved that in the opinion of this House the fiscal policy of the government as enunciated by the present Prime Minister when leader of His Majesty's opposition would prove detrimental to the country's continued prosperity and prejudicial to the national unity.
That was the resolution that was brougnt in, and moreover the hon. member who has just spoken, and who talks of political resolutions, voted for that resolution, as is shown by the division list in Hansard. So he deprecates in others the very thing he did himself only a short time ago.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: Did the hon. member ask me a question? I would like to say, Mr. Speaker-


James Dew Chaplin: Mr. Speaker, I object. The hon. gentleman asked a question, and then he starts out to make a statement. He has taken up two hours of the time of this House, and surely he can keep quiet now for a minute and take a little of the medicine I am going to give him.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I thought you asked me a question.


James Dew Chaplin: I never asked you a question at all. It was you who started to ask a question, and then went on to make a statement.
The hon. member had something further to say about the tariff board. Oh, he says, we will give them dots of time; we must be fair and reasonable. Now I make this Statement: My hon. friend1, and many other hon. members for years have been telling the people of the northwest what they could do in fifteen minutes in respect to the tariff; it would not take more ithan that length of time to decide the whole thing. Give the board a fair and reasonable time? The leader of my hon. friend's party, in a pronouncement made at the Liberal convention in 1919, a good many years ago, told us definitely what his party were going to do. But they are still there; they never did it.
My hon. friend does not always get his own way with respect to the railway board, and he took up a lot of the time of the House this afternoon in reading at length from the records, and he threatens that if this and that is not done there is going to be trouble with the northwest. "We are going to get the Same number on that board from the west as from the east," he says, "because of the mileage in our part of the country." Did you ever
The Budget-Mr. Chaplin

hear a more preposterous proposition? "We are going to 'have half the membership of the board." Is that fair and reasonable? I will leave it to the House to decide how fair and reasonable the horn, gentleman can be. For my part, the tariff board can take all the time they find necessary. I do not mind if they never make a report. They can postpone making their recommendations for ever, so far as I am concerned. One of the things I find fault with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) about is that he had this board appointed which looks like an effort to avoid making a pronouncement on tariff matters by the government, and more than that, after the board is appointed the budget is brought down early so that the government will not have a dhance of doing anything about the tariff this year anyway.
Before I say what I have to say on the budget, I want to refer to an address made here a few dayis ago by the kon. member for Macleod (Mr. Ooote), and to some statements that he made. I regret very much that the hon. member is not in bis seat to-day; I would much prefer that he were here. A few days ago he placed on Hansard several statements, and right here, Mr. Speaker, let me say that I notice a growing disposition on the part of members to have statements and papers handed to the reporter so that they can be put upon Hansard, contrary to the rules and usage of the House. I have expected the ministers to stop that practice. It is not my place to do it, but I call attention to the matter, and point out that statements have been repeatedly put on Hansard without being read, and some of them are not correct. The one that I am going to refer to is an instance of that.
I looked up Hansard the day after the hon. member for Macleod spoke, and found the statement that he had placed on Hansard without reading it. The statement is not correct. It is very incorrect and irregular;
I might use a very much stronger word, Mr. Speaker, but knowing the gentleman as I do, knowing that he has always been fair, I attribute this inaccuracy to his want of knowledge of the subject. I will just quote from page 501 of Hansard what he had to say:
I have a table here, compiled from the statistics of the Department of Trade and Commerce for the year 1925, and which I will place on Hansard, if I have the permission of the House, showing that our agricultural, vegetable and animal products amount to 56 per cent of our total exports. The table is as follows-
Then the table follows. I had naturally expected, Mr. Speaker, that when the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) 
followed the hon. member for Macleod, he would correct those figures, but of course the minister was under the disadvantage of not knowing what they were. I will take the figures in the statement one by one, giving only the round numbers.
It shows that our exports in 1925 of agricultural and vegetable products amounted to $443,000,000. Now on examining the returns I find that the items bulked under the heading of animal and vegetable products total $443,000,000, but the hon. member never looked to see what those items consisted ot I am just going to show from another page, for the information of the House, just exactly what those items consisted of that make up this $443,000,000, and which with the animal products comprise, according to the hon. member for Macleod, 56 per cent of our exports.
The first item in this total of $443,000,000 is $78,000,000 of milled products. True, milled products come from the farm, but I submit, Mr. Speaker, that probably three-quarters, or at least two-thirds of the worth of milled products come from the manufacturing; that is plain. I would be willing to concede-just for the sake of argument, although it is not so-that one-half the amount of the milled products be considered as products of the farm-the manufacturing, the barrels, and so on, representing manufactured products. But, Mr. Speaker, there are a whole lot of other items that I do not want to allow the hon. gentleman to consider as products of the farm.
The next item I refer to is canned fruits, nuts, canned, dried or otherwise prepared, $7,800,000. The hon. member takes that as a product of the farm.
Let us take the next item, vegetables, fresh and dried, or canned, $5,400,000. All the sugar made in Canada and exported to the value of $9,000,000 has been taken by the hon. gentleman in order to make his fifty-six per cent.


Mr. KENNEDY:: Can the hon. gentleman show where the member for Macleod refers to that as a product of the farm?


James Dew Chaplin: Mr. Speaker, the whole basis of his argument was that fifty-six per cent of the total exports of Canada came from the farm. What else could this mean?


Mr. ROBB:: I am sure that my hon. friend does not mean to be unfair to the hon. member for Macleod. His criticism should be directed rather against the statistician who prepared these figures.


James Dew Chaplin: Not at all.

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin


James Alexander Robb: I think they are quoted as prepared by the department.


James Dew Chaplin: Yes, but the compiled
figures are given clearly, positively and1 plainly on page 1464, where all these items are classified, so that anyone that wanted to be absolutely fair, and knew anything about the returns at all, could not help but see the truth.
But that is not half of w'hat I intend to lay before the House. It seems to me, Sir, that a gentleman who puts himself forward as the critic of a party, and quotes from a trade return, should know a little more about that return before making use of it as the hon. member for Macleod did. Besides the items which I have already cited the hon. gentleman has taken all the beverages (alcoholic, brewed, distilled, fermented wines) to the value of 816,000,000, and included them in his fifty-six per cent.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about home
brew?


James Dew Chaplin: Home brew does not get into the returns. He has also included rubber and tobacco to the amount of another 844,000,000 in order to bolster up his argument that fifty-six per cent of our total exports come from the farms. He has taken all the prepared foods and all the bakery products, amounting to another 81,000,000, and miscellaneous items representing another $1,000,000. So the total amount that he has taken under the head of " vegetable products " as coming from Canadian farms and figuring in our exports amounts to 8164,000,000. That is a mere bagatelle! In other words, if you assume that all the milled products are manufactured articles, then the percentage of exports of farm products drops to thirty-two per cent. On the other hand, if you allow that fifty per cent of the milled products properly belong to the farm, the percentage of farm products in our export list runs to a shade over thirty-six per cent. That is a fair basis.
Now I come to another line. The hon. member for Macleod includes in the statement that he presented to the House animals and animal products to the value of $163,000,000. Under that head he takes all our fishery products that were exported, amounting to $33,000,000; all the furs that come from the Arctic ocean right down to the lakes, to the value of $17,000,000; all leather and' the manufactures of leather amounting to $8,000,000; all oils, fats and waxes, amounting to $3,000,000; all milk and its products, such as cheese, condensed and powdered milk, to
the value of $44,000,000. If you divide this latter amount by two and allow fifty per cent to the farm and the other fifty to manufactures, then our total exports of products of the farms amount to thirty-six per cent.


Mr. GARDINER:: Will the hon. member
permit a question?


James Dew Chaplin: Yes.


Robert Gardiner: The hon. gentleman has charged the hon. member for Macleod with making certain erroneous assumptions in the course of his speech on the budget. Sir, I should like the hon. gentleman to read what the hon. member for Macleod said when he placed the statement on Hansard. This will make it clear that the hon. member for Macleod did not assume what the hon. gentleman is imputing to him.


James Dew Chaplin: Mr. Speaker, I have read what the hon. member for Macleod said when he placed the statement on Hansard, but I will read it again:
I have a table here, compiled from the statistics of the Department of Trade and Commerce for the year 1925, and which I will place on Hansard if I have the permission of the House, showing that our agricultural, vegetable and animal products amount to fifty-six per cent of our total exports.


Robert Gardiner: Will the hon. gentleman go back a little further in order to get the gist of the discourse of the hon. member for Macleod? Then I think the House will see that the hon. gentleman is mistaken in thinking that the hon. member for Macleod made any such assumptions.


James Dew Chaplin: I read his speech.


Robert Gardiner: Will the hon. gentleman read the earlier portion?


James Dew Chaplin: When the hon. member
speaks he can make the best case he is capable of. I am not going to read the whole of Hansard for him or anyone else. I know what the hon. member for Macleod said, and know likewise on what he based his argument. What was the object, I would ask, Mr. Speaker, of claiming fifty-six per cent of our exports as coming from our farms on the strength of a statement that shows on its face that the hon. member did not understand . what it meant? I know where he took this table out of the book. Unfortunately for himself he did not take the trouble to turn over two or three pages in order to get at the facts. The trouble is that my hon. friends rather than be told the facts of the case would like to show that I am wrong in my argument. I am not making any charge against
The Budget-Mr. Chaplin

the hon. member for Mad cod'. I did not say that he made the mistake deliberately. I simply say that his statement is not correct. It does not mean what he purported to say it meant, and surely I have a right to correct it. And what is more, Mr. Speaker, a table of that kind should not have been put on Hansard without the permission of the House. It is against the rules to do so, and in future whenever it is attempted, and I happen to be here, I shall object.
I have now a word or two to say in reference to the speech of the hon. member for East Essex (Mr. Odette). The Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) will be delighted, I am sure, to have the testimony of that hon. gentleman as to how business is in the automobile trade, and no doubt, he will like the compliment paid him in that regard. The hon. gentleman, now a member of the House, spent a good deal of time around this building when the Minister of Finance brought down his last budget. I must of course differentiate between what I term his first and last budgets, that is to say, between the first automobile budget and the last automobile 'budget. When the first automobile budget came down, the member for East Essex came down too. He frequented these galleries. As he himself said in his speech on Friday evening, he was often in the galleries, and as a matter of fact we actually saw him. He was in the corridors also; he was everywhere. Now, I was around myself.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


James Dew Chaplin: Yes, I was around and I
had the pleasure of meeting the hon. gentleman. I had been asked by a deputation of manufacturers to introduce them to the minister and I was of course around, as was also the hon. member for East Essex. Most hon. members are no doubt familiar with the type of advertisement that used to appear in the older newspapers extolling the virtues of various remedies, and giving pictures of the patient "before" and "after". I could describe this gentleman before treatment. He was pretty pale and 'haggard; he was stooped in the shoulders and his mind, quite evidently, was distracted. There were copious tears in his eyes. But you saw him in his seat the other day pretty jaunty. He had come through in fine shape after the treatment; after the first, second and third budgets had come down he began to improve. He was feeling decidedly better. But, as I have said, I saw him when the tears were in his eyes and when he was short on utterance. Now? Why, now hie compliments the minister on the
[Mr. Chaplin.l
wonderful results that have ensued. I can assure the House that he is hardly recognizable as the same man.


An hon. MEMBER:: Oh, yes.


James Dew Chaplin: If you had seen him at
the time I did, at the time of his distress, you would not say that.


Mr. ODETTE:: May I ask the hon. member a question? If his company supplied all the wheels for motor cars imported into Canada and had that increased volume of business for his factories, and if he did not export any wheels at all, what position would his industry be in?


James Dew Chaplin: That is a pretty involved question. I should be very much inclined to copy the Minister of Finance and advise the hon. member to put his question in writing, for it is so complicated that I do not think anyone on top of this earth could answer it.


Edmond George Odette: When I was down here last year and made representations to the government, did those representations assist the hon. gentleman's industry as well as my own?


James Dew Chaplin: I do not know anything
about what representations the hon. gentleman made to the government. I do know, however, that I never asked the government for anything, nor did I sit on the minister's doorstep like some others I know. I did not hang around the corridors week after week with tears in my eyes hoping that something would turn up.


Edmond George Odette: May I ask another question?


James Dew Chaplin: The hon. gentleman has
asked enough questions for once.


Edmond George Odette: This is a question of privilege. I was asked to come to Ottawa by the Minister of Finance and other ministers of the govemmemt for the purpose of assisting them in any way possible in the matter of automobiles.


Mr. SPEAKER:: That is an explanation.
It is not a question of privilege; it does not affect the character of the hon. gentleman.


James Dew Chaplin: I fancy there are a good many who might have been asked to come down. I know that when I happened to meet the hon. gentleman there were between forty and fifty manufacturers who had met, no doubt for a legitimate purpose. There was no fault to find with that at all, but I do not think that these other manufacturers hung around here for weeks as my hon. friend did.

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin
The hon. member for East Essex calls upon the minister now to adopt the same principle in regard to these other people as he did in connection with the automobile business. In his speech the other day he said in effect, "Mr. Finance Minister, it worked fine with me. Try it with someone! else." We could observe while the hon. gentleman was making his speech that it was a good protectionist utterance and I would recommend to the hon. member who has recently spoken (Mr. Young, Saskatoon), that he get in touch with his friend from East Essex and see which of them will convert the other. In the early stages of the first automobile budget wel heard a good deal about the Minister of Finance standing by his guns. I should like to know whether the hon. member for East Essex assisted the minister in doing so. If the truth were known, he rather helped the minister to lie down, instead of standing by, his guns.
The extract from the hon. member's speech to which I referred a minute ago, reads:
Let me go further. T sat in the gallery when the Minister of Finance told hon. gentlemen opposite that he proposed removing the excise tax of five per cent on motor cars costing $1,200 or less, and that if the manufacturers did not pass that saving on to the buyers of motor cars he would immediately remove the five per cent excise tax on cars imported from the United States or other countries.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I rise to a
point of order. The hon. gentleman is quoting from a debate! that took place this session and I submit he is out of order.


James Dew Chaplin: I have a perfect right to quote from a current debate. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that you send one of the pages down to the hon. gentleman with a set of the rules. Referring to the reduction in the sales tax, the hon. member said:
Referring to the reduction in the sales tax, I desire to compliment the Minister of Finance. I believe it is a step in the right direction, but 1 should like to suggest to the minister that the sales tax on all Canadian-made goods be removed in its entirety, but that the sales tax on imported articles be retained.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: Mr. Speaker, I would like your ruling on the point of order.


Hewitt Bostock: If it were not permissible to quote from the present debate, no debate could take place. The rule to which the hon. gentleman refers is one which provides that reference may not be made to another debate which has already taken place during the same session.


Henry Herbert Stevens: And a debate, Mr. Speaker, which has been closed.


James Dew Chaplin: Now I wish to make a few observations directly connected with the budget, but I have no congratulations to offer the minister on anything contained therein.


James Alexander Robb: I am not disappointed, of
course.


James Dew Chaplin: That does not mean that I have no word of commendation for him at all, because we all know him to be a very fine, decent fellow. I will say that for the short time he took in delivering the budget he should be congratulated, and I can also congratulate him because he left out a lot of political propaganda which appeared in his other budgets. Although in this budget there are several columns of it, but nothing to be compared with what appeared in his previous budgets.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: Then he is improving?


James Dew Chaplin: Certainly, an improvement for which I have no hesitation in congratulating him.


Hewitt Bostock: I have found the reference which confirms the ruling which I have just given. If the hon. gentleman will look at Beauohesne, Rule 19, paragraph 234, he will find the following words:
Besides the prohibitions contained in this rule, it lias been sanctioned by usage both in England and in Canada that a member, while speaking, must not:
(a) Refer to any debate of the same session on any question not then under discussion.


Thomas William Bird: What about paragraph (k),
Mr. Speaker?


James Dew Chaplin: I am glad that at least industry is to be free from further attacks this session, that for the time being we are to have no more such affairs as took place during last session when the tariff on automobiles was under discussion. I presume the reason for that may be the entrance into the cabinet of such gentlemen as the Minister of Customs (Mr. Euler) and the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm), ably seconded by my friend the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Forke).
I notice this year, as I noticed a year ago, that the minister made no reference to an improvement in the cattle trade, and neither did he say a word about the tremendous decrease in that trade. In the year 1924-25, at page 1529 of Hansard, the Minister of Finance stated when submitting his budget that he was short in revenue, as compared with the previous year, by some $50,000,000, and he made a virtue of necessity at that time by telling the people of this country

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin


and the members of this House that he was taking $50,000,000 less from the people, saving them that much in taxes. I say that that particular year as compared with this year shows very similar results in taxation as between that year and the year previous, except that the taxation revenue this year is greater by $50,000,000. I submit that if the minister lost $50,000,000 in revenue and said he had reduced taxation to that extent, when he increased that taxation by $50,000,000 he should say the same thing, namely that taxation has been increased. But he does not do that, and no one will admit it; we are still told that there is a reduction in taxation. Of all the years since this government have been in power, this year there has been the most taxation revenue, yet the government say, "Cheer for us, boys; we have reduced your taxation." All that has been done, Mr. Speaker, is to shift the burden to somebody else. The taxes have been collected, but the money has been spent by this government. Before taxation can be actually reduced in this country the expenditure must be reduced; that is the whole crux of the situation. According to the minister the revenue this year will amount to $343,000,000, the largest amount since this government assumed office.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: There is more business this year.


James Dew Chaplin: And more taxes; I am
talking about taxes. I have not noticed any great change in business; there may be a change in connection with wheat but there has been no change in my district. There is more unemployment to-day in my county than there has been in any year during the past ten, and that is saying quite a lot. There are more vacant houses in my district than ever before, and that is also saying something. In saying these things I do not want to deprecate my district but I do not think it does any harm to tell the truth, and I know the same thing has occurred in other cities near me. What is the use of fooling ourselves, when we know the conditions at home? General business may be improving; I do not know whether or not it is, but in my own district I have not noticed any particular increase.


Edmond George Odette: Is that advertising?


Mr. HGCKEN:: That is the truth. You
do not want to hear the truth.


James Dew Chaplin: Well, I am just doing
what the hon. gentleman himself did the other day. I would suggest that seeing he is a new member, one of the pages should go and tell him, that it is forbidden to put 
advertisements in front of his desk. For a new member he has been advertised about as well as anybody that I know of.
In 1921 the taxable revenue amounted to $368,000,000, but in that year there was $40,000,000 of delayed business war profits taxation. Outside of that one year this is the heaviest taxation year since 1920. And yet hon. gentlemen opposite say that taxation is coming down. There has been a little shifting of income taxation, a lightening -of the load here and a putting on a greater load in some other direction. That is all that has occurred.


An hon. MEMBER:: The taxation is easier.


James Dew Chaplin: I do not know whether it is easier or not. It certainly is easier for members of parliament with an income of $4,000. The taxation was made easier also for those in receipt of smaller salaries. It was made easier also for the salaries that were supposed to be earned by ministers of the crown; they took mighty good care that they came under the lower category. But the widow living on the earnings made by her husband years ago is paying more taxes than she did before. That is how the load has been shifted.


An hon. MEMBER:: Three dollars and sixty cents.


James Dew Chaplin: It does not make any difference whether it is $3.60 or any other sum. I made the general statement that people of the class referred to paid more and that is true. I repeat, it is simply a case of transferring the load from one set of people to another. The total taxation is $50,000,000 higher than it was two years ago, and yet we are told the taxation is being decreased.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to refer for a few minutes to statements made by the Minister of Finance with respect to imports for Canadian industry as set forth at pages 392 and 393 of Hansard. The minister is there reported as saying:
A detailed classification of the imports is published in the monthly reports of the Department of Trade and Commerce, but, broadly speaking, it may be said that commodities imported for further manufacture show the most pronounced increases. The following table gives the quantities imported of certain goods, classified for statistical purposes as goods imported for further manufacture-
And so on. The object of putting this on Hansard is to carry out a little political propaganda with a view to showing that more raw materials were being utilized, and more

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin
goods in process of manufacture, were being consumed by the people of Canada. Let me refer to just a few of them.
First let me take the case of wool as an example. The Minister of Finance says that the raw wool imported in the nine months of 1926 under review amounted to some eleven million odd dollars.


James Alexander Robb: No, eleven million pounds.


James Dew Chaplin: Yes, that is true, eleven
million pounds as compared with 9,121,504 pounds in 1925. He did not say that during the same period in 1923 the importations amounted to 13,800,000 pounds. So far as the past two years are concerned we have not gone ahead in the importation of raw materials. What is the position with respect to the total woollen imports? This year they amounted to $36,000,000. In 1922 they were $31,300,000. In other words there has been a falling off in the importation of raw wool, but there has been a gain in the importation of the finished articlg. I do not know if the minister wished particularly to bring that fact out. At any rate he did not do so, but there it is.
Now let us take another item-I shall refer only to a few of the principal ones-and that is iron ore. The minister told us that our imports of iron ore have increased from 643,043 tons in 1921 to 1,443,874 tons in 1926. Well, all I can say is that for a country which is supposed to be a manufacturing country and where there are millions upon millions of tons of ore lying unutilized, it is a queer commentary for the minister to make that it has increased its imports of iron ore from 643,043 tons to 1,443,874 tons. This government has an invitation from the province of Ontario before it to do something to help the iron industry but it has refrained from doing anything. In that matter this government resembles the seven sleepers, it is still asleep.
The minister also referred to rolling mill products, and he says that the importations have increased enormously. He states that Whereas in 1921 the importations amounted to 4,289,497 hundredweight, in 1926 they had increased to 13,780,928 hundredweight, or to put it in tons, from 214,000 tons to 6S9,000 tons. Now we have rolling mills, I suppose, in almost every province of Canada with the exception of Prince Edward Island, and yet there has been an increase in the importations of rolling mill products of over 400,000 tons as compared with 1921.
Now let us take pigs and ingots of iron. The importations of these have increased from 47,641,400 pounds in 192,1 to 81,012,900 pounds in 1926. That is a queer state of affairs in
32649-45J
a country where the raw material exists and the necessary facilities for doing work of this kind, are to be found. The minister himself put it on Hansard as something to be more or less proud of.
Another item is copper. Of copper, in the matte or in the raw, we exported practically $10,000,000 worth. We imported of copper products and brass and its products nearly $9,000,000 worth. In other words, we ship our raw product to the United States where it is manufactured, and we bring back to this country about the same quantity of goods, perhaps more, because there may be electrical supplies and matters of that kind, which I have missed.
Another item is zinc which is closely allied to copper. We exported in ore and spelter, some $6,500,000 worth. This is exported principally to the United States and we imported again quite a considerable quantity of spelter zinc in blocks, bars and sheets. Our exportation of the finished product was practically nil. After shipping away our raw material we bring back the finished product.
Another item that appears on the minister's list is automobile engines, and he cites that as a case where goods are imported in order to help in the manufacture of goods in this country. What a commentary, what a statement for a minister of finance to make! He tells us that 7,000 automobile engines were imported into this country in 1921, and 59,000 in 1926. We can make engines in Canada. The) minister knows also that in 1921 or since that date a factory to make engines was built in the district from which the hon. member for East Essex (Mr. Odette) comes. Probably $4,000,000 or $5,000,000 were spent on that factory and for the last several years nobodj' but a caretaker or two has been employed there. This is due to the fact that 7,000 enginels were imported a few years ago and now the importations have increased to 59,000 engines. Nearly every one of those engines imported by the concern that owns that factory could have been made there. It is in the) power of the Minister of Finance to have those engines made in this country.


Edmond George Odette: Has the tariff been reduced on automobile engines since 1921?


James Dew Chaplin: Most decidedly.


An hon. MEMBER:: No.


James Dew Chaplin: Why not? But the Minister of Finance will not say that, and I will give the reason.


Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: On automobile engines? On finished cars, yes.
The Budget-Mr. Chaplin


James Dew Chaplin: Automobile engines. If
the factory that is making the car can comply with the condition requiring 50 per cent to be made in Canada, then the manufacturer will get a further rebate and that rebate is a reduction in duty. The Minister of Finance will not say what my hon. friend has said.


Charles A. Stewart: That is correct as regards the finished product.


James Dew Chaplin: I repeat that the Minister of Finance has it in his power to make that factory run. All he has to do is to require a slightly greater percentage to be manufactured in Canada. I am not afraid to say to him that I give him credit for having put that manufacturing requirement into effect. I said that to him one day in conversation, and I said further: I will not tell you that on the floor of the House. But I say this now, that when you believe a thing is right, you are entitled to say so. I am neither afraid nor ashamed to tell the minister that he is going in the| right direction. I will tell him further that he can have more of these engines manufactured in Canada if that is what he wants, and that without increasing the price to the consumer.


James Alexander Robb: I know my hon. friend is well posted in this subject. I had an idea that the 50 per cent clause of last year would compel the manufacture of engines in Canada. I should like to know if it has had that effect.


James Dew Chaplin: As the minister probably knows, the 50 per cent clause has not yet come into effect and we have to wait until we see what actually happens. I am not going to prophesy what will happen.


James Alexander Robb: It comes into effect to-morrow, does it not?


James Dew Chaplin: It was 40 per cent last year and that continues until April 1. After the first of April, for the following year the 50 per cent clause comes into effect. I shall be able to tell him better a little later whether it has the desired effect or not. I am not at present able to say, but I hope it will have the desired effect. Evidently the manufacturers are not all figuring that it will, or they would probably have started to get ready at their plants to do something. That is the only thing I have to say in reference to it.
It is almost incredible that a country such as Canada, with the facilities we have, should have to import goods of this kind. I know how the people of the United States feel about this country, and how they feel about using it as a market for their wares. In a report

published by the United States Department of Commerce there appears on page 279 a statement, a brief extract from which I should like to read:
Since 1920 a considerable increase has taken place in the amount of industrial capital invested in Canada, and the largest part of this increase has been absorbed by American investors. This is especially true of certain industries, notably pulp and paper. In addition, the nickel and asbestos production of Canada, as well as many of its timber products, are now controlled by Americans.
In the same edition there is another paragraph that I should like to quote:
Economically and socially Canada may be considered as a northern extension of the United States, and our trade with Canada is in many respects more like domestic trade than our foreign trade with other countries. The movement of industrial raw materials from Canada into the United States and the return flow of a miscellaneous assortment of partly or wholly manufactured goods is not unlike a similar flow between the west and south, and the most industrialized northeastern part of the United States.
That is what the United States people want. They want to buy our raw material and to sell us the manufactured product. If we are ever going to build up a country worth while, we must have diversified industries. We cannot have one thing alone. We are separated from the United States by a border line which our workers can pass by easily. We in this country who employ labour must pay approximately the wages that are paid in the United States because, if our factory is within ten or twenty miles of the border line and we do not pay those rates, those men will simply move across the line. Consequently you have to pay approximately what they pay there. Now I ask this question: If you have to pay wages that approximate the wages in the United States, how can you allow goods to be imported into this country from Germany or France, or even from England-from Germany, where the wages are one-quarter of what they are here, from France, where they are one-third, or from England where the wages are one-half of what they are here? It simply cannot be done. Then it is a question for us to decide whether we should do away with our manufactures and simply buy in the cheapest market. That might suit certain parts of the country; it undoubtedly would suit certain parts of the country.


Mr. MILLAR:: What parts?


James Dew Chaplin: Is the hon. gentleman
asking that question for information or just to be talking?


John Millar: I want information.

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin


James Dew Chaplin: Surely he would know
that in places where there were no manufactures that would be likely to happen.


John Millar: Name one part where
they have that desire.


James Dew Chaplin: Right in my county I
have nine townships of farmers, besides the city, and I know what the farmers there want.


John Millar: They would like to see the manufacturers go?


James Dew Chaplin: No, indeed, they would
not; not at all.


John Millar: Name one that does.


James Dew Chaplin: I do not say that anybody desires such a thing. What I say is that that would happen if my hon. friend who has just spoken were to carry out to the letter what he has signed and sealed in a pledge given to his party before he came here.


John Millar: Oh, no.


James Dew Chaplin: Oh, yes.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


James Dew Chaplin: Mr. Speaker, before recess I had about concluded my remarks as to what would happen if we had an all-round reduction in the tariff according to the farmers' platform. Undoubtedly many of our manufacturers would be put out of business. My hon. friend who interrupted me just as 1 was closing (Mr. Millar) said that nobody on that side of the House desired such a thing to happen. I believe him. But I say that that is what would happen if the farmers' platform were put into effect.


An hon. MEMBER:: Make it higher.


James Dew Chaplin: If you made it higher
you have the assurance that more American factories would come into this country, with the net result that the price of the goods they manufactured would be cheaper to us.


Mr. DIONNE:: Will you allow me a question? If you make the tariff higher, when you fall down you will fall correspondingly lower.


James Dew Chaplin: Mr. Speaker, that is a
wonderful question! It is very much like some other questions with which the time of the House has been consumed to absolutely no purpose. Naturally, Mr. Speaker, if the people who are now engaged in industries
are deprived of employment they will have to seek some other work. Probably my friend from Saskatchewan who interrupted me just before recess would object to their going on the land.


An hon. MEMBER:: No.


James Dew Chaplin: When there was a much
larger representation of the Progressive group on this side of the House than there is today I very well remember how hon. members from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba year after year advised the Minister of Immigration not to bring in any more immigrants.


An hon. MEMBER:: We had a good
Liberal government.


James Dew Chaplin: That was when the advice was given.


An hon. MEMBER:: It must be getting
better.


James Dew Chaplin: I am glad my hon. friend was not here at the time. I know the advice then tendered to the government by gentlemen of the Progressive group was: Do not bring in any more immigrants because we have enough on the land now. But my friends would like to see Canadian workmen taken out of our factories and put on the land, otherwise they would have to seek a living in the United States. A good many of our people have left the country owing to the reductions that have already been made in the tariff, and if any further reductions are made more of them will have to go across the line. If the farmers' platform or the Liberal platform of 1919 were put into effect the same thing would happen. My hon friend from Saskatoon (Mr. Young) said this afternoon that those two platforms were pretty nearly alike, and, the Liberals and Progressives in the West do not argue about them. They reserve their argument for this House.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to refer to what some of my friends had to say this afternoon anent my remarks respecting the member for Macleod (Mr. Coote). They seemed to think that I had not been fair in my criticism of him. I suppose they will not question what the member for Southeast Grey (Miss Macphail) said about the speech of the hon. member for Macleod. In the course of her address last Tuesday she referred to that speech and built an argument upon it. These are her words:
In the course of his speech yesterday the member for Macleod (Mr. Coote) gave the proportions of our exports, fifty-six per cent being agricultural and forty-four per cent representing other exports, partly manufactured goods.
The Budget-Mr. Chaplin

Now, I should like to know from my friends who do not entirely approve of my criticism of the hon. member for Macleod whether or not the hon. member for Southeast Grey correctly interpreted what he meant. That is all there is to that. I do not want anybody in this House to think that I have made a charge against any member which is not proper, and if it can be shown that I have done so I shall be the first to get up and apologize.
In closing I want to say just a word or two regarding the result of same of the treaties that this government has put its hand to. We have discussed the treaty with France which we have had on the statute books for a number of years, and I want to direct attention to some of the latest consequences of that agreement. Of the nine months of the present year ending December 31 we bought from France $17,346,000 worth of goods, whereas during the same period we sold them around $7,000,000 worth. During the full fiscal year 1925 we bought from them $18,500,000 and sold them $10,500,000. When this treaty was entered into, imports and1 exports were practically on a level; to-day our imports from France have increased except for a few items, while a long list of goods we formerly sold them has vanished from our export returns. To-day we sell them wheat and sugar, wood pulp, salmon, lobsters and a few ores such as lead and cobalt, as well as asbestos, coal and tar. In addition to these we sell them two items of manufactured goods, rubber tires and, to some extent, agricultural implements. But goods that we formerly supplied to France, goods that were embodied in (the treaty, enumerated by the hundreds, we no longer sell to that country. We are selling to France only the purest raw material while we are buying from them an increased amount of goods, chiefly luxuries, on which we deliberately reduced the duties in order to facilitate the importation of them into Canada. This reduction in duty is now costing the treasury of the country between three and four million dollars, counting in the goods from other countries that came in to take advantage of the French treaty. That is what the treaty with France has cost us. If it is a matter of sentiment and not of business, by all means let us trade with France on that basis; but if we have an eye to business, then I contend that the treaty is bad. I so described it at the time the treaty was drawn up. I said before it came into effect that it would be harmful and it has turned out that way without question. The then 
Minister of Marine, now Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), who made the treaty, told us at the time wonderful stories about the butter and other commodities we would sell to France. But there has not been a pound of butter sold. At any rate, we have not sold enough of that article to make a smell in a pan. Our trade in cheese is gone and the milk we used to sell to France in canned form we are no longer selling.
We have the latest treaty, the one with Australia, which deserves a comment or two. A year or so ago we taxed ourselves on raisins and currants to the extent of two and a half or three cents a pound. Our friends from the west seem to think it an awful thing as they say, to tax ourselves for the benefit of the manufacturers at home, but in this case we taxed ourselves for the benefit of people in Australia. That is the difference. We pay taxes on four million, pounds of currants, and with an advantage of three cents or nearly three cents Australia last year sold us, out of this quantity, 561,000 pounds. During the same period we imported 34,000,000 pounds of raisins, taxing ourselves for the benefit of Australia, and that country sold us less than
1,000,000 pounds out of that enormous quantity. My hon. friends who kicked about this country paying a tribute as they call it, to manufacturers at home do not object to our taxing ourselves for the benefit of Australia. And that is precisely 'What we have done. We made a treaty in order to facilitate the entry of Australian butter into this market. For the year 1926 there came from Australia nearly 3,000,000 pounds of butter and from New Zealand a little over that quantity. In January of this year we imported1 from New Zealand 729,000 pounds of butter. I have not the figures for Australia for this month-


William Richard Motherwell: There is none from Australia.


James Dew Chaplin: I could not get the returns. Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to take up any more of the time of the House, but I desire to thank hon. members for the courteous attention with Which they have followed me.


Mr. JACOBS:: Before the hon. member sits down, will he explain how it is that two members of the administration of which he was a member voted last summer for the Australian treaty?


James Dew Chaplin: I find it difficult enough to answer questions regarding myself without having to answer for others.


Samuel William Jacobs: My hon. friend knows
something about the joint and several responsibility of governments.

The Budget-Mr. Irvine


James Dew Chaplin: We do not see anything
of it over there.


Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (Wetaskiwin):: From appearances the debate on the budget is drawing to a close, or at any rate is on the last lap. The government, to the best of its ability, has defended its inaction and its reaction, and the party to my right has criticised the budget in the usual manner and put forward its ideas. The group with which I am associated has done likewise. All that I would wish to say on the budget has therefore been already said by my colleagues in this section of the chamber, and I regard the repetition of arguments about as tiresome when, it comes from a number of persons as when it comes from an individual. For that reason it is essential for me to make some explanation as to why I venture to speak at all at this time. My object in rising is mainly to reply to an attack which was made by the Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) on the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) in respect of the speech he delivered the other evening. Not only did the minister attack the hon. member in a more or less personal way, but he also attacked the entire farmers' movement, and particularly the group to which I belong. That speech was made on Thursday night last, and it was of such a character that it did not do justice to the argument of the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland); it did not add much credit to the minister who made the attack nor did it reflect much credit on the government in the defence of which he spoke. I think the attack was regrettable, not only because we expected something better from the minister but also because the minister was very well qualified, if he had so chosen, to defend the government and answer the arguments of the hon. member on a much higher plane than he selected. I am bound to concede at the outset of my remarks that in natural gifts as well as in long experience in public life the Minister of Railways is one of the outstanding men in Canadian public life to-day. He was elevated from that obscurity with which I think most immigrants find themselves surrounded to the position of premier of his province, and after serving with considerable distinction in that honoured position he was called to take charge of that most important department which he now directs. These facts emphasize the ability of the hon. gentleman and also mark the fact that his fellow citizens have recognized that ability. With his great gifts and his opportunities to gain knowledge,
together with his long experience in public life, we expected a great deal from him when he rose in his seat to explain the budget and to give the reasons for the inaction on the part of the government in implementing their program of promises to the Canadian people. His failure to so much as refer to some of the questions of public importance, after his attention -was drawn to them by the hon. member for Bow River, is to be regretted, but the nature and spirit of his reply is even more to be regretted. I was personally very much astonished at the attitude the minister took, the more so because of the exalted opinion of the minister held by the public generally.
First of all I think he escaped from the argument under cover of a smoke screen of his own creation; his flight from the field of argument was anything but dignified, and will not enhance his reputation as a statesman. His smoke screen consisted of a charge, the words of which I want to read. Speaking of the hon. member for Bow River he said:
.	.	. .my hon. friend's speech was replete
with reflections upon the honesty of the motives of other members of the House. I am content in that regard to abide by the record of Hansard.
I am not sure about the imputing of motives; I think it is a rather delicate line to draw, because I notice that in most criticisms of one party made by another, if one should analyze them carefully motives would be found imputed in most cases. Indeed, there may be times when motives are so obvious and so pernicious that they should be pointed out. On the whole, I think a very good rule to observe in this House is to refrain as far as possible from imputing improper motives to any hon. member, and I am certainly in agreement with the minister in attempting to maintain that position. I have read very carefully the speech Of the hon. member for Bow River, however, and since the minister said he would call Hansard to witness I wanted to ask him a question. I am sorry he is not now- in his seat, but perhaps some of his coleagues will find a single sentence in the speech of the hon. member for Bow River which can be said to impute a motive to any hon. member of this House. I think when the minister was speaking he imagined that he was dealing with the Liberal platform and he spOke in the most general and all-comprehensive terms. When we come to examine Hansard, however, which he called to witness, we cannot find a single statement which would justify the speech he made. On the contrary I point out to the minister that
The Budget-Mr. Irvine

he did the very thing with which he charged the hon. member for Bow River. I am not going to make a blanket charge; I will make it specific, and I will quote the actual words
used by the minister. At page 637 of Hansard, referring to the hon. member for Bow River, he says:
My hon. friend does love to rock the boat when it is perfectly safe to do so.
Not content with that, a more or less ambiguous statement, the minister enters into a thorough explanation and points out that last year the hon. member for Bow River refrained from rocking the boat because he was afraid he might rock it over, but this year he is attacking the government and supporting an amendment against the government budget because he feels certain that no matter how much he rocks the boat it will not go over. That is imputing a rather base motive to the hon. member for Bow River, more particularly when that gentleman assisted to rock over two boats not a year ago. But let us proceed to the next statement of the minister, at page 638 of Hansard, when he was dealing with the alleged brick for brick policy of the Conservative party. This is what he said in that regal'd:
Evidently it has been abandoned in vie-w of the much-heralded attempt to capture votes in western Canada by holding a big convention in Winnipeg next October.
Is not that imputing motives to the Conservative party, of abandoning its policy in order to get votes through this convention. Then on page 640, in answer to a question of the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) and referring to the Conservative party, the minister said:
Every one of them has some pet industry for which he wants to have higher protection.
I am rather surprised that hon. gentlemen to my right stood so quiet under that charge, directly imputing that every individual member of the Conservative party had the basest motives which could be attributed by one man to another. Yet the minister had the temerity to charge the imputing of motives in the same speech in which he said these things about another hon. member of this House. In concluding his speech the Minister of Railways, as reported at page 642 of Hansard,-I think he had a sort of feeling that he had gone a 'little bit too far-said:
We could debate these matters like gentlemen, but it is pretty difficult to debate like a gentleman with men who consistently take the ground that your motives for differing with them are unworthy motives and objects of suspicion.
I have only one reply to make to that, Mr. Speaker, and it is that a gentleman does not
[Mr. Irvine. 1
usually find it difficult to be a gentleman no matter how ungentlemanly his opponents may be. As a matter of fact it is only under those circumstances that we find out who the gentleman is.
There is one reason why I take the trouble to answer the minister, and it is to draw to the attention of this House and to the attention of the country the reply which a statesman made in defence of the present government. I want to re-present the arguments which were so eloquently put forward by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland), and to draw to the attention of the House the reply which the minister gave. Then I want those outside of this House, as well as those inside of it, to read these speeches and see whether the Minister of Railways actually answered the argument or not. Meanwhile I hope the Minister of Railways will never adopt similar tactics again in reply to the hon. member for Bow River or any other hon. member.
I want to follow the main points of the argument made by the hon. member for Bow River in order to show that the reply given was not satisfactory, that the points the minister did attempt to reply to were unsatisfactorily answered, and that his eloquent silence on other points is something worthy of note. The hon. member for Bow River opened his remarks by charging that the present budget was a rich man's budget, and he also referred to the reduction in income tax as the reduction feature of the budget. He went on to argue that since the income tax is paid only by those who have sufficient income to come within the scope of the act, it goes without saying that the reduction in the income tax will favour those who are most wealthy, and indeed it does not affect the poorer classes of the community at all. That was the basis of his charge, that it was a rich man's budget. But what did the minister reply to that? It is an extremely interesting reply; it is worthy of contemplation and profound study. His first argument was that it is very difficult to apply the income tax, so difficult to apply indeed that it is an unsurmountable problem. He quoted, I think, from some individual farmer whom he did not mention and that individual farmer went on to say that "we go to forty dollars' worth of time and trouble to find out that we owe the government $10." Now let me refer the minister to the propaganda of the Liberal party. What does that propaganda say about the tariff tax? Does the hon. minister mean to say that the tariff tax is more easily imposed, more easily and more cheaply collected

The Budget-Mr. Irvine
than the income tax? I think I have read somewhere in Liberal propaganda that it takes $3 to collect $1 of revenue from the tariff tax.
If the minister wants to get away from that difficulty of collection he had better abolish the tariff entirely. But if he really wants to find out how easy it is to collect the income tax, I would advise him to go over to Great Britain and have an interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I imagine that he will get some very sound advice on that question.
But the next reply that he made to this argument, is even more fantastic. On page 640 of Hansard the Minister of Railways is reported as saying that they revised this income tax in the interest of the farmers, and he went on to observe:
I will be frank enough to say that one of the reasons why I personally favoured an increase in the exemption from income tax to the present level was my conviction that it would automatically eliminate from the sphere of operation of the tax a very large proportion of the farmers of Canada.
Now I appreciate this conviction which the minister had, but I would have appreciated it very much more if he had acquainted us with the process of reasoning by which he arrived at it. He says that under the present tax a farmer spends $40 worth of time in discovering that he owes the government $10. The minister now proposes to reduce the tax by ten per cent which will mean that the farmer will spend $40 and find out that he owes the government $1. And then the hon. gentleman tells us that this reduction was made in the interests of the farmers. The minister did not wipe the thing out so that the farmers would not come under its operation. They have got to make a report to the government officials to discover whether they owe anything under this ten per cent reduction or not, just as they did before. Therefore the reason the minister acted in the interests of the farmer is so obscure, to say the least, that I am unable to detect the hon. gentleman's reasoning. I think he could have done better by increasing the amount of exemption and then increasing the amount of taxation upon the amount fixed. In that way peirhaps he would have helped the farmers to better advantage.
Now if the finances of the Dominion warrant tax reduction, a reduction should have been made first of that taxation which falls more heavily upon the mass of the people, that tax which is a decided burden to the agricultural population at the present time- that of the tariff. More especially should this have been done when to accomplish such
reduction is one of the professed policies of the Liberal party. The tariff question is the hobby-horse of Canadian politics. I have never ridden that hobby; I refuse to straddle that antiquated mechanism. But in the interests of political honesty we are bound to insist that the present administration either implement the promises that they have made to the Canadian people from time to time, and justify their adherence to a policy of tariff reduction, or else frankly admit that it cannot be done or that they will not do it. The Liberal party surely will not deny that it has committed itself, in the eloquent words of the Prime Minister, to "a downward revision policy." I think that that right hon. gentleman also drafted the chart which led down gradually from the high tariff of the Conservative party to the free trade policy which is peculiar to the Liberals. That chart they started to follow, but through some strange, unexplained reason, they have suddenly abandoned it. It is true that under pressure! of the Progressive group in the last parliament they attempted an experiment by reducing the tariff taxes on automobiles, and indeed it was that reduction of automobile taxation that enabled the present party on the right of the Speaker to come into power. During the last election whenever a Conservative candidate mentioned anything about Customs scandal, the Liberal candidate jumped into one of these automobiles and scurried for his life, and the Liberals thereby got into power. I am not, however, overlooking the charge of the Conservative party that the tax reduction on automobiles reduced the revenue of the country, which reduction had to be made up by taxing everybody else that much more; nor am I forgetting the charge that the automobile industry obtained certain concessions which offset the tariff reductions. That is another part of the question which I am not addressing myself to now.
I am content for the present to take the words of the Minister of Finance on this question. He very clearly pointed out that the direct effect of that reduction was that the government collected more revenue and that the automobile industry flourished. That is what the Liberals always contended would happen when they reduced taxes. The minister was, I imagine, very glad ,to be able to report that what they had anticipated was so in fact. They gained more revenue by reducing the tax and the automobile industry flourished. Does the Minister of Finance know that there are in Canada a number of industries that would like to get some of that prosperity? Does he not know
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also that the finances of this country could stand a little more of that revenue coming in so handily and that the people of Canada would be pleased to get at a lower price the goods which these industries are manufacturing? That is the question that I want the government to answer, the question which the Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) ran away from when it was placed before him by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland)? I want any member of the government to answer that question now or to answer it some time before this debate closes.
If they were telling the truth about the automobile business-and I am not for one moment doubting their word-that by the reduction in the tariff on automobiles more automobiles were sold, the business flourished and the taxes collected amounted to more than previously, what is the excuse which the government offers for not repeating that in regard to other industries? That is a reasonable question. It grows out of the professed policy of the government itself; it actually flows out of the philosophy of the Liberal party, and we want to know why they have retarded this prosperity by their inaction. That question still remains to be answered, and I hope the Minister of Railways, when he speaks from now on regarding any question . relating to the tariff, will do what he did not do the other day, and answer it to the satisfaction of the House. Now I ask-that the government either follow the chart towards the lower tariff goal or frankly state that such a policy cannot be followed.
Some hon. members speaking in this debate said that the present budget was a Conservative budget. I disagree with that. I think this is a typically Liberal budget. It has been defended by a typical Liberal and the policy which the minister announced is also typically Liberal. The budget is typically Liberal becauses it does not do one thing that can be defended from the point of view of Liberal philosophy. If this had been a Conservative budget brought in by Conservatives,
I will give them this credit at least to say that they would have defended it on the ground that the industries of Canada required such protection, and rightly or wrongly, very probably wrongly, they would have defended that to the last ditch. But when we ask a Liberal government to defend this budget, what do they say? The last speaker on the Liberal side (Mr. Young, Saskatoon) said that the Minister of Finance was too tired to lower the tariff. The Minister of Railways said that they did not have time to lower the tariff. They had time to leave it alone, did they not? These are petty excuses, un-

worthy of the history of Liberalism, unworthy of great Liberals, and I think if hon. gentlemen opposite had an eye to the future, they would thank us for endeavouring to press them to be true to their own philosophy. Those are, I say, unworthy subterfuges, unworthy of the hon. gentlemen advancing them.
But a more characteristic excuse even than these' was advanced by the Minister of Railways. In reply to the hon. member for Bow River, he said that the second reason why the tariff had not been reduced in this budget was that they did not have all the facts. He charged the hon. member for Bow River with being the type of man who wants the tariff reduced whether he has the facts or not, and he charged this whole group with being of a similar character. We do not mind the minister's raillery, if I may use his own word; but I ask the minister and the government this question If that is the reason why they have not altered the tariff, would it not have been far better if the Liberal party had taken that attitude fifty years ago? It is a fine time now to tell us that they cannot alter the tariff because they have not the facts. Would it not have been better if they had secured the facts before they formulated a policy?
If we look at the literature which their publicists issued in the lasit election, did they tell the people of Canada: Oh, after we have all the facts we shall see what we can do with this tariff business? Did their candidates say to the people of the west: Oh, after we have all the facts, we will sit down, scratch our heads for a while and see if we can take a little bit off here and add a little bit on there? They did not do that. They went out on a low tariff policy. They did not say: Our tariff policy will depend on the facts and we have not gathered them yet. I am not objecting to the facts being secured; I think it would be a splendid thing to get the facts, but I am simply pointing out to the minister that if he is going to get stuck on facts now, it would have been better if he had got stuck on them a long time ago because far less misrepresentation would then have followed the course of the Liberal party.
Let me now turn to the master apologia of the minister. With that characteristic flourish of his he said: What would have happened if we had actually taken action on flake calcium chloride, nail kegs, Epsom salts, foxes and canaries? He said: Hon. members of this assembly, what would have happened if we had taken action on those things? Well, what would have happened? What is going to happen now that the hon. gentleman did

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not take action on these foxes and canaries? The foxes have holes and the canaries have nests, but the farmers of. Canada are unable to pay anything on income tax because their incomes are not big enough. Therefore I think it would have been wise if the minister had not made that remark, which is rather unbecoming and which would seem to indicate that either he took the subject less seriously than a man in his position should, or perhaps' we may have overestimated his ability. We are left to guess .at the policy now to be followed by the Liberal party, and my guess is as good as anybody else's. I want to make three guesses as to what is going to happen to this Liberal policy henceforth, and I am going to guess so comprehensively that I do not think I can be wrong.
My first guess is that this government, when it came to make up its budget for 1927, discovered that the tariff as left by the Conservative government some years ago was t.he best kind of tariff for the people of Canada. They discovered that they could not disturb that tariff without disturbing the industries of Canada, and so in the best interests of industry, and in the best interests of the people, they refrained from touching the tariff at all. But having discovered that, they would not come to parliament and so state, because if they had done so they would have openly acknowledged the virtue of the Conservative policy, and would have given hostages to their enemy with a vengeance. That is my first guess. I do not know whether it is right or not, and so I am going to cover the field of guessing as to what the government's policy is.
My next guess is that the government, when it started to make up its budget for this year, was convinced that the policy of the Liberal party, 'that of a revision downwards of the tariff from time to time, was the best policy, and that they sincerely desired to put it into effect; but when they actually came to make up the budget and to implement their policy foy tariff reduction they found they could not do it for one of two reasons; one being that they had so many high tariff men in their ranks that they did not dare to lower the tariff, or else this is my second guess -there was so much influence outside the party as to prevent the government taking the action they had promised to take. If that foe right, then I argue that the government of the day should have risked its policy on a vote in parliament, should have gone out of power honourably, if need be, and come back with renewed strength to carry out its policy, rather
than sit quietly and do nothing but make apologies to the people of Canada for having failed.
I do not know whether the Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) or the hon. member for Quebec-Montmoreney (Mr. Lavigueur) is speaking for the government in this matter, but I rather suspect that the latter gentleman was giving the true policy of the Liberal party when he spoke, and I think his opening remarks are very significant. I wish to quote them in support of one of my guesses. The hon. gentleman says:
I consider it an honour to follow the hon. member for Southeast Grey (Miss Macphail), the only .lady in the House of Commons, although I do not share her views generally, and particularly so far as the tariff is concerned. She has told us she is absolutely in favour of a low tariff; let me assure her that neither the province from which I come nor I myself can sympathize with her in that regard. We are in favour of protection for industry: we do not believe in a low tariff. I am glad to have an opportunity to-night to state my views on the tariff question. I am pleased to see that the budget this year contains no items of reduction.
I think you will agree with me that my guess number two is a good one, but if that is so, the Liberal .party cannot expect to go on forever in that position. There will come a time when they will have to make a break, and they might as well make it now. If the Liberal party has so many high tariff men in its ranks, let them go to the high .tariff party, and let the Liberal party, if it is going .to stand for anything, come out and stand for it.
There is another possible explanation, although the Minister of Railways denied this emphatically in answer .to a question put by the hon. member for Bow River. This guess is that the government intends henceforth to leave tariff adjustments to the advice of the Tariff Advisory Board, and to abandon the policy of downward revisions of the tariff, because if they leave it to the advice of the tariff board there might be an upward revision; we do not know what kind of revision the board will recommend. There is my third guess.
Personally-I am speaking purely for myself, and not for my group at all in this matter -I think that the latter course would be preferable to the one that is now being followed. I do not think that there can foe any less hope of a tariff board finding a solution of the tariff question than we can have in either of the old parties finding it. Personally, I have absolutely no faith in either the Liberal party or the Conservative party finding a solution of the tariff problem. They have had sixty years to do it, and will any hon.
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gentleman in this House say that we are any nearer to a solution of it now than we were then? We are more hopelessly lost now than ever before. Not one step of real progress can be said to have been taken. Therefore I say, optimistic as I usually am, I am not optimistic enough to continue having faith in the parties in this regard.
May I take the opportunity here, Mr. Speaker, to point out what appears to me to be a very grave danger indeed to Canada, arising from the historic conflict between the Conservatives and the Liberals over the tariff? We are beginning to reap to-day the fruits of the propaganda and of the historic struggle between the two old parties on this matter. We have developed undoubtedly what is known to-day as a west and an east. That is not a geographical division; it is a division of sentiment; it is a division of the people more distinct than could be effected by geography. That division has largely come about through the propaganda of these two parties which I address to-night in this House. Canada, I say, is divided between east and west. The farmers and manufacturers are at loggerheads. We have a struggle between what has been called by some hon. member of this House the robbed and the robbers. Whoever the robbers are, I am not supposed to know, but that is the type of propaganda. Rightly or wrongly, the manufacturers of Canada have been represented in a very bad light by the Liberal propaganda. No later than this afternoon I heard an hon. gentleman opposite stand up and make a charge against the manufacturers of this country. That is the kind of thing that the farmers of Canada have been told for a great many years. They have been told that the manufacturers of this country are interested only in making huge profits at the expense of the farmers, and that the tariff is the means by which those profits are made. The farmers to a very great extent believe that. The farmers say, to use a word that the hon. member for Rosetown (Mr. Evans) is rather fond of using, that the tariff is a diabolical outrage and an imposition. The farmers regard the tariff as it was characterized in the motion of non-confidence that was moved by the Liberal party in the last session of parliament wjien the Right Hon. Mr. Meighen took office, as being prejudicial to national unity. I wonder whether the party of the hon. gentleman who this afternoon castigated the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) for the attitude which he took at that time now believes what was them put in that resolution? If the tariff is still prejudicial to the unity of Canada why is not my hon. friend protesting?
[Mr. Irvine. 3


Mr. SMITH (Stormont):: Would the hon. gentleman be good enough to tell me whether he or an}' other member of his group have laid before the tariff board any cases for consideration?


William Irvine: No so far as I know. That is not our business.


Arnold Neilson Smith: Why not?


William Irvine: We are not sent here to
lay cases before the tariff board. We are not here seeking to prejudice the board in arriving at a decision on the facts presented to it. We are prepared to lay before the board any information that it may call upon us to furnish.
The Conservative party espouses more or less the cause of the manufacturers, and has regarded the farmers, in the words of one of the Toronto members, as narrow and selfish. The result of this propaganda is that we have political enmity where there should be friendship. We have class war where there should be cooperation. Now that this class war and these east and west factions are beginning to take form, I note a tendency on the part of certain gentlemen outside of this House to make long after-dinner speeches on unity. I think the House will agree with me that it will take more than a few after-dinner speeches, inspired by choice viands and a glass of champagne, to offset sixty years of the type of propaganda to which I have referred. Ever since the days of Sir John A. Macdonald up to the present time the propaganda of the Liberal party has been such as to lead the agricultural population in Canada to believe that our manufacturers are just so many profiteers who use the tariff as an easy way to make money. On the other hand, the Conservative party has taken up the cudgels on behalf of the manufacturers and has spoken of the farmer as being selfish and narrow-more inclined to look after his own class than to regard the welfare of the nation as a whole.
Frankly, I believe that the tariff as now imposed falls more heavily on the agricultural population than on any other class of the Dominion, nevertheless the two old parties have failed to bring any relief or to settle the question in a satisfactory way. In fact they have proved their ability to unsettle rather than to settle it. For this reason I believe that the tariff board could not possibly do worse than what the Liberal or Conservative parties have already accomplished. But if the tariff board is not the proper body to settle the problem then let me suggest to the organized farmers

The Budget-Mr. Irvine
of Canada outside of parliament and to the organized manufacturers of Canada outside of parliament that they take this matter in their own hands and settle it as it should be settled. There is no doubt about it that our farmers and manufacturers must learn to work together if Canada is ever to amount to anything, and while we leave this major grievance as a football for political parties we are only inciting strife and driving these classes further apart. Therefore I say to the farmers and to the manufacturers of Canada that if the two historic parties will not take the tariff question out of the field of political conflict they themselves should do so and settle it as their own affair. I believe that it can be done, I believe that it must be done. In this connection I want to quote briefly from Wells' latest book, The World of William Clissold:
I believe that if we can sufficiently develop the consciousness of contemporary business and associate with it the critical cooperation and the cooperative criticism of scientific and every other sort of able man, we can weave a world system of monetary and economic activities, while the politicians, the diplomatists and soldiers are still too busy with their ancient and habitual antics to realize what we are doing.
If that can be done in international affairs,
I am sure it will be much more simple to achieve in Canadian affairs, and so I hope that the Conservative party and the Liberal party will cease this old meaningless bickering over the tariff question. Let them place it in the hands of the ablest committee or board that can be formed, and let those men approach it from the point of view of science, let them cease dividing east and west upon this question. The tariff question is prejudicial to national unity only so long as it is made a matter of conflict between our major political parties.
Now let me come to the next question which the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) dealt with. He presented this query direct to the minister:
Is the House to take it as the declared policy of the government that it will not reduce the tariff until after the board has reported favouring a reduction?
Immediately the Minister of Railways denies that that is the policy of the government. The hon. member for Bow River thereupon presses his question. Instead of answering it the minister says:
I have allowed my hon. friend to make at least six speeches.
That is his answer to a most important question. Following this up, the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Glen)-a new member in this House, and apparently very anxious to
treat the government fairly, at the same time seeking to pay due regard to the principles upon which he was elected-asks this question:
I take it from what the minister said, in reply to my address of yesterday asking for some assurance from the government in the matter, that the policy of the government is in the direction of lower tariffs, and that it is not the intention to abolish the income tax as a permanent fiscal instrument. Am I right in assuming that?
The hon. Minister of Railways replies:
My hon. friend must not put words in my mouth.
Of course, I think he was trying to put some ideas into the minister's head. Heaven knows he did not need anybody to put words in his mouth; he has lots of them! But that is the answer that a minister of the crown gives to one who is very anxious to lend his support to the government. Is there any assurance in that answer that the government is going to continue its tariff reduction policy? Surely the hon. member for Marquette will not be so easily gulled as to think there is any such assurance.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: Was that the only answer that the hon. Minister of Railways made to the hon. member?


William Irvine: So far as I know. Here is Hansard if the hon. gentleman can find a better answer.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: If the hon.
gentleman will read Hansard he will soon find other answers.


William Irvine: Will you give them to me?


Mr. MacLEAN (Prince):: The hon. member should read the full statement of the Minister of Railways if he would be fair to him.


Mr. McMILLAN:: You look only for what you want to find. You are not trying to find facts.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


William Irvine: My hon. friend is talking
as a Liberal. Now I want to move to another stage of the argument. The member for Bow River said that the income tax was a war tax and he argued that as such it should not be reduced, and certainly should not be abolished so long as we had not paid the war debt. That at least is a reasonable suggestion. He went on to show that $>162,922,000 is called for annually as an expenditure due entirely to the war, and while we have to spend that vast sum each year on account of
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the war surely it is reasonable that the income tax, which takes more from the people who are able to pay than from others who are not so well off, should have been maintained towards the payment of that annual charge. What answer did the minister give to this? I hope my hon. friend who asked the question a moment ago will look up Hansard and see whether he can find' the minister's answer, because I have not found any answer to that question at all. The minister does refer to Epsom salts and canaries and foxes, but a little item like $162,000,000 as an annual expenditure due to the war does not come within the purview of the hon. gentleman.
Again, the member for Bow River attempted to defend the farmers of Canada against the charge of evading the income tax, and he advanced the explanation that the only reason the farmers did not pay as much in the way of income tax as other people paid was that the farmers did not receive incomes large enough to come within the scope of .the act. Which is one of the best reasons I can think of. In this connection the member for Bow River challenged the minister to make an investigation and to give publicity, if necessary, to all the details, and to reveal the whole truth of the matter with a view to exonerating the farmers from this charge, which has 'been so generally made by the press and by hon. members. Again the minister is eloquently silent.
Next, the member for Bow River charged that the party system is corrupt, and in support of that charge he referred to the evidence taken before the commission appointed by the Liberal party, from which evidence he quoted. The hon. member hight have referred, if he did not do so, to the recent scandals in Athabaska and Peace River. He did, however, allude to the significant words of the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) who on one occasion discussed the question. Then the member for Bow River demanded an investigation into campaign funds, pointing out that, according to our Election Act, corporations were not permitted to make contributions to party expenses, although, in face of this provision, certain corporations, as disclosed in the evidence to which he referred, did make very heavy contributions to funds of the Liberal party. He asked the minister to have that matter investigated. Indeed, he went further than that; he desired to have all campaign funds investigated, including of course those of the farmer members as well as of the rest. Again the minister has nothing whatever to sa.y.

The minister proceeds to state his relal object for rising to speak. I quote his words as they are found at page 642 of Hansard:
My object was merely to set forth as clearly as possible what the tariff policy of the Liberal party is.
That is exactly what we wanted the minister to do. I suggest that it is just possible that the people of Canada know what the Liberal party's policy is about as well as the minister does; and perhaps one of his difficulties some of these days will be the discovery of that fact. There is no doubt in the minds of the Canadian people as to what the Liberal party's policy is: the whole trouble is the inaction of that party. What is wrong is the failure of the Liberal party to implement its policy. The minister goes on to advance the new policy of the Liberal party. I think it was the great Francis Bacon who remarked once something to this effect, that it is of the nature of the mind of man to revel in specious generalities even to the prejudice of truth. And if ever there was a time when that saying was true, it is today in relation to thd new policy of the Liberal party. Let me read the statement of that policy:	[DOT]
We shall move forward cautiously with the aid of knowledge of the facts secured by the Tariff Advisory Board toward the goal of making our tariff structure bear as lightly as possible on production, industry, and the people generally, having always in view' the greater prosperity of all the legitimate industries of Canada.
I do not think hon. gentlemen to my right would mind voting for that policy. It is an all-inclusive principle, a typically Liberal platform. It is propaganda, not practical policy. It will read well on the prairies and many people will say, "What splendid statesmen we must have in Ottawa. No doubt this year they will reduce the tariff very materially." Well, anybody could make a statement like this; it calls for no specific action. I would, however, observe this about it; it will have the effect of allaying any fears which might arise among those who are alleged to enjoy protection, for they are assured here that theire is not going to be any great hurry in removing tariff barriers. It is going to be done very slowly. I have no objection to moving slowly and cautiously, but I certainly have a great objection to standing still when we ought to be moving. And the present government is not moving; it is quite stationary.
Let me recast the policy of the Liberal party as given to us by the Minister of Railways, as I understand its meaning, and as I

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venture to predict it will ultimately be understood by the people of Canada. This is it: We shall stand cautiously, ignoring many facts presented to the tariff board, with the telescope of Liberal principles set firmly on our blind eye. Our policy when in power shall be a carefully drawn verbal string of specious platitudes to which no party in the House can take serious objection, ignoring the protests of the agricultural population, which we are fully aware during election times bea-s the brunt of the fiscal policy now in vogue, and having in view the continued prosperity of those in whose interests, our propaganda has alleged, the tariff was designed.
That is my reading of the new policy of the Liberal party. There are other political implications of the budget itself to which it might be profitable to make some reference, but I shall not detain the House longer by entering into any prolonged discussion of the budget as a whole. I merely remark however that I notice, inferentiaily at least, that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) did not hesitate to claim a very great dead of credit for the prosperity which he says now reigns throughout Canada. I do not think we can be said to be really prosperous at present, although we are all glad to admit that there are at least signs that we are emerging from the depression which followed the war. Certainly no one would say that this or any other government should be thanked very much for that. As a matter of fact we do not look to governments to-day, as a general rule, as the source of industrial or commercial well-being. It is true that they can1 hinder a bit and it is possible that to the same extent they may assist in facilitating trade, but to a very limited extent in each case. However, I notice that in the Liberal propaganda these so-called periods of prosperity are always associated with Liberal regimes. If those who assert such political superstitions were as jealous of their intellectual reputations as they Obviously are of their political standing, they would not give voice to such arguments. I am glad that someone pointed out that perhaps the big crop in western Canada and in fact throughout Canada had something to do with this so-called prosperity, although on the other hand while we cannot have prosperity without big crops it is true that we can have big crops without prosperity, as experience has shown. There are two great factors of prosperity, the ability to produce goods and the ability to consume goods, and these are equally important; as soon as we hamper the consumption it is immediately reflected in the industrial stagnation which follows. But a government can have very little direct effect
upon prosperity, because in connection with the purchasing power of the nation the government has entirely delegated its powers to others and so can claim absolutely no credit for any prosperity which we may be experiencing.
In conclusion let me say that I am supporting the amendment, and am particularly interested in the last clause which calls the attention of the government and of the House to the failure to make in the present budget any provision for a systematic reduction of our national debt. In that regard I think the only constructive suggestions made so far during this debate came from the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) and the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote). The suggestions of these gentlemen met with a fairly good response in the House, although it is true that many members asked for details right away. I think in that connection perhaps the statement of William Lloyd Garrison might be df interest. He said:
One who tries to make plain a new reform is quickly made to feel the impatience of those who would master in an hour a subject that has for years taxed the brains of its advocates.
To work out in detail such a proposal at a moment's notice is impossible, of course, but I believe that these suggestions hold something worthy of our consideration, and I believe the time will come when they will be adopted. These suggestions are far more modest than those which I would make, but they are in the right direction and look towards the systematic removal of that burden of debt which at present is intolerable upon the whole industrial life of Canada. I am glad the House has received these suggestions so well, and I trust that in the near future some really serious thought will be given them, that action may be taken thereon.
I would like to see Canada finance herself, because she can do it. The Minister of Finance told us that there was lots of money in Canada, and I do not doubt it; if there is not enough money he will make more, because the Treasury board is making more money every day, with no limits. There is lots of money in Canada, and the banks, the insurance companies and the loan companies have control of it, while we should be able to use it. The greatest advantage in the proposal of the hon. member for West Calgary, so far as I can see, is that we will gradually get out of the clutches of foreign people by paying off those debts, which we will assume ourselves so that all interest will be paid within the borders of Canada, which will increase our
720	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Spence (Maple Greek)
purchasing power by that much and so tend towards the prosperity of the country as a whole.
There is the answer to the argument of the Minister of Railways. I regret that I should have been compelled to speak for eo long to deal with so little, but unfortunately I had not the making of the text, nor indeed had I the selection of it. The text was thrust upon me by the minister himself, and he is entirely responsible for its content.


Mr. GEORGE SPENCE (Maple Creek):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to say a few words in connection with the amendment, and I wish to express a little surprise and disappointment at the source from which this amendment came. I think it ill-advised and unfortunate; ill-advised from the fact that if the amendment carries this government will undoubtedly be defeated, and if the government is defeated it will either give an opportunity to hon. gentlemen opposite to form a government or will necessitate another general election, and I do not think the country wants any more elections just now.
It has given me much pleasure to see the hon. member who has just spoken (Mr. Irvine) back in the House; he is a countryman of mine and naturally I have watched his career with a great deal of interest; this is not the first time I have heard his philosophy. During his remarks I made a few notes, but I have not had time to analyze his speech and I will only deal briefly with a few of the points he brought out. The thing which struck me most forcibly at the outset was that he is a great economist, because he has given voice to great economic principles here to-night; he is a great political economist, and he is also a great financial wizard. We heard him express his rather faint-hearted belief in our tariff board, and he also said he did not think it was the responsibility of any particular member of parliament to do anything to assist that tariff board. I am sorry, but I must disagree with him there, and I am not the only one to do so. Members of this House have found it not only necessary but desirable in the public interest to make representations both indirectly and directly to the board, but I will deal with that in detail later, and pass on.
My hon. friend said that the tariff has been the subject of political warfare; I agree with him to a certain extent, but he thinks this war may be eliminated by organizations outside of politics, which is rather a strange philosophy. If governments are here for anything they are here to give a square deal, to strike a balance between the various

economic or industrial groups in the country. That is one of the functions of government; to see that everybody gets a square deal and that nobody is unduly injured.
Now with regard to the splendid advice which we received from my hon. friend (Mr. Irvine) who has just spoken, his desire to see everybody get together, and his criticism of the Minister of Railways, I am not going to deal with his remarks at very great length. He found fault with the political philosophy of hon. gentlemen on this side, and gave his reasons for thinking that the budget we are considering was not a Liberal budget, and he called upon the government to implement their pledges. I am rather surprised to hear such observations from my hon. friend. I can remember the time when he campaigned against myself in the interests of the Nonpartisan League. Afterwards I understand he became a great exponent of the Labour party in this House, and now he sits here representing the United Farmers of Alberta. Wherever you look to-day you can see in the windows of Conservative committee rooms the notification "Wanted, a leader." I have not the slightest doubt but that my hon. friend would make the supreme sacrifice of his life and become a Tory. Then the only thing left for my hon. friend to do in order to box the compass completely would be to walk into a booth on election day and spoil his ballot.
Mr. Speaker, some hon. members in the present and in other debates have put the west, the part of the country from which I come, in somewhat of a false position, in somewhat of a false light. I speak as a western Liberal in saying that we are not here for the purpose of placing our section of Canada in political and economic isolation. We are here for the purpose of meeting in conference with our friends from other sections of this Dominion, of laying our cards upon the table face up, of examining the various problems that arise from time to time in connection with different parts of Canada, and of reaching a solution based on a principle that will be for the good of our country as a whole and not merely for one particular section. It is true that we come from an agricultural section of Canada, and I want hon. gentlemen to remember that when we speak of agriculture we refer to the greatest single economic factor in the Dominion. We have been branded as free traders, sometimes even as annexationists. There is a school of thought, by the way, that would argue today that our views on the tariff represent occupational selfishness purely and simply and nothing more. From that view we

The Budget-Mr. Spence (Maple Creek)
heartily dissent, with that view we entirely disagree. We believe in freedom of trade as a principle because we know that the whole trend of modern times is towards the great field of internationalism-not nationalism, not narrow provincialism, but a magnificent economic union of the whole world.


An hon. MEMBER:: Where do you get
that?


George Spence: Where do
I get that? Has my hon. friend been asleep all these years? It dates from the invention of the steam engine. The inception of this world movement dates from that time, and it has been gaining in magnitude all the time. The great inventions of the telegraph and wireless and radio systems, the enormous combinations of capital throughout the world, the inauguration of great transportation systems and improved means of communication, and of the great movements in social work-all have helped to speed it along. AVhy we read to-day of ah occurrence in the city of London or the city of Shanghai with almost the same degree of interest that we do of an event in Montreal or Vancouver.
Not only that, but consider the influence of our great economic bodies, ake for example our labour unions. They no longer recognize provincial or national boundaries; heir field of action extends throughout the entire world. The same thing is true of out great agricultural bodies, which are being drawn more and more into the field of internationalism. Why it was only quite recently that some of the foremost agriculturists in the world met in the city of St. Paul. They had met for the purpose of doing what? For the purpose of establishing an organization that would have no boundaries but world boundaries. These are the forces that are tending more and more to. break down artificial boundaries. That is why we believe, as we do, in freer trade and wider markets. Every trade treaty in the world 'that has been negotiated is an argument for freer trade. And let me say to my hon. friends opposite that every article thait is smuggled in or out of Canada is a protest against our tariff.
But to get back to my subject, I want simply to establish the point that we believe in certain principles because it is natural to do so. It is a natural condition that you can no more fight against than you can swim up Niagara. You may dam the current for a time at one point, but it will break out at others. I repeat that we are learning more and more the value of conference. Only recently one of the greatest gatherings that 32649-46
perhaps the world has ever seen met in Europe. And for what reason? To consider the prohlem of world economics. And that conference resolved unanimously that protective tariffs were among the things that, were retarding the peaceful settlement of European problems, and preventing the rehabilitation of those nations that -had been engaged in the world war. But I am not going to dwell on that phase of the question.
I wish to deal with the situation as we see it here. And what do we see?? Hon. gentlemen opposite charging hon. gentlemen on this side with being high protectionists. They are doing this time and time again in spite of the fact that election after election a solid block of men comes down here to oppose my hon. friends -and their protectionist principles. We know why this is done. It i3 done for the deliberate purpose of driving in a political wedge between the east and the west. M'r. Speaker, on a recent occasion when we had the honour of enjoying your hospitality at a magnificent luncheon you gave voice to a great truth and it made a tremendous impression on my mind. You said, Sir, that we are all members of a great household. You called it "the Canadian family". What a splendid thought that is! If we could just bear that in mind, how much easier it would be for us to solve some of those knotty problems that engender so much heat and friction.
We use machinery or organization for various purposes. We maintain a police force in our cities for the purpose of preserving order. Recently we have set, up a body for the purpose of correcting certain things which we think are working to the detriment of Canadian progress: we have set up. an advisory tariff board. That tariff board met for the first time on the twenty-second of April, and had its first public meeting on the twenty-sixth of May. I want you to remember that that board was set up as a result of the unanimous judgment of this House. All those hon. members who are now supporting this amendment voted for that tariff board and 'lent their support to its creation. Now what is that tariff board designed to do? It is designed to get the facts. Whatever may be said against the tariff one sure thing is that our Conservative friends fastened it on the body politic of Canada. It has been here ever since and has established itself in our economifi life. As a result a balance has been created which cannot be disturbed in any particular part without occasioning some injury unless you have intelligent investigation. The tariff board has

722	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Spence (Maple Creek)
been set up for the purpose of making that intelligent investigation. Thait is the task which has been assigned it, but it cannot fulfil thait duty without the support and help of the people who are interested.
I am going to read this amendment. It is moved:
That all the words after the words "That" be struck out and the following substituted therefor:-
"whilst recognizing the advisability of certain minor changes proposed, this House regrets that the budget as presented by the honourable minister of Finance contains no effective provision for the reduction in the high cost of living in so far as such is due to the protective tariff;
"That the budget shows a further departure from the principle of direct and visible taxation based on the ability to pay;
"And further that no systematic effort is being made to reduce our national debt the interest on which absorbs so large a proportion of the revenues of the Dominion."
For the purpose of the few remarks that I propose to make to-night, I am going to use only a part of this amendment and I will read it again for the sake of emphasizing it:
No effective provision for the reduction in the high cost of living-
Where did we hear that phrase "the high cost of living" before?
-in so far as such is due to the protective tariff.
That is a very general and what I would term a very evasive statement. What are the things that enter into the cost of living? There are three-food, clothing and shelter. What would my hon. friend do? What are the specific things upon which he would reduce the tariff? What article of clothing, what article of food, or what article of shelter? If he is sincere, as I have no doubt be is, why is he not more specific? If he is such a great authority, he should know the things upon which he would have the tariff reduced. But in this amendment he makes no such demands. Ah, Mr. Speaker, the reason is not far to seek. He does not make any such demand, because he cannot. He does not know. Why does he not know? He does not know because he has not shown the slightest interest in the investigation as it has proceeded so far before the board. If the hon. member were in his seat to-night,
I would ask him what he has done in the way of giving this board cooperation. The Good Book says: "Ye dhall know them by their fruits", and that is the standard by which I am going to measure hon. gentlemen to-night. He does not know and he cannot guess. Was he in his place in this House when this tariff -board was created? He was;

he supported it. But where was he when the great consumers' question of boots and shoes was before the tariff board? If he is such an advocate of this board, if he has such a devoted allegiance to this principle, why was he not before the board when this question of boots and shoes, which is of tremendous interest to the consumers, the common people, was before -the board? Why were not some of his party there supporting the interests of the common people?


Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: Was the
hon. member there?


George Spence: Yes, I was there.


John Wesley Edwards: Did the hon.
member give evidence?


George Spence: I did not
give evidence in person but my representative gave it. Just wait, and I will tell -the House all about it. The hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) is laughing; he thinks this is quite a joke. It is easy for -him to laugh, but we are not all in the happy financial position that the hon, member for West Calgary is in,
I want to examine some other applications. I have under my hand the briefs that have been presented before the tariff board in connection with the various applications. As a proof of the things whereof I am going to speak, I will read a letter which is on top of the file. It is addressed to myself, and it is signed in the handwriting of the secretary of the tariff board, Mr. H. B. McKinnon. It reads:
Dear Sir:
At the request of Mr. R. J. Deachman, I beg to forward herewith copies of the briefs filed before this board by the Canadian Horticultural Council, and various sections thereof, in requesting a seasonal duty on fruits and vegetables.
My hon. friend who has moved this amendment and his friends who sit with him and who support it-where were they on that occasion? An item of fruits was being discussed and the blame was being laid on the system of distribution. The question of fruits and vegetables is a very important one to the consumers of Canada. Were they before the board examining witnesses? They were not.
Some very interesting matters came up on that occasion; for instance, we learned that the onion men had come to Ottawa looking for some measure of protection. The onion is a very strong vegetable. By thel way, somebody tells me that the member for onions is not in the House. When this case was being heard before the board, the fact was

The Budget-Mr. Spence (Maple Creek)
brought out that it would be cheaper to send these onion growers back home and tell them to grow no more onions-that we would pay them a salary of $3,333.33 a year out of the public treasury-than to give them the protection they asked for. That is one case, and there are many others. I have a list of the various items brought up by the fruit men. I could read them, but the hour is late and I am not going to take up the time of the House.
Let me run over some of the briefs. There is one in connection with the boot and shoe application, another in connection with doors, another in connection with lock bar steel, another in connection with hand sprayers, and another in connection with gloves. There is a vast quantity of material that requires study in order that it may be properly analysed and dissected. While an hon. member may not be doing anything very spectacular or anything that attracts people's attention, he is doing something very useful in appearing before the board in the interests of the common consumers of this country.


John Wesley Edwards: What action has the government taken on that?


George Spence: I am coming to that. There are fifty-two applications bdfore the board, some of them for reductions, some for increases, and some merely for readjustments. Of these, forty-six applications have been heard. I will give the list:
Reference No.-	No. of Hearings
1	Calcium chloride	
12	Steel and iron	
13	Coal and coke	
14	Pumps and pump parts	
15	Player piano music	rolls.. ..	17	Nail keg cooperage	
18	Epsom salts	
1
That is another very interesting case and I was present when it was being heard. Now that hon. gentlemein have interrupted, for the purpose of illustration I am going to use it in order to show this House how much gall these people have in seeking protection through the customs tariff. A couple of men came here from British Columbia who had discovered a salt lake and who actually wanted protection on Epsom salts. When they were asked for an argument in support of their application for protection, they said: We have a factory that employs nothing but Canadian labour. We asked them: Flow many labourers do you employ? They admitted that they were employing only six but they said that at their maximum capacity they would employ ten. Another argument which they used was that they had nothing but Canadian capital. We have heard that term 32649-46J
"Canadian capital" before. We asked them how much stock they had authorized and they said: $75,000. Then we asked how much of that was paid up, and they admitted that only $50 was paid up. All they had was their gall, and their salt lake in British Columbia.
The cases that have been heard before the board are as follows:
Reference No.-	No. of Hearings
1	Calcium chloride	
2	Steel and iron	
l3	Coal and coke	
14	Pumps and pump parts....	15	Player piano music rolls.. ..	17	Nail keg cooperage	
18	Epsom salts	
19	Magazines	
210	Gabardines	
111	Unbleached cotton	
112	Beeswax, candles, etc	
213	Lockbar steel pipe	
214	Invalid's wheel chair	
115	Pine doors	
216	Confectioners' supplies	
117	Oil tops	
218	Cordage twines	'	219	Canadian wool goods	20	Objects of art	
221	Tin	
222	Fruits, vegetables, nurserystock	
223	Wool tops (gloves)	
224	Corn and cane syrups	
225	Water wheel governors	
226	Blue foxes	
127	Unbound book sheets	
128	Small hand sprayers	
1
29 Embroidered cuffs for gloves.
31	Vegetable parchment paper..
32	Rope for deep sea vessel fish-
33 Electric light and power.. .. 46 Boots and shoes	

A very interesting situation developed with regard to tin. We had on that occasion 57 manufacturers who had banded themselves together to oppose a duty on tin. These 57 manufacturers, mind you, members of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, were greater friends of the consumer than was my hon. friend from Maeleod (Mr. Coote) who moved this amendment. Altogether there have been 46 hearings, and members on this side of the House have been represented at 43 of them-members on this side of the House from one coast to the other who have paid out their good money and given freely of their time to bring evidence before the tariff board and lend their cooperation so that the facts relating to these cases might be brought
out.
I have in my hand a very interesting volume. It is the proceedings before the tariff board in a case which occupied one hour of time. It cost a member on this side of the
House $14.70. At the same rate, if that hon. member had wished to purchase the evidence
724	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Spence (Maple Creek)
before the board for one day, he would have had to pay about $100, and I raise my voice now in support of the suggestion of the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young) that the evidence taken before the board should be printed and distributed free to members of parliament.


John Wesley Edwards: Hear, hear.


George Spence: I hear my hon. friend say "hear, hear". I know there might be a little difficulty in connection with confidential information that is volunteered to the tariff board. The strange thing about this matter, Mr. Speaker, is that these fellows squeal on themselves, that one man's raw material is the other man's finished product, and when it comes to raw material they are all like I am-free traders. There may be, I say, some confidential documents that should not be printed. That sort of information is, in my opinion very valuable, and if it, was printed the result would simply be to dry up that source of information, but so far as the public evidence is concerned, I think it should be printed and distributed free to members of parliament, because there are some members on this side of the House who read the evidence.
Of the 46 cases heard by the board, 13 have been reported on to the government. Those 13 cases were not all for decreases. Some asked for an increase in the tariff, and they did not get it. About half were for decreases, among them being pumps, invalid chairs, and so forth.
I have had the opportunity to examine the evidence taken in many of these cases, and what do I find? I find a most bewildering interlocking of interests, which brings me back to the point I made a few minutes ago, that whatever the faults of protection may be, it has been the policy in this country for a great many years, and conditions have * adjusted themselves to the policy of protection, and therefore any adjustment of the tariff must be gone about intelligently. If you lower or raise any item of the tariff, you immediately interfere with something else, and no worth while revision of the tariff can be made until all the related cases have been heard. That is my point. I state it again: No worth while revision of the tariff can be made until all the related cases have been heard.


Mr. ADSHEAJD:: How does the hon. member suggest that the expenses in connection with the rebuttal evidence should be met? I know that the hon. member and other members have put up a good deal themselves.


George Spence: If I am trying to do anything here to-night at all, it is this: I am putting hon. gentlemen of this House on their honour as men, to volunteer their help if they are interested in tariff reductions. So far as expenses are concerned, some of us have been able to keep a man before that tariff board to represent us at 43 different hearings. The money has been contributed by the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff) and by other members all across the continent. No man has done more before the tariff board in the way of giving evidence than the hon. member for South Huron (Mr. McMillan); the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Howden) has also given his support, as well as all the members from Saskatchewan, on this side of the House, without a single exception, as have also members from Alberta in the last House, including the member for Wetaskiwin in the last parliament, Mr. Tobin, also the late member for Skeena, Mr. Stork, and last, but not least, my good friend from Comox-Alfoerni (Mr. Neill), who has taken cases before the board in the interest of lower duties.
Now what of the future? An application has already been prepared and will shortly be handed in asking for a reduction in the duties on sugar, so if the sugar interests of this country have had no warning before, they have it now. I am told that the sweetest morsel in the mouths of our protectionist friends is sugar. It may also be news to some hon. members to know that beans are also . coming up, not before the board, but under item 47a, or behind it. We are indebted to our good friend from Weyburn (Mr. Young) for this information, not to those hon. members who are moving the amendment. That is my point. And if they want to know anything about it they will have to ask a member on this side of the House.


Mr. JELLIFF:: Mr. Speaker, may I interrupt the hon. member long enough to say that I left my farm home and came to Ottawa to appear before the tariff board in a case where a reduction was applied for?


George Spence: I humbly apologize to the member for Lethbridge. He did appear on one application.


Mr. SPENCER:: If I may interrupt the hon. member for a moment, we have been the means of getting in touch with every farmers' organization throughout Canada to secure representation before the tariff board.


George Spence: It is not my nature to disclose confidential conversations, but I am sure the hon. member will recall a conversation which I had with him just before

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
I left Ottawa last session. The point I make is this. Those who charge us to-night with breaking our pledges to the people, with not doing anything to give relief to the people, have not given us credit for helping the people in the most practical way . I listened to the speech of the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) with a great deal of care. He is an able speaker and I always like to hoar him. By the way he has not been done full justice by the hon. member for AVetaskiwin (Mr. Irvine) and I must come to his rescue. It is a matter of historical record that the hon. member for Bow River did not rock two boats; he rocked only one. True, he rocked that quite dangerously.
Now, Mr. Speaker, faith without works is dead. What we are interested in to-night is results, the money that has been spent in bringing the necessary information before the tariff board so that it may be in a position to base an intelligent judgment upon it, has been furnished by members on the Liberal side of the House. What have my hon. friends who are moving this resolution been doing in the meantime? I think I can indicate pretty clearly by a homely story. You have a fine large substantial house on blocks, and you are anxious to get it down firmly on a solid stone foundation before any storms blow up. You send for an architect. He looks at the house, examines the blocks and ascertains which part of the structure is bearing most heavily on this or that particular block. With this information before him he carefully withdraws a wedge here or inserts a wedge there and gradually lowers the house on to its foundation, where it will stand as a monument to his professional skill. But what are my hon. friends doing over in that corner of the House while this delicate operation is in progress? They are dancing on the roof, they are knocking out a prop here and a prop there, shrieking at the top of their voices, not two of them in agreement, and running the risk of tumbling the whole structure over and killing one another.
In conclusion, Sir, I want to say that this tariff board is one of the most important factfinding tribunals that has ever been set up in this country, but it can only serve the purposes for which it was created by the facilities which it offers to the great mass of the common consumers of this country to present their views before it; and the extent to which those views are so presented will determine the board's ultimate usefulness. So far those hon. members who are sponsoring this amendment have lent no assistance whatsoever to the tariff board. While professing
true allegiance to the cause of a lower tariff, they have done nothing to assist in bringing it about. Are we to believe now that their interest in the great principles for which they have fought has dwindled, and that it finds expression only when the purpose is to embarrass a Liberal government? It iooks to some of us to be purely politics, and it may be cheap politics at that. If my hon. friends can extract any kind of satisfaction for their political conscience from such political shadow dancing as that, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned.


John Wesley Edwards: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Maple Creek (Mr. Spence) objects to the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote) because he says that if it carry this government wduld be defeated; and, he adds, the people do not want another election. I am very sure he is correct-the people do not want another election. I am equally certain that members on both sides of the House and of all parties do not want another election right away. But the people want something.of far more importance, even if the amendment should carry and the government be defeated. The people want a government which will fulfil and carry out the promises on which it was returned to power.
The hon. gentleman says that the hon. member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Irvine) has belonged to several parties, at one time to the Labour party and now to United Farmers of Alberta, and he intimates that possibly the hon. member might make a supreme sacrifice by going over to the Conservative party. Well, I am sure, the hon. member for Wetaskiwin will forgive the hon. member for Maple Creek in that he forbore to charge him with ever having been a member of the Liberal party. That is something which I do not think the hon. member for Wetaskiwin would have been disposed to forgive on the part of the hon. member for Maple Creek.
The hon. gentleman says he is a free trader, that he believes in the principle of free trade. Yes, we have heard that frequently from a number of hon. gentlemen on that side of the House-they believe in the principle of free trade, but not in the practice of it. Might I ask the hon. gentleman if he thinks protection is such a vicious thing for this country that it should be done away with? If that is the case, and if free trade is a virtuous thing, why does not my hon. friend, who says he is an out-and-out free trader, take the only ldgical course-wipe out protection altogether and thus get rid once for all of the vice in favour
726	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
of the virtue? He will not take that position now. Evidently he prefers a measure of political vice rather than complete political virtue-and in that respect, of course, he is not alone; he is sitting among those who take the same ground.
The hon. gentleman referred to the tariff board as having been appointed by the unanimous consent of the House. I think he is correct. But, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that if the Liberal party to which he belongs, and of which he is such a shining light, had kept the pledges that it has made from itme to time in its platforms declared before each general election, there never would have been any need for a tariff board. The Liberal party, which has denounced protection root and branch, admitted the principle of protection the moment the Liberal government constituted the tariff board. Every member of the House, no matter how much he may call himself a free trader, so soon as he agreed to the principle of a tariff advisory board gave his recognition and adherence to the principle of protection and of a protective tariff for Canada. There is absolutely no doubt about that.
The hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote) has introduced an amendment, the first paragraph of which declares that there has been no effective provision for reduction of the high cost of living in so far as this is due to the protective tariff. I should think that the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Spence, Maple Creek), and who announces himself a free trader, would at once be willing to subscribe to that particular clause or to any clause the object of which was to reduce the cost of living. If the hon. member for Macleod can show me that the protective tariff does unjustly and unfairly increase the cost of living, I will cooperate with him in an endeavour to have the tariff adjusted in that regard. But I do not agree with the hon. member in what I think he has in mind so far as that is concerned. I believe I can show that the cost of living has been enhanced in this country because the protective tariff has not been followed as it should have been. We have an advisory board to suggest ways and means of adjusting the tariff.
The hon. member for Macleod puts forward another suggestion whereby he thinks the government may reach conclusions in respect of tariff adjustments. His suggestion, I think, is unique. Referring to the tariff on silks and particularly on silk stockings he says that ladies now like to wear silk stockings and that the gentlemen like to see them worn, and he suggests this as a principle to

guide the government in framing its tariff. The shorter the ladies wear their skirts, he says, the lower the government should make the tariff. I hope that if the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) is at all disposed to be influenced by that particular line of argument he will do his adjusting of the tariff in the winter season, because otherwise some lady politician, very enthusiastic for free trade, might try to influence the government to take the tariff off altogether by appearing in nothing but her bathing suit. I can well understand the uneasiness of gentlemen of the group to my left, as well as of certain gentlemen on the government side of the House.
The Minister of Finance says that we have now a stable government because there is a Forke in the stable, but it has been suggested by someone that the fork is not of very much use because the prongs are broken and the handle is very much twisted. I am interested, and I am sure the House will be interested, in following the political career of the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Forke). It is illuminating. I think it was in 1922 that he replaced the Hon. Mr. Crerar as leader of the Progressive party. On that occasion the hon. gentleman said that the Progressives would plough their own furrow; they would play an independent role. And in an amendment to the budget he suggested slashing the tariff, advocated reciprocity, and so forth. I am reminded of what took place in the year 1923, I think it was, when Mr. Hammell, the member for Muskoka, left the Progressive party and went over to the Liberal side. The member for Brandon, now Minister of Immigration, and those associated with him were not very well pleased with the action of Mr. Hammell. The Farmers' Sun said:
His going will leave the farmer group smaller in number but much improved in quality.
On reading this recently I wondered what would be the state of mind of hon. gentlemen of the Progressive party now sitting to my left, since the Minister of Immigration decided to quit them and join the other side of the House. Certainly they have lost in numbers, but without wishing to be discourteous at all I do not think the quality of the group has depreciated by the loss sustained. In 1924, under the leadership of the member for Brandon, now Minister of Immigration, a number of Progressives withdrew from caucus, complaining that their leader was not maintaining a clear-cut distinction between their group and the Liberal party in power. Speaking on April S of that year the member for Brandon,

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
addressing the Montreal Board of Trade, favoured wiping out all protective duties. 1 wonder whether he now favours such action.


Mr. FORKE:: What are you quoting from?


John Wesley Edwards: I am quoting from a speech which the hon. gentleman made, but which no doubt he has forgotten. It was delivered on April 8, 1924, and reported in the press.


Robert Forke: What press?


John Wesley Edwards: The newspapers of the day. Does the hon. gentleman say it is incorrect? He does not say it is. He does not deny that he said at that time he favoured wiping out all protective duties.


Robert Forke: I never said that.


John Wesley Edwards: Did the hon. member never hold that view?


Robert Forke: I never said so.


John Wesley Edwards: In the budget debate of that year-this will be interesting to him-the minister said:
If anybody in this House thinks the Progressive movement is done, he is vastly mistaken. We of this group see brighter things ahead.
The hon. gentleman has on several occasions repudiated prophetic vision but I do not think he has done himself justice in that regard. He at least of that group saw brighter things ahead; he saw the cabinet portfolio of Minister of Immigration or something else in the government. That bright vision has materialized. In 1924 the hon. gentleman opposed the Woodsworth amendment as a mere gesture without any meaning, notwithstanding that it was drawn along the lines of an amendment he had himself moved. Addressing the United Farmers of Manitoba in convention assembled, he made the statement that the Progressive party would keep the banner flying. He said: Whatever changes may take place in the cabinet the Progressive group will remain intact and carry on as in the past.
That was only in 1924. In 1925, speaking in this House, as reported in Hansard at page 3967, the minister said:
I want to compliment the leader of the opposition-
That was Mr. Meighen.
-also upon the definiteness of his statements. He nailed his colours to the mast: there is no question about that. I do not know what will come of it. In looking over the history of Canada during the last twenty years we find that when a party was in opposition-
He was referring to the Liberal party.
-it advocated a low tariff, and when it got into power it might go a little way but not very far in that direction.
Here we see the difference that office has made. We know how strong the hon. gentleman was in his advocacy of a low tariff while he was a member of the group to my left, but now he is in the seats of the mighty his views have changed, just as the views of others have changed in the past. He says now:
Now we have the opposition advocating a high tariff.
Which was not correct.
But I venture to say that if my hon. friends of the opposition got into power they would not make the tariff very much higher than it is at the present moment.
I commend that particular sentence to the consideration of the Minister of Railways, in view of what he said the other day.
In fact, the only possibility I can see of a definite settlement of the tariff question on a low tariff basis will be for the members in this part of the House to take up the reins of government and to put things right in Canada for some time.
He is over there now; I do not know whether he has any of the reins of government but he has landed in the government now and we will have an opportunity of seeing just how strongly he talks along that line in the future.
Another matter to which I might refer and to which the* hon. gentleman referred is the matter of the tariff board. Speaking in this House in 1925 the minister said:
. . . if w'e are going to get a tariff commission that will settle the question of tariffs in this Dominion, it is going to be some task. I have no faith in any such proposition.
He is now a member of the government; is that his opinion to-day? Speaking at Winnipeg on September 16, 1925, note what he says at the meeting of the Progressive executive :
The removal of protective duties upon all necessaries of life and instruments of production is indispensable to the growth of population and development of natural resources.
He also advocated the retention of the income tax without reduction, and he is now a member of the government which is doing just the opposite of that. He was also in favour of an elective Senate, but I venture to say we will hear nothing from him on that score this session.
Here is another matter which is worth calling to the attention of the hon. minister,
728	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
and which I know he will enjoy. Referring to rumours of a Progressive-Liberal election pact, the hon. gentleman said:
Absorption of the Progressives by the Liberals under whatever guise effected would postpone for a generation attainment of necessary reforms, the re-shaping of national policies and the infusion into Canadian public life of that moral courage and idealism which slavish partisanship has well nigh destroyed.
Now they have him over on the other side of the House, drawing the emoluments of office and willing to postpone for a generation or for a life time the attainment of necessary reform; willing to throw to the winds all this idealism, this moral courage which is so important to the country; willing to come under a slavish partisanship which he formerly condemned very strongly.
Speaking at Shoal Lake on behalf of one of the candidates a few days later, the hon. gentleman challenged Prime Minister King to say definitely what he was going to do with transportation, immigration, the tariff and Senate reform. He has an opportunity now to put the same challenge up to the Prime Minister and to back it up with the greater force he now has as a cabinet minister. He viewed with alarm the inclusion of Hon. Herbert Marler in the King cabinet, that gentleman being a protectionist. What does he think now of the inclusion of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm); what does he think of the inclusion of the Minister of Customs and Excise (Mr. Euler)? These gentlemen have expressed time and again their protectionist views; their views were expressed no more strongly than were those of Hon. Herbert Marler. These gentlemen are now colleagues of the Minister of Immigration, and I venture to say that whatever view he held in the past as indicated by his words, he will swallow all those principles and those words; he will eat crow three times a day if necessary, to be in line with the party with which he is now associated. In another speech the hon. gentleman declared that there was no observable difference between the policies of the two old parties; hence the Progressive movement, which he has now left and which he said represented a popular determination to- break the bonds of blind partisanship. He has quit all that work now; you can be as blind as you like and as partisan as you like. That movement was also to- -secure from any government willing to carry them into effect, those reforms which are essential to the well-being of the primary industries of the people generally.
The hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat referred to the hon. member for 
Wetaskiwin (Mr. Irvine) as possibly making the supreme sacrifice and joining the Conservative party at some time. Let us see what the Minister-of Immigration thought of such a thing. He said:
I would favour any coalition to get us out of the troubles which face us.
This is what he said about a year ago.
If the Conservatives are in power and are willing to form a coalition to forward the principles for which I stand, I am quite willing to go with them.
Here is the Minister of Immigration willing to make the supreme sacrifice for the good of his country and join the Conservative party, so long, I presume, as there is a cabinet portfolio waiting when he makes the jump.
I want to make a few references now to the Minister of Railways, who, I regret, is not at present in his seat. The minister accused the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) of rocking the boat this session. Last session, he said, the hon. member for Bow River was careful not to rock the boat when the Minister of Labour and his colleagues, the Liberal party, were in it. He now says, "We are in a position where we do not care whether or not you rock the boat, you can't upset it anyway." Mr. Speaker, have you ever seen such a manifestation of political ingratitude in your life? Some person has defined political gratitude as a lively sense of favours to come. The attitude of the Minister of Railways to the group to my left last session was very meek and mild, and he was very careful then not to say anything which would disturb their feelings; he was making a bid for their support at that time. On the present occasion, however, he feels more secure, more safe in the saddle, and he says to these gentlemen to my left, "We are quite safe now; you cannot upset the boat anyway and we are going to forget the good service you did us a year ago. We do not need you now, and you can go hang somewhere, so far as we are concerned."
The Minister put the question to the members of the House and said, "How high would the tariff wall around Canada have been if the Conservatives had been in power from 1921?" I might let the Minister of Immigration answer that; he said that if they had been in they would have made no appreciable difference in the tariff. The Minister of Railways said, "Had the Conservative party been here to-day and honestly carried out what they led the people of Canada to believe is their policy, we would have a tariff as high as the tariff now existing in the United States." I would just say in that regard that,

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
with all due deference to the hon. gentleman,
I do not think he believes anything of the kind. I do not think for a moment he believes that if the Conservative party were in power they would copy the ways of the United States, which has the highest tariff in the world. However, he does pay a tribute to the Conservative party when he says:
We know this at all events, that if the Conservative party was in power they would carry out the pledges they have made to the people.
That is a tribute he pays to the Conservative party. Their record is in marked contrast to that of the party to which the hon. gentleman belongs, because they have never kept their pledges.
Mr. STEWART (Edmonton!: What about the "brick for brick" platform?


John Wesley Edwards: I do not
think the brick my hon, friend refers to is any harder than my hon. friend's head or any more impenetrable. There has never been any "brick for brick" policy enunciated by this party as my hon. friend would imply; it has never been enunciated by any member of the party at any time.


Charles A. Stewart: Then my
hearing is very defective.


John Wesley Edwards: I do not
think it is a defect in the hon. gentleman's hearing, I think it lies in the character or quality of the grey matter that does his thinking. The hon. gentleman should be fair. That policy was never enunciated by the leader of the Conservative party or by any person else in the party. The Conservative party through the mouth of its leader-


Charles A. Stewart: Oh, oh.


John Wesley Edwards: It is an easy thing for the hon. gentleman to laugh.


Charles A. Stewart: You are
making the speech.


John Wesley Edwards: Yes, I am making the speech and my hon. friend is laughing-laughing at himself I suppose, at his own silliness or nonsense. That is the only way in which I can account for his actions. I say that the Conservative party, through the mouth of its leader, the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen, said that the farm schedule was the most unfair of all the schedules, and that the Conservative party stood for a policy that would give even justice and fair play to the. farmers of this country.


Mr. PARENT:: "Brick for brick."


John Millar: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question?


John Wesley Edwards: Surely.


John Millar: Did the Right Hon. Sir
Robert Borden, in the campaign of 1911, promise that if he were returned to power he would return their natural resources to the western provinces, and did he keep that promise?


Georges Parent: He did not do it.


John Wesley Edwards: I think he
did. May I tell my hon. friend that he started negotiations at once in that direction, but the war came along and put an end to that and a great many other things.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh!


John Wesley Edwards: That, I
think, is a reasonable answer to give. It is a better reason than any member of this government could give for not returning their natural resources to those provinces.
But to return to the question of a high tariff. The Minister of Railways says there is no doubt which is the high tariff and which is the low tariff party in this House.


Mr. DUNNING:: Hear, hear.


John Wesley Edwards: The minister says "hear, hear." Very well. I should like to quote a statement made in this House by
the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen. It is contained in Hansard of 1920, page 2708, and is to the following effect:
We never can have a high tariff in Canada. We cannot have a high tariff in Canada for the most obvious reasons. In the first place, a high tariff is unsound in principle-


Charles Avery Dunning: Hear, hear.


John Wesley Edwards: The Minister of Railways says, "hear, hear" to that


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, unsound in principle.


John Wesley Edwards: All right, we are in agreement there.


Georges Parent: We all say that.


John Wesley Edwards: -in that it tends to eliminate one of the factors of competition, namely, foreign goods.


Charles Avery Dunning: Hear, hear.


John Wesley Edwards: Foreign goods should be allowed to enter into competition under fair conditions in this or in any other country. But the conditions under free trade or without protection are such that the foreign competitor has every advantage.
In the face of such a direct and explicit
statement as that how can my hon. friend make the charge, or insinuate as he does,
730	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
that the Conservative party stands for a tariff wall as high as that of the United States? But let me give some further evidence. I do this because of the references made to this matter by the Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning), in his speech the other day. He had a good deal to say along that line, trying to influence the people of this country to believe, as be and others associated with him have tried to do for many years, and with too much success I must say, that the Conservative party is historically the party which stands for high, unreasonably high, protection, while the Liberal party is the party whose history proves it to be the party of low tariff. Let us examine the matter for a while. Under the Liberals in 1911 the tariff on dutiable goods averaged 28.25 per cent. The tariff on dutiable goods under the Conservatives in 1921 averaged 23 per cent. Which was the high tariff in so far as those figures are concerned?


Charles Avery Dunning: What are the years?


John Wesley Edwards: Tha years
are 1911 and 1921. The last year before the change in government in 1911, and 1921 before the Conservatives went out. On all imports, dutiable and free, the tariff in 1911 under the Liberals was 16.50 per cent. On all imports, dutiable and free, under the Conservatives in 1921 the tariff was 15 per cent. On farm implements under the Liberals in 1911 the duty averaged 20.18 per cent. Under the proposed reciprocity pact the changes would have brought the duty down to 17.33 per cent. Under the Conservatives in 1921 the average duty was 14.64 per cent. I might just interpolate here that under the operations of the United Grain Growers of the west their profits on the same machinery averaged 20.18 per cent.


Charles Avery Dunning: May I ask my hon.
friend a question?


John Wesley Edwards: Yes.


Charles Avery Dunning: Will he tell us what
reduction in farm implement tariffs were made by the Conservative government during the period of years to which he is referring, and which produced the result that the tariff was lowered?


John Wesley Edwards: Yes. My
hon. friend has asked a question which I shall be pleased indeed to answer, and to give him any other information I can, because I realize, and I am sure the members of this House are beginning to realize more and more every day, that the Minister of Railways, notwithstanding his assurance, stands in need of in-

formation-badly in need of it. Hef has asked for information and I will give it to disprove the position which he took when speaking here the other night. My hon. friend asks what the Conservativeb have done. There were no tariff changes made in 1912. In 1913 they reduced the duty on cement from 12| cents, as it was under the Liberals, to 10 cents per hundred pounds.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is not a farm implement.	.


John Wesley Edwards: If you will just hold yourself in patience I will give you the information you are longing for.


Mr. BENNETT:: And which he needs. If anyone needs it he does.


John Wesley Edwards: Of course
if my hon. friend cannot take it all in, if he cannot take in the extras that I will give him, I will be thankful if he will take in what he can. Ditching machines come under the head of farm implements, do they not?


Charles Avery Dunning: Do they?


John Wesley Edwards: Yes, I should think so.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Not on his farm.


John Wesley Edwards: 
Mr. RINFRET:: And still they vote for us.

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)


Mr. EDW  ARDS@Frontenac: 
Charles Avery Dunning: I am still thirsting for information if my hon. friend would answer another question.


John Wesley Edwards: The hon
gentleman's thirst is indeed commendable.


Charles Avery Dunning: The question is this: In connection with the reductions of duty on farm implements during those years to which my hon. friend has been referring, will he now give us what he gave us formerly in connection with one case, and that is the value for duty purposes, during each of the years to which he has been referring, of the farm implements he dealt with.


John Wesley Edwards: As my questioner is a man of more than ordinary intelligence-and I am sure he will not dispute that for a moment-


Charles Avery Dunning: I do.


John Wesley Edwards: While 1
have not the whole list of the values for duty purposes on all the articles, again having regard to the fact that my hon. friend is a man of superior intelligence, I am sure he can arrive at this from the figures which I give him and add further to that knowledge for which he has such a thirst, which I am very anxious to satisfy. He can arrive at it somewhat in this way. For instance, under the Liberal government in 1911 the tariff on a binder was 17i per cent and they collected $31.92 on a binder. Under the proposed reciprocity pact of 15 per cent they would have collected $27.36. If my hon. friend will get out his pencil he can work that out and find the value for duty purposes. I know he can do it because he is a very clever man. Under-the Conservative government the duty was 12^ per cent and the Conservatives collected $22.80 in duty on a binder, whereas the Liberals collected $31.92.


Charles Avery Dunning: What years?
732	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)


John Wesley Edwards: I am giving the rate of duty in 1921 when the Conservatives went out of power, the rate of duty in 1911 when the Liberals left office, and the rate as proposed under the reciprocity pact of 1911. For the benefit of some hon. gentlemen from Saskatchewan I might say that the Grain Growers' Grain Company exacted a profit of $38.80 on the same binder when they
found fault with the Conservatives for collecting $22.80 in the form of duty.
With the permission of the House I will place this list on Hansard, and I am sure the government will give me permission in this case, because this is along the line of the information that the Minister of Railways was asking for. The minister can study the list at his leisure and I am sure it will do him good. The list is as follows:
Farm Implement
Binder	
Mower	
Horseralce	
Hay Loader	
Manure Spreader	
Seed Drill	
Farm Wagon	
Farm Roller	
Fanning Mill	
Wind Mill	
Disc Harrow	
Springtooth Cultivator. Spike Tooth Harrow...
Scuffler	
Traction Engine	
Ditching Machine	
Average Rate	
Amount of Duty...
Liberal Tariff Rate and Amount of Duty 1911	Reciprocity Rate and Amount of Duty 1911	Conservative Rate and Amount of Duty 1921	Profits of United Grain Growers Grain Company171%	$31.92	15%	$27.36	121%	$22.80	$38.30171%	10.99	15%	9.42	121%	7.85	13.1820%	7.00	15%	5.25	15%	5 25	8.8225%	22.62	20%	18.10	20%	18.10	19.0020%	25.00	20%	25.00	15%	18.75	26.2520%	15.46	15%	11.60	15%	11.60	16.2425%	16.00	221%	14.40	20%	12.80	13.4425%	17.31	20%	13.85	20%	13.85	14.5425%	5.37	20%	4.30	20%	4.30	4.5120%	11.42	20%	11.42	171%	10.00	12.0020%	8.00	15%	6.00	15%	6.00	8.4020%	12.80	15%	9.60	15%	9.60	13.4420%	4.40	15%	3.30	15%	3.30	4.6225%	3.00	20%	1.80	20%	1.80	1.8920%	15%	20%	20%	21-06%
21-25%		17-6%		14-5%		21-06%
						
	$191.29		$161.40		$146.00	B1Q4 fia
						Profits of
						U.G.G.
I have referred to the reciprocity pact. That is something to which my hon. friends opposite frequently refer. On various occasions they have bewailed the result of the election of 1911 when the reciprocity pact was defeated by the people of this country. I wonder if there are any hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House who would say to-night that they think it would be advisable to put into effect in this country, in this year 1927, the reciprocity pact of 1911.


Mr. BROWN:: Yes.


John Wesley Edwards: Did 1 hear "Yes"? Could I get it from somebody higher up? Is there a minister sitting in the front row or in the second row who will say that he thinks this country would be the better . for putting into effect the reciprocity pact of 1911?


Charles Avery Dunning: Sure.


John Wesley Edwards: Does the
Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) say that?


Charles Avery Dunning: Sure.


John Wesley Edwards: Does the
Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) say that?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, sir.


John Wesley Edwards: Well, I guess that will do for the whole list. Now let us see what they have committed themselves to. They say that they think in the interests of this country this reciprocity pact ought to be made effective.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: You would not need any
Duncan report if you had reciprocity.


John Wesley Edwards: This is the
point I want to bring to the attention of hon. gentlemen. If they were to put into effect to-day the reciprocity pact of 1911, +hey would have to raise the duty on very many, nearly all, of the farm implements used in this country at the present time. That is what the Minister of Railways says he is willing to do; that is what the Minister of the Interior says he is willing to do. I ask them to look over the schedules and see the rates of duty

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
imposed in the agreement of 1911. I say that in half the instances those rates were higher on farm implements than the Conservative tariff was, and the same rates in the other half, and I say that if they were to put that agreement into effect to-day they would be raising the duty on farm implements coming into this country. That is exactly what they say they are willing to do.


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


John Wesley Edwards: I am glad to have these two ministers on record because it will be very useful in the days to come.


Charles Avery Dunning: But that is not what we said.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Oh, yes, it was.


Charles Avery Dunning: We will leave it to the
record.


John Wesley Edwards: Oh, no, the Minister of Railways will not leave it to the record. The Liberal's party record in so far as keeping promises is concerned is very well known to the people of this country.


Charles Avery Dunning: Hear, hear.


John Wesley Edwards: It is very
well known that the Liberal party has never kept its promises that it made before election, never on any occasion, never since away back of 1896, never from 1878 down to 1896, and never from 1896 down through the other years when they were in power. But they would put into operation the reciprocity pact. What effect would that have upon the farmers of this country? They say that the farmers of this country, under that pact, would have free entrance into the United States for their farm products. That is true. But the United States would also have the opportunity to send their products into Canada. Is that ail? No, that is not all.
Under the reciprocity pact, as soon as we opened, our doors to the farm products of the United States, we also opened our doors to some twelve other countries, very many of them large producens of farm products, and to all the British possessions in the world. That is what we had to do under the reciprocity pact, and that is what these hon. gentlemen are willing to do now. This is perhaps some information for my hon. friend the Minister of Railways. Under the reciprocity pact we opened our doors to the farm products of the United States, and at the same time, and without any return at all, we opened our doors to Japan, Argentine, Russia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria-Hungary, Spain, Switzerland, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, and all the British possessions.
The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) the other day put on Hansard a list of the countries showing whether our trade balance with them was favourable or unfavourable. Now our imports, according to that statement from those countries which under the reciprocity pact would have a free entry to our market for their farm and agricultural products, amounted to some $44,000,000; our imports from the United States to over $485,000,000, and from the United Kingdom, to $163,000,000. Of course, the $44,000,000 does not all represent farm products by any means. I merely give those figures as indicating the extent of the trade. The point I am making is this: The manifest unfairness of the reciprocity .pact, which the farmers of the country understood sufficiently well to enable them to defeat it, was that while we were getting entrance to one market, that of the United States, we were opening the doors of Canada to the surplus production of the principal agricultural countries of the world, a thing which would be very disastrous, in my opinion, to the future of the Dominion of Canada.


Charles A. Stewart: Strange how we have to sell against them in the open markets of the world!


John Wesley Edwards: The hon. gentleman does not surely confine himself to one product-wheat.


Charles A. Stewart: A good many products.


John Wesley Edwards: Very true. Now let us follow this a little further and see just what it would mean. I will refer to just a few countries-Argentine, Denmark, Russia, New Zealand, South Africa-every one of these countries comes in under the reciprocity pact, which the hon. gentlemen say they think ought to be put into operation, but have not the courage to propose as a measure emanating from this government. Now these countries exported to Great Britain last year 235,733 tons of butter. Hon. gentlemen say that an arrangement by which these countries might send that butter, if they so desired, into Canada, is all right. They would take the duty off entirely against these countries, while these countries maintain their tariff against us. WThy, the thing is preposterous. It is even more ridiculous to-day than it was in 1911, because of the improved transportation facilities that we have to-day as compared with 1911. The Argentine is one of the greatest dairy and meat-producing countries in the world torday, as well as being one of the greatest producers of wheat. Russia
734	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
undoubtedly, in the course of time, will get back to normal, and will again become as she was in former days, one of the great competitors of Canada in the markets of the world. Yet my hon. friends opposite say that in their opinion this sort of thing ought to be introduced into Canada, that putting the reciprocity pact into operation would be in the interests of the people.
I would like to refer for a few moments to the vegetable growers of Canada, who have made application to the Tariff Advisory Board for relief, and who have placed their arguments before the board. I have in my hand here the argument which was advanced before the board by Mr. Cecil Delworth, of Weston, Ontario, in which there are a few points that I wish to bring to the attention of hon. gentlemen opposite. To begin with, let me say that in Cleveland a few months ago, last fall I think it was, the United States offered prizes in an endeavour to find out the champion state and the champion grower of two varieties of vegetables, celery and cauliflower. They threw that competition open to Canada, and Canadian growers came home with both championships. It shows that we have efficient producers in this country. But what I particularly wish to draw attention to is that in the United States the gardeners and vegetable growers have three markets, two high priced and one low priced. The gardeners and vegetable growers of Canada have only one market, and that low priced. What are these markets? The United States growers have first the early market in their own country, which is the high priced market. Then they get our early and high priced market. They have also of course the later market in the United States, which is the low priced market. We permit this dumping of American produce, for it is nothing else. The Canadian grower has only one market, the low priced market. This gentleman says that the situation in ten years has had the effect of driving 85,000 of our people from their fruit and vegetable farms. He refers to one or two things which I should like to mention as I think they have an important bearing upon what I said in the beginning, that the lack of protection may be the cause of the high cost of living. He says:
During 1925 we imported into Canada during the months of April, May, June and July approximately 264,000 bushels of tomatoes, valued at point of shipment at $904,000. This represents only a fraction of the money Canada paid for these tomatoes. You have to add freight rates, brokerage, icing charges and dealers' 
profits. It is quite within reason to assume that we paid a bill to the United States of nearly $2,000,000 for tomatoes that could have been produced in Canada.
He continues:
If only one-half of these tomatoes had been produced in Canada it would have given employment from February to May to 1,200 men here.
I want for a moment to show how this works, and I am doing so because I have, in common with many other members, a number of market gardeners in my constituency. Let me quote the exact words of this gentleman:
Allow me to tell you what happened in the tomato business this year. At the opening of the season the crop in the south was almost a failure and southern tomatoes sold in Ontario at exorbitant prices, Hot house tomatoes went up in sympathy, bringing as high as 70 cents per pound wholesale. A clear case of the public paying through the nose by depending on foreign supplies. Canadian producers, however, soon remedied this situation by large shipments of hothouse tomatoes from British Columbia. The price was cut approximately in half, which is a clear case of domestic production protecting the consumer from extortion by foreign countries. I would point out to you that every dollar paid for those tomatoes remained in Canada, and the brokerage, the freight, the tomatoes and the crates that held them. The Canadian grower, the railroad and the package manufacturer were all made more prosperous by that stroke of business. I would further point out to you that this gave visions to British Columbia growers of an expanded market for their product. It is an item in interprovincial trade which is undoubtedly one of the great factors in linking a country together and insuring its prosperity.
As time elapsed a crop of tomatoes in a more northerly district of the United States began to ripen. This crop was not a failure. A few warm days and a huge surplus of southern tomatoes existed. Brokers in a frantic effort to save domestic markets re-shipped and reshipped; trainloads of tomatoes began to crowd closer to the border. The invoice value was ridiculously low, the duty therefore was negligible, the additional freight rate on such a long haul was very little, so into Canada they came. Toronto in one week received seventy-three carloads. British Columbia had more tomatoes en route when this happened and they found a glutted market. Someone lost money. All dreams of interprovincial trade were shattered. We were all forced to sell tomatoes below cost of production for weeks. This is not healthy competition.


Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):: What was the
date when British Columbia could not sell tomatoes and they were coming in at 70 cents a pound from the States?


John Wesley Edwards: This refers
to 1925, I think.
That is not healthy competition. It is dumping, it is strangulation. We do not ask you

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
to strangle trade with the United States. We merely ask you to prevent United States growers from strangling our industry by using Canada as a dumping ground for their surpluses. We ask you to insure life for our industry, which is perfectly capable and willing to supply Canadian consumers with a high grade article at a reasonable price.
Now, Mr. Speaker, that is just the position which the Conservative party takes and has taken for years. We say that we should have a protective tariff, not to create monopolies, but to ensure that Canadian tomatoes, Canadian potatoes, Canadian meat, and so on, will be used on Canadian tables and not the surplus products of other countries produced under cheap conditions, for down in the southern states they have cheap negro and Mexican labour; they have not the overhead charges that we have. Surely it would not be the attitude of this government and of this parliament to say: Because some people think we shall have to pay a cent or two more for tomatoes, or some other fruit or vegtables, we do not care where these things come from, we are interested only in the producing of wheat; we are not concerned if our fruit growers are put out of business and lose their capital investment. That may be the attitude of some people, but I think it does not express the attitude of the men of the west. I believe they are too broad and liberal-minded to adopt such an attitude.


An hon. MEMBER:: Liberal is right.


John Wesley Edwards: I was not using the word in a party sense. I would be very sorry to accuse the men of the west of being Liberals in view of the record that my hon. friends opposite have.
Now, Mr. Speaker, a great deal has been said as to whether tariffs are right or wrong. In this connection there is just one phase that I propose to deal with. Back in 1910 a large delegation representing the farmers of the country came down to interview the government of that time. One of the gentlemen on the deputation was a Mr. R. Mackenzie. I think he was secretary of the Manitoba Grain Growers' Association. I am going to quote one of the statements that he made, because it is a statement which has been repeated in this House, and I do not think it should be. He said:
It is now conceded that the manufacturer adds to the selling price of his commodity the total amount of the protection granted him by the customs duty.
He proceeded to illustrate that statement by referring to boots and shoes manufactured in Canada in 1907 to the value of $20,264,686.
In that year we imported boots and shoes to the value of $1,178,749. He said:
On the imported we paid $353,600, and we also paid because of that duty on the boots and shoes manufactured in Canada just as much as we did on what was imported, we paid to the manufacturers $6,079,405.
That, he says, went into the pockets of the manufacturers. That argument, if I may dignify it by such a description, has been used in this House. It was used here by Mr. Crerar. I want to know if there is a gentleman here to-night who will subscribe to that doctrine that, as stated by Mr. Mackenzie, the total protective duty is added to the selling price of the commodity. Will anyone subscribe to that? Will any farmer representative subscribe to that?


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: I believe that
is what is done in this country to a large extent.


John Wesley Edwards: Well, this
is am experience meeting to some degree and I am glad to have the hon. gentleman's testimony. Let us consider it for a moment. We produce in Canada large quantities of wheat and we consume within the borders of the country, for seeding and food purposes, from eighty-five to ninety million bushels a year. We have a duty of 12 cents a bushel on wheat. This argument, therefore, if it applies to boots and shoes, applies to wheat.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


John Wesley Edwards: Why not?


John Gordon Ross: Because there is an exportable surplus of wheat; and furthermore the farmers are not organized.


John Wesley Edwards: So that,
according to my hon. friend, the argument applies only where there is not an exportable surplus. I shall have to leave the hon. gentleman to work that out. If that argument means anything it means that the farmers get over $10,000,000 a year extra on wheat because of that 12 cent duty. Take butter: we produce about 300,000,000 pounds of butter a year and levy a duty of 4 cents. We had an exportable surplus last year of about 24,500,000 pounds. According to the argument of Mr. Mackenzie, the 4 cents duty is paid by the people on all butter that is made in Canada as well as on all that is imported.
Some hon. MEMBERS. No.


John Wesley Edwards: According
to my hon. friends the argument does not apply to eggs or anything that the farmer
736	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
produces; it has reference only to things that are manufactured. Very well. I have stated my position and I leave it to my hon. friend to wrestle with the question at his leisure.
Even Adam Smith has acknowledged that a protective tariff may result in cheapening production. A common free trade fallacy is that the duty raises the cost irrespective of the volume of production not affected by the duty. That is the free trader's commonest fallacy. Price is determined by supply and demand and the duty can affect it only so far as the untaxed supply does not meet the demand. There are two cardinal errors free traders fall into: one is that the burden of the import duty must fall entirely on the consumer, and the other is that the tariff must increase the cost of the article taxed. Both these assumptions are fallacious; they are wrong, as time and history have demonstrated hundreds of times.
There are two distinct classes of import duties. There are the free trade duties imposed on such things as we do not and cannot produce in this country, such, for example, as tea and coffee. In such cases the whole amount of the duty is paid by the consumer. There is nothing to come in competition with such commodities, because they are not produced within, our borders. There is another kind of duty also-protective duties levied on articles which are or can be produced in the country. Here the primary object is to increase home production and give employment. Here only a portion, is subject to duty while a greater or lesser portion is free. Here there is active competition between the dutiable and the duty free portions, and obviously the importer cannot pass on the whole duty to the consumer. The extent to which he can do so depends on two things: the extent to which he will be able to pass the tax on depends, first, on the amount of competition between the home producers of the article, and, secondly, the amount of competition between the dutiable and the duty free supplies.
Mr. Bonar Law, discussing this point, used these words:
The consumer pays the duty they say and I suppose most of them believe that this is an axiom of political economy. It is an axiom only of the platform; it is not an axiom of the study. No economist living or dead ever made such a statement. The extent to which the import duty will be paid by the consumer depends entirely on circumstances, and the chief circumstance on which it depends is the amount of the competition between the duty paying and the duty free supply.
I have heard (the question asked, if the duty does not raise the price what is the use of it to the producer? I want to give the

words of a political economist in answer to that question, because they enunciate the principle on which the Conservative party stands. The purpose of protection is not to raise prices but to defend and develop the purchasing power of the nation, one of the most important duties of government, and thereby maintain and improve employment, wages, and the standards of living of those dependent directly or indirectly on the nation's producing industries, which means, in effect, the entire population of the country. John Stuart Mill has said:
The only mode in which a country can save itself from being a loser by the revenue duties imposed by other countries on its commodities is to impose corresponding duties on theirs.
Throw away that weapon and what have you left to protect yourself with? Lord Balfour on December 5, 1923, said:
I have always been in favour of using o'" power of putting on taxation on foreign goods where it seemed desirable for the purpose _ of enabling us to negotiate arrangements with foreign countries upon basis favourable to our own manufacturers.
There is just one other matter to which I want to refer, and I do so because there was a reference made to it in the speech of the hon. member for South Huron (Mr. McMillan) the other day. The hon. member gave a number of interesting figures to prove his contention that the farmers of Canada were more prosperous than the farmers of the United States. He quoted figures in regard to the decrease in the number of farms, and s0 on-all this with the purpose of showing that the farmers here were better off than those across the line. With that statement I have no wish to disagree, but I should like that hon. gentleman to carry his study a little further. I can assure any hon. member who wishes to spend a few interesting days considering this subject that he will find it very enlightening indeed to examine, as I have done, the census statistics of the United States for the year 1910 as compared with the year 1920. If he does so, he will find that in 1920 there were 191,073 fewer farms and 3,726,527 less improved acreage in twenty-four of the forty-eight states of the union. And in every one of these states there was an increase in the mortgage indebtedness in relation to 'land value. There are still twenty-four other states to be accounted for. Examining the figures, I found that these states that show an increase in the number of farms in 1920 as compared with 1910, and an increase in the improved farm acreage, together with a decrease in the mortgage indebtedness in

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
relation to land values, are the southern states. What do we learn from that fact? We can get a lesson from it. The twenty-four states that show a decrease in the number of farms and improved farm acreage, together with an increase in the mortgage indebtedness, are northern states which, with one or two exceptions, have the same sort of climate as we have in Ontario and Quebec and the west. The -people in those states which have to contend with climatic conditions similar to those in Canada have to spend large sums of money in providing for their families and stock.
Where the figures are unsatisfactory the farmers have to cope with such climatic conditions as the farmers in Canada must contend against, while those states which show an increase in prosperity are in the south where there is no winter, where capital investment is not high, and where in many instances the farms produce two or three crops annually. In the southern states, in addition, there is the advantage of cheap labour as compared with what our farmers have to pay in this direction. The farmers of the south raise their crops under more favourable conditions and they invade the markets of the north. The twenty-four states in the north ought to be more prosperous from the standpoint of population, for I venture to say that 75 per cent of the population of the United States is located in this northern territory. Take the cities of Chicago, Buffalo, Detroit-they are all situated in that area. Yet the states in which those cities are located are going backwards. Why? As the member for South Huron pointed out-and he was correct in what he said-these farmers are not getting on so well as the farmers in Canada and the reason is that they are bound to submit to the competition of the farmers in the southern states, where there is a warm climate and where there is every advantage to aid them in competition.


An hon. MEMBER:: Would the northern
farmers improve conditions by shutting out the southern agricultural products?


John Wesley Edwards: Yes, undoubtedly they would improve their condition if they could do so, but they cannot. They have to put up with that competition also, and that was the very point taken by the deputation of farmers representing the northern states who went to congress and said, "These are conditions which we are up against; you cannot protect us from the competition of our fellow farmers to the south, but you can give us protection against the farmers of
Canada and the other farmers of the world." That is what was back of the Fordney-Mc-Cumber tariff; that is why it was put in force, because the farmers in the northern states demanded that protection. Some one will say, "Oh well, the competition of the south does not amount to anything." It amounts to a great deal; it is not merely competition in early vegetables, either. The state of Texas ranks second in the number of sheep, and has over 6,000,000 head of cattle, while in Canada we have about 9,000,000. Texas and Oklahoma together have almost as many cattle as there are in Canada.


Charles A. Stewart: They are not
comparable with the northern cattle, as my hon. friend will admit.


John Wesley Edwards: That I will at once agree to, but I am sure the hon. gentleman will also agree that if you have a piece of beef from a Canadian steer and a piece of beef from a Texas steer and a limited supply of money in your pocket, you will chew Texas beef. That is one thing I wish hon. gentlemen across the way would appreciate. Of course it is hard for ministers, drawing large salaries, to appreciate this fact-


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend must not think that the ministers have always drawn large salaries and know nothing about lower salaries.


John Wesley Edwards: No; my
hon. friend has not always drawn a large salary and will not always draw one.


Charles A. Stewart: We are succeeding fairly well.


John Wesley Edwards: That is all my hon. friends are succeeding in doing; drawing their salaries.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend forgets that we had an election recently.


John Wesley Edwards: That is so,
* and I venture a prophecy, something I have not done before.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend did that before the last election, if he will look up his speeches at that time.


John Wesley Edwards: Then I will do it again. Before the next election comes around that genial smile will disappear from my hon. friend's face.


Charles A. Stewart: Never; I
have carried it for twenty years.


John Wesley Edwards: The point
I am making is that the hon. gentleman and others who sit with him do not need to worry

73S	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
about the prices of such things, and there are lots of men who are not ministers who do not need to worry. But I would impress upon hon. gentlemen that the high cost of living is a matter which must be considered. Meat is dear at one cent per pound if you do not have the cent; the cost of an article depends upon the ability to pay, whether or not the price is high. It does not make any difference to a millionaire whether or not beefsteak is a dollar a pound, but it makes a difference to the ordinary man. Hon. gentlemen opposite want to get it into their heads that they must adopt a policy which will enable workmen in Canada to secure employment at a wage which will permit them to buy decent food and decent clothing.


Samuel William Jacobs: Will the hon. gentleman
permit a question as a matter of information? To what does he attribute this sudden development of opposition on the part of the northern farmers to those of the south? They were there all the time, were they not.?


John Wesley Edwards: I. do not
think the word "sudden" is quite well placed there. I think it has been developing for years but it takes some time for people to leam wisdom; we have had that exemplified here, as my hon. friend must admit when he looks about him on the other side of the House. He must see how long it has taken hon. gentlemen over there, who are supposed to be intelligent, to really grasp these things; they do not seem to have time to study them and to get at the basic principles of economics. How much less then, should we find fault with ordinary people in the country to our south? But no matter whether the time was long or short it is indisputable that the Fordney-Mc-Cumber tariff was placed on the statute books of the United States because of the demand of the American farmers that they should have the American market for their produce, particularly as against the farmers of Canada. I say that is the policy of the party on this side of the House.


Samuel William Jacobs: The hon. gentleman admits that the competition from the southern states is more serious than from Canada?


John Wesley Edwards: Let me tell my hon. friend this: If the reciprocity pact had gone into effect the farmers of Canada would have been up against competition from the south just as the farmers from the northern states were. We have a measure of protection but in my humble judgment it is not sufficient in many respects to give the farmer in this country the protection to which he is entitled. That is the point I make. I say that if the Liberal party had carried the 
reciprocity pact into effect and allowed the door to this country to be opened, then the farmers in Ontario who, according to the member for South Huron (Mr. McMillan) are more prosperous than those in New York and Pennsylvania, would be in the same position as the farmers in the northern states- they would be subjected to competition from the southern farmers who are raising their produce under more advantageous conditions than the farmers to the north.


John Millar: Will the hon. member explain why the Fordney-McCumber tariff has not fulfilled its purpose, and has not given satisfaction?


John Wesley Edwards: My hon.
friend has asked me why the Fordney-McCumber tariff has not produced the results desired. I think you can find the reason for it in the volume of importations as compared with the amount produced on the other side of the line. Do not forget the fact that the people of the United States do not all live in cities. The United States is still a great farming country with an immense surplus of farm products. They are up against, and must continue to be up against, the competition of the farmers in the southern states who have a milder climate. You cannot give protection against the climate, but the farmers over there do enjoy a certain amount of protection. They certainly enjoy an amount of protection by reason of the duty imposed against Canadian products, there is no question at all about that. They must enjoy protection or they would not have asked for an increase in the tariff rates such as they asked for not very long since.


John Gordon Ross: The hon. gentleman will admit that a duty of 42 cents a bushel on wheat does not raise the price of wheat in the United States for the simple reason that they have an exportable surplus. The hon. gentleman laughed a moment ago when I gave him that argument


John Wesley Edwards: That is all very well but I wonder why that explanation has not occurred to the statesmen of the United States. What did they put a duty of 42 cents on wheat, a duty of 12 cents a pound on butter, and a duty of 8 cents a dozen on eggs? Why do they do these things? Is it because the statesmen in the United States, as well as in Japan, Germany and every other country on the face of the earth -who are raising their tariffs, especially since the war, with the idea of protecting their people against depreciated foreign currencies and low rates of wages, and to make good

Committee on Railways
the loss of money which resulted in the war -have no intelligence; that the only persons who have intelligence are the gentlemen sitting on the treasury benches of Canada? This country is the only country in the world that I know of which, notwithstanding the economic and other changes which have taken place since the war, has lowered its tariS.
There are several other matters I should have liked to discuss for various reasons, but one reason has left the chamber-I refer to the Minister of Railways. There are a number of matters I should have liked to talk about, because I think there is room in that hon. gentleman's head for information. There are still some things he should know that he does not know, and that he particularly ought to know because he occupies an important position in the country. He is woefully deficient in the very elements of knowledge which he should possess as a minister of the crown.


Samuel William Jacobs: Why not give him a few
private lessons?


John Wesley Edwards: I will do
that, but I will not say how many I will give him. It all depends, however, upon his acquisitiveness as a pupil. An hon. gentleman suggests that he should have these lessons as long as he lives. I suppose one would need to give him lessons for a long time in order to fill up the aching void in his brain?
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I submit this on behalf of the party of which I have the honour to be an humble member:	The Conservative party does not now and has not in the past advocated a high tariff which will exclude foreign competition. WTe do not believe in that and we never have believed in it. But we do believe in developing Canadian industries which will employ Canadian workmen. We do believe in a policy which will keep our boys and girls employed in Canada rather than drive them to the United States. That is the policy we believe in, and I think it is one which should engage the attention of every man in this House no matter with what party he is affiliated. Let us give employment to our own children within the bounds of Canada, let us build up this Dominion. We can only do that by creating living conditions in this country such as will induce our young folks to stay here. Let us give reasonable, just and fair protection and not one fraction of a cent more. Above all let us give the basic industry of agriculture what it has never had in my judgment under any party in Canada, a square deal amongst the industries so far as the tariff is concerned. That is all I have to say in regard to the matter.
I have some information here which I obtained in answer to questions of mine in regard to the importations of butter from Australia and New Zealand, but I will not take the time to go into that matter to-night. We shall have an opportunity perhaps to bring the subject up when we are in committee. I will simply say that the figures which have been given to me in answer to questions which I put on the order paper show conclusively and beyond any shadow of doubt the disastrous results to Canada which have followed the action of the government in making a treaty arrangement with Australia something over a year ago. I am sure the government is convinced of that, but it is proved by the figures in my possession.
On motion of Mr. Arthurs the debate was adjourned.	.
On motion of Mr. Stewart (Edmonton) the House adjourned at 11.40 p.m.
Tuesday, March 1, 1927