1929-03-07

Hon. J. A. ROBB (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Prime Minister I beg to move that the name of Mr. Garland (Bow River) be substituted for that of Mr. Luehkovieh on the select standing committee on marine and fisheries, and that the name of Mr. Luehkovieh be substituted for that of Mr. Garland (Bow River) on the joint committee of both houses on printing.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
James Alexander Robb: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Prime Minister I beg to move that a message be sent to the senate to acquaint their honours that this house has substituted the name of Mr. Luehkovieh for that of Mr. Garland (Bow River) to aot on the part of the House of Commons as a member of the joint committee of both houses on printing.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 73, respecting the Canadian Dexter P. Cooper Company.-Mr. Hanson.

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

Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	WThat steps to enforce the Immigration Act are or have or will be taken by the Department of Immigration in reference to some thirty or more Germans illegally brought into Canada by the Rapid Grip Company of Toronto, to take the places of strikers locked out?
2.	Will said German workers be deported in accordance with the Immigration Act? If not, why?
3.	On whose orders were these immigrants admitted and who signed the permits and made the applications for admission?
4.	Will those responsible be prosecuted under the provisions of the Alien Labour Act?
5.	Has or will the attention of the Attorney General of Ontario be called to this open breach of the Alien Labour Act by the Immigration or Labour Department?


Mr. FORKE:: 1.	The Department of Immigration has had no correspondence or communication with the

Questions
Rapid Grip, Ltd., Toronto, about importation of labour. The Trade Engraving Company of Toronto approached the department some months ago about importation of photo engravers and offset engravers. The company was advised to ascertain whether this labour could not be secured in Canada. No permit of any sort was issued by the department for the admission of any class of labour for this company, but the records show that during November, December and January last, 8 French, 5 German and 2 Swiss immigrants describing themselves as photo engravers or related occupations were admitted to Canada destined to the Trade Engraving Company, Toronto. These men were admitted in the regular way on compliance with the regulations applicable to such nationals.
2.	The Department of Immigration is not aware that any of the workmen referred to in paragraph one are deportable.
3.	Answered by No. 1.
4.	Section 13 of the Alien Labour Act provides that " This act shall apply only to the importation or immigration of such persons as reside in or are citizens of such foreign countries as have enacted and retained in force, or as enact and retain in force laws or ordinances applying to Canada of a character similar to this act. France, Germany and Switzerland have no laws or ordinances of a similar character applying against Canada.
5.	Answered by No. 4.


DR. L. E. BORDEN
Mr. ESLING:: 1.	Has Dr. L. E. Borden, medical examiner in West Kootenay, British Columbia, for the Department of Pensions and National Health, been dismissed?
2.	If so, for what reason?
Mr. KING Kootenay):
1.	Dr. Borden has not been dismissed.
2.	Answered by No. 1.


COAL MINING MACHINERY-IMPORTS
Mr. CANTLEY:: 1.	What was the value of all coal mining machinery other than stone dusting equipment imported into Nova Scotia during the calendar year 1927?
2.	What was the value of such machinery which was duty free?
3.	What was the value on which duty was paid?
4.	What was the total duty paid on such
machinery?
5.	What was the value of all stone dusting equipment imported into Nova Scotia during the same period?
6.	What was the total duty paid on said stone dusting machinery?


Mr. EULER:: 1,	2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Imports of " Percussion coal cutters, coal augers and rotary coal drills and complete parts," entered for consumption in the province of Nova Scotia in the calendar year 1927, amounted in value to $1,170, and the import duty collected was $234.
This is the only coal mining machinery and equipment which is separately classified for statistics, and the department has no record of the separate value of other machinery of this class imported or of the duties collected on such imports.


ALFRED PEAT BOG EXPERIMENTS
Mr. CANTLEY:: 1.	When did the government of Canada first begin experiments in connection with the Alfred peat bogs?
2.	How much has been paid out by the government of Canada in connection with that enterprise?
3.	How many tons of peat fuel have been dug, raised or produced?
4.	What has been the average cost to date per ton of peat recovered?
5.	How many B.T.U. does a ton of that fuel contain?
6.	How many B.T.U. does a ton of Old Sydney Mine (Nova Scotia) bituminous coal contain?
7.	How many B.T.U. does a ton of Welsh anthracite coal contain?
8.	Is it the intention of the government to continue to spend money on the peat bog at Alfred?
9.	Has the anticipation of the Minister of Mines, as expressed in the house last year, been realized?


Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: 1. 1910.
2.1907-08	$
1908-	09	
1909-	10	
1910-	11	
1911-	12	
1918-	19	
1919-	20	
1920-	21	
1921-	22	
1922-	23	
1923-	24	
1924-	25	
1926-	27.. **	
1927-	28	
1928-	29 to Feb. 28, 1929..
254 60 556 66 11,528 47 8,313 93 5,839 97
32.597	13 32,619 48 42,822 62 43,317 35 24,075 92
2,520 57 338 07 22,898 27 64,128 80
43.597	08
Total expenditure.. ..$335,408 92
3.	Approximately 30,000 tons.
4.	Average cost of peat recovered since experiments in connection with the Alfred peat bogs were undertaken by the government of Canada, has never been determined.

Canadian Farm, Loan Board
From results of experiments and operations, costs of peat fuel based on full season's operation under commercial conditions, was estimated, viz. $3:50 per ton f.o.b. siding-this figure including all overheads.
5.	Dry, 18,940,000 B.T.U.s.
6.	Dry, 27,580,000 B.T.U.s.
7.	Dry, 28,840,000 B.T.U.s.
8.	Not unless Peat Fuels, Limited, fails to reimburse the government the sums expended in remodelling the plant under agreement between the government and the company.
9.	As regards technical demonstration and commercial possibilities of present plant-yes. As regards production of 15,000 tons of fuel- no. On account of abnormally wet weather conditions only 10,000 tons of peat fuel were laid on drying field.


TRURO POST OFFICE-ADDITION
Mr. MacNUTT:: 1.	Is the present addition to Truro post office being done by contract or on a cost plus basis?
2.	If by contract, what is the name of the contractor and the amount of tender?
3.	Has the firm awarded this contract headquarters in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick?
4.	What are the names of the several firms or individuals who tendered for this work, and the respective amounts of each tender?
5.	What is the name of the inspector in charge, and what amount of salary does he receive for his services?


Mr. ELLIOTT:: 1.	By contract.
2.	(a) Robert Ed Company; (b) $17,966.
3.	At Moncton, N.B.
4.	Robert Ed Company, Moncton, $17,966; Howard Hayman, Truro, $18,652.
5.	(a) Gordon J. Hayman; (b) $125 a month.


FOOD SALES TAX, 1927-28
Mr. BENOIT:: What amount was collected by the Department of National Revenue from sales tax on articles of food during the year 1927 and 1928, respectively?


William Daum Euler: Collections of sales taxes are recorded in total amounts without classification of the various commodities to which they are applied, and the department has no record of the amounts collected on articles of food.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. KENNEDY:: 1. What are the monthly import figures for mutton in each of the months of the years 1928
(Mr. C. A. Stewart.]
and 1929 from, (a) New Zealand, (b) Australia, (c) United States?
2.	What are the monthly import figures for lamb in each of the months of the years 1928 and 1929 from, (a) New Zealand, (b) Australia, (c) United States?
3.	What was the price per pound in each case of all such imports?
4.	What is the percentage of mutton and lamb in each month from, (a) New Zealand, (b) Australia, (c) United States?
5.	Is mutton imported from other countries allowed to be sold in open competition with Canadian lamb?
6.	Are there any regulations controlling the distribution of imported mutton in Canada? If so, what are they on, (a) frozen mutton, (b) other mutton?


CANADIAN FARM LOAN BOARD
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Vancouver Centre):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) can give me a little information with regard to a despatch which appears in to-day's papers from the Canadian Press correspondent at Victoria. This is the despatch:
Farm loans should be available to British Columbia agriculturists by May 1, according to an announcement given out here to-day by Dr J. D. MacLean, chairman of the Canadian Farm Loan Board.
I would ask the minister, first, if he is in a position to confirm the statement made in this despatch; and, secondly, as I do not see provision in the present estimates, what provision will be made to supply funds for the loans so to be granted?


James Alexander Robb: Mr. Speaker, I understand that under the act as passed provision is made for organization. Dr. MacLean, the chairman of the Farm Loan Board, was to visit the different provinces and arrange with the provincial authorities to complete their organization. I gather from the despatch that he has come to some understanding with the province of British Columbia.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Would the minister please answer the questions, which are based upon the statement of fact quite properly reiterated by him? First, will he confirm the accuracy of the despatch and say if these funds will be available by May 1; and, secondly, what provision will be made to provide the funds?


James Alexander Robb: I can only repeat that I
understand provision is made for this under the act. I have had no communication from Dr. MacLean since he left Ottawa.

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
COAL IMPORTS FROM RUSSIA On the orders of the day:


Charles A. Stewart: The hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Cantley) asked me a question a week ago with reference to imports of Russian anthracite. Our records would indicate that there came to Montreal prior to the close of navigation, 1 cargo, 5,000 tons gross; to Portland, 2 cargoes of 5,000 and 5,500 tons gross; and in transit 1 cargo of approximately 5,000 tons, or a total of 20,500 tons.


ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAY BEATJHARN0IS POWER PROJECT-APPLICATION FOR APPROVAL OF PLANS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. C. ELLIOTT (Minister of Public Works):: In answer to a question asked yesterday by my hon. friend from Bow River (Mr. Garland) with reference to the application of the Beauharnois Company, as to whether or not that application would be included in certain returns, I may say that on inquiry I find that it was included in a return which was tabled on May 30 last.


SEVEN SISTERS FALLS
[Stage Direction]
INQUIRY AT WINNIPEG On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Has the commission which is now investigating matters in connection with the Seven Sisters question in Manitoba received authority to proceed to California?


Charles A. Stewart: That authority would come from Manitoba and not from this department.


THE BUDGET
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, March 1,
consideration of 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.
Hon. HUGH GUTHRIE (South Wellington) :: In rising to make some observations in regard to the national budget which was presented to this house on Friday last by the Minister of Finance, let me in the first place congratulate my hon. friend the minister on the lucidity of his annual statement upon the present occasion. Let me also congratulate 7S594-474
him upon the precision of his language in regard to certain important announcements which he made in his address to this house, and also upon the concise manner in which he laid the financial transactions of Canada before us. Subject to some observations which I may have occasion to make later on, let me say that we on this side of the house rejoice with those in every other quarter of the house that Providence has continued to shower upon this country unbounded prosperity; and if we on this side are inclined to attribute the major portion of the credit for this happy condition of affairs to a beneficent Providence and to the intelligence and industry of our people rather than to the government little surprise will be felt that we take this attitude. Indeed, on occasions of this kind, one is inclined to speculate how much greater, how much wider and how much more evenly distributed that prosperity might have been in this country had we in power in Canada today a government more fully alive to the possibilities of this great country, and to the rights and interests of every class of the citizens of this Dominion.
Personally I express my own satisfaction that the Minister of Finance on this occasion has given' us a clearer and, if I may say so without offence, a much more candid statement of our financial affairs than was his wont on former occasions. And I state also my personal opinion that the statistical information which he has laid before parliament on this occasion will probably serve to remove from discussion some at least of the controversial points of previous discussions.
I think we may now take it as fairly well settled that the net debt of the Dominion of Canada on March 31 next will be the sum of $2,227,068,000, as stated by the Minister of Finance. This has always been a more or less controversial point. We have never had very serious controversy about the funded debt of the country, but I am glad to note that in his speech last Friday the minister for the first time took serious account of what we know as the funded or bonded debt or, as he put it in his remarks, the dead weight debt of the Dominion of Canada. That, after all, is the important item in the financing of this country. The net debt is not a matter of the greatest consequence; in England they never refer to it at all. There they use the One term "dead weight debt", and I am glad that the minister has used that term on this occasion, because that is the debt which counts. It is the amount for which the government of this country has issued in solemn form its bonds and obliga-
The Budget-Mr. Guthrie

tions, signed, sealed and delivered, which bonds are now held by people who have invested in our securities. These bonds have to be paid at maturity, and in the meantime interest must be met. They therefore constitute the real burden which the people of this country are compelled to carry.
The net debt is comparatively unimportant; it is a matter very largely of bookkeeping and depends upon how you see fit to estimate the value of your assets. We have assets that are certainly good liquid assets, but we have a lot of assets in this country which we carry as non-active assets, and if you want to transfer some of these non-active assets to the active list you can immediately decrease your net debt. It is, I say, a matter largely of bookkeeping. But the debt which counts is the dead weight debt.
Now we may take it from the statement of the minister that the dead weight debt in this country, as of March 31 instant, will be the sum of $2,330,835,000. That dead weight debt stood on the books of Canada on March 31, 1922, when this government first assumed power, at $2,420,000,000. So that after seven years of financing by this government there is a reduction in the dead weight debt of Canada of $90,000,000, or an average reduction of $13,000,000 per annum since tlhe government took office.
Mr. Speaker, I consider an annual reduction of the dead weight debt of $13,000,000 a fairly substantial payment. I think that under all the circumstances it should have been more. But I am not altogether dissatisfied with the reduction of $90,000,000 in seven years. I submit to the minister tha-t without further delay in this matter he should present a definite scheme to this house for the retirement of the whole of the dead weight debt. Every year for the past three or four years this question has been brought to the attention of the minister. Year after year he has evaded it; he has said nothing to the house respecting it, although last year, I believe, he did allege that some man named McCulloch, writing on financial questions in England some eighty years ago, had declared that the system of payment of debts by way of sinking fund was unsound. That is the only reason the Finance minister has given the house for his refusal to adopt a definite scheme for the retirement of our debt. I can only tell my hon. friend the Minister of Finance that the government of Great Britain, in spite of Mr. McCulloch's language, has adopted a definite scheme of debt retirement; they have done so in France; they have done so in the United States in regard to their war debt and 
they have done so in the province of Ontario in regard to the provincial debt. In each of these instances in thirty, forty or fifty years as the case may be these dead weight debts will be paid off. It was pointed out last year in this house by my leader that if the Minister of Finance would appropriate out of his enormous revenues the sum of $19,000,000 a year as a sinking fund, even with interest at only 4 per cent in forty-five years the accumulation of this fund would pay the whole of the dead weight debt of this country; or if $19,000,000 per annum is too much-and I submit it is not-if he took the sum of $15,000,000 per year, in fifty years we would wipe out the dead weight debt of Canada.
There is much to commend such a step to any reasonable man in this proposal. In the first place a system of that kind enhances the credit of the country in the financial centres of the world. When you go to the money markets of the world and the money lenders find that you have established a definite system of debt retirement by means of sinking funds, your credit is enhanced immediately. The province of Ontario has found this to be so in the New York market; they can now borrow money in New York on their bonds more cheaply than was the case formerly. We could do the same for the Dominion, and thus enhance our national credit. This was done in Great Britain, and while there never was a doubt about British credit yet they have re-established that credit in the eyes of the world on a firmer basis than ever before. We could do so also.
But there is still a further element worth considering in this connection. A definite commitment of $15,000,000 or $19,000,000 a year to be taken from the treasury for the payment of funded debt would prevent the accumulation of an unnecessary amount of money in the treasury, which is always a great temptation to a minister, to a government or to a private individual to relax anything in the nature of economic principles, and a great temptation to indulge in a course of extravagant expenditure. The adoption of such a system, which would permit us annually to take from our treasury a definite sum of money, would act as a serious check upon the spending propensities of the present government, and I trust the Minister of Finance will seriously consider this matter and next session bring in some plan which may be adopted by the house in regard to this question.
Now I pass on to the surplus announced this year by the minister, a surplus which in some respects is very creditable. A surplus

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
in this country is arrived at in a prosperous year very simply; all the receipts of the government go into a single fund known as the consolidated revenue fund; all payments for the management of the business of the country are made from that fund. If the receipts are greater than the expenditures in any year there is a surplus, and if the expenditures exceed the receipts there is a deficit. This year the minister has announced a surplus of $99,000,000, out of which he proposes to pay in capital charges and special expenditure the sum of $29,000,000, leaving in round figures a net surplus of $69,000,000, with which he says he has reduced, or on March 31 next will be able to reduce, the net debt of this country by at least $50,000,000. For some reason best known to himself, when the Minister of Finance makes financial comparisons he studiously avoids any reference to the year 1923; he always starts his statements and comparisons with the year 1924, and his reason for so doing is purely artificial. He should start with the fiscal year 1923. Mr. Fielding was in control of the treasury then, and Mr. Fielding always assumed full responsibility for the financing of Canada during the year 1923. The Minister of Finance has announced that from the year 1924 to the year 1929, inclusive, he has been able to reduce the national debt by the sum of $226,000,000, or an average annual reduction of $37,700,000. Had he included the year 1923, as he should have done, his average reduction per annum would have fallen from $37,700,000 to $27,860,000, but because the year 1923 was not a very favourable year in Dominion financing, in all or nearly all "the statements of the present Minister of Finance he deliberately excludes that year from his calculation.
In the year 1923 and in the year 1922 we had to add to the debt of this country. We had surpluses in those years, just as the minister has surpluses now, but perhaps it would be as well for Mr. Fielding himself to explain the financing of those two years. Those who heard him make his financial statement in this house on June 10, 1923, will recall his language; speaking then of the fiscal year 1922, which closed on March 31, 1923, he would have nothing to do with it although he was Minister of Finance during 1922. but he assumed full responsibility for the following fiscal year 1923. Well, he closed the year 1922 with a pretty handsome surplus, amounting to $34,000.000; out of this surplus he paid capital charges and special expenditures amounting to $18,000,000, so he closed that year with an actual cash surplus of $16,000,000. Then, however, he was met with deficits and cash
requirements on the part of the national railways and the merchant marine; that year these demanded from him a sum of no less than $97,000,000. He had only $16,000,000 of surplus in the treasury, and consequently had to borrow money to make up these railway deficits, and in doing so increased the debt of Canada for that year by $81,000,000. The following year practically the same thing happened; he closed the year with a surplus of $62,000,000 in the treasury, which is a fairly substantial amount. He paid all the capital and special charges, amounting to $24,500,000, leaving a balance in cash of $37,500,000. However, war demobilization, the merchant marine and the national railways again demanded the sum of $68,000,000, so instead of having a cash surplus of $37,500,000 that year he added to the debt of the country by $31,000,000, and it is by reason of that addition to the debt in 1923 that the present Minister of Finance carefully excludes that year from all his calculations
Mr. Fielding did just what his predecessors in office had done. When there were deficits with respect to the Canadian National Railways; when money had to be supplied them for other purposes as well as deficits he put his hand in the treasury, took out the money and paid the charges and charged them to the debt of Canada. After Mr. Fielding's time, however, a change took place and we entered upon a new era of railway financing. I do not say that the new scheme is not good and sound; in fact I prefer it to the old scheme. Under the new scheme railway finances are kept separate as far as possible, whereas under the former government and in Mr. Fielding's time the treasury stood all the losses, and these losses were added to the debt of Canada. The railway now issues its own bonds and the government of Canada guarantees them by endorsement on the back of the bond instead of, as in the old days, signing the front of the bond. That is practically the only difference in the two systems, but it makes an enormous difference with regard to the financial accounts and statements of the Dominion of Canada. The Minister of Finance announced a surplus of $99,000,000 for the past year's operations, and of course there was tremendous applause from the government benches when that announcement wa3 made. But let me say, Mr. Speaker, that the record of this government, starting with the year 1923 up to the present year inclusive, is scarcely one whit better than the record of its predecessor. The public accounts of this country disclose the fact, astonishing to some people, that the surpluses under the
The Budget-Mr. Guthrie

preceding government were but little below what they have been under the present government. I do not know whether the laughter of the Postmaster General (Mr. Veniot) is caused by the statement I made. If so, I can only-


Mr. VENIOT:: Surely I have the right to
laugh.


Hugh Guthrie: I can only state that he is absolutely ignorant of the public accounts of Canada. I propose to place on Hansard a statement from the public accounts of Canada. These have been laid on the table of the house by the Minister of Finance, and no one in the government can repudiate the figures because they are laid before us as the actual results of Dominion financing. I will start with the year 1917, when the Union government was formed, and give the surpluses which appear on page 45 of the public
accounts: 1917	
$84,101,950	771918	
82,494,639	721919	
80,215,464	201920	
45,902,404	801921	
73,268,391	391922	
34,391,696	36
The aggregate of surpluses for the six years amounts to about $400,374,000, or an average surplus per year of $66,729,000. We will now give the record of the Liberal government, starting with the year 1923:
1923	
$62,321,167	911924	
72,024,492	471925	
27,942,578	001926	
60,085,026	441927	
79,147,603	791928	
86,550,021	701929	
99,742,000	00
The aggregate for these years amounts to about $487,812,000, or an average per year of $69,687,000, or just about $3,000,000 more per year of surplus under the Liberal government than was the case under the Conservative government which preceded it. I make that statement largely in view of the fact that during the present session the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) flourished the public accounts in our faces when we were discussing the building of national highways. He referred to the fact that during the years I have enumerated, under the Conservatives the debt of this countrj' had been materially increased. That was a most misleading statement, and no one knows better than the Prime Minister that the increased debt of those years was due to two causes, and two causes only. During those years we had practically as large surpluses and spent far less money on consolidated fund account than has this government, but the acquisition of the 
Canadian National railway system and the conduct of Canada's part in the Great war accounted for the increased debt of the country. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the finances of the Canadian National railways are so inextricably interwoven with the finances of the Dominion of Canada that one cannot get a fair picture of either situation when viewing them separately. To a large extent they must be considered together and I am glad that the Minister of Finance has treated them in that way on this occasion. The interests of this country are deeply wrapped up in that great railway undertaking. It is by far the largest financial concern which this country has. Does the house realize just what it involves? I cannot give the precise figures with regard to the national railways for the year just closed, because the statement has not been issued, but I can take the financial statement of the preceding year as a basis and account for certain changes in figures which have occurred in the interval and which have come to the knowledge of the house.
I find that the Canadian National system had a bonded debt to private bondholders amounting to $981,000,000, as of January 1, 1928. According to the statement made to this house by the Minister of Finance, this year the bonded indebtedness will be increased by the sum of $44,000,000. These figures disclose the fact that the bonded indebtedness of the Canadian National railway system to the public has now passed the billion dollar mark. What about the Dominion of Canada's interest in that system? On January 1, 1928, Canada was a creditor of that system to the extent of $1,258,000,000; the total indebtedness of the road as of that date was $2,239,000,000. I give these figures in order that we may understand the tremendous financial undertaking in which we are involved in regard to these national railways. The result of operations for last year was very gratifying, and I would ask the Minister of Finance to note that the treasury of this country has been relieved very substantially for the last four or five years through the successful operation of Canada's national railway system. On January 1, 1924, an announcement was made by the president that for the first time in its history the national system had produced a net revenue over operating expenses, for the year 1923, amounting to $4,155,000; in 1924 that revenue had increased to $18,000,000; in
1925	it had increased again to $33,000,000; in
1926	the revenue was $48,000,000; in 1927 it dropped back to $42,000,000; and for 1928 we have the wonderful result of a surplus in net operating expenses amounting to $58,000,000.

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
It will take $50,000,000 of that amount to pay the interest on the bonds which the public hold, I understand the management of the road will pay that interest this year and will still have on hand a balance of $8,000,000 for other purposes. But what about the money it owes to the Dominion treasury? The minister intimates that the sum of $32,000,000 odd is owed this year to the government for interest. It is put down in the books as a debt of the railway but is purely a bookkeeping transaction and I presume it will be added to the $1,258,000,000 which the company owed to us at the beginning of the year, making the total indebtedness of the system to the Dominion treasury about $1,300,000,000 and to the public about $1,000,000,000.
In respect, however, to the national railway we on this side of the house are all optimists. We look upon that railway as practically our own infant and our own creature. Those of us who were in parliament-it is perhaps pretty far back-in the early days prior to 1911 know there was great activity in railway building in this country in those years. We far outbuilt the requirements of the Dominion of Canada as they existed at that time, but personally I am not in a position to offer any criticism whatever of the railway undertakings of those days because I was one of those who supported the proposals. However, early in the years of the war something in the nature of a national catastrophe was imminent to the Dominion of Canada in respect of our railways. The very extensive system known as the Canadian Northern, with all its subsidiaries and all its ramifications, became seriously involved financially. The government had to come to its rescue to the extent of an enormous amount of money and the only security which we could obtain from the Canadian Northern system was a blanket mortgage upon the whole undertaking and a transfer of sufficient of the shares in the various companies to give the government control of the whole undertaking. Apart from the granting of substantial aid, financial disaster loomed ahead of us. The Grand Trunk Pacific came next; insolvency stood at the door of that railway; the road was in fact insolvent. In that case * we went to the exchequer court and asked that the affairs of the Grand Trunk Pacific be taken from the management which was then the old Grand Trunk company, and that it be placed in the hands of a receiver. It was placed in the hands of the Minister of Railways of Canada as receiver. No sooner had these matters been temporarily arranged than the financial difficulties of the old Grand
Trunk railway system became only too apparent. That road was absolutely insolvent. Canada was threatened with railway insolvency on every hand. Moreover, across the ocean in France and Flanders we were carrying on Canada's part in the greatest war in history. There was serious financial calamity awaiting us at home unless speedy action was taken to relieve the railway situation and at the same time hundreds of millions of dollars had to be supplied to carry on the war. Such then was the critical situation in this country in the years 1918 and 1919.
The leader of the government (Mr. Mackenzie King) was not, I think, in the house until September of the year 1919, when he was returned for a constituency in Prince Edward Island and came back to the house as leader of the Liberal party. But he was present in the house during the second session of 1919 and I recall with the greatest distinctness what transpired during that session. So will my right hon. friend; so will the Minister of Finance; so would the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) if he were in his place. A great fight was then waged by the Conservative party to take over these three railway systems that had gone into bankruptcy, reorganize them, consolidate them and make them into a Canadian National railway to be owned by the people of the Dominion of Canada. This was the only way to save the country from what might have been national bankruptcy. Indeed, in spite of what we did, the prediction of national bankruptcy was made in the city of Montreal by so great a financial authority as Sir Lomer Gouin and other prominent persons.
We had a bitter fight in the session of 1919 in the old museum building, where we then sat, but we were fortunate in that great fight to have a very brilliant man to lead our forces in regard to the railway problem. I refer to the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen, who I believe was the first public man to realize the full gravity of the situation and who wa* at all times the great factor in engineering our way out of our railway difficulty. He formulated a definite plan; he produced it before parliament. It was immediately opposed in the bitterest manner by the Liberal party in the House of Commons, by the Liberal party in the Dominion of Canada and, I regret to say, by many friends and some newspapers otherwise friendly to the Conservative party. Mr. Meighen had a tremendous task ahead of him. Day in and day out in the old museum during the session of 1919 the railway bill was fought to a finish. Every kind and method of opposition was urged
The Budget-Mr. Guthrie

against it. Nothing was left undone or unsaid by our opponents. We were told that we were going to bankrupt the Dominion of Canada. It was claimed that those roads should be put into liquidation, go through the exchequer court of Canada and be put on the auction block. If such a course had been followed there was only one power in Canada to purchase them and that power would have been able to create the greatest railway monopoly ever created in any country in the world.
I remember some of the amendments that were moved on that occasion and I will mention one or two of them. Under the guidance of Mr. Meighen that bill was fought through the house. Amendment after amendment was moved to defeat it. The late Hon. D. D. McKenzie moved that the matter be dropped and not considered for the present time. His motion was defeated. Then came a motion by Mr. Denis, at that time member for Joliette and until recently a member of the house. His motion was defeated. Then there was a motion by the Right Hon. Mr. Fielding to appoint a royal commission to inquire into the whole matter, his object being to defeat the bill and to destroy the government as well. His motion was defeated. After that followed a motion by my right hon. friend the present Prime Minister on the third reading of the bill, just before it was passed, a motion to recommit it to the committee of the whole house, which constituted a want of confidence motion in the government on the third reading. It was intended to defeat the government and to destroy the bill. There followed another motion, which to-day seems rather ludicrous, moved by the hon. member for Quebec West (Mr. Parent). I would like to recall to the house the amendment which he moved. On the third reading of the bill the member for Quebec West formally moved that in the opinion of the House of Commons, as the Grank Trunk railway had terminals in the United States, our taking this road over as a national undertaking would involve us in annexation to the United States. Such of course were not the exact words of the amendment but merely the sense of it. At this distance of time it would seem impossible that any man would vote for a proposal of that kind, yet in the division list I find the following names-King. Lapointe, and others. Our good friend the Minister of Finance was cute; he ducked that vote; his name does not even appear in the list of pairs. When the Liberals had exhausted every effort to beat us, when they had tried everything in their power to destroy that measure and prevent the nationalization of these railways, the present Minister of Finance was put up to lead the final attack, and in the early hours 
of the morning he solemnly moved that the bill be given the six months' hoist. Again I look at the division list, and I find amongst those who supported the six months' hoist to destroy that measure, the following names: King, Robb and Lapointe. Such was the attitude of the Liberal party at that time, and of the Liberal press, and also as I said before, of an influential part of the Conservative press of Canada. They were all mistaken, badly mistaken in their judgment. The Liberals tried by everything in their power to destroy that measure but they failed. With them it was a case of the spirit being willing, but the flesh was weak.


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend has an excellent memory. Will he tell us what was the attitude and the speech of his present leader (Mr. Bennett) upon that occasion?


Hugh Guthrie: My leader was not a
member of the house at that time. My hon. leader did not run in the election of 1917, as the minister will remember.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: Was it not
true that that session was a special session called for the purpose of approving the peace treaty, and not a session called for the purpose of dealing with railway matters?


Hugh Guthrie: It may have been as my right hon. friend suggests, but I know that ninety per cent of the discussion at that session centered around the railway question. Two great volumes of Hansard are full of that discussion, and of little else. No, Mr. Speaker, hon. gentlemen opposite had no faith in a national railway system then, and they tried to kill it at its birth, and for two or three years afterwards they continued their efforts to destroy it. Why, even when the present government first obtained power, in the very first speech delivered from the throne, a speech penned by my right hon. friend the Prime Minister, he takes occasion in that speech to remark:
The transportation system weighs heavily upon our national finances.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: That was right.


Hugh Guthrie: Certainly, that was true
in the early days, and it accounted for a very large part of the additions to the national debt, but even at that time my right hon. friend the prime minister had not become a convert either to the nationalization of the railways or to public ownership in general. He only took it on trial; in fact, it was popularly supposed by those outside the secrets of the cabinet that the system was going to be broken up, and not continued as a national

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
undertaking. There were strong influences pulling the government this way, but other influences pulling them in the right direction, of course, and the government finally agreed just to feeling its way, and the Prime Minister made the Governor General say with great caution in the speech from the throne that he had decided "to give government ownership and operation a fair trial.''


William Lyon Mackenzie King: A pretty good
decision.


Hugh Guthrie: Yes, and a reluctant one, too. My object, Mr. Speaker, in going into these old matters is this: Now, when this wonderful Canadian National railway system has more than justified itself, now, that it is rapidly becoming in the nature of a great national asset, now that we may look forward to a day, not perhaps in my lifetime, but in the lifetime of some here, when this system will start repaying the government of Canada part at least of the money it owes to the treasury, to the day when it will have a clean sheet, as it ultimately will have, in regard to its bonded indebtedness to the public; now that the system is in this, a thoroughly prosperous condition, this government desires to treat it as its own creature. Whereas in 1919 it tried to cast it out as base-born, now it wants to consider it as its legitimate offspring, and to profit by its success. Let me say, in concluding my remarks on this phase of the subject, that the national railway system in this country constitutes a lasting monument to the ability and statesmanship and determination of a single man, a member of a former Conservative government, and subsequently Prime Minister of that government. It is to his ability and foresight, to his statesmanship and determination that the people of Canada are indebted for this wonderful system of national railways.
There is another question in the budget which I think we should carefully consider, and that is the question of the cost of government in this country. The cost of government in this country is going up so rapidly that it is now out of all proportion with the advances which the country has made either in business or in population. When this government first came into power, I grant that they endeavoured to make some effort to reduce expenditure. Mr. Fielding, I fancy, did his best in that direction. For the year 1923, according to the public accounts we spent 1350,000,000; in 1924, Mr. Fielding reduced that to $344,000,000; in 1925, he further reduced it to $339,000,000, and then, perhaps
unfortunately for the country he retired from office. His successor the present Finance minister came into office at a time when the annual expenditure was $339,000,000. The first year after he assumed office the expenditure jumped to $343,000,000; in 1927, to $346,000,000; in 1928, to $360,000,000, and for the year just closed, according to the minister's own figures on Friday last, the expenditure was $385,000,000. Starting with an annual expenditure of $339,000,000 when he took office in 1925, he has increased that expenditure to the enormous figure of $391,000,000 to-day, or an increase in a few short years of $52,000,000 in annual expenditure. The business of the country has not increased in that ratio; the population of the country has not increased in that ratio; conditions in Canada do not warrant such an increase, and what, I would ask, has the minister been doing with the money? We on this side say he has been spending it recklessly and extravagantly.
When we come to the estimates which the Minister of Finance has laid before parliament for the coming year, we find that they show for next year another increase of $6,355,000 over last year But the minister is not required to spend this year all the money that he spent last year. He announces on the first page of the estimates which he has just presented to the house that he has a sum of $3,495,000 less in interest to pay this year than last; that is a large saving. We also know that there was an item in the labour estimates last year of $1,100,000 for technical education which will not be required this year. Again, last year he had to pay out $500,000 for a house for our ambassador at Washington. I hope he will not have to pay out a similar amount this year for a house in Tokyo. These three items should reduce the expenditure this year $5,095,000, and yet the minister is going to increase his expenditure by $6,355,000, or a total increase this year of between eleven and twelve million dollars over last year.
But that is not the end. Read the order paper for to-day and you will see provision is being made for loans to harbours and railways involving, as I tried to point out to the house the other day, a new expenditure of a permanent nature to the amount of $57,000,000. The truth is we have entered in this country upon a perfect carnival of extravagance. And by reason of the fact that the minister happens to have money in the treasury he is becoming grossly extravagant and is burdening the people of the country with an enormous load of taxation.
The Budget-Mr. Guthrie

Now, this is where the precise language in his budget speech fitted in so well. How careful he was when speaking on taxation to use these words:
The rate of taxation has been reduced.
Well, even that statement was not true before Friday last. But who cares about the rate of taxation? The rate does not count. The only thing that counts in this world in regard to taxes is the burden of taxation- the load which the people have to carry. If my hon. friend would read the speeches of the late William Ewart Gladstone, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in England, on this very point he would get some light. Gladstone pointed out very definitely that the rate of taxation means nothing; the burden of taxation means everything. And is it not true? It is the burden that the people have strapped on their backs, the burden^ they have to carry that counts. And the record of this government in regard to taxation, as disclosed in the public accounts, is one to make the people of this country think. I take again the public accounts as laid on the table of the house by the Minister of Finance, and I say to him that he has enormously increased the load of taxation borne by the people of Canada. He cannot get away from his own figures. I am going to give them in round numbers, but I will put them on Hansard as they appear in the public accounts. Again I will take the Conservative record and compare it with the minister's own record.
When you examine the consolidated revenue fund in the public accounts you must know now, if you did not know last year, for the budget speech discloses it, that eighty-seven per cent of every dollar that goes into that account is derived from taxes, and thirteen per cent comes from rents, fees and other sources. I repeat, eighty-seven per cent of every dollar which goes into the treasury is taxes. I ask the house to listen to a comparative statement upon this question. Under Conservative rule in 1918 our taxation was $260,000,000; in 1919,1312,000.000; in 1920, $349,000,000; in 1921, $434,000,000; in 1922, $381,000,000. These were war years, and we taxed practically everything we could tax. We had to have the money to carry on the war. Now I take as a comparison with the Conservative record the last five years under the administration of the present Minister of Finance. In 1925 the taxation collected amounted to $346,000,000; in 1926, $380,000,000; in 1927, $398,000,000; in 1928, $422,000,000; in
1929-this year, as announced by the minister 
in this house-$450,000,000. Of those figures which I have given you on either side, eighty-seven per cent is taken out of the pockets of the people by way of taxation. Now, mark the comparison. Five years under Conservative rule, total taxation, $1,739,000,000; five years under Liberal rule, $1,998,000,000. In other words, in the last five years this government has wrung from the people in taxes $259,000,000 more than was taken by their predecessors in the same length of time. The following is a comparative statement taken from the public accounts, page 45, of the amount of taxation collected in the fiscal years 1918-1922 and the fiscal years 19251929:
Total Taxation
Conservative
1918..	.	$260,778,0001919..	.	312.946,0001920..	.	349,746,0001921..	.	434,386.0001922..	.	381,952,000

Liberals
1925..	.	$346,834,0001926..	.	380,745,0001927..	.	398,695,0001928..	.	422,000,0001929..	.	450,000,000

What does that mean? It means an annual increase in taxation of $51,000,000. Now, what is the burden of taxation? I got the latest figures of our population from the Bureau of Statistics, and I assume they are correct, but I think they are very optimistic. According to their estimate the population of Canada to-day is 9,658,000, which means that the taxation on every man, woman and child in Canada under this government is $5.36 more than it was under the Conservative government. This means that for a family of five the increased taxation is $26.80 per year. This enormous annual burden of taxation has been saddled upon the backs of the people by this government. These figures speak for themselves, and as they appear in the public accounts I assume they are correct. At all events, I am certain there is no member of this administration who can contradict them.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Has my hon.
friend comparative tables of the increase and decrease in the public debt during those periods?


Hugh Guthrie: I went over those figures
before my right hon. friend came into the house. Now for a minute or two let us look at the alleged decreases in taxation. "We have decreased the rate of taxation," says the minister. The Minister of Finance has taken off the one per cent on insurance premiums. Well, I believe that yielded very little revenue anyway, but I do not know very much about it, so I will pass it over. Then he has abolished the transportation tax-one per cent on the cost of every rail-

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
way ticket. So the man who buys a hundred dollars' worth of railway tickets in a year is going to save a dollar. But following his usual practice, the minister has taken ten per cent off the tax on parlour car and sleeping oar tickets, and has thus relieved the people in this country who are best able to pay that tax. Ninety per cent of the travelling public never enter a parlour car or a sleeper; it is the rich ten per cent of our people who do so. The rich travellers are relieved of a rather heavy tax of ten per cent, while the ordinary travelling public get one dollar of relief upon every hundred dollars of railway tickets they buy.
Again, the minister has taken three cents off telegrams and cablegrams. Now tell me, Mr. Finance minister

if I may so address him-how many telegrams the ordinary family in this country send in the course of a year. It is only in matters of domestic rejoicing and domestic calamity that they send a telegram at all; but the rich men send a lot of telegrams and cables, the big corporations send an enormous number, so do the brokers, the stock exchanges and the banks. All these will be materially relieved. And that is the very same class of people which the minister has sought to relieve in budget after budget which he has presented to this house.
When it comes down to the ordinary, everyday people of Canada, all he has to say to them is: I have taken one per cent off the sales tax. That is some relief. The sales tax last year at three per cent yielded sixty million dollars. Next year at two per cent the yield will be twenty million dollars less. But why maintain this war tax which is so burdensome upon the backs of the poorer people of the Dominion? Do the people know even yet that they have to pay two per cent on their wearing apparel, one per cent on their boots and shoes, and two per cent on practically everything that goes into the ordinary household? And yet the minister has left forty million dollars of that tax still on the people, a tax which will average at least four dollars or five dollars for every man, woman and child in the Dominion next year. I tell my hon. friend, if he would take off that forty million dollar tax burden instead of informing this house, " I have a surplus of sixty-nine million dollars," his action would be applauded throughout the country. If he had cut off forty million dollars of his surplus and forty millions of sales tax and- told the house, " I have a surplus of twenty-nine million dollars instead of sixty-nine millions," his statement would have been well received. Our taxes are ruinously excessive, they are
burdensome to the last degree, and they have been enormously increased by the present government.
Let me refer to one other remark of the Finance Minister, which he expressed in rather precise language. Indeed I thought at the time he made it he was serious. He solemnly said to the house:
This administration will refuse to support any extravagance in the spending of the taxpayers' money.
Of course we realized that it was merely a joke, whereat the Prime Minister laughed most heartily. In that respect every quarter of the house engaged in laughter, the minister himself not excepted. This bald statement as it appears in Hansard might mislead some people; they might regard it as a serious statement and not, what it was, a bit of dry Scotch humour. So that I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that there be permitted an interpolation in Hansard on this occasion: "Laughter, with great merriment in the house," or something of that kind, so that the people who read the minister's budget speech may not be misled. The minister cannot seriously make such a statement because he is not borne out by the facts. I charge that this has been the most wasteful and extravagant government this country has had since confederation. I am going to back up my statements with a few pointed instances.
First I would remind the house that one of the outstanding questions in the expenditure of last year or the year before related to an expenditure of $500,000 of the taxpayers' money, which was taken by this government from the taxes of the people to buy a palace in the city of Washington for the diplomatic representative of this government, instead of allowing him to rent or buy a house for himself, as should have been done. No one can justify that expenditure; it is extravagant and wasteful to the last degree, and I confront the minister with that particular expenditure as a direct challenge to the statement he made in this house last Friday that their government would tolerate no extravagance. But look at the estimates produced today. Last year the vote to maintain our Washington embassy was $60,000; to-day it stands in the estimates at $100,000-an unwarrantable and extravagant increase of $40,000. Paris, too: last year the vote for our representative stood at $75,000; now there is $5,000 more for the Paris office. No warrant for it. But in addition to that I find in the public accounts that we are maintaining another institution or agency in Paris, on which $44,000 odd was spent last year. Take Tokyo:
The Budget-Mr. Guthrie

last year in the estimates the vote was $50,000. This year, another glaring extravagance, that vote is raised to $i5,000. And there is no justification for it. And London; this government launched into a very magnificent bit of extravagant expenditure when it bought that wonderful property on Trafalgar square. There is a considerable yearly overhead to carry in respect of that property. When I was in the Meighen government the vote for the whole establishment in London was $69,000; this year the vote is $117,000 And there is absolutely no warrant for such an increase.
I have spoken of extravagance, Extravagance, I conclude, is the spending of more money than is necessary, or the spending of money unnecessarily. There is another kind of expenditure which is an absolute waste, which is the throwing away of money or the destruction of property. I charge this government not only with extravagance but I charge it also with waste. Fine properties in the city of Ottawa, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, have been actually destroyed by the wastefulness of this government. And for what? Merely to improve the view. I am heartily in favour of improving our national capital, but I am absolutely opposed to waste in the form in which this government has permitted it to take place in this city of Ottawa.
Another thing I view as an absolute extravagance is our so-called tariff board, an absolutely useless board. This board now appears in the estimates at $120,000 a year, and I see by the public accounts that for some reason or other there was paid last year the sum of $71,000 for advisers to the tariff board. What they are doing I do not know.
I have heard it said-and I have heard it said by supporters of the government-that there is one real use for the tariff board, namely, that it acts as a buffer between the minister and some of his supporters who are always pulling his coat tail to have changes made in the fiscal policy. I say, S120,000 a year is too much to pay, even for the repose of the Minister of Finance.
Let me mention another matter which to my mind is a gross extravagance. The minister may not know about this, but he should know. Does the house realize that during the last twelve months for which the Auditor General's report contains a record this government spent-I had better be exact in this statement-for "new autos and auto repairs and renewals" the sum of $542,000? I am trying to lay these things fairly before the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance because I want them to know what is happening. I do not think they have known it 
up to this moment, but they can go to their own Auditor General's report wherein they will find some twenty-eight items, for each one of which I can give the page and the reference.


An hon. MEMBER:: Put them on Hansard.


Hugh Guthrie: No, I will keep them;
let them find it out. As I say, $542,000 is the amount given in the Auditor General's report for the twelve months with which it deals. I call that gross extravagance; it is a waste of the taxes of the people.
Let us pass on to something else. Look over the estimates for this year and examine the civil service vote. Why is it that year by year this government increases the number of civil servants in this country by a very large percentage? This year, I find on looking over the estimates, the increase involves 143 new civil servants. Last year it was 159, and the year before, I think, 173. What is the extra work of these departments that renders it necessary to increase the civil service of Canada at this rate? It is popularly supposed in this country that the most overmanned, most over-staffed institution in this world is the civil service of Canada. Why, in some of the departments they are falling over each other this minute; they are so numerous that they are actually hindering each other in doing proper work. And not only are we going to appoint 143 new ones, but if you look on the same page of the estimates, at the very beginning you will find $316,000 more of an annual expenditure this year for civil servants' salaries and contingencies. What these contingencies are I do not know. We vote to every department of this government a very handsome sum for contingencies-a very large amount. The government cover everything they can in their specifications in the estimates; everything they can think of, every annual and special expenditure they think necessary, is first put in. Then in addition to that we vote every year a big lump sum for contingencies; but this year they increase the vote for contingencies by $101,000. Does not the minister call that extravagance?	-
Let me give the minister another instance of what I mean by extravagance. My hon. friend can take the estimates into his room and with a blue pencil can cut them down this year twenty, yes, thirty millions, and not injure the administration of government or the public service of this country to any appreciable extent. No one would know the difference. He can take the Department of

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
Public Works estimates alone, involving $21,-
600,000,	and blue pencil 25 per cent of that amount. Let me give him a sample of what he can do with a blue pencil. I will take the single case of the riding of North Bruce.


Mr. MALCOLM:: I thought so.


Hugh Guthrie: My hon. friend says he
judged so; his conscience must be pricking him. North Bruce is a rural constituency projecting into the Georgian bay; it contains a delightful little town called Kincardine, one of the small towns of western Ontario, another delightful little town called Port Elgin and a couple of very small hamlets, one known as Lion's Head and another known as Tobermory. What is the record of expenditure in regard to that single riding of this Dominion? For Kincardine last year we voted $53,000 for harbour improvements and this year we are asked to vote another $50,000, of which $10,000 is a revote, making a total of $93,000. For Port Elgin this year we are asked to vote $3,000 for dredging, and my recollection is that in the public accounts for last year there was another item of $4,000. I have not. been able to verify this, although I think I have read it; the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) will know whether or not I am right. For the little hamlet of Lion's Head last year we voted $17,800 for dredging, and this year there is another $2,600 for dredging and $4,000 for a wharf. For Tobermory, away up at the top of the Bruce peninsula, where the boys tell me there used to be some deer hunting, last year we voted $10,000 for a wharf and this year we are asked to vote another $2,000, presumably to complete the wharf. That makes a total for this one riding, containing these four small places, of. $132,000 of the taxpayers' money. Then I went to the Customs department to find the revenue from those places. They all report to Goderich; they are too small to have ports of their own, and the total revenue from all four places is only $40,000 a year.


James Malcolm: My hon. friend has the
wrong figures; we get $100,000 from Kincardine alone.


Hugh Guthrie: Then it must come in by the railways and not through the harbours. I took the figures from the report, which I have before me of the Customs department Then I secured the entry of vessels to these places, and I find that for the last year for which there is a report the number of vessels entering these ports was only 17, and the number of outgoing vessels 16. This may be
a very excellent way of spending public money to secure the election of political friends in various ridings but it is a very improper way to spend the taxpayers' money, and at the first opportunity the minister should blue pencil it and put a stop to this extravagant practice. My list of extravagances is by no means complete or exhaustive. I have tried to bring just a few glaring cases to the attention of the Minister of Finance and I hope he will speedily remedy the situation.
There is still another aspect of the budget to which I now wish to turn. During the whole course of the career of this government as an administration we on this side of the house charge that the government has been absolutely careless and neglectful of the interests of the ordinary people of the Dominion of Canada. When I began my remarks to-day, Mr. Speaker, I said we rejoiced over the continued prosperity in Canada, subject to certain observations I would have to make, and what I complain of is that while prosperity has been showered upon Canada for the last year or two the only evidence ot that prosperity is to be found in the large cities of Canada such as Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, Winnipeg, Vancouver and so on. To the ordinary smaller cities, towns and villages; in the townships and the farming districts of this country that prosperity has not yet paid a visit. I tell my hon. friend the Minister of Finance that with the exception of the few larger cities of Canada the population of this country is either stationary or retrogressing. I will take him to any of the smaller cities in the western part of Ontario, the part of the country I know best, and in each one he will find the same story according to the municipal authorities; we are making no progress and in some of these places unfortunately, we are going back. The same thing applies to the country districts in that part of the country where I reside; the villages with few exceptions are getting smaller and the number of farmers in the townships is gradually being reduced. There are more farms for sale in western Ontario to-day than there has been for the past twenty years. It is not pleasant to state these things, but these are facts which one must recognize, and this condition has been brought about largely by the indifference of this government to the people outside of the big cities or to anyone except the big interests and the big corporations, who are enjoying this so-called prosperity which has been very thinly distributed among the other classes throughout Canada.
The Budget-Mr. Guthrie

First I am going to deal with the agricultural class, and I say the condition of that class is not what it should be in any part of Canada at this moment. Before I forget it there is one matter I want to mention here in regard to the agriculturists of the west:	Evidently there is something
seriously wrong in connection with the system now in operation in regard to the grading and the sale of wheat; there is at this moment some serious difficulty in that regard in western Canada. This matter was brought to my attention last December by two gentlemen from Saskatchewan who had come to Toronto and Guelph to attend the winter fairs; they complained that they were being unfairly treated both in the grading and in the sale of their wheat. I must confess that I do not understand all the technicalities of the grain trade, but I could tell from the information given me and from the temper and earnestness of these two gentlemen that there was something radically wrong and that this government or a department of this government which is supposed to be in control of these matters was either thoroughly negligent or inefficient or both. All I can say in regard to this matter, Mr. Speaker, is that the question is so serious and affects so deeply the interests of the whole Dominion that if a grievance exists-I do not say it does, but if it does-it should be remedied before this house prorogues. If the department of government which now has control of the grading and marketing of wheat is unable to cope with the situation, let some other department take charge of this work; if the present Board of Grain Commissioners is acting improperly in any way or if the law under which they operate is improper, then let the Board of Grain Commissioners be changed or let the law be changed until the producers of this vast wealth in these western provinces are satisfied and are receiving a fair return for their capital and labour. We must recognize that the grain crop is the greatest cash asset possessed by this country, and anything which interferes with the success of the men engaged in the production of that grain is going to injure us in every corner of this Dominion of Canada.
I charge that this government has been absolutely neglectful of the interests of the farmers, and has handed them nothing but gold-bricks on several occasions. I can recall a time just prior to the general election of 1921 when the Conservative party was charged with bleeding the farmers white in regard to the duties that then existed on farm inple-ments. The farmers were told that if the 
Liberal party came into power they would reduce or abolish the tariff and that the price of farm implements would immediately come down because of the tariff reduction. Great relief was promised to the farmers in this respect, but they were merely handed a gold-brick. Notwithstanding the heavy reductions which the government made in the tariff upon farm implements, the price of farm implements has increased since 1891. I am not going over the whole list of implements, but will take just a single item which will serve as an illustration. Binders, reapers and mowers were subject to a duty of 12^ per cent when this government came into power, and they reduced it to 6 per cent. It was argued in this house that a 6 per cent reduction in the cost of a mower would be S15.96 on a $266 machine. The manufacturers were permitted to import, practically free, all the raw material that went into the manufacture of these machines, and it was said that free raw material would cause another reduction of $4 or $5 in the cost of the machine. The Finance minister of that day, Mr. Fielding, in order to appease the manufacturers, cut off the sales tax 5 per cent on farm implements, which should amount to $13.30 on a $266 machine. These total reductions amounted to $34.26, and it was openly stated that the price of the machine would be reduced to that extent. Has it been so reduced? I have obtained the prices of farm implements as of Deoember, 1921, and those in force to-day. These prices cover the McCormick-Deering, the International and the Massey-Harris machines. There will of course be a difference in the cost of freight to various points, but the prices I quote are for machines at Toronto and Montreal. In December, 1921, a six-foot binder with bundle carrier cost $235; to-day the cost has risen to $239. A six-foot binder with bundle carrier and tongue truck-in the Massey-Harris list this is called a fore-carriage, but I understand it is the same thing-cost $252 in December, 1921, while to-day the price is $254. A seven-foot binder with bundle carrier and tongue truck cost $258 in 1921, and $260 in 1928. An eight-foot binder with bundle carrier and tongue truck cost $266 in December, 1921, while to-day the price is $288.50. Notwithstanding the reductions that were made in the duty and sales tax the price is actually a little higher for binders to-day than it was in 1921. You can go through the entire price list and you will find a slight increase in prices throughout as between December, 1921, and the present time. It is not a very heavy increase, I will grant you, but I charge that

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
the government failed in their promise to reduce the cost of farm implements, and in that respect they simply gold-bricked the farmers.
But they injured the country much more seriously than that. What did they do? They transferred a very large part of the manufacturing industry in agricultural implements from Canada to the United States. The present importations of agricultural implements are enough to shock any patriotic Canadian. Beginning with the fiscal year 1925, when the new arrangements came into force, importations of farming implements were as follows:
1925		 $ 6,494.986
1926		1 ..	13,000,000
1927		 18,000,000
1928	 29.000.000
1928	(calendar year)	 39,000,000
Every - dollar's worth of this machinery should be manufactured in the Dominion of Canada, and if that were done what a boon it would be for unemployment in this country. The agricultural implements manufactured in the shops of the United States are to a very large extent made by Canadians who have gone over there to get jobs; a tremendous number of Canadians have left Canada and are now working in the implement factories of the United States. The manufacturers of this country, while they do what they can in their own market, are forced to sell their goods to Australia, New Zealand, France and Russia, but have been able only to send about 114,000,000 worth of implements to those countries when they should be supplying their own market instead of there being importations amounting to $39,000,000 from the United States.
Perhaps the greatest gold-brick that was ever handed by a government to anyone was handed to the agriculturists of this country when the Australian treaty was passed. I understand the treaty was negotiated by the Minister of Finance himself, and it has proved to be probably the greatest direct blow that agriculture has had in this country in many years. I cannot understand why the minister does not denounce or give notice to and put an end to that treaty.at once. I have spoken in this house at a provious occasion, somewhat along the line I am taking to-day, in regard to the Australian treaty and two or three days afterwards I had an interview with a prominent paper manufacturer. He told me that I had better shut up because the paper makers were getting a mighty good thing through this treaty. That is the policy of this government; they endeavour to help those classes of the people who do not require help, such
as the newsprint men, and do not do anything for the farmers of this country. What has been the result of the operation of that treaty?
When the Minister of Finance brought the treaty before parliament not one word was uttered as to its affecting any countries other than Australia and Canada. If the minister knew otherwise he did not disclose it. I do not think the minister himself knew that he was involving Canada with New Zealand when he made this .treaty with Australia; if he had known he would have told us, and if he did not know then I do not think he should undertake to negotiate treaties with insufficient knowledge. That treaty passed the house and not one word was said about New Zealand. The house prorogued and two months afterwards we learned for the first time from the newspapers that New Zealand demanded the right to the same terms as Australia, because New Zealand was entitled to most favoured nation treatment. An order in council was passed by this government, which governs so freely by orders in council, giving to New Zealand the same right to bring her products into this country as was enjoyed by Australia. What has been the result? The Minister of Agriculture has been deluged by requests from dairymen's associations in all parts of the Dominion of Canada asking that this treaty be abrogated. Why? Because Canada is importing from New Zealand about $6,000,000 worth of butter to displace $6,000,000 worth of butter which the Canadian farmers could make in this country and could sell in the markets of this country if they were permitted to do so.
Is that fair treatment to the farming population? If the treaty was a slip on the part of the minister, why does he not say so and why does he not put an end to it? It is a terrible handicap upon the dairy industry of the Dominion to-day. Mine is not a strictly dairying constituency but there are dairymen all around it and I hear complaints on every hand. I hear the statement-and I believe it to be true-that the dairy herds in Canada are actually diminishing; that the complement of dairying is swine breeding and that the herds of swine to-day are diminishing. They are both diminishing on account of the blow which the minister gave to the agricultural industry of Canada by the Australian treaty. Then I find in the press the other side of the question, that during the last two years the dairy herds of New Zealand have increased by more than 50,000 animals and their herds of swine have increased by more than 20,000, thus demonstrating, as conclusively as possible, that this par-
The Budget-Mr. Guthrie

ticular treaty entered into by the present government has been a positive injury to the dairymen of this Dominion and a tremendous benefit to the dairymen of the sister dominion of New Zeailand.
The mistake in regard to the dairy industry was not the only one that the minister made in the negotiation of that treaty. There was one other outstanding blunder and I am going to refer to it. For the purpose of giving Australia a preference in the Canadian market in respect of a certain article known as raisins, the minister let the Australian people put one over him completely. They told him that if they got free entry they could export large quantities of raisins to Canada if Canada would place a specific duty of three cents a pound upon all importations of raisins into Canada from the rest of the world. The Australians represented that they could supply Canada with all the raisins we required and the treaty went through. We gave Australian raisins free entry into our country and we imposed a duty of three cents a pound on raisins imported from the rest of the world. What has been the result? Prior to last year we did not receive any raisins from Australia; they had not enough to supply themselves; indeed Australia was actually importing raisins for the use of her own people while we in Canada were paying into the treasury three cents on every pound of raisins that we imported from all other countries. We do not produce any raisins in this country; we get nearly all our raisins from the United States. True, we get some from Spain and other countries, but of the total importations of raisins last year amounting to some
44.000.	000 pounds, practically all came from the United States save between 3,000,000 or
4.000.	000 pounds from Australia. The duty on raisins before the treaty was only three-quarters of a cent per pound from the United States; the Minister of Finance increased the duty to three cents a pound for the benefit of Australia and the taxpayers of Canada have been contributing annually to the public treasury about $700,000, as a sort of penalty in order that Australia may at some far distant date in the future be able to supply sufficient raisins to the Canadian market. The only way in which I can describe such a result is to say that it is an outrage; it is a positive imposition upon every class of the community. Our enormous importation of raisins should be made as free as possible. As we do not produce raisins in Canada their importation does not interfere with production in this country. For many years a duty of three-quarters of a cent per pound was

levied upon raisins for revenue purposes. But now we pay a duty of three cents per pound in order to give Australia a preference which she is not able to enjoy. I say that in all these respects the government has been careless and negligent and has not safeguarded the interests of the Canadian people, and particularly the agriculturists.
The government have maintained our customs tariff at a rate which allows millions and millions of dollars' worth of agricultural produce to enter and flood the markets of Canada and to compete with similar goods produced by our own farmers. I have not made an exhaustive or complete list of these agricultural imports, but I wish the Minister of Agriculture would give me his attention while I mention some of them. Last year corn was imported into Canada to the extent of more than $13,000,000, a large part of it being used for distilling purposes and part for feeding cattle and hogs. We imported $6,745,000 worth of raw tobacco and in western Ontario we have every year a magnificent crop of Burley leaf and flue cured tobacco. Our Canadian tobacco growers are forced to compete with an importation of $6,745,000 worth of tobacco from other countries. This is most unfair to Canadian growers.
In this cattle raising country we imported $14,000,000 worth of hides, $10,000,000 of that coming from the United States. Why should we import hides? My county is a cattle county and I have heard cattle raisers discussing this question. They say that they are not getting any price for their hides. The reason will be found in the fact that we are allowing hides to come into this country so freely from the rest of the world. The Minister of Agriculture should keep his eyes and ears open at the present time. In the Argentine republic they have a great deal of cattle disease; many of the cattle have been falling on the plains. These beasts are skinned and their hides are shipped abroad. I have reason to know what I am talking about because I have had litigation in the courts and I have examined certain invoices. These hides are marked " epidemic " hides. It is a simple matter for the government to put a stop to this importation; they can do it by an increase in the tariff or by other means. Surely the farmers of this country should enjoy the market in Canada for the hides of the cattle they slaughter here, but they are not getting it now as we are importing $14,000,000 worth from the rest of the world to displace our own product in the Canadian market.

I have mentioned butter. Last year we imported 85,391,000 worth of meats. Why injure the meat trade in our own country? Why not let our own agriculturists enjoy it to the fullest extent? A few other agricultural importations are as follows:
Value of
Commodity	importations
Milk and milk products, excluding butter	
Eggs in the shell	
Eggs, n.o.p	
Fresh fruits, not including
tropical fruits	
Dried fruits	
Vegetables, fresh, not including dried and canned

These are all strictly farm products and they are coming in enormous quantities into Canada to displace the home grown product of the Canadian agriculturist. The above items, which are by no means exhaustive, total up around $50,000,000.


Mr. DUNNING:: Does the hon. member include corn in that?


Hugh Guthrie: Yes, but I would like someone to pick out all the agricultural items -I had not time to do it-I desire a complete list of items for another purpose which I will mention in a few minutes. It is a matter of great importance to know just what we are importing.
An industry of very great importance in this country is the fruit industry which is established in Nova Scotia on a wonderful scale, in New Brunswick, on the southern shores of the river St. Lawrence where they produce Fameuse apples in abundance and throughout Ontario in general but especially in the Niagara peninsula between Niagara and Windsor, and also throughout British Columbia. Why allow this immense importation of foreign fruit practically to put out of business many of our fruit growers? We must admit that the United States has in the matter of climate an advantage which we cannot overcome.	United States fruit comes on the
market two or three weeks before ours is ready. There is a public appetite for new fruit when it first comes to market, and people are willing to pay high prices for this early fruit, but when that initial appetite is satiated our own crop is about ready and the market is glutted with fruit, and in far too many cases our own fruit is not plucked and gathered at all. Last August, between Toronto and Hamilton, I saw field after field of beautiful melons. "Why don't you pick your melons and send them to market?" I asked, and the reply was "They won't pay for the labour. They will not give me anything for them.
The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
These people in Toronto," he said, "are fed up with this American stuff, and they do not want our melons at all." It is the same in every line. Look at the fruit importations into Canada. According to the trade returns, we imported last year-I shall give only round
figures:
Apples	 $1,124,000
And yet in this country we grow the finest apples in the world:
Grapes	 $1,189,000
Melons	 498,000
Peaches	 663,000
Pears	 928,000
Plums	 544,000
Strawberries	   832,000
Other fruits, including cherries. 408,000
We imported all this fruit from the United States a few weeks in advance of the ripening of our own Canadian crops, thereby displacing the Canadian fruit grower in his own market, and in far too many cases making his occupation unproductive altogether.
It is the same with vegetables. Up around Windsor we grow a tremendous quantity of onions. Last year there was a good crop. -Last year we imported $548,000 worth of onions. Take new potatoes, not the kind we sell as winter potatoes; we imported of new potatoes $799,000 worth. We imported tomatoes to the amount of $1,550,000. These are very largely of the hothouse variety, and our people around Windsor are engaged in that very class of production. We imported other vegetables to the amount of $3,371,000. Total vegetable importations amounted to $8,475,000, and of these, $6,496,000 were from the United States. These latter figures include canned and dried vegetables.
The indifference of the government in regard to the claims of the agriculturists, because these people all are agriculturists, was never better exemplified, I think, than by an answer made by the Prime Minister in this house to a question asked by my hon. friend from South Essex (Mr. Gott) on the orders of the day on Tuesday last. Evidently the hon. member for East Essex (Mr. Odette) had circulated some statement up around Windsor to the effect that the government was going to take action this session and put a duty on fruits and vegetables. That rumor got into the Windsor press, and the vegetable growers, who are a very important pan ot that community, sent to Ottawa to ascertain whether there was any truth in this rumor. When the question was asked in this House of Commons by my hon. friend from South Essex, my right hon. friend the Prime Minister, as, of course, he has a right to do, gave no information

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie

whatever upon this question which at the present moment is of very vital concern to the vegetable growers in the county of Essex. These growers are now preparing for the coming season. Last season most of them lost money. They expected last year that a dumping clause duty would be put into effect, but it was not, and they were expecting some relief this year from the government particularly in view of the statement of the hon. member for East Essex. The question was asked in this house in the most natural and proper way, "Would the government do anything?" But the Prime Minister gave absolutely no information, and he did not even say that he would give any information on the matter at a later date, although these men are waiting from day to day to get their seeds and plants in, and their hothouses going to start the season's operations. If they are not going to get any relief this year, let them know it, and then they will go into some other line, because there is no use continuing in their present line under the conditions that prevailed in that part of the country last season.
I now wish to deal for a few minutes with the industrial workers of Canada, with that class of men who are known as wage-earners, who form a large and important class in this country and who earn their living by their daily wage. I charge again that throughout its whole course of seven or eight years this government has absolutely neglected to safeguard the interests of the wage-earners, or to protect their rights in any single instance. I know that my hon. friend the Minister of Finance made a few bland announcements the other day, but he forgot to say anything about the high cost of living. He remembers, just as I do, the election of 1921, when the charge was levelled against the government then in power that the cost of living had risen in Canada to such a point that people could no longer endure it, and I have no doubt that that statement changed a good many votes on that occasion. Does my hon. friend know that the cost of living is just a little higher in Canada to-day than it was in 1921? If he does not, he had better read the journal issued by the Labour department of this government, and bearing the official stamp of the Labour department, and he will find that it shows that the cost of living is a trifle higher to-day than it was when this government took office. He will find likewise that the family budget to-day-I assume that these figures are correct, because the Minister of Labour (Mr. Heenan) is responsible for them-the family budget of nineteen necessary articles, including fuel and 
light, was in January, 1922, $21.52 per family, and to-day it is $21.55 per family; that is, the cost of living is a trifle higher to-day in Canada than in those awful days when it was freely charged by Liberals that the former Conservative government was practically starving the people to death.
The minister also states in his budget speech that employment has been well maintained. Why, sir, there is just as much unemployment in Canada to-day as there was the day this government came into power.


Mr. McINTOSH:: What is your employment index?


Hugh Guthrie: I am going to give it
to the house in a moment. There has been little or no change in the intervening years, and what change there has been, according to the returns, has been against this government, because employment is a little lower to-day than it was when this government came into power. If anyone wants evidence of unemployment in Canada, all he has to do is go to Toronto, Montreal or Winnipeg, or read the bulletin that was issued by the civic authorities in Toronto last month showing that eight thousand men were willing to work and could not find jobs. If you are not satisfied with this statement, look at page 55 of the estimates for the coming year, and you will see there a vote of a quarter of a million dollars proposed by this government to help people who are unemployed. What better evidence do you want?
My hon. friend from North Battleford (Mr. McIntosh) asked for the index figure. I am not going to give the figures for the years 1920 or 1921, the demobilization years, when we were bringing back to Canada and demobilizing and bringing home 420.000 troops, as well as 240,000 troops in Canada, and when the employment figures were not normal. But for the month of December. 1922, according to the table furnished by the Department of Labour, the percentage of unemployment was 6-4. Taking the same month, December, last year, unemployment had increased in the interval to 6-6. So unemployment has not vanished. I only refer to unemployment at all to show that this wonderful prosperity that we hear about has not been well distributed among the people of this country. The working class, the wage earners of Canada, have not had their chance to share in it.
Let me mention one further matter. This unemployment situation in Canada could be cured by the government almost by a stroke of the pen. My good friend the Minister of Finance could cure it this session. He could

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
cause employment in this country to be abundant and at good wages. He could stop the exodus of our people to the United States. This exodus has not stopped yet, for every United States consular agent in Canada still has a waiting list of Canadians anxious to go to that country. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance could settle the difficulties of his colleague the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Forke); he could settle the immigration problem in this country by creating employment, and he could do that by the application of a proper fiscal policy for this Dominion. We imported last year $350,000,000 of goods- and this is only an abbreviated list-and these were goods that we make in this country. The action of the Minister of Finance and the government has not been to assist labour. Take the removal of the duty on worsted yarns last year. I do not know whose advice the Minister of Finance was taking or what prompted him to remove this duty, although I have always believed that it was the Bradford board of trade in England, which certainly was in communication with the minister and his tariff board; but last year, the minister, by a stroke of the pen, wiped out the worsted yarn business in this country. The great big worsted spinning mill at Hespeler, where hundreds of men were employed, is now closed. The industry in Guelph is also stopped; in Guelph, worsted spinning only formed part of a larger woollen industry but the spinning of worsted yarns has practically ceased. All the worsted yarns used in Canada are now brought from Bradford, Yorkshire. The men in Canada are out of work, their employment has been transferred from Canada to Great Britain, and the price of worsted yam and worsted clothing is just the same to-day as it was last year. That I give only as a sample. Look at the imports of woollens. This government tinkered with the woollen tariff when they first came into power. What has been the result? Our woollen imports increased to thirty-three million dollars last year. Practically all of these goods we could have produced here. Look at the employment that would be given our people. There is no question about it, Mr. Speaker, that-with half a dozen strokes of the pen the Minister of Finance could settle this question of unemployment, could make the factories of this country boom, could keep young Canadians in Canada, and could create an active cash market for all the products of the Canadian farm.
But we have been pursuing a policy of practical min not only in this but in many other respects. I do not charge this government particularly in regard to the export of raw 78594-48$
material, because I think the same system has prevailed for many years; but I do say that this question of the export of our raw materials to the United States has been brought to the attention of this government in a very definite shape upon many occasions during recent years, but they simply allow that exportation of raw materials to go on. They permit those valuable natural resources, those raw materials of the Dominion, to go into the United States at the rate of millions of dollars' worth every year. The factories of the United States are kept busy, the citizens of the United States get wages, and the people of the United States get the tremendous profit between the price of the raw material and the manufactured article which we buy back again from the United States. It is a false policy, it is a suicidal policy. Rapidly it is denuding our forests and exhausting our mines, and the minister should give serious consideration to the question.
My next reference brings up a matter which I know must be in the minds of most of our people. On Monday last when the President of the United States delivered his inaugural speech at Washington he announced to his countrymen and to the world that he had summoned a special meeting of congress particularly to consider the fiscal policy of the United States in regard to agricultural productions. In a good many quarters of course that announcement was not entirely unexpected. The policy of the Republican party in the United States during the late fall elections was a policy of greater protection for the agriculturists. I realize full well, Mr. Speaker, that while we have the right to discuss the fiscal policy of any other country in the world, it is not really a matter of our own business, and we must recognize the right of the United States to adopt such a fiscal policy as it deems fit without interference from us or from any other nation. For at least three-quarters of a century the fiscal policy of the United States has been one of protection, or, as I would say, of very high protection in many respects. Consistently they have maintained that principle, and as a result they find themselves to-day not only the richest, but the greatest commercial nation in the world, and the nation having the largest population in the world. Tremendous success has attended their efforts and their policy. For myself, I see no real cause for overanxiety in Canada in regard to any action which may be taken by congress upon the fiscal policy of the United States. I believe that we are in so strong and favoured a position in this Dominion that nothing more than

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
temporary embarrassment or temporary inconvenience could result, no matter what attitude the United States government and congress may assume. But I base that statement wholly upon this condition, that we enjoy in this Dominion a government with sufficient resolution and sufficient courage to meet any situation which may arise. If we have not such a government, then I do see some real ground for anxiety as to what may face us in the immediate or more remote future.
When the Minister of Finance made his budget speech he gave the house a clear statement of the total trade of Canada based on exports and imports. Let me repeat it. I am taking the calendar year ending on December 31 last. There is a good deal of difficulty sometimes in adjusting the figures between the calendar and the fiscal year. These figures are for the calendar year ending December 31 last:
Total Trade, Domestic and Foreign
Exports	$1,374,130,000
Imports	 1,222,318,000
Total	$2,596,448,000
And the minister announced, amid great applause and approval by his supporters, that he had a favourable balance of trade of $154,000,000. That, I grant, is a substantial favourable balance. As I say, this statement was well received by his followers; they applauded to a very marked degree; they approved of the announcement by a marked demonstration.
Now let us return to our trade figures with the United States. It may be a matter of surprise to some that more than one-half of our total foreign trade is done with the United States. Last year our trade figures with the United States give us a total in exports and imports of $1,318,282,000. We imported $825,741,000, and we exported $492,-
541,000.	In other words, our imports were $333,000,000 more than our exports; therefore our trade with the United States resulted in an unfavourable balance of that amount. Now, if a favourable balance of trade is a good thing for a nation-and the minister's announcement was heartily applauded on the other side of the house-what do these hon. gentlemen say of our trade with the United States when there results such an enormous unfavourable balance? Will hon. gentlemen opposite condemn that unfavourable balance of trade? They applauded the favourable balance of trade with the world as an excellent thing. Will they condemn our unfavourable balance of trade with the United States as an injurious thing?

I submit, Mr. Speaker, that there is something seriously wrong in regard to the trade of this country with the United States. I believe I know what is wrong. I believe that we are buying too much from the United States year in and year out and are selling too little. Every year our purchases are increasing, and we are not selling enough to our neighbours, because they will only buy from us raw materials and a limited amount of farm products. At the end of the fiscal year our operations resulted, as I have shown, in an adverse balance of trade of S333,000,000. That balance has to be settled. We have to pay it either in gold or in goods. It cannot go on forever; it must be paid, and the money or the goods to pay it will have to come from this country.
Now it is worth while considering in a little more detail some of the trade figures as between Canada and the United States. What do we sell them? How shall we be affected by a change in the fiscal policy of the United States in regard to agricultural products? In our trade figures, as furnished by the Department of Trade and Commerce, it is just a little difficult at all times to find what are really farm products and what are not; our trade returns include in the figures a good many articles which are not strictly farm products. Let me give a rough analysis of some of these figures. I find that in agricultural and vegetable products we sell to the United States, according to our trade returns, $56,000,000 in round figures. That I grant is a large amount. But I find that included in that figure are ales, wines, beers, whiskies and rubber, amounting to $24,500,000-commodities that are not farm products in our view of the matter. These should be deducted from the $56,000,000, leaving a total of exports to that country, in agricultural and vegetable products, of some $31,550,000. When you come to the next classification, you find some further trouble-animals and animal products. This heading covers much more than farm products. Our trade returns show that we sent to the United States last year, in animals and animal products, $92,000,000 worth of exports. But when you come to analyse the items you find included in the total, fish, $13,000,000; furs, $14,000,000; leather, $8,000,000; oils and greases, $1,399,000, or a total of some $39,000,000 of goods which we do not consider strictly farm products. This amount should be deducted from the $92,000,000, and would leave a balance, under animals and animal products, of $42,385,000, or a total of agricultural products, properly so described, shipped to the United States, of $73,935,000.

The Budget-Mr. Guthrie
I think we can fairly cut that figure down by another $10,000,000. We send the United States about $10,000,000 worth of raw hides and we buy from them $10,000,000 of raw hides. That item forms merely a cross entry. If our neighbors see fit to stop our hides from going to the United States we will use our own hides in our own country instead of importing them, and that will settle that point. So that we find actually that we sell them, in agricultural or farm products, as we understand the term, only $63,000,000 a year. We import from the world in farm products something between $50,000,000 and $60,000,000 a year.


James Malcolm: Will my hon. friend
specify the figures as he did in the other
case?


Hugh Guthrie: I put them on Hansard
a minute ago.


James Malcolm: But specified imports.


Hugh Guthrie: I gave the agricultural
imports, starting with corn. I furnished a list of only some of them. My list was not exhaustive, and it runs to over $50,000,000, probably $60,000,000, of farm products which we are bringing into Canada from other countries to compete with the products of our own farmers. That is what we are bringing in, while we are sending out to the United States if you exclude hides, only about $63,000,000 or less than ten per cent of our agricultural exports.
Would it not be a simple matter under these circumstances, to obviate any difficulty that might arise in connection with the tariff of the United States on farm products, if we produced in this country and sold to our own people those goods which we now sell to the United States, stopping the importation into Canada of those products which we are now bringing from other countries to compete with the products of our own farmers. To accomplish that, all we need is a government with some courage; all we need is a government with some resolution; all we need is a government that has at heart the real interests of the people, of the farmers of Canada. With such a government no permanent difficulty can ever arise.
Now I can see that any disarrangement of our present trade with the United States might for the time being cause considerable inconvenience, and some loss. I realize quite well that in many respects the United States market is the most convenient, the most expedient market which we have; in many respects it is the very best market in which to sell many of our farm products.
But if the tariff of that country is raised so high that we cannot enjoy that market, then we shall have to shape ourselves accordingly by enabling our own farmers to enjoy the Canadian market to the fullest extent and at the same time seek other markets throughout the world. In order to do this, however, we shall need to have a fair application of the principle of protection in our customs tariff. And unless we adopt that principle, if the United States government sees fit to raise its tariff against our farm products, great difficulty will probably ensue in connection with the marketing of $63,000,000 of our farm products in the future.
I can conceive a situation which would seriously affect the shipment of our cattle to the United States. Last year we shipped to the United States $17,745,000 under this head. An adverse tariff might cause inconvenience and some loss for the time being in this regard. Our grain shipments were about $10,000,000-nothing like what I imagined they would be. In vegetables our whole shipment consists practically of about $5,000,000 in potatoes and, in turnips, about $700,000 or $800,000. We do send a large number of seeds to the United States; last year we sold them about $6,000,000 worth. Surely we can find another market for these seeds. In raw furs we sent them $14,000,000; hides, $11,000,000- and we bought back $10,000,000; meats, $11,288,000. This is a big item and one in respect to which there might be some temporary embarrassment and inconvenience. In milk and milk products the figure is
S10,000,000, or nearly $11,000,000, and in this connection too the situation might be serious for the time being; while in hay the figure is about $1,000,000 or $1,200,000, and in bran and shorts about $2,000,000 to $2,500,000. These, so far as I can see, are the only articles with respect to which we could possibly be inconvenienced or for a time be seriously affected. So far as I can see, any difficulty that may possibly arise in the future can be completely overcome by action on the part of this government and of this parliament. We have nothing to fear in Canada in this respect, though I grant that we are going to reach at last a situation-if things develop as I anticipate they will-in which we must introduce into the tariff of this country, to protect our own people, that element of protection which the Canadian tariff does not now afford.
I can imagine that it will not be the easiest thing for my right hon. friend the Prime Minister, surrounded as he is by such out and out free traders as the Minister ol
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Agriculture, the Minister of Railways, the Minister of the Interior, who would ring the death knell of protection in the House of Commons, and the Minister of Immigration. I can understand that my right hon. friend will have difficulty. But I fancy that these four ministers will be found amenable to reason. I believe that in a few months' time we shall find that they have become converts to the doctrines which have been advocated from this side of the house for a long time and which they have denounced. And I can tell you that the completeness and the suddenness of their conversion will rival that famous conversion that took place many centuries ago on the road to Damascus. But what about that peculiar type of free traders-Liberal free traders-whom we find scattered about in all the provinces of Canada? What will these Grit free traders do-these loud-voiced individuals who give us no peace, these worshippers at the shrine of Adam Smith, these men who still dwell in the political atmosphere of two centuries ago? I think I can make a prediction in that regard. I believe the word of command will go to them to "right about face", and they will obey that command with alacrity. Oh, the scales will fall from the eyes of these hard-shelled, thick-skinned free traders who are to be found scattered throughout this Dominion of Canada. I predict that by next year it will be found that they have shed their free trade skins and taken on new ones, and they will remind one of nothing so much as the snakes coming out of the stone piles in the spring. A radical change in our fiscal policy will soon be necessary; the government must face this situation. They can do it; we know what we can do in this country; we have everything at our disposal. Do not let us have stage fright and do not let us feel any over-anxiety in regard to the matter. The matter rests entirely in our own hands. All can be put right, and if this government does not put it right another government will take its place in the very near future.
Well, Mr. Speaker, I have transgressed for a long time on the patience of the house. For the reasons I have given, because this government has been absolutely neglectful of the interests of at least seventy-five per cent of the people of this country, neglectful of the interests of the agriculturists and of those engaged in industrial employment; because the government has failed in every way to safeguard and protect them, I beg to move the following amendment, seconded by the hon. member for Argenteuil (Sir George Perley):

That all the words after the word "that" be stricken out and the following substituted therefor:
This house regrets that the financial proposals of the government make no provision for reasonably safeguarding and protecting the interests of those "engaged in agricultural pursuits or in industrial" employment in Canada.


Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (Wetaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, while listening to the very comprehensive and forceful criticism presented by the acting leader of the opposition (Mr. Guthrie) I must say that for a considerable time I was inspired with some fear; I was afraid he would not leave one single charge for me to make against the government. Seeing that he covered the ground so thoroughly I hoped he might have continued until six o'clock in order to give me an opportunity of finding something with which he had not dealt. Fortunately, however, there were one or two points which he failed to cover.
I think I might characterize the budget now before the house as a comfortable budget. It suggests to the mind a fairly well-fed ruminating animal which, having eaten all the grass it wanted, lies down to chew its cud on the sunny side of a knoll quite unconscious of the fact that the frost of the preceding night had practically destroyed the crop and might prejudice its existence when winter comes. All finance ministers in their budget presentation strive to strike a political key-note throughout the country. Sometimes, of course, that key-note is drowned out by the carillon of debts and deficits, and sometimes the announced surpluses and balances jangle strangely out of tune. From a comparative study of budgets I have noticed that when a minister has to deal with deficits he never fails to point out very clearly that such defiicits are not at all due to any mismanagement on his part, to any lack of business acumen or any failure of government policy, but when he has the pleasure of announcing a surplus he never fails to show that such surplus was accounted for by the most excellent policy of his administration. That, of course, is what we might call the human and political element of the budget.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hurrah.


William Irvine: I hope time will be taken
off for the interruptions now taking place. Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, you might send someone to the lobby to tell those gentlemen who are cheering that as yet I have not finished speaking.
When the loud cheering began, Mr. Speaker, I was pointing out that when a minister announces a surplus in his budget he is very anxious to claim that it is due to a certain

The Budget-Mr. Irvine
policy of his administration, but we have discovered that a true explanation of prosperity in our national life must be sought in economic factors with which governments have very little to do. As a financial statement the budget now before parliament does not require a very great deal of criticism or opposition, indeed, I would congratulate the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) and his staff upon being able to add correctly. I find that all the millions are added properly and all the subtractions correctly carried out; we find that we have an estimated expenditure of $385,160000, that we have a total estimated revenue of $454,942,000, and when we subtract the smaller figure we have a surplus of $69,782,000.
I might also congratulate the minister upon the splendid way in which he presented his budget to the house. I should like to impress upon him that I have a very high opinion indeed of his ministerial ability, and in addition to those lower qualities which are required of financiers and accountants generally the minister possesses others of more value. For instance, he is genuinely human, and he possesses a vein of humour so rich and deep that it takes a real Scot to sound it. Listen to this priceless gem which fell from his lips just after they had let fall the mighty millions resulting from his own tariff policy. He said:
The policy of this administration is not a high tariff policy; it is a low tariff policy. Its policy is to encourage production at home and the marketing of our excess of production abroad.
It is not every minister who has the genius to inject humour into the millions of surpluses, debts and so on. Again, the minister said:
In the first ten months of the fiscal year the Department of Rational Revenue reports total exports amounted to $1,187,400,000, which, when the total imports of $1,033,300,000 are subtracted, leaves a favourable trade balance of $154,100,000 for the ten months' period.
If statements like these emanated from an uninformed source, and were regarded by those who uttered them as being indicative of the economic position of the people of Canada, we would regard them with the contempt they truly merited; but, coming as they do from a well informed source, they can be appreciated only when seen in the humorous setting in which they appear. Everyone knows that the budget under the party system of government, with which we are cursed at the present time, means more than a mere addition and subtraction of millions of dollars. It contains the entire plot of a play. The stage is set, and after due advertising the minister appears in the dual capacity of hero and villian, depending on which side of the house hon. gentlemen contemplating
him happen to be sitting. The population both in and out of parliament are waiting breathlessly; the moment is melodramatic it is true, but eventually the minister enters and announces a surplus. Sometimes the artistry of this particular show is drowned in the swelling flood of millions, and also encompassed with political humbug. The time has come, Mr. Speaker, to lodge an emphatic objection to the technique of party government, of which this and other budgets are expressions. What have hon. members of the house had to do with the budget now before them? The deliberative functions of parliament have been practically usurped by the party system. In the hodge-podge of figures, fiscal policy, debts, international trade and surpluses with which the mind is suddenly deluged, members have no part to play whatever. If we had, I venture to say that there are many things not in this budget which would be in it, and there are some things in it which would not be in it. But ours not to reason why, ours but to vote the pie for the noble six hundred. Let me illustrate the position of the private members of this house. I am sure the Minister of Finance, genial as he is, will forgive me for setting him in a particular scene which will illustrate my point. I am going to make him a chef in a first-class cafe, and I am going to give him the rest of the cabinet as his waiters. The members of parliament, the representatives of the people, of course, will be the patrons of this cafe.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who gets the tips?


William Irvine: WTe all come in for our
meal at the usual hour, and the Prime Minister, all dressed up in his proper habiliments for the occasion, presents us with the menu. We look it over and find that there are many things on the menu we do not like. There are some things we might like but we could not possibly accommodate all that is on the menu. However, we are told by the chef and the waiter that no selection is to be permitted; that we have to swallow it all from the consomme of tariff reduction to the surplus pie and the national debt pudding with the income tax sauce. We cannot make any selection from the menu; the dictum of the institution is that we must take it all or leave it. We have some dieticians who think that perhaps a better bill of fare could be arranged. We have others who are willing to close their eyes and open their mouths and take whatever comes, but those of us who desire the right to deliberate upon matters which come before this house regard
The Budget-Mr. Irvine

the budget and the manner of its preparation as being the very opposite of true representative government, and absolutely void of the democratic principle which is supposed to inhere in this parliament. We neither deliberate nor create any detail of this budget. We are asked to give it a blanket endorsation or a blanket condemnation. Let me suppose for a moment, Mr. Speaker, that what I am saying is as wise as I think it is.


An hon. MEMBER:: Impossible.


William Irvine: I knew the hon. member would be able to observe the obvious. Supposing for the sake of argument that it is as wise as I think it is. I am allowed to say it, but that is all. This parliament has perfect freedom in so far as speech is concerned, but when it comes to actually doing something we have the limits of the robot. I think the time has come when every member of parliament, who ought to be in the position of truly representing his constituents, should expose this sophistry of representative government, expose the sophistry of the supremacy of parliament, and indicate to the people the truth of the matter

the supremacy of cabinets in our system of government. Our cabinets have the power to give away our water sites. They tell us we can ratify their actions, or if we do not we defeat the government. They give away other things equally as valuable as the water-powers. They sign treaties that may have a far-reaching effect upon the peace of the world, and then come and ask us to ratify them. They bring down the budget, which has important economic and political implications, and we are not permitted to change one jot or tittle within the entire compass of that budget. All we can do is to take or leave it; take all or none. The Minister of Finance virtually comes to this parliament and says, "There is the budget, fix it if you dare." If we did fix it, according to the powers which we are supposed to have but cannot exercise, then he would dissolve parliament and we would have to assume the responsibility of having plunged the country into an election. This massive club of dissolution is always held over the heads of parliamentarians. I wonder if the members of the house could not swing the club of dissolution the other way once in a while. I wonder if the ministers are so immune to election fears that they would not pay any attention to that. I would like to psycho-analyse the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) and find out if he would not yield a point or two were that club swung over his head, and I am sure there are others who might be led to

consider following the same course. If hon. members asserted themselves we could force parliament from beneath the heel of cabinet domination. This is a phase of parliament which is most disgusting to the Canadian people, which is most discouraging to hon. members who have any intelligence; it deprives them of that nominal responsibility which they are supposed to have towards those whom they represent.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


William Irvine: Mr. Speaker looking at the
budget from another angle, I Should like to point out that it implies more than a mere financial statement. Under our system of government the budget reflects national policy and sometimes unfortunately it reveals the extent of statesmanship possessed by those on the treasury benches. It is a looking glass which reflects not only the ruddy face of the genial Minister of Finance but also the background of policy. I notice that standing out very prominently in the background of policy is the national debt. It stands out like a sore thumb that has received first aid from the minister. Of course there is a political setting given to this. The party which was in power prior to the present administration is inferentially shown as the debt creating party and the government of to-day is of course held up as the debt paying party. But when we come to examine into the details of the budget we discover who has been doing the paying and we have to admit that the masses of the people, especially the agricultural class, have been charged a great deal more in taxation than any other class for the surplus out of which a certain amount of the debt was paid last year. We find also that the people who ought to be able to pay more than anybody else have been taxed less.
But let me turn to the larger question of debt payment. Let me presume to suggest to the minister that payment of debt is an operation which requires a great deal of skill and caution in its performance. No doubt he is aware that there are times when debts should not be paid even if the government were in a position to pay them. There are times when to pay debts would very materially interfere with the business and industrial success of the country. If, for instance, the minister, because he happens to have a few millions in the treasury, rushes off to pay

The Budget-Mr. Irvine
debts at a time when we are passing through industrial depression, it is altogether unlikely that such amounts of money as he paid would find opportunity for reinvestment and the result would be that, through removing from circulation the amount of the debt he paid h-e would force us into further depression. So there is a real problem there which I suggest for his consideration.
But I want the minister's attention on one point and I should like to emphasize it. It is that debts cannot be paid in the popular sense of the word "paid". I do not mean they cannot be paid because the amounts are so great that they are beyond our assets. That is not exactly true, although they are certainly great enough. I mean to say that they cannot be paid because our financial system is a debt creating system. Our financial system lives on debt, lives by debt, lives for debt and without debt it cannot live. If our debts could be paid in the sense in which most people accept the idea of payment, our system would collapse. It is the very nature of the financial system of which the minister is at the head to pyramid debts, debts built on debts built on debts, until the entire system is threatening to topple over, and it is more than the average individual can do to interfere in any way with that pyramiding. It requires a fundamental alteration of policy and one which the minister alone is in position to introduce.
The debt of Canada as of all other countries to-day is increasing by the principle of geometrical progression and it cannot be affected as long as the present system is in vogue. What does the minister mean when he tells us that he has paid so many millions of debt ? He simply means that he has transferred a public to a private debt. Let me illustrate that in this way. Supposing he finds himself next year with a surplus of $100,000,000 which he has collected through over-taxation of the poor people of Canada; he proceeds to the Bank of Montreal, takes up $100,000,000 worth of bonds and makes a bonfire of them. What happens after that? That amount of $100,000,000 will immediately become somebody else's debt. The banks cannot afford to pay, for instance, 31 per cent on $100,000,000 if they don't lend it out. As soon as the bank does lend that $100,000,000 it becomes somebody else's debt. Individuals whose bonds are taken up may make their own investment so that in any case, the amount paid on national debt must become private debts except it were withdrawn from circulation. So to pay debt is merely a transference of a national debt to a private debt, but with this
difference, that on the national debt we are paying presumably about 5 per cent whereas on the private debt we are paying probably 8 per cent and that charge comes back to the consuming public in terms of prices, whereas the minister charges us the interest in terms of taxation. Therefore I hope the minister will be more careful when he is, in a human way of course, making political capital out of the fact that he has succeeded in reducing our debt in the last few years by a few million dollars.
This brings me to the guileless allusion of the minister to the Canadian dollar. He clothes that abstract instrument with personality, perches it on the boundary line with a flag in its hand, and causes it to say: "I, the Canadian dollar, can now look the American dollar square in the eye without blushing," and then he expects us to applaud for the great contribution which he has made in bringing about what he regards as that very satisfactory state of affairs. Rejoice with me, he says, because our dollar can now, without blushing, look the American dollar in the face. Mr. Speaker, that simply means nothing. Let me say plainly to the ,Minister of Finance that his inability or his disinclination to control the dollar value after the war was the means of doubling our national debt. Germany, we are told, and we believe, lost the war, and Canada won the war, but I discover that the per capita debt of Germany in 1926, was $8.76, while the per capita debt of Canada, which won the war, was, in 1927, $246.64. Canada's high per capita debt came about through the bankers' manipulation of credit, which the minister did not hinder, as he might have done. Everybody knows now that that manipulation was a bad thing. Even Lord Beaverbrook has been very outspoken on this point very recently. He says:
The Bank of England's policy in adopting the gold standard was ill-considered and ill-advised.
He goes on to say that the bankers dictated the industrial policy of the country. He continues:
We have had a bankers' policy all along, directed along the lines of favouring the general financial situation without regard to the industrial situation.
This has resulted in a per capita debt in Great Britain, which won the war, of $817.60, while Germany, which lost the war, has a per capita debt of $8.76.
Someone may suggest, do I advocate doing what Germany did? I would say in reply that what Germany did was a great deal more advisable than what Canada did, although it
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is not the course that I myself would recommend. The responsibility, I would say, was upon the Minister of Finance to have stabilized the value of the Canadian dollar on a war basis so that the dollar with which he now pays the debt would have had precisely the same value as the dollar with which the debt was contracted. But instead of doing that, the minister permitted the dollar to drop from its inflation value to its present deflation value, which practically doubled the Canadian war debt, plus five per cent; so that, due to the inactivity of the minister during the first few years that he was in office, he has placed a greater debt on the shoulders of the Canadian people than he will ever live to see removed, no matter how high he taxes the people. If the minister will ponder that problem, he will find that as the financial controller of Canada he has burdened the Canadian people with debt, and if he is satisfied that I am right in that, I hope that next year he will be apologetic and not try to make political capital out of what may be the fact, that he has reduced the debt yearly by an average of 137,000,000.
In his budget speech the minister deals in a very careless way with foreign trade and trade balances. He announced a favourable trade balance-mark the word "favourable"-of $154,000,000. This gives the impression that that $154,000,000 of a trade balance is in some strange way favourable to Canada, and that idea will no doubt be the basis of the Liberal party's propaganda in the press for the next few months. If there is a balance, it has been erroneously named a favourable balance. Trade, of course, is a fair exchange of goods, and if what the minister reports is true, then Canada has given away $154,000,000 for which she has received nothing. Otherwise, international trade cannot be a fair and equitable exchange of goods. On what basis does the minister do trade with foreign countries if it is not on an equitable basis? By what strange manipulation is he able to build up a favourable balance of trade anywhere in the world? The thing is utterly preposterous. It is a schoolboy's idea of international trade. Surely, if we have $154,000.000 worth of foreign trade more than we can handle, the minister does not need to look to other countries for greater markets than we now possess.
Let us look at it another way. I challenge the minister and his entire staff to come within two hundred million dollars of guessing the correct balance of trade between Canada and other countries of the world, because the technique of accountancy in this particular
(Mr. Irvine.]
department of political economy has not yet been thoroughly established, and there cannot be anything which is much more than a guess at the balance; there must be a wide margin permitted for error. But we do know that when all invisibles are accounted for, such as tourist trade, interest on loans, freight payments, as well as capital transactions, then international trade must balance, or else the minister has been giving away our goods and been getting nothing for them in return. Which is the situation? Will the minister tell us which of the two it is? Has he been negotiating with other countries to take our goods for nothing, or has he wrongly reported a trade balance of $154,000,000? This seems to amuse the Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) very much. I do not know whether he is amused at the political economy of his colleague the Minister of Finance, or whether he is amused at the ease with which the minister's argument can be exploded.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am amused at your
political economy.


William Irvine: I am delighted that the
minister has grasped it to the extent of being amused by it. Perhaps further consideration may change his amusement to something of understanding. Let me give an example to the hon. gentleman. In 1020, it was reported that we had an unfavourable balance of $268,000,000; in 1921, an unfavourable balance of $137,000,000, and in 1922, an unfavourable balance of $68,000,000. These adverse balances were made up of funds advanced to Great Britain during the war, and which were being repaid. In 1920, we received on that account $104,000,000; in 1921, $128,000,000, and in 1922, $84,000,000 thus the unfavourable balance vanished.
Our favourable balance means that Canada has increased her capital investments abroad. I want to draw the attention of the house to this fact, that during the war there was one and one-quarter billions of new money circulated in Canada, and corralled by those who had .privileges, and that really marks the extent of our national debt. Now those people are looking for outlets for the reinvestment of their money, and if they do not find what they want in Canada-they are not very patriotic-they go where they can find suitable opportunities for investment.
Let me also point out to the minister that the balance of trade is to a considerable extent made up of investments by insurance companies in foreign securities abroad. The minister should take a hand in controlling that situation, and endeavour to keep that

The Budget-Mr. Irvine
money in. Canada, to finance the government of this country and look after the purchasing power of our own people. Let me ask the minister to tell us, the next time he brings down a budget, how much of the balance of trade goes to .paying interest on borrowings abroad, borrowings which ought to have been made in Canada through the use of the Finance Act and the treasury board.
Passing from that, I think this budget will be regarded in western Canada as the "hame-strap budget". The Minister of Finance says that he has not reduced the tariff because the tariff board has not had time to make sufficient investigation in the three years it has been sitting. But I would point out to the members of the house that the tariff board has managed in that time to discover one kind of hame-strap on which the tariff ought to be reduced. However, it is too late now for that, because most of the farmers are using tractors and tractors do not require hame-etraps. Furthermore, the promised tariff reductions have not been satisfactorily met. True, there have been small reductions in the sales tax, but the greatest, tax of all, the tariff tax which falls on the common people generally, has not been touched, and to that extent we must hold the government responsible for their failure to redeem their promises.
As to how their fiscal policy compares with the announced policy upon which the Liberal party came into power, let me quote one section from the resolution passed by the Canadian Council of Agriculture and now included in the inspired writings of the Liberal party:
And whereas the protective tariff is the most wasteful and costly method ever designed for raising national revenue because for every dollar obtained thereby for the public treasury at least three dollars pass into the pockets of the protected interests, thereby building up a privileged class at the expense of the masses, thus making the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Let us follow the reasoning of that resolution. In the light of that statement what does the budget tell us? We have an estimated revenue this year from the tariff of 8185,000,000. For every dollar that went into the public treasury three went into the pockets of the protected interests. Multiply that by three and you have $555,000,000 which went into the pockets of the protected interests as a result of the policy of this so-called low-tariff government which we have in power to-day. Add those two amounts together and you have a total of $740,000,000 collected from the common people of Canada last year under this tariff-for-revenue policy. I saw something in the speech from the throne about the unprecedented prosperity of the Dominion. At the time I thought it was not true, but surely a country of ten millions of people that can pay that huge total in one tax must be prosperous. We now see who prospered on the national prosperity. Remember that $55,000,000 of the $740,000,000 went into the pockets of the protected interests. This government tells us they are giving us a tariff for revenue, but at the same time they say that it is the most wasteful and costly method ever designed for raising national revenue.
A studiously inclined member of this house wrote me the other day asking me a question. It. seemed that a certain colossus had appeared who could answer all tariff questions. This is the question:
What argument of the high tariff advocates do you consider the most difficult to answer, or the one which exerts the most influence on the voters?
Now, this is the strongest argument that l could furnish him. Canada is still a protectionist country. The Liberals are in power to-day; they have been in power for twenty-one years-off and on of course. The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Kennedy) told us last session that in an examination of the tariff over a period of forty years he discovered that the Liberals had reduced it four-fifths of one per cent more than had the Conservatives. What then is the argument for whioh this hon. gentleman seeks an answer? The argument to be deduced from these facts is this. Either the tariff policy introduced by Sir John A. Macdonald has been found by the Liberals to be sound political economy and good statesmanship, or else that party has been false to its own cause and to the people's trust. The Liberal party may pillory itself on either horn of the dilemma which it cares to select.
We on this side of the house do not need anybody to explain to us the virtues of the tariff. What we want is an intelligent explanation of why a party that for twenty-one years has received the votes of the people to reduce the tariff has not yet found time to begin its work. That is the kind of explanation we want. Against that argument the propaganda about tariff reductions which our friends sometimes advance are absolutely useless. I picture the Prime Minister standing up in a canoe in the straits of Gibraltar and levelling a pea-shooter at that impregnable rock. That to my mind is about what would happen -when the Liberals start to answer the argument I have just submitted to them in respect of their failure to implement their platform policies. A free-trade party? Of course. A revision-of-the-tariff-downward
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party? Certainly. A low-tariff party? Certainly. A tariff-for-revenue party? Yes. But always "tariff" appears in the title, and the tariff is the only part implemented.
Now, there is still a chance. I do not want to close the door on hon. gentlemen opposite. I want them to make good that policy or quit. The Minister of Finance indicated that tariff arrangements were matters of international policy. That is very different from what the party stalwarts say on the hustings, but I believe it is true. The tariff policy of the United States is causing a good deal of discussion at the present time. Some of our public men are talking about reprisals, and others are talking about-nothing. I do not know whether the hon. gentlemen sitting to my right are going to advocate raising the tariff brick for brick to keep pace with any increase of the United States tariff. Instinctively and rationally I feel myself drawn away from any policy of reprisals with respect to international relations. So I will suggest to the hon. gentlemen opposite that their last and' only chance to retain the confidence of the people is to implement their low-tariff policy or get out. I would ask them now to call a conference of all the governments of the British commonwealth of nations with a view to arranging a free trade policy within the commonwealth as a means of offsetting any increase of tariff by the United States. In the first place, such a course would bind these loosely connected nations into an economic as well as a sentimental unit; in the second place, it would clearly intimate to the United States that if they want to trade with Canada they cannot do it by the tariff route; and in the third place it would reduce the cost of commodities to the Canadian people and enable them to offset the difficulties with which they would be confronted by the cutting off of the United States market to our live stock and our trade generally.
That is the suggestion which I wish to make to the hon. gentlemen opposite.
Mr. GEORGES L. DIONNE (Matane) (Translation):	Mr. Speaker, at the outset
of my remarks, I wish to sincerely congratulate the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) for the well defined, concise and pertinent speech he delivered last Friday. I must also congratulate the hon. acting leader of the opposition (Mr. Guthrie) for the splendid speech he made this afternoon. His remarks were to the point and well adapted to the circumstances.
The question of the exodus of our people to the United States was broached, the prob-

lem of unemployment, the Australian treaty, the tariff and many other questions were discussed. The exodus of people to other countries has existed ever since the world was created. The causes of this emigration are numerous; I shall, however, enumerate but a few. We find, first: a love of adventure, then a greed of gain, a craving for luxury, a longing for comforts and an inborn desire of improving one's , lot or situation. So far as this love of adventure, history records many such instances: those of Columbus,-then Cartier and later on Champlain.
Our opponents were at the helm of the affairs of this country from 1882 to 1896; they appear very favourably disposed towards the working and farming classes when they are in the opposition, they always seem to have high practical advice and means to suggest for the betterment of the workman's lot, the protection of the farming class, the development of trade and industry, but when in power they soon forget their teachings; instead of helping those poor people for whom they have so much sympathy when in opposition, they favour the autocrats and magnates of finance, the large manufacturers and the captains of industries. The exodus existed from 1882 to 1896. What did our opponents do to blot out this evil? They had every possible means at their disposal, they were in a position to entirely stamp it out, yet, I am sorry to say, they absolutely did nothing.
Now, sir, with reference to unemployment, I do not think that the tariff has any bearing on this problem, because if we glance back at early history, we note that in the time of the Pharaohs there existed years of plenty and years of scarcity. Fortunately in those days there lived the intendant Joseph who wisely provided for the lean years.
Mention was also made of the United States. The Americans are business people, industrious and they are pointed out to us as examples. But, sir, let me say that in the United States like in all countries of Europe and of the world, unemployment exists; it has always been and it will ever be so. The tariff is like the pendulum of a clock. It either moves too fast or too slow, you have the regulator adjusted and still it may be too fast or too slow. It is an easy matter to prescribe remedies but the difficulty lies in the application of the means suggested and the advice given.
From 1896 to 1911, Laurier, of cherished memory, presided over the destinies of this country. He had charge of the administration, and I must say that when he assumed

The Budget-Mr. Dionne
power in 1896, our opponents, who constantly speak of surpluses, had left but deficits!. During fifteen years, thanks to a Liberal administration, thanks to an administration of business men, these deficits were wiped out. In 1911, the people of this country, I shall not say in a moment of bewilderment, but under the influence of fear, ceased to trust the Liberals and once more confided the management of affairs to the Conservatives. It was then that we witnessed deficits again cropping up. We note that during the period which elapsed between 1911 and 1920-1921, our opponents dragged in the Great war of 1914 to 1918 to justify their expenditures. Now that they are in opposition they advocate economy, but when in power they spend with a free hand, not in the interests of the people as a whole but to favour a privileged class. I admire, sir, the courage and endurance of those brave Canadians who joined the army and went overseas to fight on the battlefields of Europe and protect the rights of allied countries; I admire the devotion to duty and the generous sacrifice of those who fought energetically and then gave their life magnanimously for their country; I have no intention of criticizing all the expenditures that were made at the time. However, our opponents who advocate economy, could have practised it then and on more than one score. They could have economized on the purchases of motortrucks and automobiles which remained in sheds in London; economy could have been practised after armistice was signed when troops were sent to Alaska for the benefit of manufacturers of army clothes and boots.
The hon. acting leader of the opposition mentioned, this afternoon, that he hoped to see a number of ministers who were free traders become protectionists. I am rather inclined to think that the hon. acting leader intends to become a convert and shows signs of it. He forsook Liberalism to join the ranks of the Conservatives. I really think his intention is to return to the fold of liberalism.
One word on protection. There is moderate and unlimited protection. Protection exists in the United States, and, it is said, that country is the most prosperous known, there are colossal fortunes, trade and industry have developed on a large scale and its population is over 100,000,000. Notwithstanding all their protection, the United States cannot prevent unemployment which exists in a great number of their cities. It is found in manufacturing centres, in industrial and commercial life.
There are periods of depression and stagnation which are uncontrollable and neither free-trade nor protection can prevent these crises.
Let me now say a few words with reference to the Australian treaty. Within the last few years butter production in this country has decreased. Our farmers export their milk and cream to the United States and our butter factories do not produce enough for the consumers of this country. What would therefore happen were this treaty cancelled? The monopolizers, the trusts would purchase all the butter made, hoard it in cold storage and hold it until the next season's output was marketed, and the new market price would regulate the scale or rather would establish the sale price of the cold storage butter and the consumer would thereby be the sufferer.
Our country is large, immense, it possesses a variety of natural resources. We are charged with exporting too many of these natural resources to the United States. But, Sir, surely a young country that does not manufacture sufficiently for all its needs, can export to other countries some of its natural products and in return import articles of consumption or utility. I am, sir, as much attached to my country as anyone else. I wish to see it happy and prosperous. When I hear our opponents express doubt as to our real prosperity, I wonder if they show political wisdom. They advocate helping agriculture and contend that the farmers are financially poor and cannot make both ends meet, balance their budget, so to speak. I am among those who advocate helping agriculture because it is the industry "par excellence," because it is an essential industry. Therefore it is quite in order to assist agriculture by every possible means, but all must participate by their energy and good will. At times, the farmers' financial situation is somewhat critical. We do not practise the sound economy of our forebears; we have not their ability to manage our affairs, too much luxury has invaded our homes. A true and infallible means to success in business-as in everything-is to leave aside subtraction and division and practise especially addition and multiplication.
Before I resume my seat, may I observe that someone has been reproaching me because I am too staunch a Liberal. I will only say this:
Though I am hot red,
Am no fanatic.
I am not a hot head
Nor a lunatic.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Toronto Northwest):: I wish to take this opportunity of congratulating the Liberal-Conservative party on the amendment which has been moved to the
The Budget-Mr. Church

budget. The Liberal-Conservative party is the party of progress, and it is the only party upon which the masses in this country can depend to solve economic questions. In the hour of trouble the country always sends for the Conservative party. The Conservative party has always been consistent; it believes that the industrial welfare of Canada depends on protection and safeguarding and upon the conservation of our own markets for our own products and our own work for our own workmen.
The Liberal-Conservative party to-day stands for protection; it is a protectionist party. Protection is safeguarding and safeguarding is protection. In England to-day we see the remnant of a free trade country, with a million and a quarter people out of work taking the dole. That is a fine illustration of the success of free trade. England is losing her shipbuilding orders and her industrial supremacy in coal, and the union of coal and steel is what made England the great industrial nation it became in the history of the world. The motherland is now at the parting of the ways, and with a million and a quarter civilians and returned soldiers out of work- men who fought the battles of the empire in Flanders and France-the government over there is finding it necessary to protect her industries and adopt safeguarding. So that England also is coming around to protection in what is known as the safeguarding of basic industries, such as steel, coal and many others. The economic writers whose opinions are worth considering are all agreed that safeguarding is protection, although I favour simply the old word "protection".
As I say, protection is safeguarding and safeguarding is protection; the two terms are synonymous and are interlocked, they are allied and related terms. Now it is these two protectionist doctrines that we need in Canada to-day. And no industry in this country stands more in need of the application of these doctrines than the great basic industry of agriculture. But there are other industries that need protection. The prairie provinces in a few years will become a great industrial country and it will need protection brought up to date to meet the changing conditions there from time to time. It is for that reason that we have proposed the amendment to the budget, which amendment will appeal to every farmer in and out of the house, and to every industry in the country and to those out of work. It is based on an all-Canadian tariff for Canada. I support protection as a principle not as a privilege for a few.

We have a great leader (Mr. Bennett), who we regret is not here at the moment. He is a born leader of men, a skilful manager who has devoted his life to the service of his country and his fellowman at no small sacrifice. Put him in command of the ship of state and I venture to say that the industrial ills of every province in the Dominion, from the eastern provinces where he was born all the way to the Pacific coast, would be cured and their problems solved at once.
The economic ills of Canada are to be cured by the safeguarding of industry through protection. Protection is not a dead thing; it is a living thing and is continually growing and should be brought up to date. Take the United States to-day: in the late election the issue was protection and more protection all along the line for the entire country. Both sides there were agreed on it. In that country they have built up a high tariff wall and apparently they intend to maintain that wall still higher. This is the policy of President Hoover, whom I consider one of the world's greatest economic men, a man among men. He does not mean to be unfriendly to Canada, as evidenced by the great speech he made the other day at his inauguration. He is a man who sympathizes with humanity the world over and his life has been devoted to the welfare of civilization the world over. I say, therefore, that he does not cherish any enmity towards this country, and if he proposes to protect the United States from industrial invasion that is only something to be expected. After all, it is just as fair to apply the weapon of the tariff in time of peace, when you find the industrial invader at your door taking the bread out of your workman's mouth, as it is to apply it in time' of war when the enemy is at the gates, and when you mobilize all the resources of the country to repel him. The principle of protection is the same in peace as in war for the nation as well as the individual,
I say that protection would solve the ills of the prairie provinces to-day, especially when we consider the attitude of the people of the United States. In the budget we have from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) a statement which I will discuss as far as I can in the time at my disposal. I will say this for the Minister of Finance: He is the best voting card the government has in the country today. He is a plain able business man who is very much respected not only in this house but throughout the country for his many fine qualities of head and of heart; and is a great Canadian and true Briton. I do not criticize him at all except as to his policy; while I like and admire the man I do not

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like the Liberal party's policy. The liberalism we have to-day is not the liberalism of old.
I regret very much that the hon. member for Mount Royal (Mr. White), one of the oldest, most respected and able members of the House of Commons, has not been able to be with us this session on account of illness; I know he has been missed and we all hope he will soon return to his seat in this house with good health regained. May I add just here that I hope a general day of thanksgiving for the recovery of the king will be set apart, and I would suggest June 3, his birthday, as a proper day, when by God's grace I trust he will be fully recovered.
May I also congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, great Canadian that you are, on your lectures in France; you excelled as an ambassador of good-will. Your lectures on French history have done Canada a great deal of good in an international way for good-will in the old world. You are a great ambassador; Canada loves that glorious land of France, where so many of our own men sleep their last sleep as a result of the war; Canada adores that glorious nation towards which the eyes of the whole civilized world were turned during the war. The awful privations, the numerous trials, the untold sufferings and the terrible tribulations of the glorious French nation, surpassing anything the human imagination can conceive, will live in history as an example of the most sublime patriotism.
One of the main purposes of the budget debate is to take account of the nation's housekeeping, because after all the housekeeping in connection with an ordinary home is not very far distant in theory and method from the housekeeping in connection with a nation, and only about once a year do the representatives in parliament have a chance to discuss some of the economic ills from which the country is suffering. To-day we have a government which sits still and does nothing to cope with the economic problems of the country. Coming from an industrial constituency in Ontario I believe that the great empire province of Ontario has more economic problems to solve than all the rest of Canada, but this government seems to ignore Ontario altogether. For a long time we had not a single member of the cabinet from Ontario, 1926-7, and the present ministers representing Ontario constituencies do not seem to be sufficiently aggressive to stand up for the rights of this great province, which is paying about forty per cent of the taxes of the Dominion.
To-night the government is on trial before the bar of public opinion for their failure to govern and for their policy of laissez faire. The discussion we recently had in connection with light and power showed that our present government, as I said then, is a combination of big interests and appetites. The big interests are clamouring for more; they are weary and hungry; they are going further than they went last year and are demanding a shell-out, and the rules are to be amended to help them. To mention only a few, we have the Bell Telephone Company, the Sun Life Company, the Beauharnois power plant and all the rest, and who will stop these raids? I do not think the government will do it. During the naval debate the Liberal opposition made use of the word "gag;" now I say the rules are to be amended in order to apply "the gag" to give the big interests the right of way to what remains of the title deeds to the products of the sea, the soil, the forests and the mines of Canada. The big interests in this country such as the electric trust, the American power trust, the grain and elevator combine, the banking trust and the manufacturing trust seem to be the present masters of the administration. "Canada for the Americans" seems to be the economic policy of the government. That is shown in the government's pro-American tariff policy, in their power development policy, in their pro-American immigration policy, in their grain policy and their failure to place an embargo on hard wheat, in their failure to give adequate protection to the vegetable growers and market gardeners and their failure to apply the dumping duty, and in their separatist policy towards the rest of our empire.
To-night the government is weighed in the balance and found wanting; the unemployed asked for work in order to get bread but the government gave them a stone, together with a lot of platitudes from the head of the government. I asked a question with regard to unemployment last week but the Minister of Labour said in reply that unemployment is a question for the provinces, and from their erroneous index system say there is no unemployment. The government are being tried to-night for the way they have misgoverned; they have left undone those things which they ought to have done and they have done those things which they ought not to have done, -and there is no health in them as a government. We have had too little government from Ottawa and too much government from Washington and St. James street, including the power ring and the private millionaires of this charmed water-power circle from Mont-
The Budget-Mr. Church

real and the United States. Many of these younger power magnates hid their lights under a bushel during the Great war, staying at home and making a fortune while the men overseas were getting paid SI.10 a day.
My bill of indictment against the government includes two main counts, faults of omission and faults of commission. I charge that the faults of omission consist of twenty-six counts, as follows:
Failure to provide a policy of protection and safeguarding brought up to date to solve all the economic problems of every province.
Failure to provide a proper dumping clause.
Failure to provide some safeguards for industries.
Failure to provide a national coal and fuel policy.
Failure to bring in a policy looking to the conservation of the products of the sea, the soil, the forests and the mines for Canadians.
Failure to bring in an up-to-date Canadian Tadio policy. They fiddle along and send three favourites for a free ride around Europe while radio control is assumed by the United States.
Failure to provide a Canadian life-saving policy for the Great lakes.
Failure to provide a policy of farm relief.
Failure to implement the Duncan report in connection with steel, iron and coal.
Failure to provide for the preservation of water-powers for the people rather than for private gain and stock splits.
Failure to lay down a proper policy for the development of a greater St. Lawrence waterway as an economic necessity; this has been abandoned by the government as a waif, an orphan and an outcast.
Failure to provide an embargo on hard wheat.
Failure to deal with the question of unemployment.
Failure to lay down a policy looking to a united effort in the solution of the three great problems of empire trade, defence and migration.
Failure to provide a pro-Canadian, proBritish immigration policy.
Failure to provide any social legislation such as the extension of old age pensions and sickness and unemployment insurance.
Failure to bring in an advanced national policy on health matters.
Failure to reduce taxation, such as the income tax, the tax on cheques, the cigarette and liquor tax and other nuisance taxes.
Failure to take any taxes off the breakfast tables of the working classes.

Failure to 'bring in a national housing policy in order to help reduce the high cost of living.
Failure to make any reduction in the high cost of living.
Failure to enforce the Alien Labour Act. The Department of Labour, as I said in 1922, seems to be asleep and is one of the most useless and incompetent departments of the government to aid and protect the toiler and unemployed. Last year I asked the Minister of Labour some questions in connection with some sixty nurserymen or market gardeners who were brought to Ontario from the southern United States into York county, but I was unable to get an answer for a year. Then I was told that I could see the attorney general of the province, thus making a mere political football of the matter, although a federal one.
Another omission is the failure of the government to aid the maritime provinces by subsidies and subventions in connection with the steel and iron industries. Then the government failed to introduce a Pacific policy, to take care of that great empire province on the Pacific coast. They have failed to adopt a policy of closing up these wonderful embassies at Washington and Tokyo; they have failed to adopt a policy of protecting the public with insurance legislation, loan company legislation, trust company legislation and banking legislation. The working classes of this country pay millions to the insurance companies who charge anything they like, and this money is used to build up Japan, China and other countries at the expense of the Dominion.
It is time the general Insurance Act was brought up to date and revised. I do not mean to say that this legislature should fix the price of insurance, but it should give some protection to the government by having a proper audit made of these companies, and see that equitable rates are charged instead of the present prohibitive life and fire rates, to protect the policyholders.
The government gave away 'the Seven Sisters falls yesterday, and to-morrow they will be giving away the Beauhamois power site. Money has been spent in a very extravagant manner; it cost $36,000,000 to run the country when Sir Wilfrid Laurier took office in 1896, but it costs $400,000,000 to run it in 1929; they spend money like water. There has been a lack of national policy in the management of the natural resources. The government has committed these acts of omission and commission, and has failed to discover an economic policy that will assure the prosperity of Canada and make our people

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happy and contented. They have no policy which will solve the country's ills. The iron, coal and agricultural industries are being left to the mercy of foreign invasion and competition. Experience shows that as the basic industries of steel and coal go, so goes the country. The government has no policy on the tariff and the conservation of our resources. They have failed to find an economic policy which will steady or maintain our prosperity, or one in which more and more of our citizens will find a share. This would create a happy and contented nation and render the people less susceptible to the preaching of radical doctrines.
We have a government to-day with no forward-looking zeal or conservative principles, and with no demonstrated capacity for public service. No single factor aids a government so much as a background of prosperity, which to a degree exists to-day but for which the government is in no way responsible. What prosperity we have to-dhy is due to the fragments of the national policy which remains in this country, to Providence and a good crop, and to the thrift, industry and sobriety of our people. We have a government of ifs and buts and doubts and fears, a government against a government, all within itself and with no leadership to solve the country's economic ills.
Have they a policy on the St. Lawrence or on the preservation of our water-powers? No. They have a policy which is here to-day and gone to-morrow; a policy which is everything by fits and starts and nothing long. They are willing to give our valuable power sites to the big interests.
Have they a policy on radio? Yes, but it is one for the Liberal party and not for the national interests. They took nearly a year to appoint a useless commission which is roaming all over Europe now doing nothing but having a good time. They have a policy of farm relief, but it is all relief and no farm. The representatives on this commission are Mr. MacLean, of Victoria, B.C., and Mr. Drury of blessed and happy memory in Ontario. The farm relief board seems to be a happy hunting ground for downtrodden politicians. Would Mr. Hoover appoint gentlemen like that? No, he would appoint an economic person who knew something about farm relief. The farm relief board consists of those with heads of all boards but they know nothing about farm relief at all or how to cure the farmers' ills.
Have they a policy on the tariff? No. They appoint a useless tariff commission to make up their minds for them. I called them 78594-49
a minstrel show. If they would tour the country as a minstrel show they would make their fortune with the interlocutor and the tambo and bones who call themselves commissioners. They are making a political football out of this tariff question while six hundred thousand Canadians have to go to the United States to try to get jobs-a tariff board of spade and shovel men whose main object is to sound the death knell of protection and industry in Canada.
Have they an immigration policy? If it is a policy it is a continental European one and not a British-born one. Have they a policy on the return of natural resources? No. The speech from the throne 1926 said that the prairie provinces were to be given their natural resources, but when the hon. member for Labelte (Mr. Bourassa) objected to that they withdrew the measure. Have they a national coal policy? No. They had reluctantly to adopt my motion therein, but they failed to carry it out. They have a policy which helps the coal barons down in Pennsylvania, for they quoted a Canadian all-rail rate of nine or ten dollars per ton for the carrying of Alberta and maritime provinces coal, and they could get no business. If they had quoted a fair rate of six dollars per ton they would have obtained the cream of the business, 'but they would rather give the business to the coal barons of the United States and make work for the people in Pennsylvania.
Have they a policy for the returned soldier? Yes, they have a policy; the returned soldier gets all the pick and shovel jobs. The good jobs and those on the bench and in the senate go to those who were willing to pay a dollar to join the Liberal association and are civilians. You see articles and advertisements in the papers in Toronto asking for second-hand clothing for the men who fought the battles of this country for $1.10 a day and for their wives and children and a tag day to help soldiers. The government takes care of these young millionaires in the Beauharnois and other power companies and the Winnipeg Electric. I know one or two of them and they never did a thing in the war. They hid their light under a bushel and made a fortune while soldiers went to war for $1.10 a day.
Have they a policy for unemployment? Mr. Vincent Massey and Herbert Marler have been taken care of. No tag day will be had to maintain their embassies. Ottawa has become the seat of a great basic industry known as the ambassador cure for unemployment. That is the policy they have in this country for unemployment while six hundred thousand

The Budget-Mr. Church

Canadians go to the United States as ambassadors at 'their own expenses looking for a job.
Have they a policy for solving the problem of British Columbia, the prairie provinces, the central provinces or the maritime provinces? No. Have they a policy which will solve the three greatest problems of empire defence namely, trade and migration? No. They went over to the colonial conference and never mentioned these problems and said Canada proposed nothing, it was satisfied.
I say the government's free-trade-wrecking tariff commission will go so far and no farther, for it is sounding the death knell of protection and industry in Canada. The government's policy has been to spend money like water and the only result will be that the labour of future generations yet unborn has been pledged for the payment of millions of dollars of interest on Canada's debt and maintenance account.
It is the duty of the government to protect the rights and prosperity, the health and comfort of its citizens. The government is sick. It looked pretty sick during the last five days when there was a discussion of the power question. It was only six votes short of defeat. The Manitoba government had to send for Doctor Hogg from Ontario and the chairman of the commission was too weak to prevent his going to Manitoba to destroy public ownership. The government of Ontario was responsible for sending Doctor Hogg to Manitoba. What did he do there? He is not a doctor at all; in fact, he has issued only one prescription in his life. He went to Manitoba and the prescription he issued electrocuted the whole Manitoba Bracken government. Before he gets through with some of the hon. gentlemen over there from Manitoba, he will electrocute them with the Seven Sisters falls in the next election, as well as the Liberal party which engaged him.
As I was saying, the government is sick; it needs a little physic. Even the Prime Minister and the cabinet on the power question were all sick of it and needed a little physic. A little tonic is often unpleasant, but it must be borne in mind that if a cure is to be effected, neither physician nor patient must flinch from taking it. So they captured a resolution or prescription the opposition gave them on water-powers.
An embargo should this session be placed on foreign products and foods that are competing unfairly with similar1 commodities produced in this country. The depression in coal is due largely to depression in trade of its best customer, the steel and iron industry.

Give them protection in Canada and you will revive those two key industries. A revival of learning is needed in the cabinet to save the country from .the tragedy of a wrecking tariff commission that is in an economic way illiterate and incapable of comprehending or of remedying economic conditions in Canada.
I am sorry there are only two front benchers present to-night. I hope I have not made the rest of the cabinet sick. No doubt they were taken very sick in the last few days when they heard the criticism of the opposition on water-powers. When they heard of so much water being used in the house during the last four or five days, no wonder they begged leave to retire and are not here to-night. Where is my hon. friend the doctor, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell), to-night? Where has he gone? Last year he became a doctor also.
Agriculture is a basic industry and requires special treatment. An embargo on hard wheat is required so as to provide work for our people in the mills in the milling of corn and flour.
As a program the budget is barren of any real progress to protect Canadians and to preserve our own markets for our own products and our own workmen. It is a very skimpy sort of chicken, a skimpy bill of fare for the working classes that fools no one. It should be committed to old mother Hubbard's cupboard so that the unemployed will see what kind of bone is in it for them. Probably that is where the balance of the cabinet have gone to-night, in order to look for the bone,-for what is left of the Liberal principles, the Liberal platform laid down in the city of Ottawa a few years ago. The budget is a full chicken with the bone out of it for the rich but the masses get not even a good bone. Shorn of a lot of its fads and frills, it contains nothing that will benefit the masses of the country. I admit the government have taken twenty-five cents off the expense of the tickets to which a member of parliament is put in coming to and going from Ottawa. That is one of the few things they have thrown over here. One thing I am sure we cannot do is blame the lord high executioner of the government, the Postmaster General (Mr. Veniot), for whom I have a great deal of respect, for having any part in its draftsmanship, because there is nothing in it to execute and no one to execute except the taxpayer.
What do the Liberal prohibitionist supporters of the government .think of the way in which the government has played with the rum-running business and allowed the United

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States to violate a number of international treaties and have armed gunboats on the lakes? One thing left out of the budget is any instruction to the workers how they should spend' their money, because the workers have no money to spend and because of the economic policy of the government many of them are out of work. We have to have a tag day for the soldiers in distress, but no tag day is needed for the maintenance of our ambassadors at Tokyo and Washington. If the government's budget is cut up into parts, it is a program of shin plasters for the rich and a committal to the poorhouse for the unemployed and the poor. Where is and what is the government's tariff policy? If we are to judge by the mock trials held by those delightful busybodies, the tariff commission, it may be summed up under two heads as follows:
(a)	That nothing that can be bought in the United States shall be made in Canada, and,
(b)	That everything that cannot be bought in the United States shall be imported from overseas, from Europe, preferably from Germany.
The government turns a deaf ear to any adequate dumping clause even though some of their own supporters ask for it in the house.
The great industrial system of the United States was built up on protection. President Hoover will yet drive Canada to erect a similar wall and adopt a self-respecting reciprocal policy. Canada can no longer continue to buy $900,000,000 worth of high-priced manufactured goods from the United States, nfearly two-thirds of which could be manufactured in Canada, and pay for that $900,000,000 worth out of her raw material. We require a proper and adequate reciprocal treaty. The government will not insert in the tariff a clause to tell the United States so. Mr. Hoover is a business man and as business is business among individuals as well as nations, he would not object to it. The Monroe note and the Kellogg note mean nothing, but if the government would write a note along the lines I have suggested, they might accomplish something. As I said in the session of 1926-7:
In the days of Horace Greeley opportunities for employment in the United States were threatened by imports from Europe. To-day opportunities for employment in Canada are threatened by imports from the United States. The United States did not require the fqunders of American industry to go before a tariff commission to persuade the commissioners that the tariff should be so changed that their industries would be able to employ Americans in their own country instead of driving them to seek employment in foreign lands. Nero never fiddled while Rome burned the way this government is 78594-494
fiddling in appointing a tariff commission to solve the economic problems of this country. Instead of announcing in the budget some measure of protection and safeguarding legislation that would solve our economic ills, nothing is being done by the government to relieve our unemployed who are asking for a job that they may get bread. Many industries are closed up altogether, others are working only fifty per cent, and even the great agricultural industry of the west is suffering.
This wonderful government which continues its policy of the ambassador cure for unemployment dooms 600,000 other Canadians to appoint themselves ambassadors at their own expense to search in a foreign land, the United States, for the jobs that they cannot find in their own country. In the days of Horace Greely opportunities for employment in the United States were threatened by imports from Europe as the opportunity to-day for employment in Canada is threatened by imports from the United States. The Americans from 184960 asked their rulers for the bread of employment. These rulers did not offer their countrymen the stone of free trade theory and the platitudes of a pro-American tariff and an economic policy of laissez faire. No, and these rulers did not require the founders of American industry to go before a minstrel show of a tariff commission and persuade the interlocutor, the tambo and the bones who call themselves commissioners, that the tariff should be changed in favour of industries that would employ Americans in their own country instead of driving these Americans, as Canadians are being driven, to seek employment in a foreign country.
The government's tariff policy has made it impossible for the workers to obtain the full product of their labour or a full dinner pail. The government never was and never will be a working class government or a government representing all sections of the country.
This budget would make a great crazy quilt for the Minister of Agriculture to raffle off at a fall fair and! throw dm with it a free prescription or two as well seeing that he has now a doctor's degree. The budget is an enigma, a Chinese puzzle; it means nothing, and will lead to nothing of economic benefit to the country; it will do nothing to better conditions and provide work for Canadians in any of the provinces. It is just a smoke-screen thrown over the economic ills with which the country is afflicted. The budget is a neat apology for the government's failure to govern and for its failure to shift the burden of taxation from the toilers and the fawners to the rich and those more able to pay. It is not even a platform to stand on, let alone one to get in on. It is a mixed! grill kind of tariff, and no all-
?72
The Budget-Mr. Church

Canadian tariff a.t ail. It is only an academic thesis of several resolutions, platitudes, evasions, and excuses for turning over what remains of industry to our competitors; to the Americans and other foreign manufacturers at the expense of Canadian workmen. There can be no definite criticism from the opposition because there is really nothing in the budget to criticize.
The first cornerstone of an Immigration policy is to keep our own in Canada. The second great essential is to provide work for Canadians at present in this country, but the government proposes nothing to attain that end. The government have shown themselves incapable of bringing forth any legislation which will help solve the problems facing us and relieve conditions which exist all over the country. There is no adequate protection for industry. There is no social legislation in the way of an adequate and up-to-date pension scheme or some system of unemployed insurance. There is no social legislation for the workers in this budget. Many of the toilers in the old country are out of work. People over there got tired of the party system, and they formed the Labour party. And now all the old and new parties in England are in favour of social1 legislation. We should adopt social legislation in this country adapted to our finances and to our circumstances, If we had a little more practical religion and loved our neighbours as ourselves, this house would not prorogue until the soldiers and their dependents were all properly looked after. We would see that none of God's creatures in Canada who were willing to work were denied the means of earning their livelihood. We would abolish slums; we would solve the housing problem; we would give every main, woman and child in this country a chance to live and exist in a free country as God's creatures.
We require in this country a national policy of health. The cost of sickness in Canada is computed at $311,000,000 a year, eighty-nine per cent of which is a direct charge upon 'the individual. The loss of future earnings through premature death is conservatively estimated at $1,000,000,000 a year, so that $1,311,000,000 is the price paid for illness and its results in Canada each year. The health of the people is left, under the British North America Act, to the Dominion, hnd we need a national health policy in this country. In York county, $12.50 a head is spent on education, contrasted with 19 cents per head for public health. This is because the public asks for education, but they have not yet been able to see the value of public health. In England they have had a British board of health since 1831, as a 
department of the government. That has now developed into the ministry of health, one of the most efficient in the world. In this country we have only had a ministry of health a very short time, since 1927. As an example of what might be done, I might point out that in the year- 1925, 30,000 people in the United States died of influenza, 90,000 of tuberculosis, and over 95,000 of cancer. The government will spend $2,000,000 to prevent deaths at level crossings, but very little in the war against disease. The time has come for a national health policy, and millions should be spent in it. Let the government economize on something else of a material nature instead of on something which is at the cost of the lives of our people.


Mr. W. K. BALDWIN (Stanstead):: Mr. Speaker, fortunate is the hon. member who follows in debate our most estimable friend from Toronto Northwest (Mr. Church). I find, nothing to criticize in what he says.
Turning to the address that was made this afternoon by the acting leader of the opposition (Mr. Guthrie), we all remember the critical times in this house nine or ten years ago when we were fighting over the question of public or private ownership of the railways. We were then sitting to the left of the Speaker, and on both sides of the house were found men in support of one policy or the other. We all remember the attitude of the then Minister of Railways, now sitting in the senate. The greatest critic of public ownership of the railways in the house at that time was the hon. member for Pontiac (Mr. Cahill), and surely he knew railways. We were all more or less skeptical as to the success of the railways under public ownership and administration. We remembered how on the old Intercolonial two-thirds of the passengers travelled without buying tickets, and naturally we who are now sitting on this 6ide of the house were skeptical as to what would happen to the railways so long as the Conservative government was in power. We knew there would be no management worth mentioning so long as the Conservatives were in power. But when the Liberal government came into office, they searched the whole world over and found in Sir Henry Thornton the greatest railway man available, the greatest that could be found in this universe, and undoubtedly he has made an outstanding success in the management of the national system. He would not undertake the management Until the government had promised him a free hand in the management of the road. He sought and obtained the loyal cooperation of every employee of the system,

The Budget-Mr. Baldwin
and under his management the road has progressed until it is now one of the greatest railway systems in the world. The railway committee may be of use to the presidents of the two great railway systems in this country, but personally I would trust Mr. E. W. Beatty, president of the Canadian Pacific, and Sir Henry Thornton, president of the Canadian National, to extend their lines anywhere they saw fit, because I believe they are both men of outstanding ability. Anyone who has travelled extensively must know that the two great railway systems in this country are the equal of any in the world.
The acting leader of the opposition went on to say, in effect, that this government was spending money like drunken sailors, and he condemned them especially for spending money on public works. We all know that during the war, from motives of economy, buildings were not properly maintained, and the result was that public buildings, wharves, and the like, got into a bad state of repair and needed painting inside and out. It is not prudent to allow public property to decay and tumble down, and it was necessary for the government to spend money to put the public works of this country in decent repair.
The acting leader of the opposition assailed the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) in regard to the dairying industry. I should like to tell this house that the Minister _ of Agriculture has done more for the dairying industry than any other minister of agriculture since confederation. He worked for two years trying to prevent oleomargarine from being imported and sold in Canada. Before its sale was prohibited, you could buy butter much cheaper than you can to-day. If my memory serves me a right-and it is retentive-the leader of the opposition voted against the repeal of the oleomargarine law. But the ex-Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Tolmie), now Premier of British Columbia, Donald Sutherland and three others assisted us through two sessions of parliament in fighting and repealing that law. By that action we did more for the farmers of Canada than has been effected by any other legislation passed by this house. To-day butter is fifty cents a pound. Is that not a sufficiently high price for the labouring man to pay?


An hon. MEMBER:: Too much.


Willis Keith Baldwin: Yes; but the farmer gets a good price-he is not complaining. I come from an agricultural section, and a section that is also industrial and financial.
Mr. MoGIBBON: The hon. member means that the farmers in his riding are not complaining.


Willis Keith Baldwin: I mean the whole of
Canada.


Mr. McGIBBON:: Let the hon. member
read the report of the National Dairy Council.


Willis Keith Baldwin: Last session the Australian treaty was freely criticized, mainly on the score of the importations of butter from that country, but I have not heard any specific objections so far this session. Then the leader of the opposition assailed business conditions in general. He said the labouring men cannot get work, the farmers have nothing to do. I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that a company with which I am connected has brought industries into the eastern townships in the last nine years which industries in buildings and plant have spent $37,500,000, and annually they are paying in wages $5,200,000. Since I heard the hon. gentleman's speech I have received a letter from home. The manager of the small business that has been in my family for the past 120 years wrote me to say that he could not get help to start our mill, the people were so busy. That is typical all over the eastern townships. I happen to be in Montreal pretty often. The hon. leader of the opposition stated that there were a lot of people running around Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver looking for work. Well, I have not noticed that in Montreal, but it may be that those people belong to that class which hunts for work and prays it wont find any. Nor have I heard of any soup kitchens. He mentioned something about money being collected to help the poor. Well, the poor we shall have with us always, as Scripture tells us.
Then my hon. friend attacked our ambassadorial homes in Washington and London, but I noticed there was not a word about the .Scribe hotel. For two or three sessions we were told that the Scribe hotel was one of the greatest scandals in the history of this country. Well, I think the silence of the opposition proves that the Scribe hotel has been a very successful investment. That is why they have dropped the subject. My good friend from Toronto Northwest, mentioned the appointment to the Tokyo embassy. I am pleased that a gentleman from Stanstead county is to represent Canada in that wonderful country, and I am sure the appointment will be justified by the able maner in which our ambassador there will look after Canadian interests. And I think Mr. Massey in Washington is worth to Canada all and more than we are paying him.
With regard to the tariff, boys of my age and a long time before remember that ever since the abrogation by the United States of
The Budget-Mr. Baldwin

the reciprocity treaty in natural products the Conservative party has worked assiduously for its revival. It is useless for me to remind the house that members of Conservative governments from time to time have made more visits to Washington in an attempt to negotiate a treaty for reciprocity in natural products than have the members of Liberal governments. It was not until 1911 that the Conservative party made a change of front and thanks to their flag-waving campaign the country then pronounced itself emphatically against reciprocity with the United States. I believe that if you can have reciprocity equivalent to free trade in natural products it would be all right. But I am a protectionist-an adequate protectionist. I like to look after myself. Self-preservation is a mighty good thing in personal matters, in family matters, in county matters and in national matters.
I believe that we have men on the treasury benches who are big enough to cope with any problem, tariff or otherwise. It has been stated by some of the most prominent mem in Montreal that the Beauharmois undertaking would result in a defeat of the government. Now, when I listened to my great chief- great? Yes, just as great as any prime minister 'that ever stood on the floor of this house-when- I heard him map out that triune conference between Ontario, Quebec and the federal government, and his statement that when in that proposed conference they agree on a policy that will suit all parties, then, and not until then, will they resume conferences with 'the United States. To my mind, that is business.
There seems to be a spirit of fellowship between the other side of the house and this. I have to congratulate the leader of the opposition on having made one of the most comprehensive speeches ever made in this house, but the longer you are on your feet the more you lay yourself open to criticism, and I venture to say that in due time his arguments will be answered satisfactorily to the membere on this side. I have not the least doubt.
Now, Canada is a wonderful and amazing country. If we do not know it, let us visit other parts of the globe and we shall realize how the world regards us. I have n>o fault to find with the member for Frontenac-Addington (Mr. Edwards), but if ever I was surprised by any proceeding in this house it was by his attack on the Minister of the Interior last year. The big Scotch head of the minister is full of common sense; and the best science in the world is the science of 
common sense, or horse sense. Now, then, the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. McRae) elaborated a plan of settlement on a large scale. But it was too expensive. Then a conference of all parties was held, but the great question of filling up our open spaces was not solved. But I think we must acknowledge our Minister of the Interior is a great man, for he did his utmost to make that conference a success. Our great railway systems and other organizations are doing all they can to attract immigrants. Personally I would give very little money to bring people into Canada. If every man and woman, boy and girl, whether at home or abroad, would tell the world what a wonderful country we have here, that would be the best kind of publicity; and if they feel they have not sufficient scope, let them talk of the Great British Empire. There is nothing that makes me shrink with such despair as to hear our boys and girls talking about going to the United States. My business takes me from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and occasionally into the United States, and I know of cities there, with a population of half a million, where the people are talking treason and rebellion and what not. Let a man say that he is from some part of the British Empire and those people will say, "You come from the finest country in the world, where honour and justice prevail". We do not see ourselves as others see us, and I can assure you that there are any number of people in the United States who will readily admit that we have an amazing country in this Dominion. They would come here and buy up every stock outright, our bank stocks, industrials, hydro-electric and everything else, if we let them. But our population, composed of English, Scotch, Irish and French, knows how to take care of itself.
We need patriotism in this country, and this government is doing all in its power to promote harmony among the various classes in Canada. I admire the genuine spirit of fellowship which has been displayed here in the past, day or two in settling a great question which has been the subject of considerable debate in the house. The Canadian people are coming more and more to realize the greatness of their country. We are far better off than they are in the United States, if only we will all work together. There you find a population of some fifteen million negroes, and still further south in Mexico you find a terrible and pugnacious people. So far as labour is concerned, we have room for all those who wish to come in. An appreciable distance west of the Mississippi you will find labour of

The Budget-Mr. Baldwin
the class we have not in Canada, and on the Pacific coast there are crowds of Chinese, Japanese, and Mexicans. These people work seven days in the week and they work like Trojans. For my part I have nothing against them, and in this regard my views are well known; it will be found in many volumes of Hansard. I would let everyone come in who was law-abiding and willing to work, because I am not very strong on the colour line, for the simple reason that this climate will not attract the coloured races in great numbers.
I have spoken many times regarding the West Indies, and I firmly maintain that we should have political union with that section of the empire. As a result of the part we played in the war, we have a tremendous debt. Why, therefore, should not Great Britain acknowledge the right of Canada to have something for her sacrifice of life and money? And there is nothing at all unreasonable in the proposal. Take the United States:	they
have added as much territory to their domain as they had sixty-five years ago. Now they have Cuba, Porto Rico and other places, and the annexation has proved beneficial to both parties. If Canada could annex the British West Indies it would be a good thing not only for the West Indies themselves but for this country as well. The same thing applies to Newfoundland, where there are water-powers and other resources that could be developed advantageously. Certainly I believe that an arrangement could be arrived at between Canada on the one hand and the British West Indies and the mother country on the other, whereby we could have a very helpful political union. The method of representation of the West Indies in this parliament could be worked out; possibly they could have representatives in the senate. There are only two and a half million people in the British West Indies and there should be no difficulty in arranging this union. True, their skins are dark, but I am sure that no one would compare them with the coloured population of the United States. Booker T. Washington was, of course, a great man, and he was educated to some extent along high ideals. But I do not think that the coloured population of the United States, taken altogether, could compare with the people of the West Indies. I have attended conferences in Canada at which there were representatives from the British West Indies and I am bound to say I never heard more capable speakers. They also speak with a very pleasing accent. So far as I can see, therefore, there is no
obstacle in the way of a political union between Canada and that promising part of the empire.
I would not offer very much assistance in the way of money as an inducement to get people to come to this country. In my opinion that is absolutely ridiculous. Let us make it known throughout the world that this is one of the greatest countries to which any man could come who was looking for an opportunity to make his way in life. Do not let us entertain any prejudices against some of the excellent European peoples merely because we happen to have fought against them some years ago. I do not want to say anything to hurt the feelings of anyone, but I may remark that during the war the people of one of the finest countries in the world, the Germans, were unduly criticized. Right in these benches in the Union government anyone who had a drop of German blood in his veins was regarded as a murderer. But some of the most progressive, some of the richest states in the American union are settled by these people. Take Wisconsin and Minnesota for instance: some of the richest sections in those states are peopled by Norwegians, Germans and immigrants from Sweden. I would have no barriers against immigration into Canada. I have seen people pouring into New York by the thousand, and I see no reason why they should be shut out. It is a good deal like fencing out sheep when some have tasted the pasture on the other side. You may build your fence as high as you like, but some leader will find his way through and others will follow. I have no doubt that many people are getting into the United States from Canada through the international border. Young men go there in search of work and after applying for one job after another they finally take to the shovel and spade. Then they are glad enough to come back to Canada; and they come back singing, "Home, Sweet Home." Tens of thousands of people who go there are forced to come back. If I were in charge of affairs in the United States and I had a lot of disgruntled people in the east and middle west to deal with, I would give them free transportation to the arid belt.
In the United States they have their troubles; the automobile has destroyed them; they have the curse and cancer of divorce. In Los Angeles nearly 5,000 divorces are granted each year and at Reno, Nevada, it is a daily occurrence. A man sees some little butterfly on the Street and thinks what a wonderful time he would have if she were his wife, but if he gets her he probably
The Budget-Mr. Baldwin

has to darn his own socks and get his own breakfast, and if he has any money in his pockets she gets it when he goes to sleep. They have a great many things in the United States, but we must remember that the courts of Los Angeles are running every day of the week except Sunday; they have a seventeen story jail there and all the prisons are filled to overflowing. I have considerable property in the United States which I am willing to sell at any price. If you sell a farm in the United States the purchaser will not farm it; he may raise a few potatoes, but they are no more fit to eat than are green bananas, and I would much prefer a good Irish potato raised here in Canada. We have an example of what the Irish potato has done; look at that good old Irish race. They say the Irishmen did not know how to run their own country, but if you go to any part of the world you will find Irishmen helping to run almost every other country. I was in Louisiana shortly after Governor Long had been elected; he is an Irishman. The amount of money in the United States is perfectly amazing, but we must remember that in order to make that money the United States made a terrible sacrifice of human life. If I had been Stanley Baldwin instead of Billy Baldwin, when the delegation went to the United States to settle the war debt I would have said, " This settlement shall be contingent upon France, Italy, Germany and Russia paying their debts to us; if they default we will default also." Then we would have had the moral support of the United States in collecting those debts. Great Britain has been the greatest colonizing power the world has ever known and has done more for civilization than any other nation. You will remember that in his inaugural speech President Hoover said the United States was a cosmopolitan nation made up of all peoples of the world, but only one nation gave them their language. We know the country to which he referred, and I consider that a great compliment. If we must ape the United States, let us take her best features and leave her worst; then we will make great progress, because that country has a great many splendid things about it, but we should inform our young men and women that if they go to the United States to look for work they have not one chance in fifteen of becoming successful in comparison to the chances they have here in Canada.
Are our fathers and mothers doing their duty in this country? I think not. When I was a boy there was more love of country, more patriotism and more talk of Canada and the British Empire than we hear now. Nowadays everyone is busy trying to make money; 
we are making money, but the man who can make money and still keep his head is rare. Has anyone ever thought just what one good labouring man means to a country? You cannot compute it, so we should make every effort to keep these people, their children and their children's children in this country. My best friends, and those for whom I would do the most, are those who earn their daily bread, who do it cheerfully and make play of their work.


Mr. KAISER:: Who does not earn his
daily bread?


Willis Keith Baldwin: I think there are quite
a number of people in this country who do not earn their bread. Under our present system when a man commits a crime we put him in gaol; while he is there he spends his time thinking up what deviltry he will do when he gets out. I would make every man in gaol work until he would be glad to go to bed; I would treat him fairly well and perhaps pay him something for his work, but a country that keeps its prisoners in idleness makes a great mistake. I undesrtand that prisoners are not now allowed to work and I consider that very wrong; people who are sent to jail should leave after serving their sentences better men and women than when they went to jail. Last year it was proposed to lash a prisoner when he entered gaol and to lash him when he left; would that sort of thing make a good man out of him? These people can be made into good citizens; in the United States the prisoners farm large areas of land, and when these people have served their sentences and return to society they are respected by their neighbours. That is as it should be; I presume there are just as good people in gaol as are out of it.
I have found wonderful Jewish lawyers in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles-


An hon. MEMBER:: And Montreal.


Willis Keith Baldwin: 
An hon. MEMBER:: How much would you pay the Minister of Railways?


Willis Keith Baldwin: I would give him just as much as the rest of the cabinet.
As my time seems to have expired, I supposed I am forced to conclude my remarks.


Mr. A. E. ROSS (Kingston City):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure we have listened to a splendid defence of the Robb budget. At the time that budget was delivered I thought it had some very good points in that it was clear, short and concise, but after our acting leader of the opposition (Mr. Guthrie) analysed it this afternoon I discovered there was something very much wrong with it. I am sure that every member of the house will congratulate the acting leader of the opposition upon his splendid budget criticism. I have heard compliments from both sides of the house and from all groups, on its being one of the best speeches delivered in the house for many, many years. When the acting leader of the opposition had completed his exposition of the government and the members composing it, I felt that we must have some doubt in our minds as to the opinion expressed by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) at the beginning of the session During the early days of the session, when he was reminded that the prosperity of the country was in some measure due to the gifts of a kindly Providenoe, he pointed out that Providence must act through men and governments. He was not willing at all to give the credit to Providence for any part of our prosperity, but according to him it must be due to a combination of "Me und Gott."
I should like to remind the house that Providence is associated in a very peculiar way with this government. For example, one year ago the Prime Minister brought to our notice the case of many aged, dependent citizens of the country and the government introduced a policy of old age pensions. I can hear the Minister of Labour (Mr. Keenan), that kindly hearted Canadian citizen, speaking to the numerous audiences he has addressed and those he will address in the future of the beneficence of the Prime Minister who has so carefully provided, in association with a kindly Providence, for our aged and dependent citizens. But what must the good Providenoe feel like when, at this early date after the passage of that great measure, the Prime Minister pronounces this
778	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Ross (Kingston)
beneficent act coming from this government as a "vicious policy"? This is only one example of the actions of the men in this government with whom Providence has to act. If you want to picture Providence acting with men and governments as the Prime Minister said, picture it acting now through the kindly heart of the Postmaster General (Mr. Yeniot) in a policy of execution of postmasters. Picture Providence cooperating with the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) in his trip of economy through Europe taking along with him a government car and a government chauffeur.


Mr. MANION:: "What have you to say
about it?"


Arthur Edward Ross: I have nothing to
say about it. I am sure he has made the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Elliott) jealous that he cannot visit those places in Europe, for instance, the beautiful resorts of France. If the Minister of Agriculture had taken a government car and made a trip to the Holy Land where he might have been reminded of his sins of past days, I might have found some excuse for his trip with a government car and chauffeur.
On that occasion there was a second statement made by the Prime Minister, namely, that the prosperity was due to the policy brought in by the Robb budget. I have searched for a policy in the budget and even in the address and I can find no statement of a national policy of any kind that this country can build upon or look to with any hope. If there is one I should like to know it. If I were to pick out a policy that would mark this government, I would say that it had a policy of beautification. The government has set about to beautify this capital. I think the object was that people coming to the capital would be able to view from the great confederation square these magnificent buildings, but if one Should go down on that so-called confederation square to-day where there has been so much destruction, and endeavour to get a view of these beautiful buildings, he would have to be cross-eyed to see them. They have beautified the capital of the United States to the extent of about $500,000; they have beautified the capital of Great Britain to the extent of more than a million dollars; they have yet to beautify the capital of Japan and the capital of France. When they get through with that, they will start on a policy of beautification of these great ambassadors of ours. One in Washington is already beautified and we are waiting with some interest to see what the beautiful adornment of

this great minister to Tokyo will be. In fact the only policy of the government is that of a beauty parlour.
Turning to the Robb budget, so-called, as I have said it has merit. It has described in a simple way expenditures and revenues. There is nothing new in that. It has described our public debt. Our leader has dealt with those matters which are of financial importance and I am going to pass them by. It showed that we have a certain amount of prosperity. Everyone will admit that the country is prosperous; it cannot help being prosperous. While I admit there are some merits in the budget, I fail to find in it or the address which has been passed'-because these two things combined should place before us the policy of the government and show us what is intended for the future-any effort on the part of the government to care for the people of Canada. You might say that they constitute rather a failure to provide. I would go further and say that the budget was well named in being called a Robb budget because we find that the result of the several Robb budgets that have been brought down is that they are robbing the country of certain factors we should have.
We can picture the prosperity of Canada. The 'Minister of Finance might well speak of all that the country now has and will have, of its possibilities in the making of a happy and contented people, of the attractions that we have to draw people to it, of the possibilities of establishing and building up great industries, and also of making a happy and contented agricultural people; and yet I can find nothing of that in the budget. The Minister of Finance and every minister on the government benches must admit that in spite of all our prosperity, in spite of all our possibilities, in spite of all that this country has in the way of resources, too many people are leaving Canada. Surely there must be some way to remedy this situation. The report of the United States Commissioner of Immigration shows that last year we lost some 73,963 people to the United States. Of that number we lost from .the province of Quebec 17,963. I can imagine some member of the government rising in his place and answering: Oh, yes, but the number is decreasing year by year. Is that due to any policy of this government? Is it due to any one of the Robb budgets? Not one bit. Let me read to you what the United States Commissioner of Immigration says with respect to this matter:
Immigration from Canada has decreased from year to year since the present quota law became effective July 1, 1924.

The Budget-Mr. Ross (Kingston)
It was in, 1924 that we had the first tinkering with the tariff, and in that year some 200,090 people left this country. But in 1925, following the introduction of the United States visa law, which compelled everyone leaving this country and entering the United States to pay $8 per head, there was a decrease, and no wonder; but it was not due to any policy which this government had put in force; it was due to the law which the United States government had put into effect to prevent the great flow of people across the line from this country resulting from the policies initiated and brought into force by this government.
There are other factors connected with the immigration from this country of 73,000 people which are more important still, and which show that the successive Robb budgets are continually robbing us of something which cannot be measured in dollars and cents. Of the
73,000	who left this country, 11,009 were under sixteen years of age; 17,045 were between sixteen and twenty-one years; 21,000 were between twenty-two and twenty-nine; 10,000 were between thirty and thirty-seven; 5,000 between thirty-eight and forty-four; 8,000 between forty-five and fifty-five. In other words we are losing to the United States the best that this country produces, the young people; for of this 73,000 we find that 28,000 were under the age of twenty-one. So perhaps the Robb budget is well named, because we are losing our most valuable assets, the young people of this country.
The budgets that we have had for the last three or four years also show that we are acting in a very unreasonable way in another respect. I should like to draw the attention of the house to a few facts regarding our imports and exports; and by the way, I am shortening my remarks on this phase because our leader dealt so ably with this subject this afternoon. Here are a few facts I have taken from the trade reports of this country, from which we can assuredly draw some useful lessons; and I am going to put them to the house in a way that appears interesting to me. In 1927 there were imported into this country $12,160,529 worth of engines, boilers and locomotives. No one will deny that we can and do manufacture these articles in Canada, yet we imported them in 1927 to the amount I have stated. If these figures of importation were continually decreasing we might say that the government was doing something, but on the contrary our imports are constantly rising. In 1928, engines, boilers and locomotives were imported into this country to the value of $13,559,000. Of rolling mill products-
I am selecting these items because they affect very considerably the small cities and towns along our frontier-we imported in 1927, 834,000,000; 1928, $44,000,000; tools, 1927, $1,800,000; 192,8, $2,238,000; wool and its products, an article that should not be found in our imports, in 1927, $34,000,000 and in 1928, $38,000,000 worth; of textile products, in 1927, $14,000,000; in 1928, $15,000,000; milk and its products, in 1927, $2,700,000; 1928, $3,194,000 worth.
Now, turning to the other side, what do we find in the way of exports of similar goods? In 1927 we exported $8,700,000 worth of textiles, and in 1928, $7,600,000 worth; of animal products, in 1927, $128,000,000; 1928, $126,000,000; of rolling mills products, 1927, $1,- 600,000; 1928, $862,000; of farm machinery and implements, 1927, $11,000,000; 1928, $10,000,000.
Under the policies that have been brought into force by this government you will notice that in each one of these lines our imports are increasing each year and our exports decreasing. Surely the lesson is plain. Placing these import and export figures side by side, we see that during the life of this government our imports under the Robb budgets have been increasing each year, and our exports decreasing. What does that mean? It means less work in Canada and more work in the United States and other countries; and it is for these reasons that our young people, the working people of this country, are leaving for the United States, as many of them as can pay their $8 head tax and get out.
Three years ago I followed this same line and I pointed to information given to me by experienced superintendents of factories and experienced workmen to the effect that if we manufactured in this country, as we could, the goods we are importing, there would be work for 74,000 more people in this country. Based on the ordinary family we would have in the neighbourhood of three hundred thousand more people if a different policy had been adopted. Now with the increase that is taking place I am satisfied that we would have four hundred thousand more people working here under those circumstances.
I go still further. Since the introduction of the Robb budget and the treaties that followed we are affected in a similar way along other lines. To-day our leader gave figures of the importations of Australian and New Zealand butter. I am not going to deal with the subject because others better qualified to speak from the agricultural point of view will discuss it; but I want to point out to the government something that is taking
780	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Ross (Kingston)
place at the present time. Last year and the year before you could go into any grocery store in this and other cities and towns and buy over the counter Australian and New Zealand butter. To-day if a member of this house went to any of those stores and asked for a pound of Australian or New Zealand butter he would be told there was none available. But you can buy butter at those stores which I am told any person who has had experience can detect at once to be New Zealand or Australian butter. An injustice is being done our dairy farmers, and I should like the Minister of Agriculture to solve the mystery. Undoubtedly a double robbery is taking place: the agriculturist is robbed of his home market, which he is entitled to; and, if what I suspect is going on, the consumer also is being robbed, for he is paying from three to four cents a pound more for that mislabelled butter than if it were sold for what it really is-New Zealand butter. Notwithstanding this apparent absence of Australian and New Zealand butter our importations are increasing. I think this should engage the attention of the Minister of Agriculture and his colleagues.
By way of emphasizing and demonstrating the fact that the government are providing work for our friends across the line to the detriment of Canadian interests, I desire to bring to their attention a matter which is very generally discussed among those engaged in shipping on the great lakes. As is well known, our coastal law prevents American boats trading between Canadian ports, but by order in council they have been allowed to unload their cargo at a Canadian port provided they do not return to the Canadian head of the lakes for a second cargo. Nevertheless they have evaded the law and returned with another cargo. This has been drawn to the attention of the government for some time, and the lack of any action on their part forces one to tlhe conclusion that, in a way, they favour American interests to the detriment of Canadian. During the past summer it was repeatedly drawn to the attention of the government that American boats were unloading grain and returning to the Canadian read of the lakes for a second cargo. If this was a matter of urgency and expediency, well and good; but it is not. This practice works to the detriment of Canadian labour and Canadian shipping interests. When the government could give no satisfactory answer as to whether or not this practice was to continue, I sent the following telegram to the Commissioner of Customs at Ottawa: 
Understand United States vessels loading storage cargoes of grain at Canadian ports under order in council 1599 and have unloaded at Canadian ports in Georgian bay and at Port Colborne, and returned for second cargo at Canadian head of lakes. Will you please state whether this is done in violation of the statute and order in council, or whether special permission was given, and iif so whether given by further order in council. Vessels named so far are Berwind and Charles Hutchinson, but others are following. Please telegraph and confirm with full particulars.
In reply I received the following telegram:
Order in council provide that certain vessels may load grain for winter storage and unload such cargo at Canadian or United States port on resumption of navigation next spring, or unload at shipper's option at any such ports on or before opening of navigation next year. There is reasonable ground for the shippers to believe that the provisions of the order in council have not been violated.
Again we telegraphed that this practice was going on to the disadvantage of Canadian shippers, Canadian working men and Canadian homes. What was the answer? I ask hon. members to pay attention to this telegram from the Commissioner of Customs:
Order in council was not passed on recommendation of minister of this department, and the department considers order in council permitted action which has taken place.
Does this mean that this divinely chosen body of administrators are not acting in cooperation, that the minister of one department can have an order in council passed which will violate the principles of another department, or that one minister is not in touch with his colleagues? The whole procedure savours of favoritism to our friends to the south, to the disadvantage of Canadian commercial interests. It may be that the government has a sufficient answer, but in the meantime commercial interests have suffered, not only for one season but for several, and Canadian bottoms which are doing their best to give a satisfactory service are being discriminated against in favour of American boats.


Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):: Is my friend
objecting to American boats carrying Canadian grain?


Arthur Edward Ross: Not at all. The hon. member does not get the point.


James Malcolm: They load for winter
storage.


Arthur Edward Ross: I think the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) understands.

The Budget-Mr. Ross (Kingston)


James Malcolm: If I may interrupt-I think my hon. friend will admit that the practice has been carried on for a great many years; it is not new at all.


Arthur Edward Ross: We have asked for the new order in council permitting it, if there is any. It has been drawn to the attention of the government not once but many times. If the practice has been carried on for a great many years, surely the minister will admit that it is time to stop it.


James Malcolm: I admit that what the hon. member says is quite true. It is a very old practice each fall for the shippers of grain to request the privilege of allowing American bottoms to store winter grain. Permission has always been granted by special order in council each fall. I agree with my hon. friend that Canadian shipping men have almost every year of which I have found a record protested as my hon. friend is protesting to-night. I have no objection to the protest. It is only a question of judgment whether it is wise to continue to allow that winter storage.


Arthur Edward Ross: Again I would ask the minister to note that it is not a matter of storage; we are agreed on that. We let them all come in and bring their grain. The minister knows as well as I do, however, that it is a violation of the law for these boats to go back and get another cargo. There is where the Canadian law is violated.


Robert James Manion: After unloading in a Canadian port.


Arthur Edward Ross: Yes; the minister knows that.


James Malcolm: I had not known of the
violation; I am free to admit that.


Robert James Manion: It happened last year.


Arthur Edward Ross: These telegrams-


James Malcolm: I think my hon. friend will believe me when I say that this is the first I have heard of it.


Arthur Edward Ross: I cannot understand it. If this is a divinely chosen body cooperating with Providence, as the Prime Minister tells us, to produce prosperity in this country, and they do not know after a dozen telegrams or so, then I do not know how much we can assign to Providence and how much to the men in the government.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Ninety-nine and a half
per cent.


James Malcolm: Make it three-quarters.


Arthur Edward Ross: I have endeavoured to bring forward some new matters and I have gone into a fairly complete analysis of them. But let me say this before I sit down. While we say that the budget has done some good, we contend that there is displayed in the budget and in the policy of the government a total disregard for the development of this country. There is a total want of care or interest in providing work in this country, and I have shown that if we were to adopt a policy of the kind I have indicated we could save millions and have a greater population. In the budget which has been brought down one cannot help feeling just as our good friend from Stanstead (Mr. Baldwin) feels, in treating things: why take a little bit of a bite? The governement have made out of this sales tax now enough money to represent all the reduction in the debt. If the sales tax had been properly administered, if it had been properly arranged, it would have been a good thing. It was intended that the sales tax should guard against an excessive expenditure of money in this country. But it has not been administered along that line; it has not been used for that purpose. And the government, I repeat, have already made out of the sales tax enough money to equal every bit of surplus they have had in the past. The time has come, therefore, when this parliament should take a firm stand and say that instead of taking off a cent or half a cent or a quarter the government should abolish the sales tax.
The government have merely taken off two or three little things that they themselves put on. They put on these extra nuisance taxes. They criticized the old sales tax, but when they came in they imposed a heavier sales tax. Now the time has come, I say, when instead of taking off that little bit we should insist that the Minister of Finance abolish the whole thing and throw it into the scrap can.
There is another feature in which there is unfair treatment. The government have made a great ado about changes in postage. Sometimes these changes are put through in the budget and sometimes by order of the Great Executioner. At any rate, they are little bits of things. But the minister is yet holding over the cities that little war tax on postage, and I think the time has now come when he should decide to put back the postage in the city to what it was in pre-war days, just as it is in all other parts of Canada.
It seems to me that this budget, or any other budget, should pronounce some definite policy of debt reduction. I believe the Minister of Finance, in regard to interest and refunding, got his only hint from the speech
782	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Ross (Kingston)
-the only constructive speech-delivered by the hon. member for Toronto East Centre (Mr. Matthews). Following that speech there was a little bit of refunding and saving of interest, and if the minister went a little further and listened to another speech from the same hon. gentleman he might come back with some definite policy of debt reduction.
I submit further that the next budget should be a fair budget; it should not be a onesided budget. It should set forth our railway financing. Whether it is a debt on the country or whether it is not, it should be shown in the budget and not be hidden, leading us to believe that we are saving a lot of money and getting out of debt when as a matter of fact, according to the interpretation given by some of our financial position, we are not. These are some suggestions which I should like to see taken into account.
Again, between the address and the budget we should now have got down to some stated immigration policy. This government, since it has come into power, has had twenty immigration policies. And has it completed any one of them? What the policy is to-day no one knows. We are going along in a bog and fog and nobody knows. At one time we are told that no obstacle is placed in the way of our blood relations coming from Great Britain; but let one of these fellows offer to come here and he has to go to a great deal of trouble, answer a great many questions, fill in a number of forms, and pass medical examinations which in my opinion are an insult to the medical profession of Great Britain. It is an insult to them that we should send our medical men over there, as much as to say that they could not do the work properly. If the roster doctors whom we had before were given distinct instructions from the department, they could do the work. At any rate, there are still obstacles in the way to anyone from Great Britain who can pay his way to Canada.
I submit therefore, that we should have a well defined policy laid down by this government. But what have they done? We hear a lot about status, ambassadorial pilgrimages, appointments and so forth. But what have we in the way of a straight agricultural policy? The Minister of Agriculture made a very delightful trip over to France. May I tell him something in the way of economy as practised over there? I should like him to have looted over conditions in France. Had he done so he would have found that the Department of Agriculture in that country looks after its people. Wherever they find
[Mr. A. E. Ross.l
over-production in any commodity they immediately go into the raising of something else. It seems to me it is a good thing that the Prime Minister never put into practice to the full extent the promise he made this country that free potatoes would be brought in. What a calamity .that would have been to the province of the Postmaster General, where potatoes are selling to-day at thirty cents a bag. In France, had the minister studied the situation there, he would have found a department of agriculture which is an adviser and a parent to the agricultural people of that country, keeping them in touch with conditions, advising them what to raise and how to dispose of their surplus. But in this country there is no policy of any sort along the lines of agriculture.
On motion of Mr. Manaon the debate was adjourned.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Friday, March 8, 1929