1929-05-16

[Stage Direction]
Seventh report of the select standing committee on banking and commerce.-Mr. Hay.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: I beg to table the correspondence between the governments of the United States and Canada with respect to the clearance of vessels carrying shipments of liquor to United States ports. This includes the report of the anti-smuggling conference held in Ottawa in January of this year.



QUESTIONS

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(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. WOODSWORTH:: 1.	Has the Minister of Finance refused to permit the banks to ship gold to the United States?
2.	If so, under what authority?
3.	Would it take sixty million dollars to bring the Canadian exchange back to parity?
4.	Is there sixty million dollars in gold in the central gold reserve?
5.	Why did the department change its form of statement of ''Circulation and Specie" as of the date of December 31st, 1928?
6.	Was the reserve ratio 55.3 or 28.4 as of March 31, 1929?
7.	Can Dominion notes including "legals" be redeemed in gold?
8.	If not, are we then on a gold basis?


Hon. Mr. ROBB:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered by 1.
[The Chairman.}
3.	To determine any definite amount is impossible, as exchange rates vary according to demand and supply, the extent of which is not known in advance by any financial institution.
4.	The Dominion treasury holds $61,600,304 in gold; the banks have $16,630,866 of gold in the central gold reserves and, according to last bank statement, hold in addition in their own vaults in Canada, some $40,000,000 in gold.
5.	The change was one of arrangement only to show separately notes issued under the Dominion Notes Act against gold reserves and notes issued under other authority against securities. In practice, notes outstanding against securities under the Finance Act are not utilized as a call for gold.
6.	The ratio of gold to notes issued against gold deposits was 55.3 per cent at March 31st, 1929.
7.	Yes.
8.	Answered by 7.


WESTERN POSTAL EMPLOYEES
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On the order being called for the third reading of Bill No. 252, respecting certain employees of the postal or railway mail service of Canada-Hon. P. J. Veniot (Postmaster General):
Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition):: When this matter was under discussion in the house certain information was to be furnished to me in order that I might be able to ascertain exactly what amount of money was involved. That information the Postmaster General (Mr. Veniot) now tells me became available only to-day, and I should like an opportunity to study the effect of this measure upon the employees in question before the motion for the third reading is put. Might I ask that the bill stand until to-morrow?


Hon. P. J. VENIOT (Postmaster General):: Yes. Stand.



WAYS AND MEANS


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Hon. J. A. ROBB (Minister of Finance) moved concurrence in 'the resolutions adopted in the committee of ways and means respecting the War Revenue Act.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I have to move an amendment to the motion, as follows:

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That all the words after the word "that" in the motion be struck out and the following added thereto:
the said resolution be resubmitted to the com-mdtee of the whole with instructions to amend the same by striking out section 4 thereof.
Section 4 of the resolution deals with the tax imposed on the transfer of mining and other shares. This tax whs originally enacted in 1920. It was essentially a war measure. As matters now stand, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Roibb) has indicated that he has a very substantial surplus. This tax in its operation is unjust, inequitable and unfair. In addition it is a tax that is essentially imposed upon provincial resources. The Dominion succeeds in obtaining an income tax from provincial companies operating in the development of the resources of the provinces, and this tax imposed upon the transfer of shares is a form of taxation that in my opinion should be left wholly available to the provinces. It should not be a tax resorted to by the Dominion at all. It is double taxation. It imposes a tax on industry; it retards development; it is unjust and inequitable in its operation, as indicated by many hon. members of this house; it is a tax which I think cannot be defended. It is for that reason, sir, that without making any extended address to the house at this time I move this amendment at the first available opportunity, before the resolution is finally adopted by the house.


Hon. J. A. ROBB (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is quite right in saying the tax was first introduced under the special War Revenue Act assented1 to on July 1, 1920. It was amended in 1922. It is well that the house and the country should understand at once what my hon. friend is proposing by this amendment. I imagine there has never been a time within recent years when there was so much speculating on the stock exchanges throughout the country as there has been during the past year. I submit there is a general feeling all over the Dominion that the national treasury might very well profit somewhat by this speculation. If a man is disposed to take a gamble on the market and risk his money, is it not reasonable to suppose that he might at least put a little of it in the national treasury to take care of the obligations of the country? My hon. friend now proposes to wipe out this tax entirely because a few people have objected to a certain readjustment of the taxation on the transfer of mining shares. Well, the revenue from this source is only a penny's worth compared with the revenue we get from these special taxes. Although there has been so much speculating on some of the stock
exchanges where they deal largely in these mining shares, the revenue we have been getting from the business is very small, and the revenue we will receive under t'he revised taxation will be comparatively very small.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is the reason- we
want to wipe it out.


James Alexander Robb: On transfers of shares and
bonds of every kind, good, bad and indifferent, the total revenue received in 1926-27 was $282,576.50. We improved considerably on that in 1927-28, when we received $615,354. Where did these taxes come from? They did not come from the province of British Columbia, where there is a great mining area, because the records show that in 1926-27 all we received from the Vancouver stock exchange was $1,672.32. In 1927-28 we received from the same source $7,263.44. W'hat did we get from the Toronto Standard mining exchange? In 1926-27 we received $47, 393.01.


Mr. MANION:: But the Toronto mining
exchange deals in British Columbia shares too.


James Alexander Robb: Possibly. Does that make it any better?


Robert James Manion: No, but the minister said
he did' not get much from British Columbia.


James Alexander Robb: Well, let us add the two together. All we received was $47,393 from the Toronto Standard exchange and $1,672.32 from the Vancouver stock exchange for 1926-27. It is true that in 1927-28 we received $121,114.70 from the Toronto Standard mining exchange and $7,263.44 from the Vancouver stock exchange. But we received from the Montreal stock exchange in 1927-28, $280061.57, and from the Toronto stock exchange, $132,756.60. I am sure my hon. friend has not considered this or he would not move an amendment to strike out this tax in toto, simply because some people who wish to speculate in mining shares abject to the tax.
In the debate the other day the complaint was largely on the ground that what are called "penny" -stocks-the lower priced stocks- would be unfairly discriminated against. Now under this taxation in its amended form if a man wants to take a flyer in the market and buys a thousand shares at 50 cents or less, it will cost him only a dollar. But to save him that dollar my hon. friend proposes to wipe out the tax on a thousand shares at $100 each from which we would receive $40. I submit to my hon. friend that this is not very good economics. No person who wants to speculate in a thousand shares
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at 50 cents or less is injured if he has to pay a tax of one dollar. If he is ready to take a gamble of that kind, surely he should not object to putting a dollar in the national treasury.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Perhaps the minister
does not mind if I ask him a question?


James Alexander Robb: Oh no.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I suppose he is aware that all the provinces are taxing these transfers of shares. My objection goes essentially to that feature, that it is their business, and as they impose these taxes we should not be duplicating that form of taxation. We did it for the first time right after the war. I say it is a war measure that should now disappear so that we may let the provinces have the field to themselves.


James Alexander Robb: But the provinces are only taxing these mining and oil shares.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Oh no.


James Alexander Robb: You are right, they do tax the others.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: Not all of them.


James Alexander Robb: The provinces of Quebec and Ontario do.


Ernest Lapointe: I do not think all the
provinces do.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think so.


James Alexander Robb: Yes. The time may come when we should have a readjustment between provincial and federal taxation, but meanwhile I ask, is it good judgment on the part of the hon. leader of the opposition, in order to save the purchaser of one thousand 50 cent shares one dollar in taxation, to wipe out a tax that we hope will give us at least as much as it did last year, when we collected $615,000.


Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Vancouver Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the reply of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) meets the case at all. He selects one item and indicates that there is to be a loss of revenue. He has already stated that the revenue at present is not a serious matter, that is, the total for 1927-28 was, I think, $615,000. What is it that the minister proposes to do? I think the house should get this clearly in its mind. He is repealing a stamp tax which was launched during the period immediately following the war when this country was put to extremes in order to get further revenue for unexpected and new expenditures arising out of the war.


James Alexander Robb: The problem still exists.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Since that time the minister has come to the house year after year boasting of increases in revenues. Here is an item which is producing a revenue of between six and seven hundred thousand dollars. He is promising to wipe that out and substitute for it a very onerous tax

not simply a stamp tax on documents, that is what it amounted to before, but a tax on property, because it is the exchange of property, that he is now taxing. Our contention is that, as applicable to mining, this proposal aims a serious blow at the development of this national, basic, industry. It will affect mining, not because it is a stamp tax but because it is an actual tax upon property, that is the share ownership in mines.
Now, this year the government has refused to assist two very important requirements of the people; one, technical education, and the other, the extension of the good roads system. In connection with the mining industry of Canada, in practically every province, particularly in northern Ontario, northern Quebec, northern Manitoba and British Columbia, the provincial governments are being called upon, I venture to say, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for roadways and other facilities in these new mining districts. The government have refused this session to give any assistance to the provinces in the matter of new highways-absolutely refused it. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) indicated that he considered a contribution of that kind to the provinces to be a vicious principle; he will not charge me with misquoting him in attributing that phrase to him. I say, they have absolutely refused to give any assistance in that direction. And now the minister says that he will tax the mining industry and obtain a large revenue therefrom.


James Alexander Robb: Not the mining industry.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Well, that is where we
differ. The minister is making a distinct change in principle in this tax. He is repealing a section which is essentially a stamp tax. I have already pointed this out, but the minister does not realize the seriousness of it: he is repealing what is essentially a stamp tax, an ordinary stamp upon documents. That is what he has in the existing law, and he is substituting for it a heavy, an onerous tax; it is undoubtedly an onerous tax. My hon. friend from South Timiskaming (Mr. Lang), my hon. friend from West York (Mr. Lawson), my hon. friend from Fort William (Mr. Manion) and one or two other hon. gentlemen

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have produced figures that are incontrovertible, showing clearly that in many cases the new proposal will render business impossible. I venture to say that the outcome of this will be, if it goes into force even after the amendment the minister introduced the other day, that mining concerns will have to abandon the issue of low priced stocks-that is, stocks at five and ten cents a share, which is the basis on which the mining industry in this country has been built. There is no use in our talking about stopping speculation; this will not seriously affect speculation in stocks in a large way, although it will affect speculation in the cheaper or penny' stocks. In other words, it will largely deprive the mining industry' of Canada of the opportunity to secure capital to carry on its operations.
The other day the minister was impressed, I think, with the arguments, particularly of the hon. members whom I have mentioned, in xhe presentation of the subject; the hon. member for South Timiskaming in particular went into the matter carefully. But the minister is persisting. I have tried to discover a motive and I think I have found it. The minister proposes to impose this onerous tax this year and to put it into force, and he will come to the house next year anid cut the tax down to half or a quarter, or wipe it out, and then tell the people how he is reducing taxation. That is the only excuse for his putting on this tax; there seems to be no other. The Minister of Immigration (Mr. Forke) applauds that; he says "That's fine." He endorses it.


Mr. JACOBS:: Does not my hon. friend
think, as a veteran politician, that that is good politics?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I think it is rotten politics; I think it is disgraceful politics. The minister has done this in regard to the sales tax and lias pot away with it. He raised the sales tax from 3 to 4 and to 6 per cent, and then he lowered it gradually to 2 per cent, and every year he took full credit for the reduction. He intends this year to increase the present tax to a degree which is not warranted and which he knows is not warranted and he will come back next year and cut the tax down and tell the people of the mining districts how he is reducing taxation. He will tell my hon. friend from South Timiskaming, "It is all right; there is no election this year, but next year there is an election and I will cut the tax down."


An hon. MEMBER:: That is right.


Henry Herbert Stevens: An hon. gentleman says
that is right; I am glad they are endorsing
it. My hon. friend from South Timiskaming spoke most effectively on this question the other day. We had not heard his voice in the house before but we were glad to hear it then. He made an incontrovertible case- what for? For the new mining district of northern Ontario. Now I had a wire-I am sorry it is not here-which reached me the other day from Vancouver, urging me strongly to oppose tliis proposal, not because the people there were opposed to paying a fair tax on the transfer of stocks; not at all. The people there have never squealed at reasonable taxation. But my correspondent points out actual cases on the stock exchange in Vancouver where an individual sells a small block of cheap shares, and under this proposal, after paying the tax, he will have very little left and in fact will incur an actual loss on the transaction.


James Alexander Robb: Right there, will my hon.
friend say that $1 per 1.000 shares is unreasonable?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I say that SI per 1,000
shares at 5 cents a share is too much. One dollar per 1,000 at 50 cents a share is not too bad, but it is the 5 cent shares I am discussing particularly. On this the tax will amount to 2 per cent. Will any hon. gentleman say that is a fair tax on a transaction of that character-a tax of 2 per cent? Will anyone say that is fair in a transaction which is taxed both ways? That sale having gone through, the moment a transfer is made again another tax is levied, and so on. Moreover, there is the provincial tax with commission on top of that. It makes the transaction impossible. And our contention is that the minister has no right to invade that field. The minister asks me whether I think this tax on 1,000 shares at 50 cents is too much. But that is the maximum of that class. Come down to the 5 cent shares and it is shown conclusively that the tax is utterly unreasonable. And some of the best mines in this country-Teck Hughes is one-were financed in their early stages on the 5 cent basis. The minister proposes a tax of 2 per cent on 5 cent shares, but that is not the whole story. Assume that this share is sold three or four times in the year: that means 10 per cent. And so you might go on through the various transactions.
The minister is wrong in his conception of this matter. The tax is exceedingly onerous. The very question which the minister asks me shows that the tax is unfair, because the man who sells shares of the 50 cent class pays exactly the same as t'he man who sells at 5 cents. That is the unfairness of it. One is a $50 transaction and the other a $5 trans-
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action; yet they pay the same tax. If it were fair and equitable the man who sold at 5 cents would not pay the same as the man selling at 50 cents. Take comparisons in a score of different classifications and you find that in every one of these classifications there is a spread which is utterly unfair. I am reminded too of this-it has been pointed out before: 1,000 shares of Noranda at $54 represents $54,000, with a $30 tax. Does not the minister see 'how unfair the tax is?
I come back to the point from which I started:	We are repealing a stamp tax involving a small charge of 3 cents or something like that on the transfer of certain documents. I am not saying that this is entirely equitable, but it is a stamp tax applying to the exchange of documents. But this is a tax on the exchange of property, namely, shares in mines. It might be any other property; it does not matter; we are speaking of mines because that is our chief activity. I submit again that it is utterly unfair; it is a tax that Should not be added to Dominion taxation.
The minister has boasted of his $60,000,000 surplus this year; yet he is now increasing a tax which last produced1 some $600,000, and increasing it to such a degree that it will actually run into millions. There is no doubt that it will run into several millions. That is not the way to impose taxation in a country where the Minister of Finance boasts of his surpluses. If you have a surplus of revenue the proper thing to do is to budget so that your revenue and expenditure shall balance, with a fairly safe margin on the revenue side. That is proper budgeting. But in a country like this it is not the proper thing to budget for huge surpluses. Certainly a surplus is always welcome, but it is not proper to budget for surpluses. That is what the minister is doing, and I think we are warranted in opposing this measure and in asking the support of the house for the deletion of section 4 from the resolution.


Mr. HEAPS:: Before my hon. friend takes his seat, could he inform the house what taxes are imposed on the sale of shares?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I could not say exactly.
There is a tax on the sale; there is a tax on the purchase by the stockbroker in the stock exchange; there is a provincial tax, which is a perfectly proper tax, on the transfer of shares, and there is this tax which the minister is now seeking to impose.


Mr. ADSHEAD:: Is there any tax on shares when they are first, sold?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Under the present law the first issue is not taxed; if the first issue is handed to a broker and distributed by him to other brokers there is no tax, but when the stock leaves the broker and goes to the purchaser there is a tax.


Mr. MALCOLM LANG (South Timiska-ming):: Mr. Speaker, for a few moments I
wish to deal with the figures given the house the other evening by the Minister of Finance, when he was showing how the proposed tax would work out in creating revenue. As an illustration the minister took the figures from one particular day's sales on the Standard stock exchange in Toronto. On that day there were sold 324.900 shares valued at from one cent to fifty cents per share, with an estimated total value of $81,225. Under the present proposal the tax on the sale of those shares would amount to $324.90. Then there were 186,500 shares sold valued at from fifty cents to $1 per share, and under the present proposal the tax collected on that sale would be $466.25. There were sold 114,900 shares over $1 per share and under $3, on which the tax would amount to $1,149; there were 150,900 shares valued at over $3 but not over $20, on which the proposed tax would amount to $3,018, and his last figures were 29,300 shares valued at over $20 and under $100, upon which the proposed tax would amount to $879.
Just for a moment I would like to compare as fairly as I can the tax which it is now proposed to collect on the sale of these shares with the tax which would be collected if we had an ad valorem tax, which is the only fair tax if we must have any at all. On the day taken by the minister 324,900 shares of stock were sold at from one cent to fifty cents per share. I am going to average those shares at twenty-five cents each, and in so doing I am being more than fair to the minister, because if he will look over the records he will find that in the cheaper stocks the majority sell for from ten to twenty cents per share and then the price goes up to over fifty cents. However, we will take the medium price of twenty-five cents per share and see what tax would be collected at the rate of three-twentieths of one per cent, or fifteen cents on each $100 worth of sales. Just here I might explain, how I arrive at the rate of three-twentieths of one per cent. According to the figures given by the minister the total selling price of the shares dealt in that day was $3,886,800, and under the proposed tax the revenue would amount to $5,837.15. If you divide the amount collected into the amount of the sales you get the figure of three-twentieths of

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one per cent on the value or fifteen cents on every $100 worth of shares sold, or in other words just five times the old tax which has been in force ever since 1922. That is, it would be five times the old tax of three cents on every $100 of value if that had been collected as an ad valorem tax on all the sales, but as I showed the other night that was not the case. That tax was only collected on a few of the shares and always on the lower priced stock, so that really for the last seven years the revenue under this tax has been derived mainly from the low priced stocks, and that principle will be continued under the proposed tax, as I intend to show; these low priced stocks will continue to bear the heavy load all the time, instead of that load being equally divided over all issues.
As I have already pointed out, on the 324,900 shares valued at from one cent to fifty cents per share there would1 be collected $324.90, under the present proposal. Taking an average price of twenty-five * cents per share, the sale price of these shares would be $81,225, and a tax of fifteen cents per $100 of valuation would bring in only $121 in revenue. In other words, on this first item under the present proposal the minister would collect two and a half times as much as would be collected under an ad valorem tax. Then his next figures were for stocks valued at fifty cents to one dollar, and 186,500 shares of this stock passed over the exchange on the day he took as an example. At an average price of seventy-five cents a share the total sales price of these shares would be $139,875. Under the proposed tax the revenue from those shares would amount to $466.25, while under an ad valorem tax of fifteen cents per $100 of value he would collect only $210. Then we come to the next class, 114,900 shares valued at from $1 to $3, and at an average price of $2 per share the total selling price of these shares would be $229,800. Under the proposed tax he would collect on the sale of those shares $1,149; with an ad valorem tax of 15 cents per $100, the revenue received would be $345.
The next transaction mentioned by the minister was 150,900 shares at over $3 and under $20 per share. I took an average of $11 per share as being the fair price between those two figures. A sale of 150,900 shares at $11 per share would amount to $1,659,900. Under the proposed tax the revenue would be $3,018 and under an ad valorem tax it would amount to $2,490. In that case an ad valorem tax of 15 cents on $100 would be getting off a little cheaper than under the proposed tax.
The next transaction mentioned was 29,300 shares at over $20 and under $100 per share. I took an average price of $60 per share, which makes the value of the transaction $1,758,000. Under the proposed tax the revenue would be $879 while the ad valorem tax would return a revenue Of $2,637. The revenue is only about one-third of what it would be with the ad valorem tax while on the cheaper shares the present tax will bring in a revenue of between two or four times the amount which would be received with the ad valorem tax. There is not a vestige of fairness in .imposing taxation such as this. I cannot see how anyone would have the effrontery to attempt to justify such an unfair tax. It may be to a lesseir degree, but nevertheless it is continuing along the old line of taxing the smaller man ait a higher rate than the tax imposed upon the big man. There is no justification for it and I cannot understand why the Minister of Finance insists upon trying to impose this tax. I would like t'o quote from the remarks of the Minister of Finance which he made the other evening in an attempt to justify the tax upon the speculative stocks, as he called them. As appears on page 2454 of Hansard, the minister said:
As soon as they begin speculating then certainly th,e nation has a right to take'some share of the profits. If I were representing a mining section of the country I might take a onesided view of the matter. But this is in the interests , of the mining industry, and in support of that statement I shall quote the opinion of the Northern Miner.
I will give that quotation later, but at present I desire to deal with the minister's first statement. I do not agree with the minister because whether you call it speculating or gambling, if there were n,ot people who were optimistic enough to speculate-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Take a chance.


Malcolm Lang: -in an endeavour to bring forth the treasures from the mineral lands of this country, then there would be no mining production or mineral development. This tax is being imposed upon the 'prospectors. They are the first ones to speculate or gamble; they speculate not only with the ferw dollars which they have, but they gamble with their time and with their energy; they risk their health and everything else in an attempt to bring about the mineral development of this Canadian nation. Such a statement as that made by the minister is entirely unfair to the people who are doing the pioneer work for this great industry.
If a tax is to be imposed it should not bear too heavily on those who take the risk of
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the initial speculation, the first gamble, which must precede any real development of our mineral resources.
I will continue with the quotations made by the bon. minister from the Northern Miner. As every hon. member of this house knows, that paper is one of the most reputable mining journals which we have in Canada. The Journal was first published in Cobalt during the early days of mining in that section of the country, and continued to be published there until a few weeks ago when it was moved to Toronto. This quotation which the minister read was apparently from an editorial published during the early part of this year, and is as follows:
While the business of company promotion l>3' brokers has lagged lately, reducing the prospector's claim market, fortunately he has never been in such good position to sell first-class discoveries. Dozens of big mining organizations will listen eagerly to his story if he has a good one to tell, and will send engineers hopping by plane to examine. If his show stands up money is waiting, on the nail. Fasy going, long distance deals are completely out of fashion. The prospeotor can get quick action if he is willing to deal with the big companies.
Competition for good ground is so keen that he is sure of good terms.
Then it goes on:
On the whole, it has probably been a good thing for everybody that the promotional game has been slack. Buyers have had a chance to catch their breath and promoters a chance to realize and act upon the new conditions.
Then it says:
The public was overloaded with half-baked propositions.
I take no exception at all to the minister having quoted that editorial to the house. If you take into consideration the time at which the editorial was written, it is a perfectly fair one and I agree with it in every respect. If I do not miss my guess, that editorial was probably written just soon after one of the worst financial disasters happened in connection with one of the oldest and supposed-to-be one of the best-established brokerage firms in the city of Toronto. I have no doubt in the world that editorial was written after that firm suspended operations. That was the Heron Company which closed its doors some time early this year. If the Minister of Finance was looking for something to justify taxing penny stocks in order to keep poor, innocent individuals from being rooked in that sort of game and losing their money, he picked the wrong editorial to support any argument of that kind, because everyone knows to-day that this firm was dealing in one of the high-priced stocks.

betting that the stock was going to go down instead of up, betting probably illegally by going short on International Nickel, one of the best stocks that we have in the country. It was because of that manipulation that the Heron Company had to cease operations, and this caused one of the worst financial disasters that we have had in Canada and a lessening for the time being in the number of people investing in mining stocks. But in my opinion and, I think, in that of every fair-minded man who gives ithe subject any consideration, that only goes to prove again that mistakes are made in the manipulation of high-priced stocks just as in connection with the cheaper stocks. I will leave that editorial by saying simply that if the Minister of Finance thinks so much of the views of the editor of the Northern Miner, I can put his mind at rest at once as to what the editor of that paper thinks about the present proposed tax. He thinks it is absolutely unfair; that it is not fair to the mining industry and particularly to the ones who do the pioneer work and of necessity have to get their money from the cheaper class of stocks. To tax the low-priced stocks more heavily than the higher-priced stocks is, in the opinion of the editor of the Northern Miner, a mistake, no matter who it is made by. The Minister of Finance also said:
The Monetary Times of January II quotes Mr. Norman Urquhart, president of the Standard stock and mining exchange of Toronto, as follows:
And then he gives the quotation. I did not know at the time, but I understand that Mr. Urquhart was one of the gentlemen who were here representing the brokers from Toronto, asking the Minister of Finance not to impose a tax such as this. I am pointing this out just because the minister quotes Mr. Urquhart, and Mr. Urquhart feels that this is not a fair tax and that, it should not be imposed upon the people notwithstanding the statement he made which the minister quoted. Mr. Urquhart's statement is a perfectly fair one coming as it did and when it did. We have had two or three unpleasant incidents in connection with mining this year, and for the life of me I cannot understand how any person could think they could improve conditions by imposing a tax on the people. Nothing bears out such an idea. An incident that happened just shortly before this statement by Mr. Urquhart, one of the Toronto brokers, was in connection with the Jackson-Manion dealings. This caused a flutter in mining circles and among mining investors in this country. Taxing cheap stocks has nothing

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to do with regulating that sort of thing. We have a Companies Act in, Ontario and I expect there are somewhat in all the other provinces similar acts which are supposed to cope with situations of that character, call them "blue-sky" laws if you will. In connection with the Jackson-Manion affair, the managing director and the mine manager are to-day before the courts on a charge of conspiracy or collusion to defraud the investors in that mine. That is all I want to say about that. But it is absurd for anyone to get up before an intelligent body of people and endeavour to leave the impression that by imposing a heavier tax on the smaller-priced stocks, they are going to do anything to make safer the investment of the people who want to put their money into stocks of that kind in order to help mining development in Canada. 1 do not think that is an unfair statement for me to make.
The minister says further:
Then I have another statement made by one of the most prominent bankers in the city ol Toronto, where I suppose more mining shares are sold than in any other city of Canada.
This statement was made by Mr. Bogert. general manager of the Dominion Bank, .in his annual report.
This is a perfectly fair statement by Mr. Bogert, and I have no fault to find with it. It is an optimistic, not a pessimistic statement. It is just what one would expect from the head of a financial institution of that kind. In the paragraph which the minister quoted there is not- one word to lend any colour for any person to think that good would be done by imposing a heavier tax on the sale of shares, and particularly a heavier tax on the sale of the smaller-priced shares than upon the higher-priced.
Then the minister crosses over to England to tell us that they have a graduated scale of taxation on shares. Everyone must and does know that the people of the motherland are carrying a heavier burden of taxation than probably any other people in the world. They are doing that because of the vast obligations which have been staring them in the face ever since the war. I think it would be entirely unfair for any of us in this house to pass any opinion upon the sort of taxation which the British people in their wisdom have imposed upon themselves, and I say again that their taxation has absolutely no bearing upon the case with which we are dealing at the present time.
Before leaving this tax schedule which I made up from the figures which the Minister of Finance himself gave the other evening, I would like to summarize it. The amount of
the sales for the day he quoted was 13,866,800. On that amount, if this tax goes into effect, he would collect $5,837. I worked out what rate of taxation that would represent, and it works out to 15 cents on each $100 of value sold. The old tax that we have had since 1922 and which will remain in force until it is replaced by this new one, if it goes into effect, amounted to 3 cents on every $100, not of value, but of par value, and as was pointed out so well the other evening that tax was collected on only a very small proportion of the total volume of business done. The tax was falling on the small investor all the time, and if this new tax goes into effect it will still be the small investor who will have bo pay the bulk of the taxation. You would think that after this house had looked into the matter and found out that for the last eight years the small investor is the one who has been most heavily taxed, we would now give him a little advantage to make up for the disadvantage which he has been suffering in the past. But no, a new tax is being brought down under which the small investor is going to continue to be taxed at the expense of the few and bigger investors.
Mr. AD8HEAD:	I understand that the
first sale of shares is not taxed, but only succeeding sales. How can the succeeding sales be of any benefit to the mining company?


Malcolm Lang: I will answer that as best I
can. I do not think that it has yet been made absolutely clear to this house that all of the first issue of stock is entirely free from taxation.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: How can succeeding sales benefit the company?


Malcolm Lang: Very often when a new company is formed, some one undertakes the underwriting of a certain amount of the treasury stock. For example, I cited a case the other night of a company selling one million shares at 5 cents a share in order to raise $50,000. On the sale of that stock they would be taxed $1,000 under this proposed tax.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Not on the first transfer.


Malcolm Lang: All right. Whoever underwrites the stock guarantees to the treasury of the company 5 cents a share for that one million shares, in order to raise $50,000 for the company. Then the underwriter sells the stock to the public, and that stock is taxed. That is the way it works out.
Since this proposal was brought down by the Minister of Finance, I have received a letter from British Columbia-I am not
Special War Revenue Act

familiar with conditions there, but the British Columbia members will know whether this is correct or not-stating that in British Columbia, where the mining industry has been undergoing great development in the last year, they raise the money for the initial development pretty nearly all through selling these cheap priced shares to the public, and to a far greater extent than we do in Ontario. .


Mr. CLARK:: Absolutely correct.


Malcolm Lang: That is the information I have. The mining industry in Ontario is older, and we have mining people who have money and have been interested in mining for years who will speculate or gamble on the further development of the minerals of our province, and we do not so often go to the public with cheap priced stocks to raise the initial development money. Probably a syndicate of five or ten men will put up $50,000 or $100,000, after they have had their engineers look over the property and they are satisfied that the geological conditions are such that the property has a chance and may develop into a mine. It is always a gamble in the first instance. I do not care how good a prospect may iook, it is nothing but a gamble, and anyone who has had anything to do with mining knows that. But what is the use of saying, just because it is a gamble and people might lose their money, the government might as well take some of that money because the stockholders might lose it anyway. Is not that an awful argument to put up?


Herbert Bealey Adshead: I did not put it that way. If my hon. friend will permit me,'I bought some oil stock in the Macleod Oil Company some years ago at $1 per share, and the company got 75 cents out of every dollar received from the sale of the shares. They developed a well, and later on I sold the stock for $10 a share. I got $10, but what I want to know is how that benefited the company.


Malcolm Lang: One would need to know all the details of the deal before expressing an opinion. The hon. member benefited all right, and that is the main thing. He gambled and in that case won. In a lot of other cases he might not be so lucky.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Under those circumstances what Objection would there be to the hon. member for East Calgary paying a tax to the government?


Malcolm Lang: If he wants to pay a tax
I do not object, but I say that as long as you tax the cheaper priced stocks more heavily than the higher priced stocks you are

doing something that is absolutely unfair and something that cannot possibly be justified. I said when I was speaking on this matter the other evening that I was not a bit afraid of the minister putting on too high a tax if he made it an ad valorem tax. Let it rest fairly and evenly on all the people who are paying the tax. Let it be a tax on the value of the transaction. That is all I have been asking for. That is why I ventured to work out what this rate of taxation would be over the day's business. It would be just five times what it was before. I do not know what the minister is budgeting for in this tax, I do not know how much money he expects to get from it; he has not told us; but I do feel sure that any person who considers conditions in this country to-day will agree with me that there is not a doubt in the world that an immense volume of business will be traded in this year, so that one can hardly estimate it. Last year on the Toronto stock exchange there was a turnover of $600,000,000 dollars. That is only one of the exchanges. There are also the Montreal, the Calgary, the Winnipeg, the Vancouver and the other stock exchanges throughout the country. Undoubtedly vast developments are going on. There is no doubt there will be ten times that value traded in, and a tax of 15 cents on the $100, an ad valorem rate, would bring into the treasury millions of dollars this year.


Sir GEORGE PERLEY (Argenteuil):: 
John Arthur Clark: Mr. Speaker, fortunately I have before me a record of a day's sales on the Vancouver stock exchange, with the old tax and the proposed tax computed. On this particular day the present tax would be approximately $20. That agrees, I think, with the figures given by the Minister of Finance. Taking a three hundred day year, it would amount to about $6,000. The minister, I think, stated that the tax at present collected is about $7,000. Now, the proposed tax which the minister would collect if the same sales were made on that exchange would be $800.	$800 instead of $20-forty
times the amount. That is quite an appreciable increase in taxation. If I am not mistaken it is 4,000 per cent. Am I correct? Can it be that- the minister 'hopes to increase taxation by 4,000 per cent? Let me give a few concrete examples from the days' sales. Here is a sale where the value of the stock sold was $312.50. The minister proposes to assess a tax on that of $500, or nearly $200 more than the stock actually sold for. The old tax on the same transaction was $3. Of
course, the minister knows that that sale would not be made under such circumstances. That stock would1 go off the market so far as Canada is concerned.


James Alexander Robb: That would not mean the
mine would go off the market.


John Arthur Clark: Yes, and I will show the
minister how that particular mine might go off the market. If that company has unissued stock in its reserve-the only means by which it can secure capital to develop what may be an excellent prospect-it must put that stock on the market. Now, I ask the minister how would he finance the company to enable it to go ahead with its development work? To whom would he sell the shares in the company's reserve? Nobody would buy them. This is the answer to the question of my hon. friend from East Calgary, He asked:	How do the succeeding sales of
shares benefit the mine itself? I will show him. Here is a mine whose stock has depreciated to such an extent that it is selling at 1/16 of a cent a share. That mine may wish to issue treasury Shares to go ahead with development. But who would buy those shares? True, it may be said that if I buy them I will not pay the tax on the purchase from the company. But would I buy them? Would my hon. friend from East Calgary buy them? Certainly not, because he knows he could not sell them again without paying a tax in excess of the value of the shares, and he would not buy such stock, neither would the Minister of Finance. This law would preclude the possibility of that company's refinancing and absolutely put it out of business forever. I wonder how my hon. friend would feel if he had 'paid $1 per share for stock in that company instead of in his successful oil company-if he had paid $1 per share and found that it 'had depreciated to one-sixteenth of a cent per share, and then have the minister pass a law which would preclude him from the possibility of ever retrieving his depleted fortune.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: I have bought some from which I never got anything and never shall.


John Arthur Clark: My hon. friend is a fair
judge, if he is able to purchase shares at $1 and sell at $10 he does not need much information. At any rate, there is a concrete illustration. Of course, that is rather extreme ; nevertheless there are many companies with depleted resources who have to refinance, and in nearly every case the price of the stock is depreciated. The Minister of Finance, by passing this bill, will make it impossible for these companies to refinance.
Special War Revenue Act

Let me give a few more examples. There was a sale of 100 shares of Royalite valued at -S175 a share, or a total value of $17,500. I wonder what my hon. friend from East Calgary (Mr. Adshead) thinks that sale will be taxed if the Minister of Finance passes this bill? It will be taxed $4; whereas the Minister of Finance hopes to collect $500 on a sale which involves $312. Here we have the actual day's sales; this is what transpired in the course of a day's sales on the Vancouver stock exchange. I would point out to the minister that he is collecting under the present tax on that sale of Royalite $5.25. Now to the big man who can afford to purchase high priced stock like Royalite, and which is just- as speculative as any other stock on the market, and perhaps a great deal more so, because it has appreciated in value some 2,000 per cent, the Minister of Finance says, "All right; any of you big speculators who can afford to buy these valuable shares at $175 a share can go ahead. If you have $20,000 to spend in that way I will charge you only $4." But to the little fellow who has only $300 to spend he says, "If I can get it from you, I will charge you $500." That is what the Minister of Finance says, in effect.
Let us go further. Here is a sale of Capitol Oil: the present tax is 6 cents and the proposed tax $10. In the case of Beaver Silver the present tax is 12 cents and the proposed tax $2; while on a sale of Kootenay King the present tax is 39 cents and the proposed tax $5. I do not know whether that belongs to the Minister of National Health (Mr. King). He might be able to help Kootenay King if he would devote his attention to the measure under discussion. Then, take two properties with which no doubt every hon. member is familiar, two mines-Big Missouri and Reeves McDonald. On a sale of Big Missouri of $1,500 value, at $1.50 a share, the present tax is 30 cents, and the Minister of Finance proposes to collect $10. In the case of Reeves McDonald, where the total value is $6,250, at $1.25 a share, the minister collects now SI.89 and he proposes to collect $50. I am going to take this case as a basis of further remarks. I assert that the Minister of Finance will drive practically every new promotion of similar mining companies in British Columbia at least, to Seattle or Spokane in the United States. He will make it impossible for these companies to finance in British Columbia. Reeves McDonald was refinanced and issued some of its treasury shares to the public in the month, I believe, of January

of this year. These shares were issued at $1 each. They are now selling around $1.25 on the Vancouver stock exchange. A sale took place on the day in question of 5,000 shares of Reeves McDonald at $1.25, with a total value of $6,250. The tax thereon is SI .89 as compared with the proposed tax of $50. Now what I assert is this: There is not an hon. member in this house who will buy stocks, where the value is around $5,000, if he has to pay to this country a tax of $50. He will not buy them.


Mr. RALSTON:: Did that stock have a
par value?


John Arthur Clark: One dollar.


James Layton Ralston: How then does my hon.
friend get a tax of $1.89?


John Arthur Clark: The present tax.


James Layton Ralston: I thought my hon. friend said the old tax would be that.


John Arthur Clark: No, the present tax; that
is-


James Layton Ralston: The present tax is 3 cents a share.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Three cents on $100 par
value.


James Layton Ralston: Which is 3 cents a share.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: It could not be 3 cents
a share.


James Layton Ralston: Read section 58.


John Arthur Clark: In any case it is perfectly
clear that, the proposed tax will be $50. Now what will be the effect of that? Will the Minister of Finance tell this house-[DOT]


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is 3 cents on $100.


James Layton Ralston: Read section 58.


George Halsey Perley: Three cents on
every $100 par value.


John Arthur Clark: Then I am correct. I checked up a number of these and found them to be correct and I assumed that they were all correct. I think they are. I should like very much indeed to put the whole statement on Hansard for the information of the Minister of Finance or of any other hon. member of the house, because I think it will be of great value.

Special War Revenue Act
The statement follows:
Snowflake	
Whitewater....
Whitewater....
Grandview	
Golconda	
Mohawk	
Snowflake	
Topley Rich...
Snowflake	
Snowflake	
Snowflake	
Rufus Arg	
Snowflake	
Woodbine	
Woodbine	
Marmot Metals..
Whitewater....
Mohawk	
Mohawk	
Woodbine	
McLeod O	
George Enter__
Woodbine	
Devenish P....
Cotton Belt...
Fabyan Pete...
Topley Rich...
B.C. Mont	
B.C. Mont	
B.C. Mont	
B.C. Mont	
Capitol O	
Home O	
Royalite	
Royalite	
Grandview	
Bowena Copper.
Bay view	
Big Missouri..
Beaver Silver....
Bluebird	
Cork Prov	
Cotton Belt...
George Copp...
Georgia River..
Golconda	
Georgia River.. Independence...
Grandview	
Indian Mines..
Intern. Coal....
Koot. Flor....
Koot. King....
L. & L	
Marmot Gold...
Mohawk	
Morton Wols___
National Silv...
Noble Five....
Premier	
Reeves McD....
Snowflake	
Woodbine	
Whitewater....
Advance O	
A.	P. Cons...
Assoc. Oil....
B.	C. Montana..
British Dom... Commonwealth, Calmont O	
Stock
No. of shares	Price	Value	Proposed tax	Present$ cts.	$ cts.	$ cts.	$ cts.1,000	0 51	510 00	2 50	0 15100	1 80	180 00	1 00	0 03100	1 80	180 00	1 00	0 03300	0 42	126 00	0 20	0 03200	0 89	178 00	0 50	0 065,000	0 41	225 00	5 00	0 39500	0 51	255 00	1 25	0 09200	0 60	120 00	0 50	0 03100	0 52	52 00	0 25	0 0350	0 52	26 00	0 121	0 03500	0 511	257 50	1 25	0 09500	0 271	135 00	0 50	0 15250	0 52	130 00	0 621	0 06500	0 161	82 50	0 50	0 03250	0 161	41 25	0 45	0 031,000	0 091	95 00	1 00	0 15250	1 75	437 50	2 50	0 092,000	0 041	90 00	2 00	0 151,000	0 041	45 00	1 00	0 091,000	0 151	152 50	1 00	0 0650	5 45	272 50	1 00	0 031,000	0 2 11	215 00	1 00	0 151,000	0 161	162 50	1 00	0 06500	0 59	295 00	1 25	0 09100	0 50	50 00	0 25	0 031,000	0 10	100 00	1 00	0 30200	0 61	122 00	0 50	0 0350,000	1-16	31 25	50 00	0 30500,000	1-16	312 50	500 00	3 001,000	1-16	0 621	1 00	0 035,000	1-8	6 25	5 00	0 0310,000	0 01	100 00	10 00	0 06100	23 00	2,300 00	3 00	0 03100	175 00	17,500 00	4 00	5 2550	175 00	8,750 00	2 00	2 6410,000	0 40	4,000 00	10 00	1 50300	0 101	31 50	0 30	0 091,000	0 05f	57 50	1 00	0 09100	1 32	132 00	1 00	0 032,000	0 16	320 00	2 00	0 12100	0 15	15 00	0 10	0 031,000	0 141	145 00	1 00	0 09100	0 63	63 00	0 25	0 0350	7 25	362 50	1 00	0 031,500	0 35	525 00	1 50	0 45150	1 70	255 00	1 50	0 06100	0 20	20 00	0 10	0 031,000	0 091	97 50	1 00	0 30100	0 49	49 00	0 10	0 031,000	0 05	50 00	1 00	0 30500	0 35	175 00	0 50	0 15300	0 14	42 00	0 30	0 035,000	0 47	2,350 00	5 00	0 391,000	0 031	32 50	1 00	0 09500	0 06-	32 50	0 50	0 06500	0 051	27 50	0 50	0 06500	0 07	35 00	0 50	0 061,500	0 21	315 00	1 50	0 24200	0 66	132 00	0 50	0 03100	1 96	196 00	1 00	0 03200	1 95	390 00	2 00	0 121,000	0 54	540 00	2 50	. 0 15500	0 06	30 00	0 50	0 03100	0 85	85 00	0 25	0 03100	9 00	900 00	2 00	0 03250	4 70	1,175 00	5 00	0 09200	5 40	1,080 00	4 00	0 3310,000	1-8	12 50	10 00	0 06300	1 35	405 00	3 00	0 09100	1 10	110 00	1 00	0 03250	4 15	1,037 50	5 00	0 09
2544	COMMONS
Special War Revenue Act
Stock	No. of shares	Price	Value	Proposed tax	Present$ cts.	$ cts.	$ ets.	$ cts.Dalhousie O	50	5 70	285 00	1 00	0 09Devenish Pete	210	1 22	266 20	2 10	0 09Fabyan P	600	0 13	78 00	0 60	0 18East Crest	100	4 85	485 00	2 00	0 15Freehold	100	1 78	178 00	1 00	0 06Hargal O	50	2 60	130 00	0 50	0 06McLeod O	50	5 60	280 00	1 00	0 03New McD. Seg	100	4 75	475 00	2 00	0 03Mid West	100	1 00	100 00	1 00	0 03Home O	90	24 00	2,160 00	2 70	0 03111. Alta	100	1 75	175 00	1 00	0 03May land O	50	13 15	657 50	1 00	0 03Mill City	300	9 00	2,700 00	6 00	0 09Royalite	5	178 00	890 00	0 20	0 27Mercury	100	1 78	178 00	1 00	0 06McD. Seg. Ex	100	7 75	775 00	2 00	0 03Turner Valley	100	1 25	125 00	1 00	0 03Regent O	500	0 68	340 00	1 25	0 15South West Pete	50	7 00	360 00	1 00	0 12Spooner	40	4 10	164 00	0 SO	0 03Sterling Pac	25	3 10	77 50	0 50	0 03United O	100	19 25	1,925 00	2 00	0 03Lowery Pete	100	5 10	510 00	2 00	0 18Big Missouri	1,000	1 50	1,500 00	10 00	0 30Reeves McD	5,000	1 25	6,250 00	50 00	1 89Snowflake	500	0 50	250 00	0 50	0 09Richmond	5,000	0 01	50 00	5 00	0 75Silverado	1,000	1 25	1,250 00	10 00	0 30
As I have shown, the Minister of Finance proposes to collect $50 on a sale of $5,000, and I once more assert that no member of this house, no Canadian, is going to participate in financing of that character. Fifty dollars is too high a tax to pay on one transaction. That means that these shares will not be marketable. Let me tell you what is going to happen. Take the Reeves McDonald property, which lies in West Kootenay. It is on the boundary line, practically adjoining Pend d'Oreille, which is in the United States, but it is financed in Canada. Now if this tax had been in force when these two properties were promoted, where does the minister think the promotion would have taken place? Unquestionably it would have been in Spokane, in the United1 States; after all that is the nearest city to these properties and that is where the promotion would have taken place. That is also where future promotions in British Columbia will take place, because the public will not tolerate a tax of $50 where the sale price is only $5,000. The shares will become unmarketable and no man will purchase stock from the underwriters, no matter how promising the properties may be, if he knows that when he sells his stock he will have to pay a tax of $50. These shares turn over ten or twenty times a year, and at the end of the year that $5,000 might pay a tax of $500 or even $1,000.
I am confirmed in my statement with regard to the financing of these properties by the

oldest and most experienced men in the industry in British Columbia. I have received from them telegrams and letters, and they all assert that there can be no question that so far as new promotions and new developments are concerned they must necessarily take place in the United States because our people will not subscribe to them if they are to be taxed in this way. As I have said repeatedly on the floor of this house, in British Columbia since the war we have financed our mining development from our own savings, and the present enactment will create a handicap which will prohibit any future development of that kind. That will leave only one place where in future these promotions may be undertaken; that is the United States, in either Spokane or Seattle.
In addition to that, the trading which is now going on in the Vancouver stock exchange will be transferred to the United States, because you will find that a number of these companies with shares of low market value will perhaps wind up their affairs and reincorporate in the United States. They will list their stocks in that country and they will be traded in no longer on our exchanges. In that case the minister cannot hope to collect the tax which he proposes to impose on these lower priced shares. However, I am speaking for the industry rather than for the companies already in existence; I am looking to future developments. I want future development to take place here in

Special War Revenue Act
Canada and to be financed in Canada; I want the Canadian people to benefit by the development, and I say they cannot do so if the Minister of Finance insists on passing through the house the measure now under consideration.


Mr. L. J. LADNER (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, the unfairness and iniquity of this tax as far as the mining industry is concerned has been abundantly established by the data and the arguments submitted by lion members on both sides of the house. I rise for only a moment in order to place on record a telegram which has been just received by the hon. member for West Kootenay (Mr. EsLing) from Mr. S. W. Miller, head of the large brokerage firm of Miller and Court Company, Limited, Vancouver. This organization has been instrumental in successfully establishing some of the most important mining enterprises in British Columbia; it is not only a concern interested in the promotion of these enterprises but it is very much concerned in developing the industry. After expressing his appreciation of certain arguments advanced by the hon. member for West Kootenay, Mr. Miller says:
For last fifteen years we have used our time and money to promote development of British Columbia mining, and should the government's present tax pass it is our intention to withdraw absolutely from the mining promotion business. You can appreciate what reaction a move of this kind would have on the mining development of our province.
Apart from the rights of the provinces with respect to taxation of mining enterprises, apart from the question of the division of the field of taxation, in the face of the data which has been submitted and in view of the incontrovertible facts and the judgment of men who understand the business, in this case I think the minister, with that breadth of judgment which he ought to display, should depart from the attitude of obstinacy which the people of Canada will believe to be actuating him if he persists in his present course and reconsider the proposal now before the house. If necessary he might delay proceedings at this time in order to study the facts and obtain full knowledge of the situation so that the best efforts of the government may be devoted to the mining industry of Canada.


James Layton Ralston: I would like to say just a word in order to see whether I clearly understand the situation both with regard to the original proposal of the Minister of Finance and the proposal which was later brought before the house and which is the subject of the amend-78594-162J
ment now under consideration. The original provision, under which I understand both the Department of Finance and the Department of National Revenue have been working, is section 58 of the Special War Revenue Act, which provides:
No person shall sell or transfer the stock or shares of any association, company or corporation, or any bond other than a bond of the. Dominion of Canada or of any province of Canada by
(a)	agreement for sale;
(b)	entry on the books of the association, company or corporation;
(c)	delivery of share certificates or share
warrants or bond endorsed in blank or payable to bearer; or	[DOT]
(d)	any other method whatsoever; unless in respect of such sale or transfer there is affixed to or impressed upon the document evidencing the ownership of such stock or shares or bond, or a document showing the transfer or agreement for the transfer thereof, an adhesive stamp, or a stamp impressed thereon by means of a die. of the value of three cents for every one hundred dollars or fraction thereof of the par value of the stock or shares or bond sold or transferred.
The exception is section 61 which provides:
The first delivery by a corporation or company of such shares, or debenture stock, in order to effect an issue, or the first issue of a bond, or a sale or transfer of any bond between any recognized dealers or brokers shall not be subject to the tax imposed by this part.
That means that this tax shall not be imposed upon the original .issue of these shares by the company, and I understand that this provision is to be still in force.


Henry Herbert Stevens: If the company makes an issue which is sold through a firm underwriting that issue, when the underwriting firm sells to the pulblic the stock is taxable.


James Layton Ralston: My hon. friend is quite right, but in that case the underwriters are in the position of the pulblic as the purchasers of the stock. We can talk about underwriting as we like, but that does not consist of simply guaranteeing the sale of the stock; it means an agreement to buy stock, an agreement that the so-called underwriter will put into the treasury of the company the number of dollars required for the purchase of that stock, and that transaction is made free of any tax. Let us get that straight, and I say that the underwriters are in no different position from the public; they are the public in that they are the purchasers of the stock.


Leon Johnson Ladner: In a business sense, although technically the underwriter is the purchaser, is he not really the agent of the company for the sale of the stock?


James Layton Ralston: I never heard of an
underwriter being the agent of the company;
Special War Revenue Act

fthe underwriters are brokers who come along and propose to purchase the stock because they expect to make a profit out of it by .selling to someone else.


Henry Herbert Stevens: They propose to market
the stock.


Mr. CAHAN:: Is not the underwriter the
one who guarantees to purchase in case other purchasers are not found?


James Layton Ralston: It depends on the underwriting agreement altogether.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That is the only kind of
underwriting agreement that I ever heard of.


James Layton Ralston: That may be, but my
point is that the underwriter is the purchaser. If my hon. friend is correct, and the underwriter is not called upon under his underwriting agreement to purchase, the stock is sold direct to the public, and comes under the same heading as a sale to the underwriter world.


Henry Herbert Stevens: No.


James Layton Ralston: Absolutely, because it is
the first issue by the company.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Certainly not.


James Layton Ralston: I am going to say what
I have to say but I will make it just as brief as I can. That is my view, and I submit it to the consideration of the house. I say that the first transfer by the company, whether it is to the underwriter or to the public or to anyone else, is free from tax, and the purchaser who gets it, whether a so called underwriter purchasing en bloc, or individuals, they would not have that tax to pay and the industry would not be subject to that burden. The tax is upon the various subsequent transactions back and forth between people who are swapping shares with each other on the stock exchange.


John Arthur Clark: Could I interrupt the minister?


James Layton Ralston: My only point-


John Arthur Clark: I just wanted some information, but I will not ask for it.


James Layton Ralston: The hon. member need
not be so Short about it.


John Arthur Clark: You interrupted me.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is his habit.


James Layton Ralston: It seems to me that under the latter part of section 58 it is not an ad valorem tax but a specific tax. My hon. friends may not agree with that, but section 58 appears to impose a specific tax on shares
tMr. Ralston.]
of stock of a par value of $100 or any fraction thereof, and it does not seem to be a percentage tax at all. I do not know how it has been administered, and I am not very much interested in that, but when you read these words:
an adhesive stamp, or a stamp impressed thereon by means of a die, of the value of 3 cents for every one hundred dollars or fraction thereof of the par value of the stock or shares or bond sold or tranferred.
it will be seen that a 3 cent stamp is required on the stock certificate, whether it be of a par value of $100 or less, which means a tax of 3 per cent on the par value. As I understand the present amendment, it is proposed to bring it back-


Mr. GUTHRIE:: That is 3 cents on


James Layton Ralston: I was endeavouring to
prepare my hon. friends for the shock when I told them that I thought they would disagree with my statement. Upon reading that section I think there is fair ground for saying that this is a specific tax and not an ad valorem tax. It is a specific tax of 3 cents per share for every share of a par value of $100 or fraction thereof.


Hugh Guthrie: It is not 3 per cent; it
is 3 cents in $100.


James Layton Ralston: It is one-third of one
per cent, and I thank my hon. friend for the correction. If the amendment should pass it would bring this tax back to that situation.
The thing which is complained of is the taxation on the so-called penny shares, or the small priced shares. The minister first proposed that he would tax all shares selling at $3 or under at the rate of one cent per share; this would include a $3 share and go right down to the one-sixteenth of a cent per share mentioned by the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Clark). It was pointed out that that one cent per share tax would be a pretty heavy tax on the small priced shares, but the minister now proposes that instead of that tax he will impose a one cent tax on shares selling at over $1 and up to $3. That means that there will be a tax of from one per cent to one-third of one per cent on those shares. As to the shares selling below one dollar, the minister now proposes that instead of imposing a one cent per share tax he will impose a tax of a quarter-eent per share on shares selling at not more than a dollar but over 50 cents. That means that the maximum tax would be one-half of one per cent and the minimum tax would be one-quarter of one per cent. Surely

Special War Revenue Act
that is not something which would ruin the mining industry, as my hon. friends suggest. Then the minister proposes to impose a tax of one-tenth of a cent per share on shares selling at 50 cents or less. I do not think that that can be regarded as a very heavy tax, because it is less than the tax imposed at the present time. The rate on a 50 cent share would be one-fifth of one per cent and as the price of the share decreases the proportion goes up and the percentage of taxation is a little larger. When you get down to shares selling for one-sixteenth of a cent per share it means a pretty stiff tax, but I do not believe that there are many sound mining companies in this country whose shares are selling on the market at anything like one-sixteenth of a cent per share. Such companies are the ones who have sold their shares and put in their development, and the development has resulted unsuccessfully. The people who invested at that time have found themselves with shares on their hands and I do not think it would make very much difference to them whether their shares sold for one-sixteenth of a cent per share or one-sixtieth of a cent per share. The only thing they can do is to hold on to their shares with the hope of improvement in the situation, and I do not think the house would be very much concerned with that special situation.


John Arthur Clark: It would make it impossible to refinance.


James Layton Ralston: No.
Mr. CLARK.:	How could they get new
money?


James Layton Ralston: I thank my hon. friend
for that suggestion. Although I am the last one to advise about it, I would suggest in an amateurish way that the method of refinancing should be for the people to value their property and issue such number of shares as could be sold at say 50 cents, and which would be taxed one-fifth of one per cent. Instead of issuing perhaps 5,000,000 shares for a property valued at only $50,000, the number of shares should be reduced and their value increased. The difficulty in the past has been that some mining companies issued' their shares in millions and sold them at between 5 and 10 cents to people, if I may say so, who had no business to buy them but who were attracted by the large number of noughts on the face of the stock certificate and the very small amount of money they had to part with to purchase that imposing looking certificate. With all due respect to those who are interested in the mining industry, I do not believe that the people who are most interested in the mining industry are keen on seeing big lithographed stock certificates put out bearing amounts of hundreds or thousands of dollars on the face of them and selling, let us say, at 50 cents or a dollar or $2 per share. I suggest that it is much better to have the issue so limited that the certificate will sell at a price which will permit of a fair taxation of one-fifth of one per cent, or something of that kind, and regulate the number of shares to be issued by the amount of money which is required.
That is my answer to the question of the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard with reference to refinancing. If a company has millions of dollars par value of stock in its treasury at a dollar per share, then they had better pass special resolutions and take the necessary procedure to increase the par value and decrease the number of shares so that they will sell at 50 cents or $1 at least in order that the tax rate may be small, instead of leaving the par value at $1 and selling the shares at one or two cents.


John Arthur Clark: What does the minister say about a tax of $50 on stock which is worth $1.25 a share and which has a total value of* say, $6,250. Is that a fair tax?


James Layton Ralston: It is less than one per
cent. A tax of $50 on a transaction amounting to $6,250 does not seem to me to be so-terribly unreasonable. It does not shock me,


John Arthur Clark: What does the minister
think of a tax of $4 on a sale of Royalite of $17,500?


James Layton Ralston: Perhaps that is not
enough, but that is no argument that this tax is too much.


John Arthur Clark: Why not make it equitable?


James Layton Ralston: My hon. friends have not suggested that at all.


Henry Herbert Stevens: We have suggested it a
thousand times.


James Layton Ralston: What my hon. friends
are suggesting is to go back to the old three-cent arrangement whereby Royalite would have a lower tax than it has to-day.


John Arthur Clark: If the minister would make some suggestion along the line of making the tax equitable, it would not be long before we on this side of the house would accept it.


James Layton Ralston: I am dealing with the
amendment and it seems to me the mining industry is not going to suffer very seriously on account of this tax. If stock flotations are properly issued, I do not think there will be
Special War Revenue Act

any difficulty about selling the stock. I am not very much impressed with the threat by some persons that they are not going to finance in Canada; in other words, that they are not going to play with the mining industry in this country, because this small tax is imposed. I do not think that argument should be allowed to influence us here, and the natural resources of Canada, if we may judge by what has happened recently, can be taken care of pretty well in Canada if necessaiy. I am quite sure it has not been fully apprehended that all the discussion about large taxation has had to do with the transfer after the industry has procured its capital and not with the original flotation.


Robert James Manion: I
will take up only two or three minutes of the .time of the house in replying to the remarks made by the Minister of National Defence. I think he has unconsciously misled the house in regard to underwriting. I have been connected with the underwriting of two or three companies and it is generally done in this manner. As he says, a group of brokers take the stock at a certain price. But they have to sell it to the public and whether they pay the tax when the stock is being transferred to them at the outset or after they sell the stock to the public, the public have to pay the tax just the same, and it has the same depressing effect upon the stock as if it were the first issue. The underwriters take the stock at, say 15 cents, and they sell it to the public at 20 or 25 cents because they have to take the risk: they have to put up perhaps $100,000 to finance the mine. They know and take into consideration that they have to collect the tax from the public, because the public have to pay it eventually. It depends upon how much the public have to pay for the stock whether they will take it or not, so that the tax has a marked effect on the small mining ventures.


James Layton Ralston: What does my hon. friend *say about changing the par value of the issue so that instead of selling at 15 or 20 cents, it will sell at 50 cents a share?


Robert James Manion: My hon. friend has not
the psychology of mining. Many people will not buy shares at 50 cents; they prefer to take their chances on the penny shares.


James Layton Ralston: I am afraid it is those
people who are being exploited.


Robert James Manion: They are not being exploited.


Samuel William Jacobs: They are the table maids
. and office boys who are swindled by such shares as those.


Robert James Manion: The people who bought
Teck-Hughes at 15 cents, or McIntyre at 17 cents, and many other stocks at low prices, were not swindled.


Samuel William Jacobs: What about the twenty
thousand other companies?


Robert James Manion: Of course they cannot all
make fortunes, otherwise there would not be any risk in the thing at all.


Samuel William Jacobs: My hon. friend) knows there has been more money lost in mining than has been made.


Robert James Manion: Is my hon. friend's argument that this whole- scheme is for the purpose of stopping mining speculation and development altogether?


Samuel William Jacobs: To a certain extent.


Robert James Manion: That is apparently what
my hon. friend's argument is, and it is what this tax-is going to do to a certain extent.
It is going to stop a certain amount of this mining speculation. Some of it would be better stopped, but any man or woman who buys mining stock at a low price should know that he or she is playing a gambling game.
I have gone into many of them on a small scale, and I have always kissed my money good-bye. If anything came back I said that it was "found" money, and that is exactly what these people do. Not many times did it come back, but sometimes it did.


Samuel William Jacobs: That is gambling, pure and simple.


Robert James Manion: But it has helped to develop some of the mines of the country. You cannot stop gambling. People will gamble on horse races, and I would rather see them gamble on the mines where they are helping to bring about a good deal of development with their money.


Samuel William Jacobs: But in mining they do not have a run for their money.


Robert James Manion: Oh, yes, they do. My intention in rising was to reply to the Minister of National Defence. While he to a certain extent ridicules the old tax, it was much more equitable than the new one. The com- [DOT] plaint we are making is that the new tax is inequitable. For example, the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Clark) and various others have clearly demonstrated the inequity of this tax. When I was discussing this matter the other day I gave certain instances, and I have no intention of repeating

Special War Revenue Act
them to-day, but one that I pointed out was a $30 tax on $54,000 worth of Noranda, and a $10 tax on $1,020 worth of Kirkland Lake, the number of shares in each case being the same. That is' not an equitable tax. The thing is unfair; it is an unfair method of imposing taxes. The hon. member for West Kootenay (Mr. Esling)-and I will give the hon. gentleman credit for it-gave me a most extraordinary example and it illustrates it to an extreme, but to quite a possible, degree. He pointed this out to me a few minutes ago -and it will illustrate the matter better than anything that has so far been given. Take 81,000 and buy two shares of any stock that is worth $500 a share. For instance, Smelters was worth $500, although it is quoted at about $400 just now. The tax on that at the proposed rate would be eight cents on $1,000. But take the same $1,000 and put it into a stock selling at five cents a share, and the tax would be $20. In other words, there is a tax of $20 on $1,000 in the penny shares, and a tax of eight cents on $1,000 in the expensive shares. The expensive shares are the ones bought by the rich people, while the others are bought by the people who can afford to take a small flyer, as the expression is. Therefore the whole result of this tax is to hit the small man.


James Layton Ralston: Hit the small share.


Robert James Manion: The small man buys the small shares because the poor man cannot afford to buy $500 stocks.


James Layton Ralston: He can buy less.


Robert James Manion: But he does not do it.
Many men will not buy $1,000 or $500 worth; they will buy $100 worth, and it is the small man putting in $10 here or $50 there or $100 elsewhere who, as was well pointed out by the hon. member for South Timliskaming (Mr. Lang), finances these new mines, some of which turn out profitably. I do not agree with the hon. member for Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) who suggests they are largely Aim-, flam games. No doubt there has been a certain amount of crookedness going on, and I do not dispute that for a moment. I did not happen to take any part in it that I know of. What we on this side of the house1 object to is the inequity of the tax, and I; think we have demonstrated that pretty clearly. We object to the depressing influence it will have on new mining deals; to; the fact that it is a greater tax on the poor man than on the rich man; and to the factj that while the Minister of Finance is con-'
tinually talking about decreasing taxation, about revising taxation downwards, this is a revision of taxation upwards to a large extent. In every way it is inequitable and unfair; and it is a tax that should be voted against by every member in the house.


Mr. DAVID SPENCE (Parkdale):: There
seems to be a great misunderstanding in regard , to this question. I am opposed to the proposal of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) whether it applies to the penny stocks or otherwise, because it seems to me it is just another case of interfering with the legitimate development of business and discouraging the investor at. all times. Others may call it what they wish, but I claim that this is a nuisance tax, and it is establishing a very vicious principle which I hope this house will not support. We have had several nuisance taxes in this country. Some of them have been abolished, and I had thought it was the intention of the government to eliminate all of them, because unscrupulous people in all walks of life and in all parts of the world take advantage of them. I think this government should be known as the gold-digging government, because they have devised more means than anybody else of taking money out of the pockets of the people, throwing it into the melting pot, and then wasting it in all parts of the country. No one knows better than the Minister of Finance that he is going to dig millions out of the pockets of the people and discourage investment if he carries out this proposal. At the same time he is making innocent people believe that he is reducing taxation. Well, Mr. Speaker, it is pretty hard to reduce and increase taxation at the same time, but the Minister of Finance is a fairly good window-dresser; he has succeeded in making certain innocent people believe that he has reduced taxation, but anybody who is alive to the situation knows better. This new tax is confusing; it will not be understood; it will mean extra cost to the mine operators; it will encourage dishonesty in mining development, and I hope that no member of this house will support it. I was a few minutes late coming into the house and I did not hear the resolution moved by my hon. leader (Mr. Bennett), but I am satisfied that it was along the right lines.


Mr. J. E. LAWSON (West York):: I would ask the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) two questions arising out of the discussion this afternoon. The minister rather skilfully advocated the reorganization of the companies selling the cheaper priced stocks. When I call to his attention the fact that on one stock exchange in the province of On-
Special War Revenue Act

tario there are approximately 100 stocks selling under $1 a share, does he seriously advocate that all these companies should reorganize and refinance in order to avoid the burden of taxation being imposed upon the cheaper priced stocks by this proposal of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) ?


James Layton Ralston: I am not suggesting reorganization. The question was asked, if the stock of a certain company should go down to tV of a cent a share and the company should want more money, what would be done aJbout it, and 1 was suggesting that the par value of the stocks should be revamped to sell in larger denominations, at a higher price. My hon. friend has not met the case at all because it is the 50 cent stock and not the $1 stock that is the one really complained of. I would ask him how many stocks of bona fide mining companies in Ontario that should be selling stock are selling stock below 50 cents a share?


James Earl Lawson: I shall be very glad to
give the information to the minister if he will give me time to go to my room and get the record. I would point out to him that the same argument which he advances in regard to stock selling at A of a cent a share must be applicable, only in a lesser degree, to a stock the price of which has gone down to 2 cents a share.
The second question I would ask the Minister of National Defence is this: If I use 11,000 to buy the shares of a 2 cent stock, I could buy 50,000 shares, and the tax on that under this new proposal would be $50. But if I use the same $1,000 to buy two $500 shares, the tax on that would be 8 cents. What argument would the Minister of National Defence advance to justify the imposition of a tax that charges me $50 on my investment of $1,000 in the one case, where I buy shares at 2 cents each, and charges me only eight cents on my investment of $1,000 in another class of stock?


Mr. YOUNG (Saskatoon):: I rise to a point of order. It may be very interesting for the hon. member for West York (Mr. Lawson) to be conducting an examination across the floor of the house of some hon. gentleman who has already spoken, but those of us who would like to see the business of the house expedited do not propose to sit here much longer while this cross-examination is going on. I rise to the point of order, Mr. Speaker, that members who have already spoken should not be permitted to speak again.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: The point is well taken. An hon. member can speak only once in the debate, but if a question is asked and the house consents the 'minister may answer.


James Earl Lawson: May I call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that I have not spoken previously in this debate. My hon. friend must have reference to the Minister of National Defence.


James Layton Ralston: I think that was understood. My hon. friend should have addressed his inquiry to me while I was speaking.


Robert James Manion: He was making his argument by way of inquiry.


James Layton Ralston: It is rather new in this house, but I suppose it can be done.


Mr. SPENOE:: Nothing new here.


James Layton Ralston: I repeak-


Hugh Guthrie: What about the point of order, Mr. Speaker?


John Frederick Johnston: The point is well taken. If the minister does not receive unanimous consent he may not reply.


Mr. J. F. POULIOT (Temiscouata):: This tax proposal, Mr. Speaker, of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) has been considered from the viewpoint of the purchaser of shares. My friends on the other side of the house say that this tax will affect poor people who buy the lower priced shares. But there is another viewpoint. The purchaser is not the only one to be considered in 'this case. There is also the seller. I have personal knowledge of the fact that the promoters of mining stocks sold at a low price are often engaged in a huge swindle, and they try to get the money of poor people or, as my hon. friend from Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) said, of office boys and people generally in poor circumstances. I have noticed several times in our part of the country promoters who have come from the cities to try to sell mining stocks, and they tell the people that shares which they can buy at only 25 cents will go up and they will make a fortune within a very short time. Afterwards the people who buy the stock hear no more about their money. Very seldom does it happen that these low priced stocks turn out well. There are exceptions, of course, but as a general rule the selling of these low priced stocks to very small investors is just for the exploitation of the people.
Mr. MeGIBBON: Would the hon. member prohibit the man of small capital from taking a gamble according to his means?

Special War Revenue Act


Jean-François Pouliot: Not at all, but I say that big swindlers encourage such gambling in order to take money out of the pockets of the people. It has happened often in my own experience. A man opened a stock broker's office in my 'home town and went to gaol for swindling his clients.


Mr. McGIBBON:: Are there many like that down there?


Jean-François Pouliot: No, they come from outside and they never stay very long.


James Alexander Robb: Nothing advanced this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, convinces me that the legislation we are presenting is not in the public interest. Hon. gentlemen opposite object to this tax on the ground of inequality. Based on that argument, where will you find any greater inequality than this? For instance, my friend the leader of the opposition may send a registered letter containing $100,000 out to Calgary, and my colleague the Postmaster General will charge him 12 cents-10 cents registration and 2 cents postage. Yet if I send a letter containing merely $20 to Valley-field my colleague will charge me the same rate.


Henry Herbert Stevens: But that is a stamp tax.


James Alexander Robb: Or my colleague from Vancouver Centre may issue a cheque for $10,000 on which he will have to pay a tax of 2 cents; while if I issue a cheque for only $100 I have to pay the same tax. I submit the legislation is fair, and I cannot support the amendment.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I was paired with the
Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Jean-François Pouliot: I was paired with the
hon. member for North York (Mr. Lennox). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. McPHEE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Kings (Mr. Macdonald). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: I was paired with the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. Plunkett). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. ROWE:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Beauce (Mr. Lacroix). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. GERSHAW:: I was paired with the
hon. member for London (Mr. White). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.
Main motion agreed to on the same division reversed.


Mr. RYCKMAN:: I was paired with the
hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Rouville (Mr. Morin). Bad I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Robert James Manion: I was paired with the
Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Euler). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I was paired with the
Minister of Trade and Commerre (Mr. Malcolm). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. CASSELMAN:: I was paired with the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Howard). Had I voted, I would 'have voted for the amendment.


Mr. TOBIN:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Toronto-Scarborough (Mr. Harris). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Peter John Veniot: I was paired with the hon. member ifor York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. MERCIER (Laurier-Outremont):: I
was paired with the hon. member for Toronto South (Mr. Geary). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.

Mr. Robb thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 278, to amend the Special War Revenue Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.




[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of ways and means, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
John Frederick Johnston: The resolution before the committee appears in votes and proceedings of May 8, and reads:
Resolved that it is expedient to amend the Excise Act, being chapter 60 of the revised statutes of Canada, 1927, by repealing subsection (a) of section 219 and substituting therefor the following:-
"On every pound of malt manufactured in Canada, subject to excise regulations with respect to coomings and absorption of moisture m warehouse as provided by the order in council on the seventh day of February, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-one, three cents; provided that malt may be removed from a malt house to a distillery in bond, and the duty on such malt may be remitted upon proof satisfactory to the department that such malt has been used solely for the production of spirits, in which production no other material than malt is used; and provided further.that malt used, in any licensed bonded manufactory, in the manufacture of malt extract or other similar medicinal preparation approved by the department or in the preparation-of any malt food product approved by the governor in council may have duty thereon remitted under such regulations as the department establishes."

Customs Tariff Amendment


James Alexander Robb: It will be observed that the only change from the existing act is the addition of the words:
or in the preparation of any malt food product approved by the governor in council.
The explanation is that the Malted Milk Company of Canada desires to operate a factory for the purpose of manufacturing malted milk. It is represented that on part of the ingredients, whole malt, there is an excise tax of 3 cents a pound and on crushed malt 5 cents a pound. It is proposed to give them this free for that purpose.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The only objection is the old story-government by order in council.


James Alexander Robb: No.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes; this medicinal preparation has to be approved of by the governor in council.


James Alexander Robb: I would point out to my hon. friend that this has been in the act many years. It was origin-ally put in to protect the treasury.


Richard Bedford Bennett: This extends it to another item?


James Alexander Robb: Yes.
Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in. Mr. Robb thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 279, to amend the Excise Act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first and second times, considered in committee and reported.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. A. ROBB (Minister of Finance) moved the second reading of Bill No. 212, to amend the Customs tariff.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Before the bill is given second
reading I should like the minister to make a more adequate explanation of what is meant by using the words "of a class or kind not made in Canada," or "not manufactured in Canada," with respect to some nine or ten items in the tariff. Am I to understand that the policy of the administration is to call a halt now; that anything not made in Canada now they will permit to come in free or under a very low tariff, and that hereafter this country is to become economically dependent upon other countries for those commodities it may require but which are not
now manufactured here? I observe that in some nine or ten instances the words "not made or manufactured in Canada" occur, and an explanation of exactly why these words are used would do much to enlighten many people who are inquiring as to whether the government has reached the stage where it does not propose hereafter to encourage the manufacture in Canada of goods not now produced in this country.


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend is asking me to go into the history of the tariff schedules of Canada since the days of Sir Leonard Tilley. These words have been used in the tariff schedules from time to time, and I suppose the same rule applies now as prevailed then.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, considered in committee and reported.

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from May 10 consideration in committee of Bill No. 4, to amend and consolidate the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act-Mr. King (Kootenay)-Mr. Marcil in the chair.
On section 6-Unlawful for physician, etc., to prescribe a drug except for medicinal purposes.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Am I correct in my
understanding that as the matter now stands this bill represents the considered opinion of the committee, in some instances unanimous and in others with some differences of opinion, and that medical men constituted the committee as far as that was possible?


Mr. KING (Kootenay):: Yes. When we
were considering this bill the other evening I moved an amendment to section 6, which consisted of the addition of a subsection. This provision is applicable to other sections of the act, but as I explained at that time, previously we had no trouble under this section, since we were, fortified by a judgment of the appeal court of Ontario that upon trial by indictment and conviction the minimum sentence was three months' imprisonment, and that the judge had no discretion but to impose this sentence. Quite recently, however, and since the bill came back from the special committee, an appeal court of another province has decided differently; that court held that under section' 1035 of the Criminal Code it is within
Narcotic Drug Act

the competence of the magistrate or judge to impose a fine and refrain from imposing imprisonment. After consultation with the Department of Justice it has been decided that this point should be cleared up, and they advised the amendment which I moved the last time we were in committee.


Richard Bedford Bennett: How will it read now?


John Warwick King: The amendment
is as follows:
Notwithstanding the provisions of the criminal code, or of any other statute or law, the court shall have no power to impose less than the 'minimum penalties herein prescribed.
That is the only amendment.
Section 6 as amended agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and
passed.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


FISH INSPECTION ACT AMENDMENT
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on Bill No. 25, to amend the Fish Inspection Act-Hon. Mr. Cardin-Mr. Johnston in the chair.
On section-Extension of application of act.
Mr. CARDIN:: This bill provides for an
amendment to the Fish Inspection Act in order to include fish-curing establishments, as was recommended by the Atlantic fisheries commission. The bill has been before the standing committee on marine and fisheries, which has approved it. Section 2 deals with the publication of the regulations in the prefix to the annual statutes. The Department of Justice has represented to us that the printing of these regulations in the statutes delays the publication of the statutes. In view of the fact that these regulations are printed in the Canada Gazette it has been decided not to have them published in the statutes.


Mr. ERNST:: I do not desire to make any comments with reference to this particular bill, but I should like to take this opportunity of referring to a kindred bill, No. 26, which was before the committee a couple of times. There does not seem to be any disposition on the part of the officials of the department to have the provisions of that bill become effective. Could the minister give us some information in that regard?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The hon. member is certainly mistaken as to the intention of the department. The government is absolutely serious in the bill which has been presented to the house and which is now before the standing committee on marine and fisheries.


William Gordon Ernst: Apparently it is going to die there.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I understand that the committee has appointed a subcommittee to look into the evidence and recommendations of the Atlantic fisheries commission with a view to making a report to the whole committee. There has been no undue delay in the consideration of that bill as far as the government is concerned, and I can assure the hon. member that we are desirous of having that bill before the house as soon as possible, and before the session closes.


William Gordon Ernst: That bill referred to the
trawler question, and a subcommittee was appointed to look into the evidence taken before the royal commission. The minister must realize that to do this will require a period of some months-because the evidence was very voluminous, consisting of thousands and thousands of pages-and will make it impossible to present the bill to parliament during the present session.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I am sure that the subcommittee will not undertake to read every word in the evidence. They are familiar with the conditions and it will not be necessary for them to read the whole evidence in order to make a report.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 2 agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. P. J. A. CARDIN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) moved the second reading of Bill No. 37, to provide for a further loan to the harbour commissioners of Montreal.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
On section 2-Loan of $10,000,000 to corporation for construction of terminal facilities.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Perhaps the minister will state what this is intended to be used for.

Montreal Harbour Commission


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: It might be of importance
to give a short statement of the expenditures that the harbour commission propose to make out of this appropriation of 810,000,000, if it is granted. The first item is 82,000,000, for the construction of three new berths for the unloading of grain and general cargoes in the harbour. Prior to the present the Tarte wharf was used for the unloading of tramp steamers, but since the development of the grain trade in the port of Montreal and the increase in the storage capacity of elevator No. 3, it has been found impossible to use the Tarte wharf for the purpose for which it was previously employed. It is proposed now to build three new berths at the Laurier wharf, and these three berths will be used in connection with the extended facilities at elevator No. 3. It is expected that the three new berths on this wharf will bring a return of about 880,000 and that on account of the increase in the grain traffic in that section of the harbour there will be an increase in revenue of about 850,000, so that the engineers and technical experts of the commission estimate that the return on this expenditure of 82,000,000 will be 8130,000.
The second item provides for an expenditure of 82,000,000 for the reconstruction of two old wharves, King Edward and Alexandra, in the centre of the harbour. These wharves are used at present by the bigger vessels of 16,000 to 20,000 tons coming into the harbour of Montreal. These wharves were built thirty years ago, and the engineers of the harbour commission have been for several years representing to the commission that it is absolutely necessary to rebuild these old wooden structures.
Item No. 3 provides for an expenditure of
81,500,000	for the extension of the electrical system beyond the canal. The property of the harbour commission is divided by the Lachine canal and the electrical system of the section of the harbour east of the canal is operated by the Canadian National while the other, or main section of the harbour is operated by the electrical system of the harbour commission. Last year the harbour commission handled 150,000 revenue cars in the main section of the harbour and in the section of the harbour beyond the Lachine canal 50,000 revenue cars were handled by the Canadian National. It is a source of great inconvenience to have one section served by the electrical system of the harbour commission and the other by the Canadian National. The idea is to extend the electrical service of the main section of the harbour to the eastern section beyond the canal.


Richard Bedford Bennett: To electrify the whole
thing?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes. The present condition has been a source of great inconvenience and loss of revenue. It is expected when the system is extended to that section of the harbour, the revenue from the railway traffic on the harbour will be about 8200,000. I think there is a justification for that expenditure.
Item No. 4 is an extension to the grain conveyor system. It must be remembered that the grain handled in 1926 amounted to 136 000.000 bushels, and in 1928 it reached the important figure of 218,000,000 bushels. The construction of the addition to elevator No. 3 makes it necessary to develop the conveyor system in order to cope with the greater traffic in the harbour.


Mr. GARDINER:: What is the amount to be spent on that?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The amount suggested is
81,000.000. Item No. 5 provides for an expenditure of 8500,000 for industrial wharves. It has been found necessary for the commission to build additional wharves.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Are there any election
wharves in that?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Not to my knowledge, and I can assure my hon. friend I do not rely on that.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He will not overlook
that. These wharves are, I suppose, where freight is collected.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: They are supposed to be.
Several companies in Montreal are using certain sections of the harbour for their establishments. The commission have leased at the present time a certain area of the harbour to companies which are using these wharves for their industries. It has been found necessary, as I said, to build additional wharves in order to meet the daily requirements of industries in the city of Montreal. These wharves will be leased at a price that will take care of the capital expenditure and the interest on the money invested in building them.


Richard Bedford Bennett: My hon. friend means
the interest and sinking fund to take care of the capital?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes. The commissioners
are not going to build these wharves unless they are sure of a revenue of 6 per cent.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Is that the rate now?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: That is the rate now for
all the industrial wharves which are leased by

Montreal Harbour Commission
industries in the city of Montreal. The revenue expected from that source will be $30,(WO on an expenditure of $500,000.
Item No. 6 provides for an expenditure of $2,000,000, the object being to build new berthing facilities in the harbour of Montreal. It has been found that the port is in need of new development and new berthing facilities. Two alternative projects have been recommended to the commission by the engineers, either to make a new development in the upper section of the harbour, or to make a development in the lower section of the harbour, in what wre call the Maison-neuve section.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What constituency would that be in?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: That constituency is represented at the present time by Mr. Robitaille. Item No. 7 relates to the acquisition of lands as a result of a decision of the privy council. As the committee will remember, action was taken two years ago against the harbour commission of Montreal by a proprietor who contended that the commission had taken over part of his property without any compensation to him at all. The question came before the courts in this country, and later an appeal was taken to the privy council, and the privy council decided that the commissioners had no right to deprive the owner of his right of ingress and egress to the St. Lawrence. It has therefore become necessary for the commission to compensate these owners, and $1,000,000 is provided for this purpose.
Before taking my seat, I might add that the receipts from the harbour of Montreal have been increasing year by year. For the last year ending December 31, 1928, the total revenue of the harbour was $5,589,327.12. Other items are as follows:
The total operations	 $2,810,052	08
Interest to government on loans
advanced	 2,023,448	94
Interest on over-draft at the
bank	
3,865	48Sinking fund	
477,100	06Total	
$5,314,466 56
This leaves a net balance of $274,860.62.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Are any allowances made for depreciation?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I think that is taken care of in the sinking fund.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, not in the sinking fund.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: No. The result of last year's operations in the harbour of Montreal has

been very satisfactory. Business is going to continue to grow in the port of Montreal as the country prospers and as the importance of the harbour from a national point of view is realized. Under these circumstances I think I am justified in asking the committee and parliament to grant to .the harbour commission the loan which this bill provides for.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What money has the minister on hand unexpended from previous advances?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: About $2,000,000.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Then $10,000,000 will not be spent this year?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Oh no. The program covers at least three or four years.


Robert Gardiner: What is the total amount now in the sinking fund?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: It is $1,460,000.


Robert Gardiner: In giving an outline of the expenditure the minister stated that the harbour commission would have to pay compensation for property rights by virtue of a judgment given by the privy council. Is this merely to pay this gentleman for taking the waterfront from him, and if so, what extent of waterfront are we expected to pay for?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The amount of $1,000,000 which we are providing in this bill is not the exact amount which will be required. We do not know the exact amount, but basing their judgment on the valuation which was made during the court proceedings the commissioners think that that amount will be sufficient to compensate the proprietors. At least one other proprietor is in the same position. Action was taken by one proprietor, but there are others; I am sure that there is at least one other property owner in the same position. If we pa}' to Mr. Tetreault the amount of money that he might claim as a result of the valuation made during the court proceedings, we shall have to pay the same amount to another proprietor who is in the same position. The commissioners believe that this amount of $1,000,090 will be sufficient to cover all the claims made by Mr. Tetreault and others who are in the same position.


Robert Gardiner: I understand that it has been the practice of the board not to buy land back from the waterfront, but rather to sink cribs and make their own property by filling in. It appears to me quite a large item to pay $1,000,000 merely for waterfront

Vancouver Harbour Commission
rights, which do not include any land. I presume the minister has under his hand details as to the extent of this waterfront, and I would like some information on that point.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I regret very much that I am not in a position to give my hon. friend that information, but it must be remembered that in the port of Montreal the land along the St. Lawrence river is of very great value, and it does not take a large extent of property to run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. To make the position a little clearer, I do not contend that this $1,000,000 will be required to pay merely for the shore part of the property. It may be found advantageous, instead of buying only a certain amount of property, to buy the property entirely which adjoins the works of the harbour commission. The commissioners in fixing this amount have contemplated the possibility of buying the whole property of Mr. Tetreault, for example, instead of buying only a small piece of his property along the shore. In that case it might be more advantageous for the harbour commissioners to buy the whole property for the development of the port. But I regret, Mr. Chairman, that I am not in a position to give my hon. friend the information he requires in regard to the length of the property.


Robert Gardiner: Probably the minister
can secure that information at some future time and give it to the house.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Certainly.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 2 agreed to.
On section 3-Interest on debentures during construction may be charged to capital account.
Richard Bedford Bennett: The reason I asked the
minister as to whether or not this money is required this year is that, as I understand it, the debentures are issued from time to time as the government advances the money; but obviously if all the money is advanced at one time the board will be paying a larger amount of interest than it is receiving, and there will be a loss to the board. What is the method of payment of interest during construction?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I understand the interest
is taken out of the advances made by the government.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 4-No loan until plans approved.
Herbert Bealey Adshead: I notice that no loan
is to be paid in respect of the construction of terminal facilities "unless such detailed plans, specifications and estimates have been submitted to and approved' by the governor in council." Is a fair wage clause included in the specifications?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Is it a clause approved
by the Minister of Labour, such for instance, as that used by the Department of Public Works?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I understand the wages
paid on all these contracts are approved by the Minister of Labour. In fact a case was brought to my attention a couple of years ago with respect to complaints in regard to wages, and I think the wages were fixed to the satisfaction of the Minister of Labour.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Is the minister sure?
Would he consent to the clause being amended in this way?
That there shall be included in the said specifications a fair wage clause satisfactory to the Minister of Labour.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I hesitate to do that,
although nobody is better disposed towards *labour than I am. I should not like to establish a new fair wage clause in the place of one that haa been so satisfactory to all concerned.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Will the minister assure
the house that the fair wage clause is satisfactory to the Minister of Labour?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 5 to 7 inclusive agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. P. J. A. CARDIN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) moved the second reading of Bill No. 66, to provide for a further loan to the Vancouver harbour commissioners.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
Section 1 agreed to.
Section 2-Loan of $10,000,000 to corporation for construction of terminal facilities
Robert Gardiner: Explain.

Vancouver Harbour Commission


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Mr. Chairman, the expenditure which the harbour commissioners propose to make out of the loan of $10,000,000 will be:
1.	For the redemption of the commissioners' matured mortgage notes issued for the balance of the purchase price of Hastings mill site and incidental expenses therewith-


Richard Bedford Bennett: How much?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: That is $1,950,000.
2.	Developments on site of the Hastings mill property:
(a)	Wharf for vessels in coastal trade and grain jetty, for commissioners' operation, $350,000.
(b)	Wharf for vessels in coastal trade, fish wharf and fish storage, also cold storage, for operation by lessees, $1,150,000.
(c)	For development of a new ocean pier as warranted by increased business, $3,500,000.
Those sums make a total of $5,000,000 for item number 2.
3.	Addition to grain handling facilities, as follows:
At elevator No. 1, to increase its capacity by approximately 3,000,000 bushels.
At elevator No. 2, to increase its capacity by approximately 2,000,000 bushels.
At elevator No. 3, to increase its capacity by approximately 2,500,000 bushels.
These additions to the grain handling facilities involve an expenditure of $3,000,000.
These two items represent a grand total of $9,950,000.
Last year the grain deliveries at Vancouver amounted to 97,250,548 bushels. To get an idea of the development and progress of the port of Vancouver we have only to remember what the deliveries were in 1924, only 4 years ago. For the year 1924 the figure was only
55,000,000 bushels. This gives an idea of the development of trade at Vancouver. The receipts last year amounted to $2,057,739.02 and the expenditures totalled only $1,682,470.87. After taking care of operating expenses, interest due to the government, and sinking fund, a substantial balance was left in the hands of the commissioners. Another fact which indicates the development of trade there is that the number of deep sea ships coming into the harbour in 1927 totalled 1,100, whereas in 1928 there were 1,300, an increase of 200. I do not know that I can add anything else which is not known to practically all the members of the committee.


Mr. LUCAS:: What is the total elevator
capacity at Vancouver at the present time?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: 5,325,000 bushels.


William Thomas Lucas: And what is the proposed
capacity?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: 7,500,000.


Robert Gardiner: Does the item of expenditure which the minister has given, $1,-
682,000	odd, include interest on the capital expenditure and also the sinking fund, or is it merely for the running expenses of the commission?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The figure I have, with the heading under which it appears, is: "Operating expenditure, including debenture interest to government, $1,680,000". I think the sinking fund is taken out of that amount.


Robert Gardiner: You have not these
items separately?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Not in the statement I have.


Robert Gardiner: The minister also said it was proposed to construct cold storage for leasing purposes. Is there any possibility of leasing all that space on favourable terms?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The commissioners have
assured us that they will get companies or individuals to rent the space.


Robert Gardiner: The minister has no
authentic information as to tentative arrangements?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: No.


Robert Gardiner: Some years ago an
elevator was bought for the purpose of subleasing, and it was finally sub-leased-at any rate it was supposed to be sub-leased-to the Oriental Grain Company. I do not know whether the house has ever had an opportunity of discussing the final payment made to that company by reason of the fact that they did not secure the space for which they had contracted. The lease was broken. Can the minister give us any information regarding that transaction?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: At the moment I cannot
give any definite information, but I will undertake to afford the hon. member an opportunity to discuss the matter. I am ready to bring down all the details we have. This is a special case and I have not the figures before me at the moment, but I shall endeavour to submit them at some other time.


Mr. BLATCHFORD:: I may say that two years ago this house insisted that the case be taken to the courts in British Columbia and there the company received a settlement for $133,000 odd.

Vancouver Harbour Commission


Robert Gardiner: I think the information given to the house by the hon. member for East Edmonton (Mr. Blatchford) is startling. Fortunately for Vancouver and for Canada as a whole we have now a new board of commissioners at that port, and I trust from the experience we have had with the old board that the new commission in making leases will not get into a jackpot as their predecessors did. I cannot imagine that the people of Canada would appreciate the circumstances if they were aware of them. It appears to us in Alberta that this was more or less a political proposition and that political favourites got a nice rakeoff in consequence of this lease. I trust the minister in the future will pay closer attention to leases of this description.


Kenneth Alexander Blatchford: When that lease was granted to the British and Oriental Grain Company, the United Grain Growers and the Alberta Pacific Grain Company, who looked over the plant, refused pointblank to entertain a lease. It was 'Considered a white elephant on the waterfront, and the harbour board at that time got in touch with a group of Alberta people who agreed to take the lease over. At a later date the United Grain Growers, after the lease had been cancelled to the British and Oriental Grain Company, took the plant over, and made twice as much profit in one year as the British and Oriental Grain Company had received by way of settlement.


Robert Gardiner: My hon. friend's argument would be feasible if he had told the committee that the company who made this large profit-I do not mean the Oriental Grain Company, but the other one-had actually done work and earned the money. The hon. gentleman says this was a white elephant. From what we have been told in regard to the amount it has cost the country to settle with the Oriental Grain Company it seems to me that instead of being a white elephant it was highly coloured with gold.


Mr. KELLNER:: What question was submitted to the courts? Was it to find out whether the government owed the Oriental Grain Company money, or was it to determine the amount?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The question submitted to the courts was to ascertain the value of the claim.


Robert Gardiner: Was the question submitted, in the first place, whether the government or the commission owed the company any money?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes.


Robert Gardiner: Quite sure of that?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 3 agreed to.
On section 4-No loans until plans approved.
Herbert Bealey Adshead: I am glad the Minister
of Labour (Mr. Heenan) is in the house, because I should like him to assure us that a fair wage provision will be inserted before any monies are granted. We did not have any assurance in that regard in the other case. I should like also to have a copy of that fair wage clause if it is possible to obtain it. In my opinion, also, the enforcement of the fair wage clause should come within the jurisdiction of the Department of Labour in order that we might have uniformity in connection with fair wage clauses. We [DOT]have not unanimity in that respect at present. When difficulties arise in connection with labour we find one fair wage clause here and another somewhere else, and, as the Minister of Labour well knows, when a similar question arose on a previous occasion this session I had some trouble in getting certain fair wage clauses enforced. The fair wage clause in one department was not the same as that in another, and the fair wage clause in which I was interested, and which the Minister of Labour was trying to enforce, was made absolutely useless by just one provision which vitiated the whole thing. I want to ask the Minister of Marine and Fisheries to assure the committee again that a fair wage clause satisfactory to the Minister of Labour will be inserted here and that a copy of that clause will be furnished me.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I will give that undertaking, certainly.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 5 to 7 inclusive agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. P. J. A. CARDIN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) moved the second reading of Bill No. 67. to provide for a loan to the Three Rivers Harbour Commissioners.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the house went into committee thereon. Sir Eugene Fiset in the chair.
Section 1 agreed to.
<tE VISED EDITION
2560	COMMONS
Three Rivers Harbour Commission
On section 2-Loan of $2,000,000 to harbour commissioners for terminal facilities.
Robert Gardiner: Will the minister
explain?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: For a number of years
the works in the harbour of Three Rivers were taken care of by the Department of Public Works. The main wharves in that harbour were built by that department, and although a few years ago a harbour commission was created at this point certain works were later undertaken by the Department of Public Works, namely the construction of additional Wharves. When the commissioners came to the government this year asking for an advance of money for the development of the harbour, it was decided that the money for the works which were started last year, and which will cost between $300,000 and $400,000, if my memory serves me aright, should be provided by such an advance rather than by the Department of Public Works.
The object of the expenditure is to provide first for a quay wall 688 feet long, a pier 500 feet long and approximately 320 feet wide, and an additional quay wall to the inner end of the pier and fronting on basin number one, 375 feet long. Then it is intended to construct another quay wall fronting basin number two 515 feet long, with a short section of quay wall at right angles to this, 135 feet long. There will be thus provided seven additional berths in that harbour, and this amount is necessary for the construction of those wharves, which provide open storage.
When I presented the resolution to the house, if I remember correctly the hon. member for Acadia asked how we contemplated securing the necessary revenue to meet the interest on that expenditure. My answer is that the new development in that harbour will naturally increase the facilities available and will result' in a very material increase in the traffic handled. In fact, at present the commissioners are not able to meet all the requests for space on these wharves, and the companies doing business at Three Rivers and in that vicinity have been complaining because the vessels on which their merchandise is carried are delayed in the harbour. In particular, there will be a large increase in the amount of coal imported through this port. The Dominion Coal Company has given a guarantee that this year it will unload
200,000	tons of coal in the harbour of Three Rivers.
Let me repeat that it is impossible at present for the commissioners to meet the demands for space which are made upon them.

This committee will realize, Mr. Chairman, that Three Rivers is a very important industrial city; its population now is over 35,000, and its industries are very numerous. When we were discussing the resolution someone suggested, that the object of this advance was only to accommodate the paper mill at this point, but that is not the case. Other industries of importance are established in Three Rivers, and we must remember also that Three Rivers serves a very important territory so far as port facilities are concerned. I refer to Shawinigan Falls and the town of Grand'Mere, where there is a large development of water-power and where important industries are being established all the time. So I think the conditions justify the proposals of the harbour commissioners, and I think they are entitled to ask this assistance from parliament.


Robert Gardiner: Is this the first loan to the new harbour commission?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: This is the first loan to
be made by the government.


Robert Gardiner: Has the minister any
information as to the revenues last year?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The revenue for the year 1928 was $74,142.71. In 1924, only four years ago, the revenue was $39,468.71.


Robert Gardiner: What is the expenditure?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The expenditure for 192S amounted to $34,940.10, leaving a surplus of


S40,000.
[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 3 agreed to.
On section 4-No loans until plans approved.
Herbert Bealey Adshead: When does the minister expect the specifications will be in his possession?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I understand that the plans and specifications are already in the department.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Then the minister will be able to give me a copy of the fair wage clause?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 5 to 7 inclusive agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed-

Chicoutimi Harbour Commission

[Stage Direction]
Hon. P. J. A. CARDIN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) moved the second reading of Bill No. 68, to provide for a further loan to the Chicoutimi harbour commissioners.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Sir Eugene Fiset in the chair.
On section 1-Short title.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Will the minister give us an explanation of this bill, stating particularly how much has been expended?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: The object of this bill is to provide for an advance of $2,000,000 to the harbour commissioners. Two years ago an advance of $500,000 was made, and at the present time the commission has under construction a wharf extension which will cost $503,626. The present bill is to provide for a loan to make a further extension of 2,400 feet to the wharf, and the expenditure in that connection will amount to a little over $2,000,000. The receipts last year amounted to $18,587.63 and the expenditures to $5,497.13. The commission were able to use only the old section of the wharf; they did not have the use of the facilities which are being constructed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What was the cost of management last year?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I have only the total expenditure, salaries, maintenance and sundry disbursements on revenue account, amounting to $5,497.13. .It may be asked as to how the interest on this new expenditure will be obtained. The commission reports as follows as to the expected revenues:
Present wharf, one berth facilities.. S15.000
Coal, 225,000 tons	 25,000
Paper, 70,000 tons	 ls'oOO
Sulphur. 20,000 tons	 5.000
Pulp, 200,000 tons	 25 000
Gasoline, 3,000,000 gals	 30,000
General freight	 20 000
Car shunting, lease of space, moorage
fees>
etc	 25,000
We must remember that Chicoutimi is the centre of a very large and important industrial activity due to the tremendous development of electrical power in that section. At present 700,000 horse-power is being develaped and there is in process of development an additional 800,000 horse-power. During 1930, of the 800,000 horse-power, 250,000 will be developed. Chicoutimi, as is known by the members of the committee, is at the head of 78594-J63i
the Saguenay river and an aluminum company and other very important industries are located and are being located there as a result of the tremendous development of water-power in that section of Quebec.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Is there not another
harbour they are using?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: There is another harbour
which is being used at present, and which is called the Baie de Ha-Ha.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is the one.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: When these proposed developments were being considered and when the harbour commission of Chicoutimi was created, the question was submitted to a very competent harbour expert, Mr. Swani.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Not Mr. Palmer.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Mr. Swan. He made a
very extensive survey of all the territory and in his report he contends that the harbour ol Baie de Ha-Ha is not as advantageous as that of Chicoutimi on account of the grade from the level of the water to the height of land. He said that the grade on which the trains would have to go from the level of the harbour to the site of the industrial centre would be very heavy and he contended that this would be an objection. Moreover, the port of Chicoutimi is open earlier in the year. The ice goes out of the harbour of Chicoutimi much sooner than it does out of the harbour of Baie de Ha-Ha. The latter being a bay, there is no current to carry out the ice. Therefore the advice of the expert confirms the belief of the commissioners that the harbour of Chicoutimi is by far the more advantageous of the two. Of course I understand there is a certain amount of dispute between the two localities, but from an engineering point of view there is no doubt that Chicoutimi is by far the better place,, and it is also much nearer the centre of the industrial development which is taking place in that section.


Robert Gardiner: The minister informed the committee that he expected a revenue of $160,000 per annum. He also gave the various items that go to make up the total. Can he inform us when he expects to reach that amount of revenue?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: As soon as the facilities
are provided, as soon as the wharves are built, the traffic will commence there because the industries are waiting for the development of these facilities to handle the larger amount of supplies they propose to handle.

Chicoutimi Harbour Commission


Robert Gardiner: Do I understand that
these industries cannot develop until such time as the facilities are provided, or what are they doing with the business now?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: They are handling the
business as well as they can, but they are not at the present time importing into Chicoutimi the same amount of supplies that they will be in a position to import when the industries are completely established. These mills are in the course of completion, and the harbour commissioners want to be ready, when the mills are in operation, with the necessary facilities in the harbour.


Robert Gardiner: I take it that the total expenditure, after this item is passed, will be $2,500,000?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: Has the government
lent any money to the Ha-Ha harbour the minister was talking about?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: No.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. P. J. A. CARDIN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) moved the second reading of Bill No. 69, to provide for a further loan to the Halifax harbour commissioners.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
On section 2-Loan of $5,000,000 to corporation for construction of terminal facilities.
Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: In regard to this bill I am iiot in a position to give any extensive or detailed statements as far as the past year is concerned, because the harbour commissioners were put in possession of the facilities of the harbour only during the latter months of last year. An advance of $500,000 was authorized a few years ago for the harbour of Halifax, out of which there has so far been expended $31,095.65. The elevator up to recently was under the control of the Department of Trade and Commerce, and the information we have from that department as to the grain shipped through it is as follows:
Bushels
1927	 1,047,670
1928	 2,191,659

A summary of the proposed expenditure which has been submitted to me is as follows :
Miscellaneous, plant equipment.. .. $ 85,000 Deep Water Terminals
Proposed revetment wall	 400,000
Pier No. 4, repairs	 8,200
Pier No. 3, repairs	 17,300
New Pier No. 2, miscellaneous repairs	 62,000
Ocean Terminals
Marginal Road pavement	 80,000
Sheds 23. 24, 25 and 28, permanent
foundations and floors	 166.000
Pier No. "A", two transit sheds.. . .	440,000
Pier "B", construction together with
1 transit shed	 3,741,500
1,000,000 bushel addition to the grain
elevator	  300,000
Land damages	 100,000
Total	$5,400,000


Robert Gardiner: Was there any revenue
last year?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I have no statement as to that, but the revenue would amount to practically nothing, because, as I have said, the commissioners took over the property late last year.


Robert Gardiner: The revenue from the elevator would come under the Department of Trade and Commerce.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Yes.


Robert Gardiner: From the statement of the minister it appears that 1,000,000 bushel additional capacity is to be provided at a cost of $300,000. Does the commission feel that this will be justified? What is the present elevator capacity?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Speaking from memory,
2,000,000 bushels.


Robert Gardiner: And you have just filled that elevator once, because the number of bushels passing through last year was 2,000,000. I would recommend that the minister look into that question, because an elevator can handle a great deal more grain in the year than its capacity, and additional capacity should not be built until there is greater volume. A few days ago I inquired whether the elevator had been leased. The minister's information was that he did not think so. Can the minister say now whether any bin room in that elevator has been leased to private parties?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: We have nothing to indicate that the elevator has been leased to anyone.

Halifax Harbour Commission


Robert Gardiner: Did the minister have the files of the Trade and Commerce department examined to see whether a previous lease had been given by that department?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: No. All the information we have in my department indicates that the elevator is still under the control of the hiarbour commission. The commissioners, having taken possession of the property only last year, would certainly have advised the department if the elevator had been leased. Such a thing would not have been done without the consent and approval of the department.


Robert Gardiner: I have received information that the bin room in the elevator had been leased to private parties for the purpose of mixing Canadian and American grain. If that is the case, naturally we would take very strong objection to it. May I suggest that the minister make further inquiries to see whether that is being done?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Certainly.


Mr. ILSLEY:: I have received representations from my constituency concerning top wharfage at Halifax. This is being charged as a result of the establishment of the harbour commission.


Richard Bedford Bennett: We told you that last year.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I would like to place a few facts before the minister for his consideration. The Halifax harbour commission was established, as hon. gentlemen know, as a result of one of the recommendations of the Duncan commission. Prior to the establishment of the commission the wharves at Halifax were owned by the Canadian National Railways. The item of freight in which I am particularly interested is apples coming from the Annapolis valley. Several million dollars worth of apples go through the port of Halifax every year. The charge for top wharfage on apples prior to the establishment of the commission was 4 cents a barrel. The harbour commission has established a rate of 1 cent a barrel, *which so far as I can learn is probably the most moderate rate in Canada. But the shippers of the Annapolis valley were not called on to pay top wharfage charges. The (Canadian National Railways shared in the transportation of the apples to a slight extent and they charged what they called a switching charge, part of which the shippers paid. The shippers still have to pay their proportion of the switching charge; but the wharves having been taken over by the Halifax harbour commission, a top wharfage charge is now imposed by the commission, which is just that much of an addition to
what the shippers all along the Dominion Atlantic Railway have to pay. The charge, as I say, is moderate, and as the whole of Nova Scotia, I think I am safe in saying, was in favour of the establishment of the Halifax harbour commission-certainly I received many resolutions from boards of trade, asking that I support the establishment of the commission-I do not think any very reasonable exception can be taken to the charge. But it is thought that to the extent that it is imposed upon freight coming from points along the Canadian National Railways it should be absorbed by that system. If that situation arises-absorption of the top wharfage rate by the Canadian National Railways, which is quite proper-there should be a similar absorption by the other transportation system, or at least some arrangement should be made so there would be no discrimination between the shippers on the Canadian National system and the shippers on the Dominion Atlantic Railway, which is part of the Canadian Pacific Railway system. I bring these facts to the attention of the minister for his consideration. The matter is of some importance because the shippers of the Annapolis valley send a great deal of freight to foreign countries through the port of Halifax.


Mr. SHORT:: The minister mentioned an
expenditure of $100,000 for land damages. Has he any particulars as to whom those damages were paid?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I regret that I have not the details before me, but I will undertake to supply them to my hon. friend.


Harry Bernard Short: I should like to bring to
the attention of the minister the same matter that my friend from Hants-Kings (Mr. Ilsley) has referred to. Prior to the establishment of the commission I understand there was no top wharfage charge, that it was absorbed either by the railways or by the steamship companies. The constituency which I have the honour to represent in that district ships upwards of 1,000,000 barrels of apples annually. Naturally the shippers protest most vigourously against this Charge. I trust the minister will take the matter into consideration and see if some arrangement cannot be made whereby either the railway companies or the steamship companies will absorb this charge. It means quite a tax on the shippers. We were all in favour of the establishment of the harbour commission, but we were led to believe there would be no ad-

Halifax Harbour Commission
vance whatever in the charges. I am glad my hon. friend from Hants-Kings has brought the matter up, and certainly it should receive consideration by the minister.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Mr. Chairman, I feel sure the harbour commissioners will be most anxious to make the port of Halifax as popular as possible with shippers. They know the conditions of the province and I am confident they will do their utmost to meet any representation made to them by the shippers of Nova Scotia. If they are in need of any advice along the lines suggested by my hon. friends, I shall be quite willing to tender it.


Mr. SPEAKMAN:: So far as I know,
every public harbour which comes under the direction of harbour commissioners finances itself by certain charges imposed on all shippers. While I deeply sympathize with the shippers through the port of Halifax, I certainly see no reason to suppose that they should be treated in any way different from the shippers through other ports. I have always understood that the money we lend is to be expended by the harbour commissioners to provide improvements for facilitating the shipment of goods, and therefore it is to be expected that the shippers will have to meet a part of that cost. I should like to know whether the suggestion made by the two hon. members from the Annapolis valley is to be treated as an exception to the general rule.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: I think the tariff of rates
that the hon. gentlemen have been complaining of is prevailing generally in all the other harbours.


Alfred Speakman: That is my impression.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Although it is desirable that the charges be the same in all harbours, there is always room for certain exceptions according to the locality in which the port is situated. We have to take care of the special conditiotas surrounding a particular line of trade. But certainly it is expected the harbour commissioners will make their charges high enough to pay the interest on the money we are advancing to them. However, we always try to have the charges as low as possible.


Alfred Speakman: I am quite in agreement with the minister that the charges to cover the cost involved should be as low as possible. It has always been my impression that however those charges are absorbed, in the long run the shippers and the consumers of the goods on which such charges are levied
[Mr. Short.!
must meet them. If they are absorbed by the transportation companies, they will certainly be included in the freight rates, and eventually they will be reflected back in the prices which the shippers will receive for their goods.	[DOT]


James Lorimer Ilsley: My main point is that the Shippers on the two transportation systems should be treated in the same way; there should be no difference.


Alfred Speakman: Certainly.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I ventured last year to
express the opinion that Halifax and St. John should be free ports, and it was suggested during the course of the debate that the words 'Tree port" had been misunderstood by myself. If the minister has been following the observations of the trade commissioner at Hamburg, who recently has been making addresses throughout Canada, he will realize that this gentleman has advocated exactly what I then suggested to the house. I suggested that in our export business we were competing with the world by reason of the fact that the home market was by this government handed over to our foreign competitors, necessitating our seeking foreign markets for exports for which we should be able to find markets at home; and as we were driven to foreign markets we have to compete not only with the domestic markets in those foreign countries but, as well, with other competitors throughout the world. This being so, the question of charges-top wharfage and charges of that character in connection with export trade-becomes very important. This gentleman from Hamburg in, I believe, his address at Prince Rupert, pointed out the inevitable result and he further indicated the experience in Hamburg, where he is stationed, giving particulars of the whole matter. I shall not go into this to-night beyond observing that the recommendation of the Duncan report was that these harbours should be put under a commission. I had no doubt when I read that report, nor have I any doubt now about this:	It was not intended that these ports
should be regarded as commission ports in the sense in which we ordinarily use that term, implying self-sustaining undertakings, but that they should be considered' to be national ports out of which, summer and winter, goods might be exported in order that the idea which was behind the confederation of the maritime provinces and the other parts of the Dominion should be carried out. That idea was that the export traffic of the country shodld find its way to the ports of the world through Halifax and St. John, during the winter at any

Halifax Harbour Commission
rato, although during the summer, as it was then pointed out, the harbours of Montreal and Quebec afford many facilities in that direction. The conditions to which the hon. member for Hants-Ivings (Mr. Ilsley) has alluded indicate clearly that what I anticipated has happened, namely, that the charges imposed for top wharfage have affected the movement of commodities, such as apples in the Annapolis valley, and commodities of that kind. Whether the traffic originates on the Canadian National Railways or on the Dominion Atlantic, or whether it originates at the port of St. John, the situation is one which, if it continues, cannot but be injurious to the ports and must bring about a condition which will prevent the accomplishment of the purpose intended in the expenditure of the monies in question; because these expenditures are made for these ports as national undertakings; they are ports through which it is intended that Canadian goods shall be shipped to the markets of the world. That is the position as I understand it, and I think the minister must approach the question in the light of the Duncan report from a different angle than he otherwise would. These are not ports of the character of those that are closed during a portion of the year.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 3 to 6 inclusive agreed to.
Title agreed to.
John Frederick Johnston: Shall I report the bill?


Mr. GOTT:: Before you do so, Mr. Chairman, may I point out that in the last seventy-five minutes we have voted money at the rate of a- quarter of a million dollars per minute. Bill No. 66 provides for a loan to the harbour commission of Vancouver of $10,000,000; Bill No. 67 provides for a loan of $2,000,000 to the harbour commission of Three Rivers; Bill No. 68 provides for a loan of $2,000,000 in connection with Chicoutimi; and this bill, No. 69, makes provision for a loan to the Halifax commission of $5,000,000. This represents a total of $19,000,000. In 1914 plans were drafted for a breakwater at the town of Leamington in the riding of South Essex, which I have the honour to represent, and that proposal involved an expenditure Of $300,000. But although continued representations have been made to this government no favourable consideration has ever been given to the harbour there. I wish to direct this to the attention of the minister so that possibly, in preparing his estimates next year, he may favourably consider a constituency whose colour has not been at all times Liberal.


Ernest Lapointe: What about Halifax?


Eccles James Gott: South Essex used to be Liberal. I may say that I have written to the deputy minister asking that minor repairs be also made to the wharf at Amherstburg and I trust that favourable consideration will be given this matter.


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: That is something that
comes under the Public Works department, but I will undertake to bring the representations of my hon. friend to the knowledge of my colleague.


Mr. CANTLEY:: I wish to refer briefly to the harbours of Halifax and St. John, and particularly Halifax, in relation to the report of the Duncan commission in its recommendations respecting these harbours. The report recommends that these ports be developed just as the railways and the canals in Canada were developed. Now we all know how the railways of Canada were developed! and particularly how the canal system of this country was developed and is maintained. These undertakings -were carried out at the cost of the Dominion as a whole and are to-day operated without any tolls whatever. Not only does that apply to our own traffic; it applies also to the traffic of our neighbours to the south of us. Now we in Nova Scotia are in this position.: this country is giving to the people to the south of us facilities which enable them to bring in their coal and steel, using for their transport our canals free of all toll charges, to compete with the maritime provinces in Montreal and other cities of central Canada. To balance to some extent the disabilities under which we were labouring in this connection and in some other respects, the Duncan commission made this recommendation with reference to the maritime ports. It is no answer to the recommendations of that commission to say that the government have appointed a commission to regulate, to govern and to operate these harbours when they make no provision for so doing except through tolls levied on the traffic of these harbours. And that is exactly what has happened under the harbour commissions of St. John and Halifax. This was not what was intended or recommended by the Duncan commission, to whose report I have referred. So long as the present condition of affairs prevails we in the maritime provinces will continue to protest against a situation which is very far from that recommended by the Duncan commission. I wish again to call the attention of the minister and of the committee to these facts.

Halifax Harbour Commission


James Layton Ralston: I want to say just a word in regard to this matter. My hon. friend and I do not agree, but since he feels it necessary to put his views on record, I feel that I should not allow the opportunity to pass without oiiee more reminding this committee of the exact situation.
My hon. friend has referred to-night, as he did previously, to the terms of what is now known as the Duncan report. I only desire to direct the attention of the committee to the passages in that report which already have been referred to and which I say with all due respect do not bear out the contention of my hon. friend. The report states clearly that the recommendation is that there shall be statutory commissions appointed. As I had occasion to point out previously the gentlemen who made that report were not unskilled in the use of the English language; they were men with full ability to make their meaning plain, and from cover to cover of the report there is no suggestion that the statutory commissions which were recommended should be different in any degree from the statutory commissions already established at Vancouver, Quebec, Montreal and other places. So clear is this that in the report itself, following the recommendation, Sir Andrew Rae Duncan and his associates expressly refer to the fact that they had an opportunity for a private session with the Montreal harbour commission, and they go on to say:
...and, by hearing from them the steps they took to survey and stimulate production in their immediate territory as well as wider afield, we are confirmed in our view as to what harbour commissions (constituted of business and experienced persons) at Halifax and St. John could .do in stimulating the trade of the maritime provinces.
Then they go on to reiterate their recommendation. Quite contrary to what my hon. friend has said, I am of the opinion that the suggested commissions were similar to those of which Sir Andrew Rae Duncan and his colleagues were fully aware, and if anything more were needed to substantiate that belief I find it in the case which was made before the Duncan commission, during which the gentleman who spoke for the city of Halifax advocated commissions similar to those already established in Montreal and Quebec. Let me just read a portion of the representations which were made. This gentleman said:
Probably the quickest way to bring this to the attention of the commission would be to glance through the annual reports of the harbour commissions of Quebec, Montreal and Vancouver, and you will find in reading their reports that the minds of the commissioners are 
centred principally on the two things: 4Port development and solicitation of traffic;* and inevitably they make a great deal of the improvement in the quantity of traffic moving through the port each year.
There was not a suggestion that fair tolls should not be charged in connection with the business but rather it was thought that the work of these commissions should be principally in improving business and soliciting traffic. Further, this gentleman said:
We have no objection to their solicitation of traffic, and believe that they are acting wisely as trustees for that property, which belongs to the Dominion government; but we do claim, as I stated before, that a similar body should be constituted for the port of Halifax and not with any idea of taking traffic away from Montreal or any other port, but rather in the hope that it will at least offset the competition of these other ports which are being developed by the aid of government money.
I do not think there can be any question but that the ports were to be on the same basis, and tihe aid of government money means just exactly what we are doing tonight, namely the voting of a substantial loan to the harbour commission for the purpose of developing and improving the facilities of that port. No one has suggested that tolls are to be charged which will retard the development and use of these ports. Rather the reverse is the case; after all the Dominion government is advancing this money in order that these facilities may be improved and traffic developed, and tolls are to be charged as they are charged on the railways, namely the rates to be according to what the traffic will bear-


Peter McGibbon: "A Daniel come to
judgment."


James Layton Ralston: I do not know what that means; that is not my name. Perhaps the hon. gentleman refers to my hon. friend who preceded me. I only desire to point out that my hon. friend from Pictou referred to the railways and canals, and said Sir Andrew Rae Duncan also referred to them. He dealt with the canals; let me deal with the railways. The railways were developed through the advancing of large sums of money by the Dominion, but no one has suggested that the railways should not charge tolls. Money is being advanced in the same way to this harbour commission, and I think tolls are properly collected so long as they are not in excess of what the traffic will bear.
That brings me to the question of the free port, brought up by my hon. friend the leader of the opposition. I do not think he intended to suggest that there should be no tolls paid

Administration in Yukon
at all. Reference was made last year to the free port of Hamburg. It was pointed out that there is a certain area in which goods are not required to pay duty, but Hamburg charges tolls far in excess of those charged at the Atlantic ports of Halifax and St. John.


Thomas Cantley: No.


James Layton Ralston: I dealt with that question last year, and I shall not delay the matter by going over it again to-night.


Thomas Cantley: I have been there, and
I am thoroughly well aware of the conditions prevailing in the free port zone.


James Layton Ralston: I think my hon. friend
from Pictou will agree that considerable advances have been made with respect to Halifax harbour even in the short time it has been under the administration of the harbour commission. There has been a concentration of effort in connection with the solicitation of traffic, in connection with the arrangements whereby certain large steamship companies are calling and in some cases turning there, in connection with a very substantial increase in the general cargo passing through that port, the figures for which I will not trouble the committee with to-night, and in connection with the movement of grain. All these things have come to pass within the last two yeans; I believe the harbour commission are entitled to a great deal of credit and I believe if this committee passes this loan the resulting substantial improvement in facilities will bring about a large increase in the production of traffic and will assist the development of the port as Sir Andrew Rae Duncan and his associates had in mind when they made the report to which my hon. friend has referred.


Thomas Cantley: I am absolutely convinced-and I think I could prove to any unprejudiced group of people-that Sir Andrew Rae Duncan meant one thing, viz:	that
a harbour commission should be brought into being which, as he said, would develop the port. What did that mean? It meant the provision of adequate" facilities for port development, and who was to pay for those facilities? They were to be paid for by the Dominion of Canada, just as the Dominion as a whole paid for the construction of our canal system, and these two maritime ports were to be operated as our canal system is operated, free of tolls or harbour dues. As a matter of fact Halifax was formerly practically free of all tolls on its public wharves, and its harbour facilities were maintained at the expense of the Dominion
before the creation of this commission, but now, in order to meet the interest on the bonds issued by the commission, of necessity tolls must be and are applied, so to-day Halifax has to submit to a system of tolls which it did not have previously.


James Layton Ralston: If my hon. friend will
permit me-


Thomas Cantley: Not now; I did not
interrupt the minister, but he is the champion interrupter of this house; that is his reputation, and it is not creditable to him.
I repeat, that is the situation, and my point is, always has been and will continue to be that what Sir Andrew Rae Duncan meant was that a commission should be appointed to administer this port. The minister refers to the fact that the Duncan commission interviewed- the Montreal harbour commissioners. Of course they did; they did so in order to see how they had developed the harbour of Montreal, not in order to recommend a similar taxing commission for Halifax. In the mind of Sir Andrew Rae Duncan these were to be different commissions altogether; there is no doubt about that. The minister may argue as long as he pleases, but he cannot convince the people of Halifax, the people of Nova Scotia or the people of St. John, New Brunswick, that we have the type of harbour commission which was foreshadowed and intended by Sir Andrew Rae Duncan. That is my answer to the minister.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN THE YUKON TERRITORY
[Stage Direction]
Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice) moved the second reading of Bill No. 131, respecting the administration of justice in the Yukon territory.
Mr. GEORGE BLACK (Yukon):: The
explanatory note in connection with this bill says that because of the geographical location of the northern part of the Yukon territory it may be more convenient to carry on the trials of persons charged with indictable offences committed therein before a magistrate of the Northwest territories. The explanatory note refers to the northern part of the territory but the bill does not, and I would regret to see that principle applied to the whole of the Yukon territory.


Ernest Lapointe: That is not the intention.
256S
Administration in Yukon


George Black: That might not be the case with the present Minister of Justice, but I intend to suggest when the bill goes into committee that it be confined to the northern part of the territory. The administration of justice in the Yukon is swift enough, but it is not carried on as it is in the Northwest territories. Not so long ago we had an account of a trial of a criminal case in the northern part of the Northwest territories. A judge was sent up to try a murder charge and the Department of Justice took the precaution of sending a gallows with him. That may have been a very wise precaution but we do not move quite so swiftly in the Yukon.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about the hangman?


George Black: I think they found a hangman up there. For these reasons I would like to have the operation of this bill confined to the northern part of the Yukon around the Arctic ocean, and not have it apply to that part of the country where the white people live.


Ernest Lapointe: Will the hon. member suggest a wording which will meet his views in that regard?


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the house went into committee thereon, Sir Eugene Fiset in the chair.
On section 1-Power to order trial.
Ernest Lapointe: The hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Black) suggests that the words "alleged to have been committed north of the sixty-fifth parallel of latitude" be added after the word "offence" in the seventh line. Would the hon. member tell me if that would include Herschel island?


George Black: That would include Herschel island and Fort McPherson.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Herschel island is away north of that.


George Black: Herschel island is in the Northwest territories, and it would be more convenient to communicate with those centres of population than with the southerly parts of the Yukon. If you adopt that recommendation you would be excluding from the operation of the bill all that part of the Yukon which is inhabited by white people and where business is being carried on.


Ernest Lapointe: I should like to change the word "supposed" in the ninth line to "alleged." That would make the wording more legal in form.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
The.   CHAIRMAN@Sir Eugene Fiset: The hon. Minister of Justice suggests that the following words be added to the section, "and thereupon the court or judge so named shall have jurisdiction to try such person." The section as amended would read:
1. Whenever it appears to the satisfaction of the Minister of Justice that it is expedient to the ends of justice that the trial of any person heretofore or hereafter charged with an indictable offence alleged to have been committed north of the sixty-fifth parallel of latitude in the Yukon territory should be held in some district or place other than that in which the offence is alleged to have been committed or would otherwise be triable, the Minister of Justice may order that the trial shall be proceeded with in the Northwest territories before the court or judge named in such order, and thereupon the court or judge so named shall have jurisdiction to try such person.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
Section 2 agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice) moved the second reading of Bill No. 170, respecting juvenile delinquents.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Sir Eugene Fiset in the chair.
On section 1-Short title.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Perhaps the minister will explain the circumstances under which this bill has been prepared. As I understand the matter, it has been very carefully gone over by a representative number of Canadians who are interested1 in questions respecting juvenile delinquents, and it Ijas met with the unanimous approval of various organizations and experts in that particular line of endeavour. If that be so, the minister might make an explanation that would expedite the passing of this proposed legislation.


Ernest Lapointe: The bill arises entirely
out of recommendations made at a conference of the Canadian Council on Child Welfare, held in October last and attended by persons from all parts of Canada, representing the various agencies connected with the enforce-

Juvenile Delinquents
ment of the Juvenile Delinquents Act throughout the Dominion. The conclusions of the conference were the subject of a report to the department, and this bill embodies the suggestions made by the conference after a full discussion by judges, men at the head of this organization and officials of the Department of Justice. It is the old act with certain changes and improvements, all made with a view to facilitating the working of the Juvenile Delinquents Act.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On Section 2-Definitions.
Samuel William Jacobs: If this legislation is to be
put into force, and each province is to have the right to change the age, will it not interfere greatly with the uniformity of the law? Why should one province declare that a juvenile delinquent may be eighteen years of age, while another declares that the age shall be sixteen?


Ernest Lapointe: There is no change as
to that. That was the old act. A mistake was made in the revision of the statutes, and the change which appears to be made now is simply for the purpose of restoring in that respect what was in the old act. It has always been so.


Samuel William Jacobs: That is to say, under the
law as it is now each province may declare who is and who is not a juvenile delinquent according to age?


Ernest Lapointe: Yes.


Samuel William Jacobs: This is the explanatory note in connection with section 2:
Under the 1908 act the age is sixteen years. The two provisos are to enable the governor in .council to provide by proclamation that the age may be raised to eighteen years in any particular province which desires it, and that such proclamation may have reference to boys or girls only, or to both.


Ernest Lapointe: Under the 1908 act the age is sixteen years. By chapter 37, section 1, of the statutes of 1921, that provision was repealed, and it was provided that "child" means a boy or girl apparently or actually under the age of eighteen years. But it was provided that the amendment should come into operation only in such province or provinces as the governor in council might from time to time by proclamation prescribe. The age is sixteen but, as my hon. friend says, it may be changed to eighteen when a province desires the change to be made.


Samuel William Jacobs: Does this not seem anomalous?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Not in any sense to interrupt the explanation of the minister, I think the hon. member for Cartier will find the explanation in subsection (2) of section 3 of the act, which reads:
Where a child is adjudged to have committed a delinquency he shall be dealt with, not as an offender, but as one in a condition of delinquency and therefore requiring help and guidance and proper supervision.
It was thought desirable by some of the provincial authorities to exercise help and guidance and proper supervision over some children who were older than sixteen years. Hence, sixteen being the standard, it is provided that by proclamation the governor in council may continue those provisions to children of the age of eighteen. That is, I think, the governing section of the whole of this legislation, namely, that a child is in a state of delinquency and is not an offender, but requires help and guidance and proper supervision.


Ernest Lapointe: As a matter of fact, only in British Columbia was such a proclamation made raising the age to eighteen. In all the rest of Canada it is sixteen.


Samuel William Jacobs: That is to say, in British Columbia they have only as much intelligence at eighteen as in the other provinces they have at sixteen. I should like to hear from the hon. member for Vancouver Centre in regard to that,


Hugh Guthrie: Paragraph (g) reads:
"Juvenile delinquent" means any child who violates any provision of the criminal code or of any Dominion or provincial statute, or of any by-law or ordinance of any municipality.
Is that not pretty broad?


Richard Bedford Bennett: It has always been that way.


Hugh Guthrie: Municipalities have many by-laws that are more or less trifling, and it is pretty hard to make a delinquent of a child who violates them. For example, there are by-laws that provide that you shall not scatter paper in the park or spit on the sidewalk. Surely you are not going to make a delinquent of a child who violates such by-laws as those.


Ernest Lapointe: Such a child would be treated with benevolence and rare. If it were an ordinary provision in. the criminal code, my hon. friend would certainly be right, but I would call his attention to the fact that the
Juvenile Delinquents

old act contains the same provisions; the only change is the striking out of certain words, namely:
For which violation punishment by fine or *imprisonment may be awarded.
The part which reads-
"Juvenile delinquent" means any child who violates any provision of the criminal code or of any Dominion or provincial statute, or of any by-law or ordinance of any municipality.
-was in the old act.


Hugh Guthrie: "For which violation punishment toy fine or imprisonment may be awarded."


Ernest Lapointe: Those are the words that are asked to be struck out. I would hesitate to change the bill, because it was carefully considered and discussed by those most qualified to deal with it.


Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: Does the minister mean then that imprisonment is abolished as regards a juvenile delinquent?


Ernest Lapointe: My hon. friend will see that in the subsequent provisions of the bill the ordinary' imprisonment is abolished. But paragraph (g) is only a definition of what a juvenile delinquent is.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I should like to revert for a. moment to paragraph (g) of section 2, which refers to a child who is liable to be committed under the ordinance of any municipality. Suppose a child is haled into court for riding a bicycle on a sidewalk, which is a very common practice; would that constitute delinquency under this statute?


Ernest Lapointe: As the leader of the
opposition said a few moments ago in reply to my hon. friend from Cartier, I think that the other provisions of the bill will help to a full understanding of the meaning and intent of the act. For instance, under section 3, where a child is adjudged to have committed a delinquency, he is to be dealt with, not as an offender, but as one in a condition of delinquency and therefore requiring help and guidance and proper supervision. It is not for the purpose of punishment so much as for the purpose of helping the boy or the girl in question. The fact that violations of municipal by-laws are included among the offences which may constitute a child a delinquent is really not so serious because, after all, the purpose is simply to provide help and guidance and proper supervision.


Samuel William Jacobs: And warning sometimes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. member for
Saskatoon has asked a question that some of my friends here were asking a few moments ago, and I have had some little discussion with those interested. There is no change in the section from what it was before. The child who rode a bicycle on the sidewalk would not be charged as an offender, but merely as a delinquent if thought desirable. If it were not for the provisions of this act he would be charged as an offender. That is the real distinction, and the whole purpose of the bill is that instead of the punishment that would be meted out to an offender, help and guidance and proper supervision shall be given and the child treated as a delinquent, not as an offender.


Ernest Lapointe: It is based on kindness
rather than on anything else.


Richard Bedford Bennett: On kindness rather than
on punishment.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 3-Delinquency.
Peter McGibbon: May we have an explanation of this?


Ernest Lapointe: I really cannot make it clearer than the wording of the section itself. This is the collective wisdom of those who are dealing with these matters. Perhaps this section is not altogether necessary, but it is more for the purpose of explaining the principle upon which this whole legislation is based.


Peter McGibbon: I really think the minister ought to give us some better explanation than that. I have every sympathy with legislation of this kind, but it does seem to me that in all such acts the one object should be reformation, to reclaim those who have transgressed the laws of the country and put them in the way of making of themselves good and reputable citizens. Along with that it must be remembered that punishment is a means to an end1, and I am rather afraid that much of the legislation we pass here has not that object in view, but rather that punishment is really punishment, instead of reform.


Ernest Lapointe: By the other provisions
of the act sufficient punishment is provided, but as my hon. friend says, reformation is the principle underlying this bill. It is very likely that this section is not necessary, but it is harmless, and I believe it embodies a meritorious doctrine.

Juvenile Delinquents


Peter McGibbon: Many such sections as
these appear to be harmless when they are passed by the house, but when placed in the hands of the law officers of the country to administer they are found not to be harmless, but rather detrimental, in my opinion, to the growth and development of character.


Ernest Lapointe: It will perhaps surprise
my hon. friend if I tell him that his objection was mine when this bill was submitted to me by the officers of the department. I also thought that this section, although finely worded, was not necessary, but they said that it was harmless and they would hesitate to advise that it be struck out because it was recommended by the child welfare organizations after very long and serious consideration.


Peter McGibbon: I would recommend to the minister that he have the courage of his convictions and strike it out.


Ernest Lapointe: I am always willing to
take the advice of others. On this bill I would prefer, perhaps to take the advice of the different bodies that met here last fall. Perhaps my hon. friend does not believe in them, but I do. There are many other matters on which I should be very glad to take the advice of my hon. friend.


Peter McGibbon: Does the minister say
that he takes their advice against his own convictions?


Ernest Lapointe: Ah well, may be.
Section 3 agreed to.
Sections 4 and 5 agreed to.
On section 6-Powers of judge of juvenile court.


Arthur Edward Ross: Is provision made in all places for a juvenile trial?


Ernest Lapointe: No.


John Gordon Ross: What about those districts in
which great harm is done and where there is no juvenile court?


Ernest Lapointe: The act does not apply. It applies only in provinces where they ask that a proclamation be issued to apply the act, and in cities where a by-law is passed to that effect, and where it is proved that the necesary facilities for the enforcement of the act are available.


Arthur Edward Ross: But thiq act
arranges for special trials in all cases?


Ernest Lapointe: Yes.


Arthur Edward Ross: The minister knows the great harm done by magistrates in country districts who impose sentences out of all proportion to the offences committed.


Ernest Lapointe: I know that- The idea is to extend the act as much as possible, but it does not apply where proper facilities are not provided.


Peter McGibbon: This would not apply
in Ontario except to such cities as Toronto, Hamilton and London?


Ernest Lapointe: I cannot say from
memory all the places where it applies, but I know only last week we issued a proclamation applying it in the city of Oshawa.


Peter McGibbon: It would not apply in the rural districts?


Ernest Lapointe: No.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 7 and 8 agreed to.
On section 9-Exceptional procedure when offence is indictable.
Mr. McQUARRIE:: Have any representations been made to the Minister of Justice as to the advisability of changing this section?


Ernest Lapointe: No.


William Garland McQuarrie: I know there have
been complaints that too much responsibility is imposed upon juvenile courts. This section applies to indictable offences committed by juveniles who are apparently over the age of fourteen years. It is to be noted that discretion is given to the magistrate or to the juvenile court judge to order that the child be proceeded against by indictment. That is in the absolute discretion of the juvenile court. The section proceeds:
-but such course shall in no case be followed unless the court is of the opinion that the good of tlie child and the interest of the community demand it.
So that the juvenile court has the exclusive jurisdiction as to whether it shall try the offender or whether there shall be an indictment. In practice it is found that the juvenile court judge is more or less inclined to be very lenient with children who appear before him or her-in some places of course we have women juvenile court judges. Very serious offences are committed by boys who are almost men, and it is the gravamen of the complaints I 'have heard that in many cases these boys are not punished as they should be owing to the system in vogue in juvenile courts. I suggest there is some-
Juvenile Delinquents

thing worth considering in these complaints, and that there should be a change made in the section by adding these words:
-or on the application of the attorney general of the province where the offence is committed.
In such a case where the attorney general thought it advisable he would simply make application to the judge, and the judge would be bound to commit that child by way of indictment. The present practice does not work out very well, inasmuch as it is more or less an encouragement to the young hoodlums I am referring to to commit serious offences when they know they will not be adequately punished.


Ernest Lapointe: As my hon. friend will
notice, this is not a new section. The principle upon which the act is based is that even when children break the law they are still children and should be treated as such rather than as adult offenders. I would hesitate to accept the change mentioned by my hon. friend to take away discretion from the judge of the juvenile court, who is well acquainted with the conditions of the community, and to give that discretion to the attorney general. It is evident that the latter could not devote the same personal attention and personal oare to the conditions under which the offence may have been committed and in which the child finds himself as could the judge, or even the committee dealing with the question of children in that community. I believe the act has always worked well so far as this section is concerned, and that we should retain it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am rather inclined to
believe that there is something in the observations made by the hon. member for New Westminster. My attention was directed to a case in which a juvenile court judge was always inclined to err on the side of sentimental regard for the delinquent, with the result that certain rather grave offences were treated with a very great lack of seriousness. Would any injury be done to this statute if it provided:
Where the act complained of is, under the provisions of the criminal code or otherwise, an indictable offence, and the accused child is apparently or actually over the age of fourteen years,-
Fourteen years being the age at which intent may be presumed.
-the court or the attorney general of the province in which such court is situate-
Being the words used in section 7,
[DOT]-may, in its discretion, order the child to be proceeded against by indictment in the ordinary
[Mr. McQuarrie.l
courts in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Code in that behalf; but such course shall in no case be followed unless the court or the attorney general is of the opinion that the good of the child and the interest of the community demand it.
There is no doubt that there must be a very sharp dividing line between the desire to bring about reform by kindly means and the regard for punishment. If an indictable offence has been committed-it must be indictable and the delinquent must be over fourteen years of age

there comes a time when it might well be that the sentiment of the presiding judge would lead to a course which would be injurious to the welfare of the country, and the attorney general, who after all has considerable responsibility under the criminal code, should be in a position to say, "It is quite clear that this is a case in which the ordinary course of justice should be followed, and the case heard as an ordinary charge against the provisions of the code". I do not think any injury can ensue from this, and it is just possihle that an untrained legal mind might realize that after all there was the principal officer of the crown to whom an appeal might be made in that regard. It is worth considering. My hon. friend from New Westminster has mentioned the matter, and the minister no doubt sees that there might be a case where it would be desirable to take this view.


Ernest Lapointe: If our minds -are centred on punishment probably my hon. friend is right; his view is no doubt sound if we are thinking of punishment rather than of reform and improvement. I think however that the judge of the juvenile court is better situated to know whether it is more in the interests of the child and even of society that a boy should not be sent to an ordinary prison. I really cannot see that it would be in any way advisable to change the law.


Peter McGibbon: I voice my personal
opinion when I say that extreme penalties, especially prison sentences, should be our last resort. When you imprison people a stigma follows them to the grave; that stigma falls also upon the wife of a -man as well as upon his children. To put a boy of fourteen or fifteen, or even sixteen or seventeen in a gaol for any offence without taking into consideration his education, his environment, his training or his parents is, I think, a very great mistake. We wish in this country to bring up respectable citizens, and I have always been opposed to gaol sentences except as extreme

Juvenile Delinquents
penalties. The object of all punishment is reform, and especially is this true when you are dealing with children who have not had the advantage of proper home influence, training and environment and whose mistakes or crimes, if you will, are committed in ignorance. I am very much opposed to taking the authority away from the local body and placing it in the hands of the attorney general.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 10 and 11 agreed to.
On section 12-Names not to be published or identity of child indicated.
Arthur Edward Ross: Does this include the publication of pictures? This has got to be a serious matter.


Ernest Lapointe: I am sure it does.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: This section speaks of a delinquency committed by a child. Under section 2 "child" means any boy or girl under the age of sixteen years. Now in section 9 we are providing that any child over the age of fourteen may be proceeded against by indictment in the ordinary course. Surely that is not consistent; if he is under sixteen he is a child and should not be so dealt with.


Ernest Lapointe: Section 9 deals with cases in which the child may be proceeded against under the provisions of the criminal code, in the discretion of the judge.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Nevertheless he is still a child.


Ernest Lapointe: Yes, but in that case it is in the discretion of the judge.


Samuel William Jacobs: Does not the bon. gentleman know that a child of fourteen can be hanged for murder?


Herbert Bealey Adshead: You have defined "child" as a person under sixteen; surely you will not proceed against a child by indictment.


Samuel William Jacobs: A child can commit an offence.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman has overlooked one fact. The criminal code provides that at the age of fourteen certain obligations rest upon every person, male or female, and section 9 of this act declares that the provisions of the criminal code may, if the judge so determines, become operative against that person if he or she is over fourteen. This
act provides that up to the age of sixteen the child shall be regarded as a delinquent. There is no inconsistency; section 9 relates to the criminal code, which provides that every person, male or female, becomes responsible in the eyes of the law at the age of fourteen.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 13 to 15 inclusive agreed to.
On section 16-Court may adjourn or postpone hearing.
Samuel William Jacobs: Just as a matter of information I should like to ask the Minister of Justice why all these sections which are not changed are reenacted?


Ernest Lapointe: This is a revision and consolidation of the act.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 17-Proceedings may be informal.
Ernest Lapointe: I may say that the convention made a recommendation which went much further than this; they recommended that we should provide that any warrant or process issued by the juvenile court should run through all parts of the Dominion. In the department we thought it better to retain the limitation contained in the criminal code and to require that a warrant be endorsed by a judge in the district in which the arrest is to be made. I think there can be no objection to this section in its present form.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section IS-Seal not required.
Ernest Lapointe: The same rule applies
under the criminal code.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 19 and 20 agreed to.
On section 21-May be dealt with under provincial law.
Ernest Lapointe: This is unchanged except for a merely formal amendment.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 22-Parent or guardian may be ordered to pay fine, damages or costs.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Under this provision it would be possible to impose., a penalty upon
Private Bills

the parents of a child without their having an opportunity to be heard. I think this question should be carefully considered by the law officers of the crown.


Ernest Lapointe: I must confess that I was awaiting the reaction of the committee to this section. Personally I think it goes rather far, and if it were not for the fact that it was so strongly recommended by this convention I would hesitate to support it. I am quite willing to let this section stand.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The principle is ail right.


Ernest Lapointe: Yes, but we are making the parents or guardians responsible and they may be compelled to pay.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Without having a chance to be heard.


Ernest Lapointe: I do not think parliament usually goes quite so far, I am quite willing to let this section stand for further consideration, and we may be able to suggest changes which will make it less objectionable.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There is a provision in subsection 4 giving the parents a chance to be heard, but the relation between the two is not quite what it might be. If the minister would let it stand we would have an opportunity of looking it over and trying to make it satisfactory.
Section stands.
Progress reported.


GENEVA PROTOCOL
William Lyon Mackenzie King: With the permission of the house I should like to table a copy of the protocol for the prohibition of the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of bacteriological methods of warfare, signed at Geneva on June 17, 1925. I desire to move:
That 500 copies of the protocol for the prohibition of the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of bacteriological methods of warfare, signed at Geneva on June 17, 1925, tabled this day, be printed forthwith; and that standing order 64 be suspended in relation thereto.
It is the intention during the present session to ask the house to approve of this convention.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Richard Bedford Bennett: I desire to suggest to the Prime Minister that the papers and correspondence in connection with the sockeye salmon treaty be brought down before we discuss the treaty itself. There must be some correspondence and some instructions issued to our commissioners. I thought I had spoken about this matter previously but apparently I failed to do so.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If the correspondence has not already been brought down I will see that it is laid on the table as soon as possible.	.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Friday, May 17, 1929