1930-03-17

PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 32, respecting the Interprcvincial and James Bay Railway Company.-Mr. Parent.
Bill No. 33, respecting The Algoma Central and Hudson Bay Railway Company.-Mr. Bradette.
Bill No. 34, to amend an act to incorporate the Canadian Bible Society auxiliary to the British and Foreign Bible Society.-Mr. Evans.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, with the
consent of the house I should like to make the following motion, with the understanding that if there is any objection it may stand aa a notice. The motion is:
That on and after Monday, March 24 next, and all subsequent Mondays and Wednesdays until the end of the session, government notices of motion and government orders shall have precedence over all other business except questions and notices of motions for the production of papers and private bills on Monday.


Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition):: I had not understood the right hon. Prime Minister to say that his motion would include both days. I thought it was intended only to take Mondays and to leave Wednesdays for the time being.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I may say, Mr. Speaker, that during the last three years the average time allowed to private members has been ten days. One year it was eight days; another year it was ten days and in the third year it was eleven days. This motion would allow ten full days to private members.
Perhaps I should add that there is this year an even stronger reason why this motion should be carried than was the case in previous years. Up to the present time the government has had only two days for its business since the house opened. If we except the time taken for the discussion on the speech from the throne which took but one day or two we have had only two days devoted to government business. After all the government is entitled to some place in parliament in the matter of its legislation.


Sir GEORGE PERLEY (Argenteuil):: But may I say, Mr. Speaker, that in the old days, as I remember it, there were always two motions in connection with this taking away of the days of private members. The first motion, if my memory serves me right, would be for Wednesdays, and a couple of weeks later a motion would be made with regard to Mondays. It seems rather hard for the members who have notices of motion on the order paper to be entirely shut off after this week. I should like to suggest that the Prime Minister look up the precedents, and I think he will find that this was the customary procedure.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have looked up these points, and as a matter of fact probably notice should have been given a fortnight ago with regard to this motion, but I think my hon. friend will find that what is being proposed for this year is quite the customary average. However, this might stand is a notice for the present.


Mr. G. G. COOTE (Macleod):: I should like lo direct the attention of the Prime Minister to the fact that this year we took just a little over one day to dispose of the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne which, in my own recollection, often has taken a period of three weeks. I think the government certainly is trying to shut off private members' days much too early in the session. I certainly think this should stand as notice and that private members should be allowed further days.
Insurance Act


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Richard Bedford Bennett: As the Prime Minister indicated, unless it is consented to unanimously it will have to stand as notice.


John Frederick Johnston: Stands as notice of motion.



INSURANCE ACT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 35, to amend the Insurance Act.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Mr. DUNNING:: The object of the bill is to make three amendments, not of a very important character, to the Insurance Act. The first amendment provides for the release of securities by the superintendent of insurance to a liquidator, under court order. The second amendment has to do with a difficulty which has arisen in permitting companies to declare a dividend when in any particular year they did not comply literally with the provisions of the act with respect to surplus and accumulated reserves, and the third amendment is designed to permit the issuance of shares by fire and casualty companies of a lesser par value than $100.
I may say that it is my intention to ask the house to refer the bill to the committee on banking and commerce following second reading, in order that a thorough examination of its provisions may be made.


Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (Wetaskiwin):: May I ask the Minister of Finance if there is any provision in this bill for limiting the investments of any insurance companies in common stock?


Charles Avery Dunning: No.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



GOVERNMENT HARBOURS AND PIERS ACT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. P. J. A. CARDIN (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 36, to amend the Government Harbours and Piers Act.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Mr. CARDIN:: The object of the bill is to provide that the Government Harbours and Piers Act shall apply to Pictou harbour.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.
|Mr. Coote.]



IMPORTATION OF EGGS


[Stage Direction]
Mr. H. J. BARBER (Fraser Valley) asked leave under standing order 31 to move the adjournment of the house for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the necessity for immediate action to be taken by the government to prevent the dumping of eggs from the United States and other countries upon the Canadian market.
And leave having been granted:
Mr. BARBER:: Mr. Speaker, I move the house do adjourn.
As briefly as possible I will undertake to place before the house and the government the serious condition which exists in relation to one of our branches of agriculture; I refer to the poultry industry. This industry has developed into a very valuable one, giving employment to a large number of our people. I believe that some 250,000 Canadians are employed at the present time in this industry. Statistics supplied by the Department of Trade and Commerce show that in 1928 we had over 34,000,000 producing hens with a total production of 269,000,000 dozen eggs, valued at $84,000,000. In 1921 the total production was valued at $40,000,000 and to-day that production is valued at $84,000,000, which is proof that this industry has developed very rapidly during the last few years. The minister has drawn our attention to the fact that the per capita consumption of eggs in Canada has shown a marked increase, the domestic consumption exceeding that of any other country. This can be taken as a tribute to the high quality of the Canadian egg. Some credit for this result belongs rightly to the department, but a great deal must be given to those engaged in the industry. Through careful selection and breeding we are told that the production per hen has increased in seven years from 78 to 95 eggs and through better grading and marketing the average price received during that time has increased from 25 cents to 31 cents per dozen. According to the Bureau of Statistics, our exports last year exceeded our imports, which would lead us to believe that we are now producing sufficient eggs to supply the domestic market. This is a very important industry, one employing a large number of people; an industry producing a product of the highest quality and in sufficient quantity to supply the domestic market. This industry should receive every consideration and assistance at the hands of the government.

Importation of Eggs-Mr. Barber
I have before me a telegram received from the president of the Canadian poultry pool, but before referring to it I would like to say something regarding the organization itself. This pool came into being during May of last year, its object being to organize the poultry industry of Canada for the purpose of placing it upon a sound basis, insuring the producer, on the one hand, an adequate return for his investment and labour, and insuring to the consumer, on the other hand, a continuous and wholesome supply of eggs and egg products at reasonable cost. This organization encourages the producers to take up cooperative marketing. It also aims at the standardization of the product and the supervision of packing and marketing. It has spread to the four western provinces, and numbers within its membership provincial poultry associations in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba representing a membership of 40,000 producers and
2,000	merchant members. I would consider that organization to be sufficiently representative of the poultry industry. I am advised that a similar telegram to that which I shall read was despatched to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) and to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning). This telegram reads as follows:
Would invite your attention to present import of American eggs which are now flooding our Montreal, Toronto and prairie markets. Canadian production of eggs increasing rapidly and in our opinion is now sufficient to meet consumptive demand in Canada. Further import into Canada at this time will result in the demoralization of our market to an extent that Canadian producers will not receive sufficient for their eggs to cover cost of production. Request your government to immediately take such steps as may be necessary to prevent further depression of our egg market.
That telegram was dated February 28, and was signed by Alister Forbes, the president of the Canadian poultry pood. The telegram was followed by a letter dated March 8, 1930, confirming the wire and reading as follows:
About 20,000 cases of American eggs were imported into the Montreal and Toronto markets during January and I believe a similar quantity during February. Our advices are that large quantities are still being imported. These foreign eggs now entering Canada are of the lower grades but, nevertheless, they affect very adversely the price at which our high grade Canadian eggs can be marketed. These low grade eggs have a very demoralizing effect upon our markets and are especially demoralizing at the present time, when the packing house trade is endeavouring to set the price for this season's storage pack.
It is unnecessary for me to point out to you that it is not only the actual importation of these eggs that has a demoralizing effect upon
our markets, but the threat of import is almost as demoralizing as the actual accomplishment of the fact.
I have also a statement from the same organization relating to the marketing situation:
During 1928 egg prices in Canada and the United States ruled generally firm. Prices f.o.b. western Canada were on a basis of approximately 30 cents per dozen, and the Chicago market was on a similar basis. Due to a particularly mild fall and an early winter there was a considerable increase in winter production in both Canada and the United States, and the American distributors found their stocks unduly heavy and took steps to unload. Their storage market continued very weak and tremendous losses were taken by holders of storage eggs, due to the over supply. Our Canadian market immediately reflected the situation in the United States. We did not have too many eggs in store. Our prices were not too high for Canadian consumption, but due to the fact that American eggs could be imported from Chicago to our eastern markets at a cost, including duty, of approximately 4J cents a dozen, holders of Canadian storage eggs were obliged to compete with the Chicago market with the result that eggs, which had cost our Canadian distributors 40 cents in store, had to be sold for as low as 27 cents for extras, and. in some cases later in the season, eggs which "were put away as extras were cleared at 23 cents Montreal.
These distributors refused in 1929 to buy eggs on a basis of the 1928 season claiming that they must buy eggs at a price which would show them a profit against importations of American eggs. We feel they are justified in adopting this attitude under the present tariff. It is unreasonable to expect that they will cooperate to build up a profitable market to the egg producers of Canada, if they are going to be subject to the competition of American exporters who see fit to market their eggs in Canada at prices far under their cost to themselves. It is impossible for the Canadian distributors to stay in business if they have to market eggs which cost them 40 cents for 27 cents to meet American competition.
The figures of the Bureau of Statistics show that the importation of eggs for the calendar year of 1928 amounted to 996,880 dozen in shell, and 3,029,733 pounds n.o.p. In 1929 the importation of eggs in shell amounted to 713,290 dozen, and eggs, n.o.p., 560,061 pounds. I would like to refer to the following which appears on page 11 of the 1929 report of the Minister of Agriculture:
The steady growth which has characterized the poultry industry in Canada during the past few years was continued in 1928. The increased interest displayed throughout the Dominion, and in foreign countries too, is attributed in a large measure to the recent world's poultry congress. As a result of the greater demand for stock the hatching industry is in a flourishing condition. Prices held up very well on the average although the influx of eggs from British Columbia has had a tendency to break the market in eastern
Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Barber


Mr. C. H. DICKIE (Nanaimo):: 
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not wish to interrupt the hon. gentleman, but may I rise to a point of order? My hon. friend has been talking for a long time and as yet he has not said a word about an egg. This motion was to discuss a matter of urgent public importance. There will be an opportunity for a debate on the budget when it is brought down.


Charles Herbert Dickie: I accept the reproof of the
Prime Minister. I started on the eggs and I will lead up to eggs again if my right hon. friend will allow me to continue for a few minutes. We must keep these eggs out of the country. We must keep other things out of the country. One question is bound up with the other. This government is seeing what Belshazzar saw. We are" trying to succeed in Canada. We are trying to produce eggs and to do things for the benefit of the whole of this country. Just look at the value of the agricultural products that are brought into Canada, and those agricultural products include eggs, of course. We are an agricultural country, and the government should be willing to assist agriculture in every way possible, but at the present time we are importing far more agricultural products from our neighbours than we are exporting to them. Is that right? It is the quintessence of folly. No government can do it and remain in power, and we are going to see, when this government takes its seat to your left, Mr. Speaker, that these conditions are remedied, and the people of Canada will thank us for it. We have a wonderful country, and why should we allow this agricultural produce from other countries to flood our market to the consternation of the people in this country who are trying to earn a living? In my district there are hundreds of returned men who have gone on the land under the soldier settlement scheme, and about the only possible thing they can do on that land is to raise poultry; and faced with the present conditions they cannot succeed. What is going to happen to them? They paid too much for their land under the prices which prevailed at that time, and I repeat, if they cannot succeed in the business of raising poultry, they cannot succeed at all. No wonder that consternation prevails among them.
I would have given figures, but as I said in my opening remarks the mover has dealt in figures so exhaustively that I feel it is not necessary for me to give any more. In conclusion, I press upon the government to take
648	COMMONS
Importation oj Eggs-Mr. McQuarrie
immediate action in the best interest of Canada and in the best interest of the poultry men.


Mr. W. G. McQUARRIE (New Westminster) :: I wish to support the resolution. I come from a constituency where a great many returned men have gone into the poultry business, and may I say that they did so with the approval of the government, the poultry business being one branch of farming that was approved for them. Conditions in British Columbia favour the production of eggs when they cannot be satisfactorily produced in eastern Canada. We feel that as Canadians we should be entitled to the Canadian market in preference to the people of the United States. I feel very keenly on this subject because I have seen how the situation is working out. The returned men are doing their very best to make good, but are having a very difficult time of it, and I must say that this government is doing nothing at all to assist them. On the contrary, if a returned man does not pay the money which is due to the government on account of his land or stock, including poultry, his land is taken away from him. I submit that the returned men should at least be given a fair chance to make good, and they are not going to make good in the poultry business if the government refuses to take action in a situation like this. There is no doubt whatever that our market is being flooded with American eggs; I am not going into details because they have already been put on record. I submit that the government should have taken action in the matter before this. The government is to blame for the present situation having arisen. On the fourth of this month I called the attention of the government to the situation and tried to ascertain what they intended to do, but my question was ruled out of order, or, at least, I was told to put it on the order paper in the usual way, and we all know what that means. It means that it is side-tracked, and that the government will not take any immediate action. What the present situation requires is prompt action on the part of the government.
I submit that we can look at this subject from another standpoint, and that is from the standpoint of unemployment. Notwithstanding the remarks that have been made from time to time by the Prime Minister and his cabinet, there is a great deal of unemployment in this country at this time. I was present recently with a delegation that waited on the Prime Minister and the cabinet, and the matter of unemployment was then discussed.
I say that unemployment to some extent is 
due to the fact that this government does not take any action at all in circumstances like these. It is a government of inaction, not a government of action. It is time, I submit, that the government should do something, and unless something is done, and done right away, a very serious situation is going to arise. I have much pleasure in supporting the resolution.


Mr. R. K. ANDERSON (Hal(on):: I wish to support the resolution with reference to the egg and poultry industry. This is a very important industry, fully fifty per cent of the people of this Dominion being interested in it in one way or another. Almost every farmer in this country keeps a certain number of fowl, and sells eggs and poultry. The people of the west also sell a goodl deal of poultry to Ontario and Quebec around the Christmas season, and I think therefore that the. western members should be very much interested in this question. Tiie hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill), speaking a year or two ago, stated that there were fully 250,000 people in the Dominion who made their Diving from the egg and poultry industry. Whether that figure is correct or not, I do not know, but I do know that a large number of people are interested in the production of eggs and poultry. Travelling on the railway you will notice that it is not only the farmers who are producing eggs and raising poultry, but also a large number of people in the villages and smaller towns. When you consider that the people of Canada consume more eggs per capita than any other nation in the world, you will understand how important an industry it is for this country. Only the other day I read that we consume per capita about twenty-nine to thirty dozen eggs per year, far greater number than in any other country. We can produce poultry and eggs in Canada the equal of any produced anywhere else in the world. Canadian farmers and egg and poultry producers, are quite capable of supplying the demand in this country, and one of the first things we should do is to conserve so far as possible the home market for the Canadian producer. The Canadian producer will supply that market if the prices are such as to give him a fair profit. The marketing of our domestic eggs in this country is done at present under great difficulties on account of the large importations from the United States and other parts of the world, eggs in the shell, in particular, being largely imported from the United States.
I was rather surprised to hear the statement that in the months of January and

Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Anderson (Halton)
February of this year as many eggs were imported from the United States as during the whole of the preceding two years. It shows that these importations are increasing at a tremendous rate. I noticed particularly a statement made by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture in a letter sent out to the farmers of this province, and presumably to those of the Dominion, on the 28th of February, to the effect that we had ceased to export eggs. He wanted to know the reason for this state of affairs. The explanation is that the egg producer in Canada has been driven out of the market by reason of the dumping of eggs into this country from the United States.
I think every hon. member will understand that it costs the Canadian egg producers more to produce a dozen eggs than it costs his competitor in the United States, due, of course, to our climatic conditions. Our hens are very sensitive to cold weather and stop laying. In order to ensure egg production during the winter months the hens must be comfortably housed in properly ventilated structures. There is a ventilating system manufactured in the United States which is very effective, but it costs a farmer here almost $1,000 to purchase the equipment.
During 1928 the returns from our poultry industry amounted to $106,500,000, which is a good deal more than the value of our fisheries, and represents a return to the average farmer greater than he gets from some of his coarse grains. In a word, it is an important industry and should be properly protected. In 1928 a large number of people came to Ottawa to see the government with regard to the imposition of the anti-dumping clause on imported fruits and vegetables, and also eggs. The late Mr. Robb then contended -and he brought a man from Prince Edward Island in confirmation of his statement'

that the imposition of the anti-dumping clause in 1926 and 1927 did not increase the price of eggs on the Canadian market. I think that is so. I doubt very much if the anti-dumping clause in its operation would increase the price of eggs to the Canadian consumer. But it would do this: it would protect the home market for the Canadian producer of eggs. That is the one point we want to stress. Our egg producers are asking for some redress against the dumping of eggs on their home market by their competitors in the United States. I think the former Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Dunning) made the statement that the egg producer in Canada got nothing whatever for his culls. That is simply in line with what a farmer told me when I was home last week. Under the present system of grading he had brought eggs
to the retailer in his home town, and a certain number of his eggs were rejected as culls; but he was given nothing for them. He asked me whether or not he was entitled to those culled eggs. I told him that he was, and the retailer should either hand over the culls to him or pay for them. That is a condition that should not be allowed to continue. Of course, I am not blaming the government at all for it, because I think the grading of eggs has been a good thing for the average consumer, for although it has increased the price somewhat, it has also improved the quality of the eggs. It is a question whether or not grading has increased egg production in this country; I think it has. Certainly it has given satisfaction not ony to the consumer but to the producer.
I do not want to labour the question. I think the government should take it into their serious consideration with a view to giving a little protection to this very important industry that is found and*-under normal conditions-flourishes from the Atlantic to the Pacific.


Mr. DAVID SPENCE (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker, I am not from British Columbia, but coming from an industrial centre as I do and being connected with the business world, I have some knowledge of the condition of the egg industry. I was on the Toronto market last Saturday. Let me say at once that I am not dealing in eggs, but I know those who are in touch with the egg business. To-day that business is in a deplorable condition, due to the dumping of eggs from the United States, and I heartily endorse all that has been said by the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber). The egg industry is just like every industry since the government came into power-it is sliding through to ruination. I could name the industries adversely affected if you wished, but you know them all. I know many people who ventured into the poultry business, and this year they are having a very hard time and not even meeting the cost of production from the sale of their eggs. I would not wait a day to apply the anti-dumping clause. An embargo should be put on the importation of eggs-not to-moiTow, but to-day. Give the Americans a dose of the medicine they gave us a few years ago, when after they had got all of our potatoes that they required they put an embargo on further importations and stuck us with hundreds of carloads of potatoes in transit to the border. I repeat, let us give them a bit of their own medicine and stop their eggs even in transit. This would not be any more unfair to them than the way they have used us in the past.
650	COMMONS
Importation of Eggs-Mr. Stirling	.


Mr. GROTE STIRLING (Yale):: Mr. Speaker, I noticed when the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber) rose to propose this motion a smile spread over the faces of supporters of the government, and I took that to mean that in the opinion of many hon. members on the other side this is not a very important matter.


Mr. CAHILL:: Hear, hear.


Grote Stirling: I would suggest that
possibly in the constituency of Pontiac there are not very many Canadian women who work and are interested in the production of Eggs, but I would think that in every other constituency of Canada, the Canadian woman who works is intensely interested in her hens and in the eggs which they lay. Not only on the poultry farms, but on the mixed farms, on the allotments, in the villages surrounding the towns, and even in the suburbs of our large cities eggs are produced in enormous quantities and anything which affects that industry touches the pockets of those egg producers. The industry is spread all over Canada, but of course in some parts it has developed to a greater extent than in others. In my own province of British Columbia it would appear that climatically and for other reasons it is like southern Ontario in being particularly adapted to the poultry industry, and anything which prejudicially affects the whole situation in the Dominion is first reflected there. In the last week or so of February a carload of eggs a day was shipped from British Columbia into the markets of Toronto and Montreal-


Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):: Did those
importations from British Columbia to eastern markets have the effect of lowering the price of eggs in eastern Canada?


Grote Stirling: Here, Mr. Speaker, we
have another instance of somebody who is imbued with the view of whoever wrote the annual report of the Department of Agriculture. He seems to be under the impression, as is the writer of that report, that British Columbia is not a part of Canada.
Towards the end of February, the prices dropped three times in one week; not that these American eggs coming into the province of British Columbia break the market there, for the market in British Columbia is, to a considerable degree, protected by the British Columbia provincial Egg Marks Act, but eggs coming from outside enter the markets of Canada and reduce the price. The shipments from British Columbia to Canadian markets

fell off, the British Columbia eggs remained at home and down came the price to the producer.


Edward James Young: Did the importation of American eggs have an effect on the price here?


Grote Stirling: In the opinion of a very great number of people, who do not live at Weyburn, they certainly did. A half-hearted attempt was made by the government, in 1927, to deal with this question. Following the lead given by the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Stevens) when the Conservatives were in power for those few months, the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Euler)) of this government issued an appraiser's bulletin in the end of January, 1927, providing for the current value for duty on eggs. That was followed, some few months later, by the current value for frozen eggs being also proclaimed. That had a most beneficial effect on the egg industry in Canada. Hope once more was raised and increased production took place, for this is one of those industries, a part of the great agricultural industry, in which it has been demonstrated over and over again that Canada is second to none in production, in quality, and that this industry can be fostered with reasonable assistance. The government, in 1928, saw fit for reasons, which they have proclaimed, to remove that which they had given, under their own minister, in January, 1927, and although those reasons may be sufficient to the government they have never appeared to be sufficient to those concerned in the egg industry in Canada, because we have the testimony of the chief of the poultry division, that the protection given on that occasion on Canadian eggs did not raise the price to the consumer. I quote from a memorandum prepared by that gentleman in April, 1927, as follows:
The invoking of the dumping duty has in no vra,v affected the Canadian consumer, who was required to pay no more for his eggs than heretofore. The retail prices of eggs following the invoking of the duty were, in fact, in many instances lower than the average of the past three years. On the other hand, the duty has been of the utmost advantage to producers in that it has wiped out many of the violent market fluctuations caused by seasonal and other conditions and has given them a steady, satisfactory and remunerative outlet for their nro-duct in 1927.
The egg industry had a taste, for a short time, of what reasonable assistance to their industry would produce, and it was with a great falling of heart that the producers noticed the government had removed that assistance. Since then the government has not seen fit to give them assistance. It seems to

Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Garland (Carleton)
me that because of its effect on the whole agricultural industry of this country it is a matter of most serious importance.


Mr. W. F. GARLAND (Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, I am heartily in accord with the motion brought down by the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber). I think it is apparent to every person in this country that a grave injustice is being done to the poultry industry in Canada. As the member for Fraser Valley has said, the imports for January, 1929, amounted to 12,063 dozen. In January, 1930, they amounted to 536,848 dozen; for February, 1929, 74,730 dozen, and for February, 1930, 1,448,220 dozen. The total imports for the whole of the year 1929 amounted to 713,290 dozen. In other words, there were practically twice as many eggs imported in the month of February this year as there were for the whole of the year 1929. The duty, as we are aware, is 3 cents a dozen on eggs coming from the United States into Canada, and 8 cents a dozen on Canadian eggs going into the United States. If we take the difference between 3 cents and 8 cents, and take the imports for the month of February of this year, it amounts to approximately $75,000. Why should the Canadian poultry producer be under such a handicap? I do not want to quote figures at this time, Mr. Speaker, because the member for Fraser Valley has already quoted them. The member for Halt-on (Mr. Anderson) has said that the egg production of Canada is the highest per capita of any country in the world. In the year 1927 it was 29.20 dozen per hen.
The point I want to make is this, Mr. Speaker, that if the Canadian producer of eggs can supply eggs of such a quality that practically every man, woman and child in this country eats one egg a day, why should we not be sending those eggs to other countries? We should not be importing any eggs at all, but rather should we be exporting them. As one of the members for Toronto has said, if I had my way I would prohibit, or put an embargo on eggs coming in at all. The Canadian poultry producer can supply the eggs, as has been shown, in a proper condition to be marketed. Why should we have to import eggs from other countries? We get eggs from Hong Kong, China, in a frozen state, which has a detrimental effect on the egg industry of this country.
I want to mention just one other point, Mr. Speaker. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has said that we must talk on the egg question, but I am going to say a few words on the baby chick question, I db not see how I can get a baby chick without
getting an egg, so that I think I am perfectly in order in speaking about baby chicks. Last year we imported from the United States 883,095 baby chicks. To my mind, Mr. Speaker, the eggs for those baby chicks should have been produced in this country. That means that there were practically twice that many American eggs required to produce that many chicks. Therefore, if we had produced those eggs, approximately a million and three-quarters, it would have helped the consumption here, and it would have meant employment for those engaged in the industry in this country. I notice in an issue of an American poultry journal where they are advertising baby chicks at 7i cents, 8 cents, 10 cents and 11 cents. None of those chicks should be allowed into this country at all. They are coming from the southern states, bringing disease into the country, white diarrhoea and everything that possibly can be brought in, and all the time our own department, here is doing everything possible to stamp out disease in our own products. It is not fair to allow them to be brought in. I claim that good money can be made in the poultry business if only we can get some proper protection. We are not getting protection; we are getting everything else but that. At the world's poultry congress which was held at Ottawa and at the two preceding congresses, the standard of the Canadian poultry was as high as that of any other country in the world. This year, when the congress takes place in the old country, I venture to prophesy that Canadian poultry will be head and shoulders over anything else shown there. Why do we not protect such an industry in every possible way?
I am very much in accord with this resolution, and I really believe the Prime Minister, since he is to a certain extent in the poultry business himself, should take this matter to heart and see that the other poor poultrymen get some protection.


Edward James Young: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to this debate with some interest, and I have tried to get the idea in the backs of the heads of hon. gentlemen opposite. As I understand it, shipments of eggs from British Columbia to the Toronto market have no effect on that market, while importations of eggs from the United States to the Toronto market have a depressing effect. I cannot quite determine what is the difference between a British Columbia egg and an American egg.
652	COMMONS
Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Young (Weyburn)


Mr. LADNER:: One is Canadian and the other is American.


Edward James Young: Apparently the American egg must have some quality which is not possessed by the Canadian egg, when it can force down the market, which the British Columbia egg cannot do.


Mr. CLARK:: They are probably stale.


Edward James Young: Which do you mean? I also gathered from the argument that these American eggs coming in lower the price of eggs to our consumers, but we are told that if we shut them out the price will not go up. That is the argument of hon. gentlemen opposite. In that case I do not know why they wish a dumping duty to be iput on, if it is not going to increase the price they will receive. The people of this country would still get their eggs at the market price.


Mr. MANION:: What about holding their own market?


Edward James Young: They have no difficulty in selling the eggs now, and if a dumping duty is applied it will not raise the price according to hon. gentlemen opposite.
The hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Garland) said he would assist the egg producers by raising the price of baby chicks. We all know that the poultry industry, iike every other industry, is becoming highly specialized, and many egg producers do not raise their own chicks. They find it more profitable to buy the baby chicks than to raise them, and my hon. friend from Carleton would assist these people in their business by increasing the price of baby chicks in order to make hens cost more. That is rather a peculiar remedy, I should think.
We have been told that the heaviest importations were in the month of March, and that in the months of January and February about 20,000 cases of American eggs were imported. I recall during January and February of this year watching the reports of the egg market in Montreal, and reading statements to this effect: "Eggs exhausted; telegraphic orders had to be sent to Chicago to relieve the situation." The people of this country were not able to get eggs, and they were very glad to get some importations from the United States.
I want to tell you something else. In the constituency represented by the Minister of Finance a beautiful new public market with many stalls was opened last fall. In January of this year, or to be exact on the 18th day of January, I went into that market in Regina

and saw these stalls filled with fresh, crisp fruits and vegetables selling at reasonable prices. The highest priced article in that market was eggs, which were selling at 70 cents per dozen. On that same day I was in a small town about sixty miles from Regina and spoke to a farmer who had brought strictly ' fresh eggs into the market that day. I asked, "What did you get for your eggs?" He said, "Oh, he gave me 40 cents for them, but he told me no.t to bring any more, for there was no sale for them." There you find a spread of 30 cents a dozen in the price of eggs between two points only sixty miles apart.
What was the difficulty? Both these dealers were operating in a restricted market. The man in Regina who was asking 70 cents per dozen for eggs, which the people of that city could ill afford to pay, was confined to a restricted district from which he could get his eggs. The man selling eggs out in the small country place was confined to a very narrow market in which to sell them.


Leon Johnson Ladner: May I ask the hon. gentleman if he seriously tells this house that that is the usual spread between the price to the producer and the retail price? That is absurd.


Edward James Young: That was the
spread during the month of January; it extended into February as well, and I am explaining the reason for it. As I said, both these men were operating in restricted markets. Had conditions been such that the surplus eggs in the country could have flowed freely to the city, that spread would have been narrowed.


Mr. STEVENS:: Nothing to hinder it.


Edward James Young: Yes, there was.


Henry Herbert Stevens: There are four trains a day to Regina from the town you mention.


Edward James Young: My hon. friend does not know what town I have in mind.
Mr. STE\ ENS: My hon. friend means his town town, I am sure. It is about sixty miles from Regina.


Edward James Young: My hon. friend is mistaken. However, here is the point: Wherever you operate in a restricted market you are subject to violent fluctuations in price. The wider the market the less violent will be the fluctuation, and all these efforts to restrict the market to certain individuals, certain classes of people, certain districts or oertain countries only tend to accentuate these fluctuations.

Importation of Eggs-Mr. Young (Weyburn)
Some one said that an application to the tariff board hase been made by the poultry producers to have a dumping duty, or a seasonal duty, put back on eggs; they want the tariff so adjusted that eggs may be Shut out whenever our own dealers so desire, or at certain seasons of the year. It is true that such an application was made in the narne^ of the Manitoba poultry pool. That application is opposed by the organized farmers in Manitoba.


John Arthur Clark: Is the consumers' league
suporting it?


Edward James Young: The consumers' league is opposing the application. I want to tell the house about that. The hearing was 6et for many months ago, but the pool did not appear, or at least When they did appear they asked for an adjournment, which was granted until a certain date. When that date arrived they appeared again and asked for a further adjournment, which was also granted to them. When the third date arrived Mr. Darby, who represents the Canadian Council of Agriculture before the tariff board, made a special trip from Winnipeg all the way to Ottawa to oppose that application, and when he got here he found that our friends the poultry pool had sent a telegram asking for a further adjournment. That application also was granted. Those aTe the tactics, Mr. Speaker, adopted before the tariff board by same of these applicants for these seasonal duties. They are trying to wear down the apposition of those who do not take the same view, by having the cases adjourned from time to time until some occasion may come along when we are not there to state the other side of the -case.


Leon Johnson Ladner: May I ask the hon. gentleman if it is not a fact that approximately
26,000	egg producers in the three prairie provinces have petitioned the government for a dumping duty. They are farmers, are they not?


Edward James Young: I would not say that that is a fact.


Leon Johnson Ladner: The Canadian egg pool?


Edward James Young: The Canadian
egg pool, it is true, has made such a petition, but that .petition was orginated by Mr. Land-reth and some of the officials of the pool. The rank and file of the egg producers are not behind the petition at all. That was clearly brought oult at the convention of the Manitoba farmers held in Winnipeg during the present winter.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Is it not a fact that the
Saskatchewan Co-operative Egg Producing Association passed that resolution in Regina last October? I say that 'because I happened to be there on other business.


Edward James Young: I do not say
that the egg producers' association did not pass that, but what I do say is that that association does not represent the voice of the farmers.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Are they not farmers?


Edward James Young: As anyone knows, it is a very simple matter for the heads of those associations to put resolutions through the conventions which are not a .clear index of the voice of the farmers whom they are supposed to represent.


Mr. GEARY:: Do not the farmers understand what they are voting?


William Foster Garland: Do you consider 45 cents per dozen a fair price for eggs in tihe middle of January?


Edward James Young: I said that eggs were sold in Regina at 70 cents per dozen.


William Foster Garland: Do you consider 45 cents a propeT price?
Mir. YO'UNG (Weyburn): It depends upon circumstances. I am not here to dictate the price of eggs; I have sold eggs in January at 45 cents per dozen, and I have sold them for less than that.


William Foster Garland: And more.


Edward James Young: I am not asking anyone to help me increase the price. The egg is the most wholesome food we have and I do not know of any food which is more used in the sick room than eggs. When you deny to the people the opportunity of using fresh eggs in the sick room, by putting the price up beyond reach, you do something which is not conducive to the public health.
Perhaps a few cents per dozen for eggs would not make any difference to the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) but there are lots of people in this conutoy to whom a few .cents per dozen would be a very large item.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am laughing at the hon. member when he puts this great question of the egg industry upon the basis of denying to sick people something which they require. That is a .monstrosity and an absurdity.


Edward James Young: It is no more
ridiculous than the resolution which is before the house.
654	COMMONS
Importation of Eggs-Mr. Hepburn
I ibeliave it was the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. MoQuarrie) who mentioned unemployment in connection with this industry. It would seem that the hens are still busy but that the men who are raising eggs are unemployed. I suppose they do not bother to gather the eggs when they cannot sell them. Where are the unemployed of this country located? They are in the cities. It is proposed to increase the price of eggs to these unemployed, to increase the -cost of living as a means of helping unemployment; the thing is absurd.
Mr. M.cQUARRIE: If a poultry producer out in the country is forced to go out of business and has no other business to turn to, will he not be unemployed?


Edward James Young: No man is going to be put out of business by the egg importation into this country, because we import less than one third of one per cent of the eggs consumed.
Why does the price of eggs drop at this time of the year? The trouble is to be found in the habits of the hen. She begins to increase production about February. More eggs are put on the market and the price begins to decline. A dealer will buy eggs today at, we will say, 50 cents per dozen. He finds that to-morrow the production is greater but he tries to hold up the price so that he can make profit on the eggs he bought yesterday. He does not lower the price, and what is the result? Consumption does not increase as fast as production and he tries to hold up the price and as a consequence his floor is piled high with eggs, and then the market breaks. That would happen irrespective of whether or not we had a tariff, for the habits of the hen are the same on both sides of the line.
What is the remedy? The only remedy for the glut of eggs upon the market during the spring is to lower the price. The housewife will increase the consumption of eggs just as soon as they get cheaper, and not before.


William Irvine: What does the hon. gentleman propose to do in order to change the habits of the hen?


Edward James Young: That is up to
the hon. gentleman opposite.


Mr. M. F. HEPBURN (West Elgin):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to place on Hansard a few figures relating to the question under discussion. Of course we all realize that we should not take a too serious view of this matter, which is only another gesture made by hon. gentlemen opposite-along the lines

of butter protection-to lead the farmers up a blind alley. It is proposed to give the farmer something which will permit the manufacturers' association further to exploit him.
In 1913, under the Borden government, the importation of eggs into Canada amounted to 13,000,000 dozens at an average price of 21 cents per dozen. I do not think there was one word of complaint made at that time by the Tory party, then in office. In 1921, under the famous Union government, the importation of eggs amounted to 9,637,000 dozen at an average price of 30 cents per dozen, and still as far as I can find there was not a cackle out of the Tory party. Then the Liberals came into office and put into effect a system of egg grading. The quality improved, the consumption increased, and in 1928, strange as it may' seem, even under a Liberal government, importation of eggs dropped to approximately 1,000,000 dozen at an average price of 471 cents per dozen. During the same y'ear we exported about 500,000 dozen of eggs, so the net importation during that year amounted to about 500,000 dozen. Let us figure that upon the basis of consumption. We consume in Canada approximately 275,000,000 dozens of eggs annually, so figured upon that basis one egg in 550 was an imported egg. If considered upon the basis of the entire population of Canada, only one-half egg per capita per year was imported. Is it not a terrible thing to think that a great national party has to resort to tactics of this kind in order to obtain some publicity for themselves The Canadian hen controls 99-S per cent of the market, and if any newspaper controlled that percentage of the circulation in any one city it would feel that it ruled the roost. In this particular case the Canadian hen does rule the roost. Just think, if the Canadian hen laid one egg more in eight years, then she would supply the entire Canadian market. That she does not do that is the complaint which comes from across the floor of the house.
Let us come down to the year 1929. There has been a favourable progression in the egg business under the Liberal government. In the fiscal year ending March, 1929, we imported 1,128,000 dozens of eggs, and we exported 919.000 dozens, a net importation of only 209,000 dozens. We imported only one egg in 1,256 eggs consumed, and our Conservative friends ask us to stand like Horatius at the bridge defending this country from the onslaught of one egg in 1,256 consumed. The manufacturers' association has been sitting on the doorstep for a long time awaiting the advent of a Conservative administration, and there has been already sixty applications before the tariff board for an increased

Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Neill
tariff. They are hoping to get the farmer to subscribe to a policy where he will trade his protection on one-quarter of one per cent of the egg production of Canada in order to give the manufacturers the right to exploit him.
I think my hon. friends opposite are headed in the wrong direction in this particular case, just as they were with the butter question. This egg 'business is somewhat of a joke throughout the country, as they did not appear before the tariff board in order to prove their case. I think that is evidence enough. I do not think the time of the house should be wasted any more in discussing silly things of this kind.


Mr. A. W. NEILL (Comox-Albemi):: I cannot agree with the last speaker if he suggests that the egg industry, at least in British Columbia, in any way savours of a joke. People go into the egg business there on a very much larger scale than in any other part of Canada.


Mitchell Frederick Hepburn: I had reference to the resolution and not to the egg industry when I said it was a joke.


Alan Webster Neill: I beg the hon. member's
pardon. In British Columbia we go in for egg producing as a business and not as a side line in connection with other forms of agriculture. When things get dull in the egg business, we go broke; we cannot go into the business of milking cows or something of that kind. The small areas we have in our farms are not adapted for anything but egg producing, and our iproducens go in for large numbers of birds. A flock of 10,000 birds is not unknown, and a flock of 3,000 or 4,000 is quite common.
I am in general accord with what I hope is the underlying motive that actuated hon. members from British Columbia in bringing up this matter, that is, if their motive is to bring pressure upon the government to afford some relief to the poultry business in British Columbia. I am not in sympathy with the manifold exaggerations and the patent political aspect which was sought to be given to this motion. The hon. member who introduced the resolution said, in the course of his remarks, that the egg industry had been given a stimulus. by the egg grading system that had been introduced by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) a number of years ago. I have on my desk if I could put my hand on it, notice of a resolution introduced a few years ago by one of his colleagues, and largely supported by his side of the house, really a want of confidence motion, asking that the whole grading system be done away with. Now
I am glad to find him admitting that grading has been a good thing for the egg business and has resulted in enormously increasing consumption per head of population, and general production in Canada. I need not go into the figures. They show that the industry has increased enormously in spite of the handicaps which have been mentioned in course of the debate. I think it was the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling) who was pleased to state that he saw some members on this side of the house smiling when the motion was introduced and he interpreted that as meaning that hon. members opposite to him regarded the matter as one of amusement and of no importance. I do not think it is within the scope of any hon. member to decide for the house what a man means when he smiles. A man when he smiles may be actuated by many motives. I think it was Shakespeare who said:
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
But the *converse is true, that he may smile and smile and not be a villain. I had occasion to smile in connection with this matter, but it was not at the seriousness of the egg industry. It was because I heard the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Dickie) state that we ought to consume everything we grow in Canada, a sentiment which was applauded by my hon. friends opposite. Would it not make a cat smile to think of our eating all the wheat we grow in Canada?
What had a good deal to do with the conditions complained of by the mover of the motion was, as he or some other hon. member suggested, the withdrawal of the anti-dumping clauses imposed by the government a year or two ago. There is no doubt those clauses were working very satisfactorily and they heavily reduced the importation of United States eggs. With my hon. friends I share in regretting and deploring that the antidumping clauses were withdrawn. They have been in part compensated for, as I am able to admit, although my hon. friends opposite are not, by the imposition of a valuation of what are called frozen eggs, which valuation was very acceptable to the egg interests because it was the cause of largely, if not almost totally, keeping out the low grade eggs. Those are broken, cracked, dirty eggs that are frozen in the tins and sold by the pound. Owing to the fact that they were sold in that way and not subject to a specific duty, but to an ad valorem duty, it was possible for the Minister of Agriculture to do as he did, and place a fixed value on them, which I think was 45 cents, which made a
656	COMMONS
Importation of Eggs-Mr. McLean (Melfort)
tariff duty of something like nine cents. I am advised it worked very well, and was successful in keeping out Chinese eggs which used to come in largely for what is called the bakers' trade, and also the lower grade eggs from the United States. So far as it went, it did very good work. I do not assert that it went as far as it might have done.


Grote Stirling: The hon. member has
just referred to the fact that a fixed valuation was granted in the case of frozen eggs. Was a subsequent order in council passed by the government after that one was removed in April, 1928?


Alan Webster Neill: As I understand the situation, the minister imposed the valuation in the early summer; perhaps it might have been June or July.


Grote Stirling: In 1928.


Alan Webster Neill: I presume it was 1928. Then the minister went to England or Europe or somewhere, and in his absence it was rescinded. I am not here to offer any excuse or defence for that action. Let those who were privy to it defend it if they can. When he returned I called his attention to the matter and the valuation was promptly restored and it is still in effect. To show that I am sincere in this matter, I have under my hand the record of a vote which was taken on May 16, 1928, in which I was one of those who voted against the government on a want of confidence resolution on this same subject introduced by the hon. member for Halton (Mr. Anderson). I see that the vote was 59 to 110.
There are two remedies that I would suggest in connection with this matter: one is the very obvious one of increasing the duty, but I suggest that it would be sufficient, and would be justice to the consumer and producer alike, if this were imposed in a seasonal manner. I do not think the egg producers themselves demand that it be an all the year round duty, for fear that it would make the price of local eggs so high as to reduce the consumption, because it is a well known fact that consumption and price are closely related to each other. Again, I do not think the egg producers ask that the duty be increased on all classes of eggs. All they ask is that a tariff should be imposed on two specific grades. Therefore a seasonal duty will meet the situation and do justice to both sides of the argument, because there are two sides, the producer's and the consumer's.
[Mr. Neffl.1
Another suggestion that would have been of great benefit if it had been carried out was to introduce a measure making the British Columbia Egg Marking Act apply all over Canada. The house will remember that some years ago I introduced a resolution to that effect and the government, with some stipulation that, for some reason which they gave, it was not to be put into force for the moment, agreed to that. It passed the house.
I have made one or two attempts since then to ascertain why steps have not been taken to carry it out, and I have been told at least on one occasion very plainly by officers of the department that the people of British Columbia themselves no longer wish it; that they thought it would not be advisable for some reason. They thought it would be only an advertisement for the foreign eggs, and an instance in Great Britain was given where they passed a law that eggs should be marked with the country of origin. I think it was Danish eggs which they insisted on being marked, and it was discovered that instead of this being a deterrent to eggs coming in, it was a source of advertisement, because the eggs were put up in beautiful packages, well graded and consequently people who liked a good egg went back and asked for Danish eggs or whatever they were, instead of local eggs. Be that as it may, I do think that the act has been a success in British Columbia and that it might well be applied throughout the whole of Canada. It might be held that it would only have a sentimental value, but there is a good deal of sentiment in us all, and I think that a man sitting down to breakfast would be apt to say, "Why these foreign eggs? Why not Canadian eggs?" Therefore, I would suggest both a seasonal duty and the application of the British Columbia Egg Marking Act to the whole of Canada.


Mr. MALCOLM McLEAN (Melfort):: There are two or three remarks that I would like to make briefly. I was astounded to hear it claimed by responsible members of this house that an industry which has increased in value from $40,000,000 to $84,000,000 in something like seven years should be on  the verge of extinction. Due to the fact that no change has been made in the law of recent years and the further fact that the people of Canada have developed a taste for the fruits of that industry and are consuming eggs in large quantities, a very few dozen eggs are coming into this country during the hard months of winter when the Canadian hen is not so active as she is a little later on. That is the first statement made by hon. gentlemen opposite that surprised me.

Importation of Eggs-Mr. McLean (Meljort)
Next we were told that the grading of eggs which had produced a large market for eggs had reacted against our Canadian hen, but that the Canadian hen had increased her production from 75 ito 95 eggs in seven years.
A little later on I was surprised to hear that the province of British Columbia was particularly adapted to poultry raising and we were asked on that ground to take action that would shut out a few extra dozen eggs that are used particularly in the cities in the winter months especially. If British Columbia cannot do better than increase her egg yield from 78 to 95 per year, she ought to be invited to take a lesson in production from some of the hens in the other provinces.
I have under my hand a statement which I do not think is exaggerated, which deals with the poultry record. It says:
The poultry department of the university of Saskatchewan astonished the poultry world, last year, with a barred Plymouth Rock hen that laid 399 eggs in her pullet year.
I am afraid there is a mistake there.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.
Mr. MeLEAN:	I am sure that my hon.
friends who are laughing so loudly and come from large cities like New Westminster on the Pacific coast, do not know just what the pullet year means. The despatch goes on:
This was a record for the hen of heavy breeds. A daughter of this hen seems likely to beat her mother's record. Hatched on February 23, last year, she laid her first egg on September 3. Up to April 12, she had laid 215 eggs, which is 10 more than her mother had laid up to the same corresponding date. During November, December and January, she laid an egg on 71 consecutive days.
That is in the hard weather province of Saskatchewan, which we are told is so heavily handicapped in the production of eggs as compared with the southern states. These were possibly the birds that broke the market. If you could use a few birds of that kind to break the market and save the feed of a large number of hens that are producing only from 78 to 95 eggs in a year, it would be profitable to break the market and keep it broken.


William Garland McQuarrie: How many days are
there in the pullet year?
Mr. MeLEAN:	I am not answering that
question at the moment, but last year an official record was issued by the university ot Saskatchewan which indicated that a barred rock hen, Lady Vietorine, I think, had actually laid 358 eggs in 365 days. I was told that while travelling on the train, and I was surprised. I did not think that it was possible 2419-42
to beat the record of the famous British Columbia hen at Agassiz farm which laid 351 eggs in a year, but a favourite farm breed made this record.


William Garland McQuarrie: Is that R.O.P.?
Mr. MeLEAN: It was R.O.P. There is no question about it. The university of Saskatchewan issued the figures.


William Garland McQuarrie: She was a champion.


William Foster Garland: It must have been two hens.
Mr. MeLEAN:	She was worth a whole
lot of hens of the type that lay only from 75 to 95 eggs in a year.
If I heard correctly, some statements have been made in this debate to the effect that last year our exports of eggs exceeded) our imports. In that connection I would say that after the various orders in council had been cancelled in 1928, during that year, when the order in council was abolished for the major portion of the year, our imports had been reduced from over 3,000,000 dozen eggs, worth $1,500,000. to less than 1,000,000 dozen, worth $425,000, or a reduction of nearly 70 per cent. At the same time, our exports of eggs increased from 448,000 dozen, worth $168,000, to 998,000 dozen, worth S346.000, or nearly 100 per cent. In 1927, our imports of eggs into Canada were more than seven times the volume of our exports, while in 1928, our imports and exports were at a virtual parity. If the effect of having restrictive orders in council was that we imported seven times as much in 1927 as we exported, and the abolition of the orders in council resulted in our exporting practically as much as we imported, I think it was a good thing to do away with these restrictive regulations.	_
Another argument has been made in support of the urgency of this motion, and that was in connection with the Canadian egg pool. I remember reading in the press a statement such as that which the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber) made. I do not mind saying that I agree with him, that in the opinion of the pool at that time Canadian production was not sufficient to take care of the market requirements, as was indicated a little while before that when eggs were coming in from Chicago and elsewhere, as the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young) has said, in response to telegraphic requests.
Many previous speakers have emphasized the fact that our increased importations were high in 1930 during the months of January, February and the beginning of March. There was a good reason for that. Surely hon. gentlemen know that the winter of 1929-30 has been

658	COMMONS
Importation of Eggs-Mr. McLean (Meljort)
one of the hardest winters Canada has experienced in possibly twenty-five years. During that hard weather winter, the hens of British Columbia were not very well prepared to meet such climatic conditions, and naturally one would expect a drop in production. I understand from visitors to that province that the winter there was very much more severe than usual, and consequently any advantage which that province has in the way of climate in an ordinary year was largely done away with. Other provinces being in the position of having to prepare for hard winters, usually are ready for them, and they were not so much affected. We are asked to adopt as a remedy for this state of affairs which came about as a result of the extremely cold weather, the remedy which has been adopted in the United States, and that is to increase the duty from 3 to 8 cents per dozen. It is just possible that similar causes would have similar effects, and if increasing the duty from 3 to 8 cents would have the effect on the poultry business in Canada that it apparently has had in the United States, I am entirely against it. We find in that country of high protection prices were suf-ciently low that they were able to send into this country all the eggs we wanted at a lower price than that which was being charged for Canadian produced eggs.
Something was said about high priced eggs for the sick room and it caused amusement among my hon. friends opposite. But they overlook the fact that the cheaper eggs coming into Montreal and Toronto-and apparently this is what gives rise to the complaint-help to supply many people with a wholesome food which they could not purchase were it at higher prices. I know a good many people throughout Canada to-day make their living from eggs, butter and other produce. If that is so, while it might suit the consumer to have the duty raised, if it would have the ultimate effect that it has produced in the United States, I do not think it would suit my hon. friends opposite, who are asking for an increase of duty in order to raise prices and shut off the influx of eggs from other countries.
My hon. friend from Toronto complained there would be no sense in going to the tariff board because the tariff board was the graveyard of Canadian industry. I think he would be the first to admit that he was exaggerating.


David Spence: I did not say
that; somebody else said it.


Malcolm McLean: I accept my
hon. friend's disclaimer, but that was the sense of the remark coming from him as I understood it. I should like the hon. gentleman or 
any other hon. member to point out any Canadian industry ruined since the formation of the tariff board by any action or lack of action by that body. As a matter of fact, as the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young) pointed out, an application was made to the tariff board some time ago for an increase in the egg duty. I hold in my hand an extract from the Manitoba Free Press of May 16, 1929, in which it is said:
The increase asked in the application is from 3 cents to 9 cents on every dozen of eggs brought into Canada in the "extras" class. . .
The hearing was adjourned at the request of the applicants until some date in July or August, to be decided later.
The hearing has been delayed from time to time ever since, and it is very doubtful if the application will be proceeded with.
There was one other matter that, I must say, surprised me in the claim of my hon. friends opposite. I remember four years ago-just before an election I might say-that the attention of this house was called by an hon. member from British Columbia to the condition of the poultry industry in his province. He said it was just about on its last legs and ready to give up the ghost. Apparently it revived in the meantime and became very prosperous, because the value of our egg production has increased from $40,000,000 to $84,000,000 per annum, and a large part of this increase must be due to the egg producers of British Columbia. Now that industry, they say, is in a very bad way. During the debate on that occasion I suggested that there were other causes for the difficulties of the British Columbia egg producers besides any lack of duty, but I did not find much support for my viewpoint from hon. members opposite. I am going to suggest to them that apparently they are on the wrong track entirety in urging that lack of duty is the whole trouble. In fact one hon. member to-day said that lack of tariff protection was the entire cause of the importation of eggs from the United States, and this importation accounted for the failure of the men on the land out in British Columbia. In the same copy of the Manitoba Free Press, in a parallel column on the same page,
I find these headlines:
B.C. Farmers Appeal to Prairie Brethren.
Poultry raisers declare prices of feed driving them out of business.
Grievance aired before Saskatchewan grain commission at Vancouver.
I have read the despatch and I do not find in it one word of complaint from the tariff standpoint. Let me quote two or three paragraphs:
A cry for help addressed to the farmers of Saskatchewan and Alberta has come from

Importation of Eggs-Mr. McLean (Melfort)
those engaged in agricultural production in British Columbia. The Saskatchewan grain commission to-day devoted its sitting hours to hearing troubles and tribulations of British Columbia agriculturists, especially as concerns poultry raisers who are dependent upon feed grains from producers of Saskatchewan and Alberta.
"Unless something is done to enable us to get our feed grains from the producers of Saskatchewan and Alberta at a reasonable rate, poultry raisers of the Fraser river valley and other parts will be compelled to go out of business." This is the way their problem was put by half a dozen farmers who were piloted through their stories by G. G. McGeer, K.C., legal advisor to B. C. organized farmers.
Freight rates encircle the whole question, and, according to one witness, threaten to strangle the poultry producer here and close a profitable market for feed grain of the Saskatchewan farmer.
I would dea-l for a moment with the remark made by my hon. friend from New Westminster (Mr. McQuarrie), I think it was, who spoke about soldier settlement. Here is a farmer giving evidence .before the Saskatchewan grain commission, and this is another paragraph in the despatch from which I have already quoted:
Special despatch to the Free Press
Vancouver B.C., May 15.
How a Saskatchewan farmer sold his holdings, located near Shaunavon, and, five months ago. packed his family and goods and moved to Sunny, B.C., to engage in chicken raising, and in this period finds that he is now several hundred dollars on the wrong side of the ledger, was unfolded to the commission to-day. He is M. H. Swanson, and from 1913 to 1928 farmed 25 miles south of Shaunavon. "I made a big mistake when I came here from the prairies to engage in chicken farming," he said "and I want to get back to Saskatchewan."
Here again a contributing important factor to his failure is cited as the high cost of feed. He pays $2.20 per 100 pounds for low feed from Saskatchewan, for which, when he farmed, he received 35 to 50 cents a bushel.
I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that British Columbia has not all the advantages in poultry production that are sometimes claimed for that province, and if egg producers embark on the poultry business in British Columbia on account of the climatic advantages, they surely must figure beforehand on the cost of feed, the cost of freight, the difficulties that they will have in getting their products to other markets in Canada, and the competition they will be up against from other centres whose people producing eggs have more real advantages than obtain where the winters are mild.
A learned American professor was quoted in this house the other day by the hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) and the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King)-
2419-42J
Professor Taussig. Naturally I suppose it is open to anyone to quote the same authority. Professor Taussig points out this fact, that American inventive genius and American technical skill were infinitely greater factors in American prosperity than the protective tariff. It is so also with the Canadian poultry industry. The Canadian poultry industry owes its success to the great work of the poultry breeders, the cooperative marketing associations, the assistance given by the government in encouraging such work as grading, the extension of markets, and in other ways. Science, technical skill, inventive genius, efficient marketing-these are the basic causes of the success of our poultry industry.


George Reginald Geary: Is the hon. member quoting from Taussig?


Malcolm McLean: I quoted from Taussig, now I am delivering my own opinion. I shall be happy to give the Taussig quotation to Hansard.


An hon. MEMBER:: Were you relying on that?


Malcolm McLean: I am relying on my own opinion first. Unlike many of my hon. friends opposite, I am quite willing to bolster my opinion by American opinion when it comes from such an authority as Professor Taussig; .but I am not willing to take American tariff doctrine and swallow it holus bolus, and say because they are foolish enough to do it over there Canada should do likewise. 1 say it is a good thing for the Canadian poultry industry that through initiative and cooperative effort they have produced such a high class of poultry and eggs in a country where climatic conditions are difficult. That the industry has increased enormously, more than doubled in the last seven or eight years, is admitted by our friends opposite, and I think it will be a backward step to burden it with higher protection.
Hon. II. H. STEVENS (Vancouver Centre): Mr. Speaker, it is rather a striking fact that no member of the government has considered this matter to be of sufficient importance even to give a rather indifferent attention to the observations already made. I see one minister in his seat, the hon. minister from my own province (Mr. King, Kootenay). The others are conspicuous by their absence.


Edward James Young: The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has bt-ra here throughout.

Importation of Eggs-Mr. Stevens


Henry Herbert Stevens: And I notice the Prime Minister has just taken his seat again, and we are hoping that even yet the Prime Minister in the absence of all the other ministers-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) is in the house.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I cannot see him, he has hidden himself somewhere. But we are expecting some word from the government on this subject. We have heard, however, from several hon. gentlemen opposite, all of whom, with one exception, have ridiculed and opposed the suggestion that there is some ground for apprehension in regard to those engaged in the poultry industry. There were some observations made which I think were very unfair. They were not what I would call intelligent criticism of the proposals made. My hon. friend from Melfort (Mr. McLean), who has just taken his seat, seemed to direct most of his remarks towards ridiculing those who were in the poultry industry in British Columbia.


Malcolm McLean: Mr. Speaker, I must protest against that. There was nothing in my words that could bear that interpretation, and I would ask that the hon. member do not indulge in that sort of statement.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I repeat what I said, that the remarks of the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat, as I heard them-and I followed him very closely-seemed to me to be chiefly a ridiculing of those engaged in the poultry industry in British Columbia. One of the observations he made was this: he referred to the champion egg-laying hen in Saskatchewan-and by the way, I think it was a most excellent performance; I mean the hen's performance, not my hon. friend's. It is a most encouraging thing to the poultry industry of Canada that this particular hen to which he refers, and others as well, should under special circumstances have made such records, and I have no doubt at all that it has largely contributed to the increased production of eggs, and also to the improvement of the industry. But, my hon. friend said, if the poultry industry in British Columbia, which had increased its average only from 78 to 95 a year, would take a pattern from this particular Saskatchewan hen, then the poultry-men in British Columbia would not have so much complaint. My hon. friend was quoting from the official record of the average production per hen for the whole of Canada, which I have in my hand, page 118, showing
rMr. E. J. Young.]
that in 1921 it was 78 and in 1928 it had risen to 95. That is the average for the whole of Canada and not for British Columbia. I merely cite that as an evidence of the unfairness of the references.
Now, my hon. friends opposite seem not to like very well the observations made by hon. gentlemen on this side of the house, so I am going to read from an editorial taken from the Vancouver Sun, the outstanding Liberal paper in British Columbia. The editorial has this to say on the subject-and I commend it to the attention of the government and of hon. gentlemen supporting the government who are se very eloquently ridiculing this proposal today:
It costs 8 cents in duty to ship a dozen Canadian eggs into the United States. It costs 3 cents in duty to ship a dozen American eggs into Canada. This means that the Canadian market can be flooded with American eggs at any time such flooding is convenient to the American producer while the Canadian eggs are practically shut out of the American market at all seasons of the year.
I pause now in order to emphasize this very point. The editor of this paper is making the vary argument that, we are trying to impress upon the government at this time with regard to the condition brought about by the heavy duty against Canadian eggs, by which we are virtually shut out of the American market. When there is a large production of eggs in Canada they must all be absorbed in Canada, either by immediate consumption or by what is a very splendid thing, cold storage -sitting aside eggs for the period of the year when there is a lower production-While on the other hand at certain seasons of the year, and particularly in the more moderate climates in the United States, they can relieve the over-production by dumping the surplus into our market at a very low rate of duty. And the editor of the paper puts his finger on that particular fact, and calls attention to it. Then he goes on to aay:
The poultry industry of British Columbia has produced an egg that stands superior to the product of any other poultry district in the world. On the basis of quality it should command a premium in any market.
And I pause to say that I agree with my hon. friend from Melfort (Mr. McLean) that due to the activities of governments, provincial and Dominion, to the efforts of poultry-men, and to more scientific methods of production, we have raised the standard of eggs, and you can buy a much better product on the market to-day than you could a few years ago. You get larger and better eggs. No. 1

Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Stevens
grade egg is a splendid, superior article. These things have all contributed to that end, and we have built up an industry. The point we are trying to make is this: Why should that industry, at 'Certain seasons of the year, be subjected to such unfair competition that advantages gained by long and serious effort are largely destroyed?
The editorial goes on to say:
But what encouragement is there for British Columbia poultrymen to carry on their industry in a scientific and expert way when their quality product is crowded out of the markets by American eggs that are allowed in under an inadequate tariff?
That is the point. That is what this paper is asking, and that is the question we are putting to the government; we are endeavouring to direct attention to that important problem.
The editorial continues:
The obvious and natural arrangement between Canada and United States would be absolute free trade in eggs-a system that would allow both products to compete on their merits.
It is the editor of this Liberal paper who makes that statement. He goes on to say this:
Tariff has never been a national issue in Canada, But, so long as the United States maintains its tariff wall, Canadian poultrymen are entitled to the protection of a reciprocal tariff. And it should be one of the first jobs of the tariff board to give it to them.


Alan Webster Neill: May I ask the date of that?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I have not the exact date.


Alan Webster Neill: Recently?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am not sure. A year
or two ago, I think.


An hon. MEMBER:: Three years ago?


Henry Herbert Stevens: The date is not what I
was drawing attention to. It was the summarising of the situation by the editor of the Vancouver Sun, in which summary, I think, he has fairly presented the problem.
The hon. member for Melfort a moment ago referred to the hen with the wonderful record, the hen that laid 358 eggs, but I would just point out-and this is where the scientific side of the questions comes in- that those eggs were just the run, and some of them were not of standard weight. But through the efforts of expert poultrymen the object sought to be attained is a large production of eggs from a given number of hens of first class quality or standard. That is the objective, and I think efforts such as those we have been referring to are largely contributing to the attainment of that objective.
The hon. member for West Elgin (Mr. Hepburn) used an argument just now that really was not worthy of his scintillating intelligence. He narrowed the importation down to half an egg a day to the people of Canada. Now, what are the facts? We are talking about what is happening now, not what happened in 1921, 1922, or any other time. The fact is that in the months of January and February of this year the importations amounted to 1,600,000 dozen eggs. That is the fact; these eggs are invading our market to such an extent as to imperil the poultry industry of this country.


Malcolm McLean: Would the hon. gentleman object to these eggs coming in during January and February, when the production in Canada is not sufficient to meet the needs of the market?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am going to deal with
that very point shortly, if my non. friend will follow me. The poultry industry is something like ihe butter industry in Canada; it is more or less seasonal. In other words, at some seasons of the year you can produce butter much more cheaply than at others, and) the result over a long period of years has been that we have taken the surplus butter produced during the period of over-production, if you like, or the period of cheap production, and placed it in cold storage plants, largely developed at the expense of the government and the taxpayers of this country. This cold storage system enables us to store cheaply and safely butter and other perishable goods in order to carry over from the flood season into the sparse season some portion of the over-production, and thus more or less equalize prices and supply.
The same thing applies to poultry; by our system of cold storage-and again I point out that it was developed at great public expense -we are enabled to carry eggs over to that period of the year when poultry do not produce so freely. It does mot matter very much what may be the habits of the hens; the point is that nature has provided that at certain seasons poultry will moult and will not lay eggs, and in this climate, when it is exceedingly cold production will naturally fall off. On the other hand, there are certain seasons when the production rises very rapidly; that is noticeable in the spring of the year, during the months of March, April, May and so on, and if we are to develop this industry in these months, production necessarily and naturally must out-rum consumption.

Importation of Eggs-Mr. Stevens
Whether you deal with money as such, with manufactured products, or more particularly with farm products, the great problem before all students of economy is how to stabilize production. The question, is how to conserve production to a point where it can be fed out at a rate which will be equitable and suitable to the consuming demand. That is a great problem. We have solved it in large measure in this particular branch of agriculture, in, other words in dairying and1,poultry.
Let us consider the question of poultry for table use. Poultry for table consumption is in great demand around the Christmas season, but of course the practice has been to kill the 'poultry at the most suitable time of the year, put it in cold storage, and then feed it. out to the market when the demand is greater1. In that way the producer undoubtedly gets an advantage, to which he is entitled. My hon. friend from Weyburn (Mr. Young) emphasizes constantly in this house the right of the consumer, but in all his arguments he is constantly losing sight of the right of the producer. If I were asked to choose between the man who is producing from the soil, whether it be wheat or poultry or anything in that nature, and the consumer as such, I would choose to support the interests of the producer.


Edward James Young: If you remove
all his handicaps as a consumer, then as a producer he will have no handicaps.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend is advancing an argument that was Shot to pieces nearly one hundred years ago. It as the old theory, which is exceedingly attractive and simple to one who wants to get away from difficult, immediate and practical problems. It does not work; it has not worked, and there is not a single instance in the light of one hundred years' history where it has worked.


Edward James Young: Has it ever been tried?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes; England tried it and England to-day is in the worst mess she ever was in, by virtue of sticking to that principle.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No, no.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is absolutely true.
My hon. friends say "no, no," but within the last two months I have been told by some of the most outstanding statesmen of England that they have beeu forced to change their minds and their positions, which have been life-long positions, on the question of free trade. However, I am not going to be diverted to a discussion of that principle.


Mitchell Frederick Hepburn: If I might ask my hon. friend a question, he has been dealing with, the habits of the hen. Why not take the habits of human beings instead? He is commending the principle of cold storage, but he must take into consideration the habits of human beings. If he had to choose between a cold storage egg and a fresh egg, which would lie take?


Henry Herbert Stevens: In regard to that question we must enter into a discussion of the culinary use of eggs. For ordinary cooking purposes, and in a very large measure for eating, the cold storage egg which has been properly selected, graded and stored soon after it has been produced is almost as good as the fresh egg. If the most uip-to-date storage methods are used, that egg is almost as good as a strictly fresh egg. My hon. friend asks which I would prefer. Unquestionably I would prefer the strictly new-laid egg; there is no doubt about that, but I say that for culinary purposes and for ordinary market use the cold storage egg which is properly handled, stored and looked after, is almost as good as the fresh egg. I will say further, tlhat through the efforts of this government-and by that I mean -the federal government for the last twenty years-and the efforts of provincial governments, the system of cold storage has been so completely changed and so greatly improved that cold storage to-day is one of the best servants of the public.
My hon. friend referred a moment ago to the difficulties of the producer in British Columbia owing to the cost of feed. The question there is one which demands very close attention. The consumer of feed wheat on the Pacific coast, we will say, must pay double the freight rate which is paid on export wheat. I will give the figures roughly from memory; 1 think the rate on export wheat is 20 cents per hundred, while the rate on feed wheat is 41i cents per hundred. In other words, the man who buys a hundred pounds of wheat feed for his chickens has to pay a freight rate which is more than double the rate applicable to export wheat, and in addition he buys a cheaper grade of wheat, a wheat which perhaps is little off grade but good enough for feed. Therefore the rate of 41i cents per hundred constitutes a very substantial portion of the cost of that wheat. That is the thing about which we are complaining, and the man who goes into the poultry business finds it a very serious matter. He starts out with perhaps two or three acres of land; he has an expensive plant requiring quite a large capital investment; he puts up sanitary, modern buildings; he buys his feed; he keeps

Importation of Eggs

Mr. Malcolm
special scratch and all the rest of it; he watches his poultry and keeps them healthy; he gathers his eggs; he markets them extremely fresh, by the pool system; and with all this expense and ail this effort he finds himself faced with exorbitant freight rates. That is the ground of their complaint, and it is not an unfair one.


Malcolm McLean: There must be
other margins in addition to the freight of 12 cents a bushel to account for the high cost of feedstuffs?


Henry Herbert Stevens: There is, and for this
reason. Suppose a carload of feed is shipped to Vancouver which must be distributed, by truck and at considerable expense, over a large area where the poultry farms are located. Take Vancouver island, for instance. A carload of wheat will be landed at Victoria and from there it must go up the island probably two hundred or more miles and be distributed at a dozen points, a few sacks here and a few sacks there. Naturally that adds to the cost, but the major complaint is against the excessive freight rates. But that does not affect the seriousness of the problem which we are bringing to the attention of parliament and of the country, namely, the sudden, unexpected, irregular and more or less hazardous importation of eggs during certain seasons of the year. If the consuming market in the United States happens to be in a buoyant condition, if the overseas market is attractive, our American friends at once divert their surplus in those directions, but should it happen that during January and February, which is spring in the warmer states, they are faced with an oversupply and the local market seems to be getting a little flat, they ship a dozen cars into Toronto or Montreal, thus solving their problem in Chicago, New York, Cincinatti and other places. They are able to maintain their own price and incidentally break our market.
I think the appeal of the poultry pools of British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and other sections of Canada is one which merits consideration and ought to have the thoughtful attention of the government. If we can in any way, by action of this parliament or of the government, stabilize the egg market and give to the poultry industry reasonable assistance in relieving it of this sudden, unexpected and unfair competition, then I think it is only the right and proper thing to do.


Hon. JAMES MALCOLM (Minister of Trade aind Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with a great deal of interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver
Centre (Mr. Stevens), who touched upon one of the most important points in relation to the egg industry, the cold storage facilities of Canada and their importance im carrying the over production of certain months into the months when production is low.
Some figures have been quoted which I think have left an entirely false impression upon the house. Some hon. members have tried to create the impression that there has been a sudden flood of imports of eggs from the United States this year, but in the comparisons they have made they have disregarded entirely the relationship between eggs which have been imported in the shell and eggs which have been imported in bulk in cans.
The hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Garland) gave certain figures with regard to the importation of eggs, but he failed also to recognize the total importation of 1928. One of the hon. gentlemen who has spoken stated that during the months of January and February, 1928, the importation of eggs amounted to twice as much as the importation during the whole of the year 1928. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is not correct. In the year 1928 we imported about 1,000,000 dozens eggs in the shell. In the same year we imported equal to about 2,500,000 dozen of eggs in cans, -and as a basis of calculation the bureau of statistics take eight eggs to the pound. That meant a total importation of about 3,500,000 dozen. In 1928 the total import of eggs into Canada amounted to 3,594,000 dozens, and exports during the same year amounted to about 1,000,000 dozens. In other words, during that year we imported just about 1.000,000 dozens of eggs in the shell, we exported just about 1,000,000 dozens of eggs in the shell, and we imported in bulk approximately
2,500,000	dozens. That practice has been changing gradually.
In the year 1929, instead of about 2,500,000 dozens of eggs in cans, our imports decreased to practically 500,000 dozens. As has been admitted, in 1930 we had a heavy importation of eggs in the shell but for the two months to which reference has been made there has been no importation of eggs in other forms. In the two months referred to, during which time my hon. friends say there was double the importation of 1928, in reality we had just half the importation of 1928.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The hon. minister stated there were 1,000.000 dozens of eggs in sheil imported in 1928, while during January and
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Importation of Eggs

Mr. Malcolm
February of that year there were imported
1,600,000	dozens iin the shell; that is 50 per cent more in the two months than for the whole year.


James Malcolm: I quite agree with that, but my hon. friend will admit- that our problem in Canada has been to dispose of our low grade eggs. When the duty value on bulk eggs was made higher a market was made for the lower grade of eggs. That was very helpful, and the whole question should be considered together.
Returning to the question of cold storage: I have before me the record of eggs in cold storage for the 'period 1925 to 1930. In February, 1928, we had in storage about 1,000,000 dozens of eggs, while in January of that year we had in storage 2,500,000 dozens. The eggs in storage seem to reach their peak between June and October, the peak ranging from
12,000,000 to 16,000,000 dozens. In September 1927 we had 15,000,000 dozens of eggs in storage, and by February, 192S, the amount had decreased to 1,250,000 dozens, while it had been 2,500,000 dozens in January.
Compare conditions as they existed in January and February of 1929, with the conditions existing in January and February of 1930. In September, 1929, we had in store ' 15,000,000 dozens eggs, by January of this year that figure had decreased to 862,000 dozens and by February it had decreased to practically 200,000 dozens. In other words, in February we came nearer to the point of depletion of eggs in storage than at any period since we started cold storage.
I contend that there is nothing abnormal in this heavy importation. With our production increasing, I do not see how this importation can continue. The importation came at a time when the eggs in store were depleted. At the same time there was a heavy demand for eggs, and, due to certain climatic conditions in British Columbia which have been referred to, the production from that province dropped very materially during December and January.
Other hon. members have made many statements, but let me say this in a general way: There is no question that the poultry industry, in so far as its returns from egg production are concerned, has in the past seven years had a most phenomenal growth. An industry that has grown from $40,000,000 to $84,000,000 in seven years has much to be said to its credit. It is also true, as the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Garland) said, that we have reached, in the raising of poultry, a place which is second to none in

the world, and we have undoubtedly helped egg production by our grading system. I recall the speech of the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) when he said that the farmers of his district were being injured to an enormous extent by this regulation which the Minister of Agriculture had iput into effect, but in spite of all that was said against egg grading, we find to-day unanimity in the house on this method of handling eggs. This industry has unquestionably prospered to a marked extent when it has more than doubled in the short space of seven years.


Mr. HANSON:: Is the minister or the Department of Agriculture not aware that the Farmers' and Dairymen's Association of New Brunswick recently passed a resolution protesting against the present egg grading regulations?


James Malcolm: I was not aware of it. Egg -producers' associations have not petitioned the government on the question of egg importations. I believe my hon. friends opposite are ahead of the associations in making their plea to the government.
I want, however, to discuss one or two matters. The consumption of eggs in this country is practically 300,000,000 dozens, while the production is practically the same. The amount of variation between our production and consumption is so infinitesimally small' that it resolves itself into a part of one per cent. In 1928 our total importation of eggs, even putting it at 3,000,000, which includes in dozens all the eggs we imported in cans, was only one per cent of our total production or total consumption, whichever way >ou like to put it. Taking off the importation list the eggs which we import in cans, we had in 1929 a very much smaller importation in eggs and a substantial export at the same time. But hon. gentlemen opposite say that we ought to be in the egg export business; that we ought to foe exporting eggs in great quantities. Hon. gentlemen at the same time argue that we cannot produce eggs profitably at 45 cents per dozen, and they also know that eggs are higher in Canada to-day than they are in the United States or Great Britain. How are you going to go into the export business if you cannot make money at home prices which are higher than export prices? You cannot have it 'both ways. I have argued insistently in the house as to the value of the home market; I have been an advocate of it. It is quite true that our home market price to-day is substantially higher than the price in the United States.

Importation of Eggs-Mr. Malcolm


Mr. ARTHURS:: If the price of eggs is higher in Canada than in the United States, why does the United States government impose a 12 cent duty on eggs?


James Malcolm: I am not arguing or answering for another government, but I can tell my hon. friend that during the year 1929 the average price for every -week of the year for firsts in Chicago was 35.4 cents, and in Toronto over the same period of time, it was 41.8 cents; in other words, our average price was 6.4 cents higher than the price in the United States during the year. During the months of April, May, June and July the prices were almost -comparable, but in the fall months our prices ran very much higher.
I think I have the quotation I took out of the papers in the reading room just a minute or two ago. The price to-day in New York on selects was 255 to 26 cents and the price in Montreal on the 15th was 29 to 30 cents.


John Arthur Clark: What were the prices a year ago in Montreal?


James Malcolm: I am sorry I cannot
answer the question because I did not have time to find the prices for last year.


John Arthur Clark: Will the minister admit that prices are very much lower this year?


James Malcolm: I think they are lower at the moment than they were then.


John Arthur Clark: The minister has stated that the production in Canada is lower now than it was last year.


James Malcolm: No.


John Arthur Clark: Did I not understand the minister to say that eggs in storage were at a lower point this year than they had been in any previous year?


James Malcolm: Yes.


John Arthur Clark: And that therefore eggs produced in Canada and ready for the marHt were fewer this year than last?


James Malcolm: No. My hon. 1 fiend is entirely misconstruing my figures. I have not the figures in detail, nor did I get any information for the purposes of this debate. Any figures I have given have been hurriedly secured. The argument advanced in regard to cold storage eggs was that in the years of which we have a record, there was no case in February where the quantity of eggs in storage had so nearly reached the depletion point as this year, and if there was any justification for the importation of eggs, it was due to the egg situation. There had been a decrease in production, as hon. gentlemen have pointed
out-I cannot give the figures-but it was said that in December and January weather conditions in British Columbia were so severe that production was smaller. If production was smaller in British Columbia in January and February and if the amount of eggs in storage had reached the vanishing point, it was only to be expected that the market would have to be supplied at that particular time by importation. Therefore, if the importation of eggs was greater in January and February whereas in other years it was greater in March, that was not to be wondered at. The low point for storage eggs in 1927, 1928, and 1929 has come in March. In January of each of these years there has been about one million dozen in storage, but in March it has always dropped down to about 250,000. This year, strangely enough, the low point of storage eggs was reached in Januajy and February, and instead of there being 2,500.000 dozens in store in January, as in 1929, there were only 682,000. And instead of 1.000,000 dozen in February, there were only 220,000.


Mr. McGIBBON:: If we grant that those conditions are correct, would the farmers not have got a higher price if the importations had been shut off?


James Malcolm: This was a case of our not having the supply. You might have a cornered market and you might force a fictitious price; you might drive the price to $5 a dozen if you imposed an embargo, but I do not think under those conditions my hon. friends would seriously consider driving eggs away beyond the normal price. But when we show in February a condition which is normally reached in March, it is not to be wondered at that importations came in February instead of in the latter month.


Peter McGibbon: But it also deprived the farmer of the increased price to which he is entitled.


James Malcolm: I never found it difficult in business to make money out of something I did not have to sell.


John Arthur Clark: Do I understand the minister to say now there was a shortage in the supply of eggs, that is, eggs produced in Canada, during January and February of this year?


James Malcolm: My hon. friend knows
quite well that I am arguing from the figures of eggs in storage as being lower in February rather than in March, which is the usual condition, and I am stating that it has been said in this debate, although I have no figures to verify this, that production was lower in British Columbia in December and January
666	COMMONS
Importation of Eggs-Mr. Malcolm
on account of weather conditions. If those two conditions did apply, and production was limited during January and February owing to weather conditions, and storage was low, that will account for the heavy imports in February, rather than in March. That is my contention.


John Arthur Clark: If there was a shortage in
the supply of eggs produced in Canada during those months, how does the minister account for the much lower price of eggs in the Canadian market as against last year?


James Malcolm: I am not going to account for the lower price of any commodity this year as against last in an argument in regard to the importation of eggs. There have been some wide fluctuations in prices of commodities the world over during the past year. I think the hon. member will a<Jmit that.


John Arthur Clark: Will the minister not admit that the reason for the great reduction in price was the importation of eggs from the United States?


James Malcolm: I do not think it is a
great importation. I am trying to show my hon. friend that until the end of 1930 you cannot take any figures for the year with respect to production or export or import. My hon. friend is contending that there is an alarming situation because in a month where we generally do not have a heavy importation, heavy importation has occurred. I am showing that there was a direct reason for that heavy importation coming in February rather than in March, because it has been shown by hon. members who spoke that in other years the bulk of our production usually came in the month of March. It is not sufficiently heavy to be referred to as bulk; we are using a very extravagant expression so far as imports are concerned, because they comprise such a small part of our total production at any time. My hon. friend probably wants to argue that the poultry industry, like the dairy industry and other similar industries, can be bolstered up by the imposition of higher duties. Is that his point? Is that the point of hon. gentlemen opposite? Let us be perfectly frank. Hon. gentlemen opposite say:	Yes,
we can increase the production of butter and eggs in Canada by bolstering the price. All right; let us do that. But I want the farmers of Canada to realize that they have to choose between a mighty low world market price today on both butter and eggs, and the home market price, and the minute you put a high, enough duty on eggs you will get exactly the same condition which they have in the United States, over-production with very low prices

based on world prices. The minute you put a high duty on butter you will get exactly the same condition that obtains in other countries to-day. If Canada were on an export basis for butter, which my hon. friends opposite say is desirable, Canada's butter producers would be taking world prices.
I have never been a low tariff man, as everyone knows; I have never been a high tariff man. Every tariff item has to be considered on its own merits. It is an economic problem that has to be considered with relation to the conditions in other countries. But I will say this to my hon. friends, that the minute you get a tariff past the point where it is advisable, you stimulate internal competition, which is worse than outside competition. There are industries by the score in the United States to-day that are suffering from an excess of internal competition. I think the poultry industry furnishes very good evidence of that, in the prices ruling for eggs in the United States. You must analyse the poultry industry as a whole.
It has been said by hon. gentlemen opposite, and I repeat this because I think the argument is worthy of consideration, and it has been implied by others in the questions which they have asked, that the poultry industry is not making money with eggs at 40 or 45 cents a dozen. If the poultry industry cannot survive at that price, it certainly cannot survive at world prices. It cannot survive at the price which is being obtained in the United States or in England, even if the tariff barriers were taken down entirely. If the poultry industry was made to increase its volume one per cent, it would be beyound the point of consumption in Canada, and that one per cent would have to be exported and would be a factor in regulating the price of eggs in Canada. My opinion is that purely as an economic argument-and I have argued this with poultry producers very many of whom I number amongst my friends-that at present in Canada the poultry producers are at as near a balance as they can ever hope to be. They are receiving a higher price than the world price. They control ninety-nine per cent of their own market, and any change in fiscal policy affecting the poultry industry would in my opinion do one of two things: To lower the duty would hurt the industry, because a greater importation of American eggs would tend to bring our price nearer to the American Price, which is below ours. To raise the duty would increase production, but that would put prices nearer to an export basis. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the economics of the poultry industry, and especially of the

Importation of Eggs-Mr. Rowe
egg industry, to say that 21 or 3 or 4 cents would be exactly the rate of duty to impose upon American eggs, but I do know this, that the representatives of the poultry producers went to the tariff board. The government, and especially the Minister of Finance, was anxious that they should present their case before that board. The government was willing to listen to the recommendations of the tariff board after they had heard the representatives of the poultry producers, but the poultry producers have never gone on with their case. They have never submitted the facts. They have asked for adjournment after adjournment. This is now, I believe, the fourth adjournment they have requested.
Will hon. gentlemen look at these facts? Here is an industry that has doubled production in seven years, an industry that has ninety-nine per cent of its home market, an industry that practically exports as much as it imports, an industry that has during this particular year, due to peculiar conditions, to import eggs one month earlier than in previous years because of a shortage in storage, an industry that has asked for an adjournment four times in the presentation of its case to the tariff board, and we are now asked that this industry should receive special consideration and that the house be adjourned to deal with it because its situation constitutes a great national calamity.


Peter McGibbon: Is it a new argument that we are hearing from the Liberal side, that the way to get cheap eggs is to put up the duty and increase internal competition? That is what the minister said.


James Malcolm: I said this: I stated that the tariff on every item has to be treated as a separate economic question, and every case decided on its own merits. It has very often worked out that a high tariff was not good for an industry because it stimulated internal competition, which gave it worse competition than it had from outside; and I stand by that.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The minister gave me the privilege of putting a question when he was through. He abruptly stopped me when I attempted to put the question before in the midst of his speech.


James Malcolm: I shall be very glad to answer any question.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Why has not the minister dealt with the question of a dumping duty, which is very pertinent to the difficulty in this case?


James Malcolm: I did not see a single word in the resolution dealing with the method by which this great national calamity was to be averted. I would also tell my hon. friend that the application of the dumping duty could not solve the problem with regard to fresh eggs because our dumping duty is based upon the value of the goods. Unfortunately for my hon. friend's desire, the duty on eggs coming into Canada is a specific duty, and a dumping duty could not be applied. Other articles come in by the pound, and therefore a valuation could be put on them.


Mr. ROWE:: Mr. Speaker-


William Irvine: Will the minister explain what is the difference between the tariff on eggs and the tariff on furniture or automobiles in respect of prices in the home market?


James Malcolm: I shall be very glad to discuss that with my hon. friend when the general tariff is under debate, but I do not think that we should start a general tariff discussion when my hon. friend from Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) is waiting to speak.


William Earl Rowe: The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm), who, as a rule, has very much in common with me, has just interjected a reason why I should rise on this occasion. Here is a strange spectacle. We have the Minister of Trade and Commerce saying that we must be very careful not to increase the tariff, not to increase production in any one line; while we have the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) in conference last week with the provincial ministers of agriculture from the various provinces urging our agriculturists from one end of Canada to the other to increase production. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, how in the world can we expect to have progress in this Dominion when they all say we should increase production and the Minister of Trade and Commerce says we should not increase production?


James Malcolm: Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask my hon. friend to let me interrupt him. I do not like to do so, but he is putting into my mouth words that I did not utter. I did not say we should not increase production. I said increased production would put us on an export basis. And that is quite in conformity with the advice of my hon. colleague the Minister of Agriculture, because he thinks we should be on an export 'basis, and be exporting more than we are at the present time.


William Earl Rowe: I d,o not wish to attribute to the hon. minister something he did not say, and probably I misintrepreted him; but I leave

Importation of Eggs-Mr. Rowe
it to the judgment of this house if the hon. Minister of Trade and Commence did not convey the impression to parliament that we must be careful, that we had just got to the right stage of production in order to maintain a reasonably profitable basis for the poultry producers of Canada. Is not that fair?


James Malcolm: Because my hon. friend said that if the prices were lower the industry could not exist.


William Earl Rowe: Then I submit, Mr. Speaker, I might as well coime to parliament for protection as some other producer, that protection is just as necessary for my product as it is for furniture, boots and Shoes, or anything else. I should like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce-and he should be a student of economics, for he has made a success in the furniture manufacturing business-if he considers that a 35 per cent tariff is necessary on that industry.


James Malcolm: There does not happen to be one.


William Earl Rowe: Pardon me, 30 per cent.


James Malcolm: Eighteen per cent on
furniture from England.


William Earl Rowe: Well, I ask, is that tariff
added to the price that the domestic consumer has to pay for furniture; or is the tariff imposed in order that our furniture manufacturers may enjoy world wide trade? I ask if this great basic industry of agriculture is to be maintained on a sound economic basis by trying to keep the domestic supply in proper relation to consumption? The uncertainty of consumption has been pointed out. The Minister of Agriculture has told us that we have been eating too much butter. I think he told us that the Tory party are going to try to slide into power on butter. The consumption of eggs is uncertain, and I submit that consumption is a great deal more uncertain when you place on eggs a tariff of only 3 cents a dozen, which is equivalent to only 10 per cent at the present low price. Of course, this encourages importation. We need not worry how many eggs come in in one month or another month; the truth of the situation is that the uncertainty of the importation is what makes our home market uncertain. We know that full well.
So far we have not had many members on the other side of the house from Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba taking part in this debate. I see many of my friends on the other side who may ask:	"What business
have you to speak for our provinces?" Perhaps not very much, but I know a lot of Cotn-

servatives out there are waiting for an opportunity to speak on this question. But I am directing attention to the western provinces in order to bring before the house a letter written in reply to an article which appeared not so very long ago in the Ottawa Citizen from the pen of Mr. Deachman, the champion of western free trade ideas, in fact the man who sometimes has apparently more influence on the government than some of its own supporters in this house. Mr. Deachman had written an article entitled The Duty on Eggs, which appeared in the Ottawa Citizen of April 7, 1929. To this article M. W. A. Landreth, president and superintendent of the Canadian Poultry Pool, Limited, Winnipeg, replied in a 'letter which was published in the same paper on May 15, 1929, as follows:
We feel assured that the readers of your publication will be interested in the statistical information which it contains. May we point out, however, that statistics are a dangerous weapon in the hands of some one who may not be familiar with the industry which he endeavours to portray. Mr. Deachman has very ably pointed out the fact that Canadian poultry producers are now in a position to supply Canadian consumption of eggs. He has stated that all imports were made at a time when eggs were 47.6 cents per dozen wholesale. At this point. Mr. Deachman ceases to be an authority. His theories are exploded, and he must be classed with the uninformed.
True, large importations arrived on the Canadian markets when the wholesale price for Canadian eggs averaged over 40 cents per dozen, but due to importation of American eggs, many of which came in on consignment to be sold to the highest bidder, our Canadian market slumped. American eggs were offered on the Toronto market well under 30 cents per dozen, and holders of Canadian eggs were obliged to sell as low as 23 cents per dozen, f.o.b. Montreal.
The poultry producers of western Canada-
The poultry producers, mark you. I want to draw the attention of the bon. members for Melfort (Mr. McLean) and Weyburn (Mr. Young) to this fact:
The poultry producers of western Canada are not requesting protection for the purpose of inflating the price of eggs to the consumer. They desire protection because they believe that the best interests of the producer and the consumer can only be protected by a stabilized market. They wish to protect the distributors who purchase large quantities during the period of over-production, and who place them in store in order to protect the consumer from over inflation during the period of low production. We are sure your readers will agree, that if importation of less than one per cent of our production wrecked our Canadian market last season to the extent that many large distributors are afraid to buy for storage this season, in fairness to a growing Canadian industry, we should be protected against a recurrence in 1929.

Importation of Eggs-Mr. Rowe
Now, Mr. Speaker, I think that is a very reasonable statement, and it is true of what is happening all along the line. The uncertainty of the market for all lines of agricultural products is the greatest handicap of Canadian agriculture at the present time. We have been dealing with eggs, but in any other line of agricultural production a similar situation exists. Much has been said about eggs coming down to the Toronto market from British Columbia. I say to my bon. friends opposite that we on this side of the house are not concerned. We believe in interprovincial trade, and British Columbia eggs are welcome. They come in herein October, November and December, when our hens in Ontario are slowing down in egg production. We have been told about the increased egg production in the western provinces, and the hon. member for Melfort has referred to a hen raised by Professor Barker of the university ' of Saskatchewan which has broken the world's record for egg production. True, she was an exceptional hen. The former world's record was 314 eggs; last year the experimental farm here had a hen that laid 314 eggs; later British Columbia captured the record with, a hen that laid 351 eggs, and last year Professor Barker's hen laid 358 eggs.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: I submit, Mr. Speaker, that
that is more than this government will ever produce. But it does seem strange that while in 1920 we exported over 6,000,000 dozen of eggs, in 1928, the year after the dumping clause was rescinded, we exported only 998,000 dozen.


Charles Avery Dunning: We got a better price
in 192S.


William Earl Rowe: I doubt very much if we did. If the Minister of Finance will look up the records I think he will find that we were getting a much higher price in 1920 than we were last year. I submit that we were selling at. a higher price than we are this year because on Saturday last eggs were selling at 30 cents a dozen in Toronto. That, again, is due to the fluctuation of markets caused by the recent importations. How are we going to equalize agricultural industry with our manufacturing industries, as many have been talking up and down the side lines of this Dominion for years, unless this basic industry is adequately protected? We must redress the difficulties that now exist by equalizing conditions between these two great phases of our national life-agricultural and industry. How can the hon. member for West Elgin (Mr. Hepburn), the hon. member for Melfort
and the hon. member for Weyburn rise in their places and support a government that they know is giving protection ranging from 30 to 35 per cent to other industrial activities, and treat more or less as a joke the proposition we are bringing before this house? Why the hon. member for West Elgin referred to another resolution the other day in a more or less jocular spirit. There is no phase of agriculture in this country that serves as many people as the poultry and egg industry. Anyone who knows rural conditions knows full well-the Minister of Trade and Commerce knows full well-that the fanner who is in hard circumstances often pays his taxes and buys his wife's clothes out of the poultry, eggs and butter that he sells. They know, too, that the labouring man who works for the farmer, and who lives by the side of the road, with his children running around in their bare feet, probably keeps from twelve to twenty-five'hens, which is practically all that stands between them and starvation at times when he cannot secure work.
This is a very serious question, Mr. Speaker, for the people of this country. There is no other industry that is so little protected as the agricultural industry. Practically every man who works for the farmer has at least a few hens to look after, sometimes thirty, sometimes forty; in many years he makes as much $250 out of his hens, which goes a long way with what he gets for his whole year's work on the farm to keep his wife and family. As I say, Mr. Speaker, this matter is vitally important to the people of Canada, and at the next election this government will come to realize that the electors do regard it as important. Opinions are being expressed today all the way down the line, pointing to the fact that we have had no consideration. We were told a few years ago by hon. members representing western constituencies, and presumably representing western thought, to produce more. The government told the people a few years ago to produce more; in fact they searched from one end of the globe to the other to find markets for us. We on this side make the statement-acquiesced in to a great extent by those on the other side-that it is not fair to those who work in manufacturing establishments in this country to have to compete with the sweat shops of Europe and other places, and similarly it is not fair that our agriculturists should be asked to compete with those of European countries with their much lower standard condition of living. It it is high time that no matter what government assumes the reins of office agricultural products Should have a fairer measure of protection. I know, too, that the people of Melfort, West

Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Rowe
Elgin and Weyburn, when they read Hansard, and read it [DOT]carefully, will say to themselves: "Well, I do not think that it is such a joke as our representatives seem to think it is. Our very existence is at stake; our condition is ted; our return for the year has been much smaller than for other years, and agriculture generally has suffered more than it has done during the last twenty years. It is high time that we received from this government some consideration, or some unanimity of thought." We look at the front benches opposite and we see those who believe in free trade part of the time and protection part of tire time. We see the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), who more than any other member of the government has preached the doctrine of free trade, and then we have the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) who, by sentiment and by principle, should be sitting on this side. Then we go further down the line, and we come to the Postmaster General (Mr. Veniot), who in his heart favours protection-


Mr. VENIOT:: You are mistaken there.


William Earl Rowe: Well, Mr. Speaker, I may
be, but I thought better of 'him.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


William Earl Rowe: Mr. Speaker, when the house rose at six o'clock I was endeavouring to show the lack of attention on the part of this government to the great industry of agriculture, with particular reference to the poultry industry. I see some members of the government smile, yet I am sure they realize the seriousness of the situation. In the western provinces which were represented so well this afternoon by the hon. member for Melfort, whom I am glad to see in his place, and by the hon. member for Weyburn, who I am sorry is not here, it seems that the poultry industry is not in such a prosperous condition as it might be. In 1927 the dumping duty was rescinded, and when we read the figures for 1928 we find that in ithe province of Manitoba they had 383,000 fewer laying hens and produced 1,053,000 dozen less eggs; in Saskatchewan they had 538,000 fewer hens and produced 2,425,000 dozen less eggs; in Alberta they had 617,000 fewer hens and produced
2,817,000	dozen less eggs. It will be seen from these figures that during these years we have had a marked reduction in the three prairie provinces, amounting to more than

the present importation, which is large enough, and resulting in a loss of revenue of over $3,000,000 to the poultry producers of that part of the country.


Edward James Young: If the hon. member would permit a question, when was the dumping duty repealed?


William Earl Rowe: There again we have the uncertainty of this government. The provision respecting that duty has 'been rescinded and restored and taken away again so many times that the hon. member himself could scarcely tell me the dates. I know that in 1927 it was rescinded and in 1928 it was placed in force again.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No, no.


William Earl Rowe: One of the ministers of this government told us so this afternoon.


Some hon, MEMBERS:: No.


William Earl Rowe: I do not mean one of the ministers, but one of the chief spokesmen for the government.


Edward James Young: The dumping duty is still in effect and never has been repealed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It can be done only by order in council.


Edward James Young: The dumping clause is an act of parliament.


William Earl Rowe: Again, Mr. Speaker, we see how the hon. member misrepresents AVeylbum.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


William Earl Rowe: With regard to trivial matters.


Edward James Young: I rise to a point of order. The hon. gentleman has said I misrepresented Weyburn. I object to that statement.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Only temporarily.


William Earl Rowe: I will change that statement; probably I should not say the hon. member misrepresents Weyburn, but I am as disappointed in his judgment of what constitutes representation of that district as he will be after the next election.
I do wish to say, Mr. Speaker, that we have seen a marked reduction in the egg production of the western provinces, for which the hon, member for AVeyfourn seems to feel himself chief spokesman most of the time. There is every evidence that this condition is worthy of the attention of parliament at this time. In this connection may I say that in a latter which I have received from an

Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Rowe
Ontario farmer, an article is enclosed which seems to 'be a review of the situation. I should like to read the part of the article which appears to foe relevant to the question now before the house:
Egg markets throughout Canada are in a very uncertain condition. Production everywhere has grown termendously during the past week and values have undergone some very drastic declines. Prices are now considerably lower than at the corresponding time for the past two years and are, in fact, already down to a storage basis at a number of points in the producing areas. This applies more chiefly to the four -western provinces. A great proportion of the blame for the present condition of the market may be traced directly to the rapid and extreme price declines on American markets and to the heavy importations which have been brought in from that country. Western markets, with a surplus over local requirements, are endeavouring to unload carloads in the east, but are finding markets in that section already well supplied with imported stocks. It is improbable that any further importations will be made during the present season but until these stocks which have already been brought in are cleaned up the outlet for surplus stocks in producing sections will probably be limited.
Montreal during recent weeks has been bringing in about fifteen cars of United States eggs weekly. With the sudden rush of local production, however, it would appear that imports during the past week have been a little heavier than were required. This, of course, is a very difficult factor to estimate and some overstocking is almost inevitable under such conditions. What the future holds for the coming spring egg season is very difficult to forecast. There are a number of factors to be taken into consideration. Undoubtedly the season is getting off to a poor start in so far as prices are concerned. Already values in the west are down to a storage basis, with some eggs actually moving into the coolers at the present time. Danger of chilled eggs, a very undesirable product for storing, is not yet past, but with stocks accumulating and no demand from the east, western operators are left with little alternative but to place the surplus in storage. In a sense it is not unfortunate that prices have declined rather rapidly. The storing of eggs at the present time will act as a deterrent against ally further declines and will give stocks on hand a chance to clear without being loaded up by further surplus. Once this is achieved a much healthier situation may be expected to develop. It should be borne in mind, also, that the present low prices for eggs are bound to result in a tremendous increase in consumption. This is a very important factor and will have a great deal of significance on the market during the next few weeks.
It is inevitable, of course, that the United States prices will continue to exert considerable influence on the trend of values in this country. It appears to be the general impression in the states that the coming spring will see a very heavy production but the same conditions which may be expected to bring about a reaction on Canadian markets are also being exerted in the United States and some upward trend from the present low levels W'ould not appear to be improbable.
At this time it is rather interesting to note the manner in which the present year has completely reversed the order of last year in so far as egg supplies and prices are concerned. The month of January this year saw a shortage of eggs. Last year in January there was a considerable surplus. Importations from the United States were exceptionally heavy during the present January and February. There were some importations last year during that time but at Montreal, for instance, the heavy imports of eggs did not get under way until about the 8th of March.


David Spence: Is the hon. member quoting from a reliable source?


William Earl Rowe: I would not attempt to vouch for the reliability of the source, and as the hon. member for Weyburn is pounding his desk I must tell the house that it is obtained from the Egg and Poultry Market Review, Ottawa, published by authority of Hon. W. R. Motherwell, Minister of Agriculture. I find the hon. member for Weyburn and myself in accord for once. I would like to call the attention of the house to some of the headlines appearing in this paper, as follows:
Montreal Expecting Fewer Importations.
Winnipeg Prices Take Further Drop as Eggs Move Slowly.
More Local Eggs at Ottawa.
Lower Prices Feature Toronto's Egg Market.
Vancouver Ready to Store Eggs if Stocks Accumulate.
Edmonton Has Surplus of Eggs and Prices are Working Lower.
Battleford Storing Eggs.
Moose Jaw Getting Surplus Eggs.
Brandon Prices Declining.
Substantial Surplus of Eggs Now Showing on Calgary Mart.
Halifax Market Very Unsettled.
St. John Egg Prices Much Lower.
Demand Poor on P.E.I.
Quebec Still Importing Heavily.
Inspected Interprovincial Shipments.
We have the spectacle of the Department of Agriculture stating that the reasons for the lowered cost, the great surplus and the necessity of putting the product in cold storage, is increased importations from the United States, while the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce has been telling us that if we raise the duty the production will be increased and the internal competition would automatically lower prices. The government is onty demonstrating that uncertainty which has prevailed ever since it came into office in 1921. I regret that the hon. Minister of Railways (Mr. Crerar) is not in his place to-night because a few days ago I read in Hansard where he had led the farmers out of the wilderness into the promised land; when he led the hon. members of the Progressive group in this house he stated how there had been more vacant farms in the county of Huron than ever before in his remembrance. If he will
672	COMMONS
Importation of Eggs-Mr. Ross (Moose Jaw)
recall it to mind, he will find that there are more farms idle to-day in Huron county than there were at that time. It seems to me that what is needed in the agricultural industry is some equalization of conditions, and I have urged before and urge again that this government take some action in that regard. The responsibility belongs to the government, and I ask you to listen to the appeals which have been made by the western poultry-men's associations with their adherents from one end of the western provinces to the other, as well as the many associations in Ontario and the other provinces.
It is easy to talk about cooperation and how we must have more orderly marketing and more scientific production, or how, as stated by the hon. member for Melfort, we can get the hens to produce more and reduce the number kept, but it is very difficult for any cooperative movement to stabilize prices when a government is in power which allows fifteen carloads of eggs per week to come into the city of Montreal from the Unitexi States. We appeal to the government to consider simpHy those [DOT]markets over which we have control, and to pay less attention to other markets over which we have no control or have lost. It1 is time that we 'had, as has been well said in this house, a government selfish enough to look after its own business. I am surprised that such hon. members as the hon. member for West Elgin, the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. McLean) and the hon. member for Weyburn rise as farmers in their places in parliament and support a government which brings about such unequal conditions, which continues to increase the spread of the economic inequality between agriculture and industry. I ask the house if it. is fair that the poultrymen and egg producers of the Dominion of Canada should have to pay 30 per cent upon the furniture they use, and should receive only 10 per cent protection on the eggs they are trying to sell.


Malcolm McLean: Will the hon.
gentleman be good enough to join with us in equalizing downwards that undue tariff load which is being carried?


William Earl Rowe: I issue the same challenge to my hon. friend; will you join with us in raising duties on what we have to sell at least somewhere near the rate on industrial products we have to buy?


Malcolm McLean: That is a poor answer.


William Earl Rowe: A little more equalization is needed in this country; if we are going to have protection for one we should have it for all. Since 1921 the present government has

been maintaining tariff protection for a special few, while the protection given to agriculture is lower than in any other country in the world. That seems to me to be a most unreasonable course to pursue. The only way the standard of living of the Canadian agriculturist can be raised is by their receiving higher prices for their products. There are some lines of production in which we have-


Mr. SPEAKER:: The hon. member's time has expired.


William Earl Rowe: I thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Hewitt Bostock: I beg the hon. member's pardon, he has ten minutes more.


William Earl Rowe: Mr. Speaker, as I have stopped once, I will not continue further at any great length. I urge the government to consider this question in its true light, as it is a problem which merits careful consideration. While it might be considered as a deviation in policy, I urge upon the supporters of the government -as I have lost all confidence in the government as a government-especially the hon. members for West Elgin, Melfort and Weyburn, to consider these things not as jokes, as has the hon. member for West Elgin in dealing with the dairy industry, but in all seriousness. The hon. member for West Elgin has scrambled the egg question and made a joke of it, as he did with the butter question, but I ask that more serious consideration be given to this important question. It is only reasonable that agriculture should be given an equal advantage with other industries, I repeat that this matter is worth}' of the attention of parliament and I trust that this debate will cause some action to be taken by the present government.


Mr. J. G. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: Mr. Speaker, I do not think, under the rules of the house, it was proper to bring this matter up at this time. Under rule 31 a motion of this kind must be of great public urgency or importance, but according to some of the figures given out to-day in regard to the importation of eggs, the percentage of imported eggs in relation to the consumption of eggs in this country is very small. Therefore no one could accurately call this a matter of urgent public importance. I realize, however, that my hon. friends across the floor must be able to rise in their places and spread a certain amount of political propaganda, and that is the only reason for the matter being brought up at this time.
I also notice that members speaking on this question are from the rural parts and that is where the political propaganda will go. So

Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Irvine
far I have not heard many members from the large cities speaking on this subject, the reason being that they know very well that at the present time the cost of foodstuffs to the consumers in the city is high enough. No tariff or embargo can help those people The real trouble in agriculture to-day is the great cost of distribution of the produce of the farmer to the consumer, and no tariff can remedy that. If my hon. friends want to help the farmer they should bend their efforts, as we should, along the line of devising some more scientific method of marketing the produce of the farm so that the farmer may receive the greatest possible proportion of the dollar that the consumer pays for what he buys. My hon. friends spent a great deal of time in regard to butter, eggs, milk and other farm products when they know that on account of the retail prices of these various products in the large cities of Canada, the man on the small salary or the labouring man cannot afford to buy them to-day.


David Spence: If they had jobs they could buy them.


John Gordon Ross: There are more
jobs available to-day than there ever were before.


David Spence: The hon. member is making a joke out of the matter.


John Gordon Ross: I do not have to make a joke out of my hon. friend. We should address ourselves to endeavouring to find some system of getting to the labouring people and low salaried people in the cities the produce of the farm with as little cost of distribution in between as possible. My hon. friends are not seriously considering the farmer in this matter; they are only trying to broadcast for the benefit of the farmer political propaganda that may win for them an odd vote if an election should occur.


David Spence: Let the hon. member speak for himself.


John Gordon Ross: Let me tell my
hon. friend that I am willing to speak in the house in this way as I represent both the consumers in the cities and farmers, and I am prepared to try to equalize things so that both of them will do better in this country. As I was saying, my hon. friends opposite are endeavouring to select certain things that they think will win them votes in the country. As a matter of fact the egg producers are not behind them in this resolution and they will find it is a dud.


William Irvine: Mr. Speaker, before the discussion closes, I want to make one or two remarks. The first is that there is no doubt some importance attached to the question before the house, although I do not think it is of such urgency that it could not have waited until to-morrow; that is to say, I think the hon. member who moved the motion should have done so on the government's time and not on private members' day. We had to-day from the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) a notice of motion that private members' day shall be cut off very soon, and this is the only private members' day we have left. That is the only objection that I have to the argument as to the urgency of the matter. If it were so very urgent, we might have tackled it on Friday and saved this day for the discussion of matters of which notice has been given. However, it is too late now to talk about that.
I was rather disappointed at the statement of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm). I cannot follow him in his reasoning with regard to the tariff. He is quite clear that a protection on eggs would lead to disaster, but he is not nearly as clear that a protection on furniture or automobiles or shoes leads to disaster. My point is that if it is disastrous in one instance it must be disastrous in all instances.


James Malcolm: The Minister of Trade and Commerce made no such statement as that a tariff was disastrous to anything. I stated simply that a tariff might cause the production of so great a quantity of goods within the country that export and not domestic prices might apply. I did not speak of disaster!


William Irvine: Is that not disastrous?


James Malcolm: No.


William Irvine: I cannot see the force of the minister's point. He simply recoils from the logic of his own remarks. If he does not want logic applied to them, he had better not state them. I would also like to know how high a tariff ought to be on some commodities before that result takes place. I have not noticed any great flooding of the markets or reduction of prices on furniture, or automobiles, or boots. I have to make this statement, that what is going to be applied to one class must be applied to all classes. If the Minister of Trade and Commerce will take a stand for no tariff on anything, I can follow

674	COMMONS
Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Irvine
his logic, but as long as he, sitting in the seat of power, maintains a tariff to the advantage of some classes at the expense of others his position is untenable. He must be prepared to extend the same principle to all classes. It is all very well to impose on the egg producers, grain growers and farmers generally. There are a number of reasons why that is done. One is, I think, that the farmers have been and are to-day sincere believers in free trade, and they being believers in free trade, the government evidently says: We will give them a real feed of their own propaganda; we will give them free trade on eggs, butter and all the other things they produce, but we will adhere to a policy of protection in regard to all the things they have to buy.


Malcolm McLean: Is it not the case that there is to-day a higher duty on eggs than there is on 6ome farm implements?


William Irvine: I hope my hon. friend does not require any information from me on that point.


Malcolm McLean: Then why does my hon. friend make the statement he has been making when he knows that such is the case?


William Irvine: It is not the case. The other day we were trying to reduce the tariff on some farm implements to 10 per cent.


Edward James Young: There is 6 per cent on some farm implements and 10 per cent on eggs.


William Irvine: If the hon. member for
Melfort will follow me, I shall be glad to receive a little information from him. He asks whether we -shall be willing to equalize the difference between classes by reducing protection. I should like to know whether, in making that statement, the hon. gentleman had authority to speak for the administration which he supports. If he has the authority to say that we are going to reduce all tariffs in Canada to the same level as the protection on eggs, I think he may be assured that this corner will support him. If he is speaking for the government on that, we can expect a most extraordinary budget in a very few weeks. If he does not mean that, he does not mean anything; he is merely peddling the propaganda that he is charging others with advocating. We are ready to support him on an equalization downwards. We will go the limit in [Mr. Irvine.J
reducing tariffs. How far will he and his government go? Will they wipe out the tariff that is now on boots and shoes, on furniture and automobiles? Will they bring that tariff down to the level of the tariff on eggs? If they will, we are with them. If they will not do that, we are bound to ask the government to equalize the tariffs-either one or the other. Speaking for myself-I do not presume to speak for every hon. gentleman in this corner -I protest against this tariff system which imposes free trade upon the most helpless class in the community, and then taxes them for the goods they buy higher than anybody else. I do not see how it can be expected that unprotected eggs can be exchanged fairly for highly protected furniture.


Edward James Young: You are denying your own philosophy.


William Irvine: If my hon. friend would
try to geb a little philosophy for himself, it would be much better for him and for the house. So far as my own philosophy is concerned, I can take care of that and perhaps be able to give a little assistance to my hon. friend. What I want to get my hon. friend to accept is a philosophy of equality. He is sitting behind a government that removes all protection from the most helpless class in the community and gives the highest protection to all other classes, and then when some spokesman for the unprotected class brings their claim forward, he laughs at him and says that it is a joke, that he is simply making political propaganda out of the question. So far as I am concerned, I am not interested in what they are making out of it. The question is before parliament' now, and I am discussing it on its merits.


Mr. THORSON:: Are you for it or against it?


William Irvine: Against what?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Protection.


William Irvine: I am sorry that my hon.
friend, who is so able and clever in all other matters, seems to be unable to understand the most elementary proposition that I have stated. For his benefit I will state my position again. I am in favour of equality in this matter. If farmers are going to have to pay protected prices for all the goods they have to buy, I demand for them equal protection. If the government cannot grant that, then I demand that the government remove ail protection from all the goods that the farmer has to buy, bringing all classes down

Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Brown
to the same economic level. Now does my hon. friend understand what I am talking about?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I certainly do not. I
do not know whether you are for protection or against it.


William Irvine: Then I must leave my hon. friend in the lap of the gods, where he properly belongs. I must insist on getting some answer from my hon. friend from Melfort, who suggests that the government is willing to equalize the tariff downwards. If they are,
I am in favour of that. If not the government must equalize it, upwards, for equality we must have. The problem is the government's. Hon. gentlemen who have spoken on this question have placed1 it before the government, and asked them to do one thing or the other.
In conclusion, it appears to me that there is another reason why the farmers are singled out as the ones who shall receive no protection at the hands of a beneficent administration, and that is because the farmers are more helpless than any other class, helpless in their very numbers through their lack of organization. They have not the influence in the press to-day which the manufacturers' association has; they have not the organizing ability to produce votes for parties; they have not large contributions to make to campaign funds. All these and other considerations place them outside the pale of party considerations. The result is -that when a government, pretending to believe in free trade and tariff reduction, wishes to make reductions they make them at the expense of the most unprotected class in the community and maintain high protection for the benefit of all the other classes.
While I am sorry that the time of the house usually devoted to the discussion of private members' resolutions has been taken up in tins way, nevertheless -this question does have some importance, and to a great number of people in Canada it has some urgency as well. I think the responsibility is upon the government to see to it that this class, the egg producers, shall not be unfairly dealt with having regard to the privileges which are extended to other classes. That is the position which I wish to maintain.


Mr. J. L. BROWN (Lisgar):: I referred the other day to what I said was the great a-postacy in regard to the United Farmers of Alberta. I was not sure that I was speaking with absolute fairness in regard to them, but the hon. member for Wetaskiwin (M-r. Irvine) has just made it perfectly clear that the words which I used on that occasion were right to 2419-43i
the point. He has now taken the position for the farmers of Canada that they are going to get into the trough and squabble over the husks of protection, for it is only -the husks they can ever get.


William Irvine: You would look well in
there.


John Livingstone Brown: That sounds very smart, and hon. gentlemen opposite applaud it, but when the remark i3 examined you will find, that like many apparently smart other remarks of the hon. gentleman, there is nothing in them. The hon. member for Wetaskiwin has taken a position that is in violation of the principles of the united farmers of the west. I know that I can speak for them as they used to be represented through their council of agriculture. They took the view that protection had nothing for the farmers, that -there was nothing in it for them. Even if we were disposed to concede that there might be some temporary advantage in imposing a higher duty upon eggs, which I am not disposed to concede, we must think of the system as a whole, and looking at the system as a whole there is nothing in it for the farmer.
The hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. Arthurs) put a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) while he was speaking. He asked: Why is it that the Americans have put a tariff of 12 cents upon eggs if eggs are dearer in Canada than in the United States? Hon. gentlemen opposite are often asking why is it that we have not followed the example of the Americans. Hon. gentlemen opposite profess great loyalty and attachment to British institutions, but they are very fond of referring to the actions of the United States government. For my part, I have not a very high opinion of the wisdom of some of the United States legislators when they come to deal with economic questions. I prefer that we should take our own course and deal with these matters as we judge best. To answer the question asked by the hon. member for Parry Sound, the Americans put that 12 cent duty on eggs to fool the American farmer, and the American farmer has been fooled by it. Hon. gentlemen opposite are now endeavouring to get the fanners of this country to adopt the principle of protection, attempting to fool the Canadian farmer. I doubt very much if the Canadian farmers are going to be fooled by that proposition,
Reference has been made on two or three occasions in the course of this debate to the Canadian poultry pool, and it has been pointed out that the Manitoba poultry pool belonged
676	COMMONS
Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Brown
to that organization. I said the other day that I had some right to speak for the organized farmers of the west. I am personally well acquainted with the president of the Manitoba poultry pool. I had a conversation with him just shortly before I left home, and I know he is very strongly opposed to the idea that we should seek protection on our own products. If anybody doubts that statement I shall be pleased to put them in communication with that gentleman for confirmation of it. It is true that a year ago a resolution was slipped through at a meeting of the Manitoba poultry pool asking for some such thing as is suggested here to-day; but that was afterwards repudiated, and most emphatically repudiated, by the united farmers when they met in convention.
The hon. member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Irvine) has said that he wants equality in these matters. Well, the equality that he seeks will prove a snare and a delusion. I am not satisfied yet to believe that the United Farmers of Alberta, members as they are of the Canadian Council of Agriculture, are disposed to accept the hon. member for Wetaskiwin as their spokesman in this connection.
Now, it is suggested that an entirely new situation has arisen. The figures that are given us for imports and exports covering a period of years would show that it is not an entirely new thing, and indeed there is indication that the situation is bettering itself as the years go by. For instance, in 1920 our exports of eggs amounted to 6,324,838 dozen, as against imports of 6,615,928 dozen, or an excess of imports over exports of 191,000 dozen. Similarly in 1921 the figures were 5,444,014 as against 6,597,737 dozen; in 1922, 3,619,356 as against 8,140,548 dozen. It will be noticed that in the year 1922 the peak was reached when the excess of imports over exports was 4,531,000 dozen. I need not give all the figures, but I should like to put them on Hansard.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go ahead.


John Livingstone Brown: I should like these figures
to be placed on Hansard.
The table follows:
Exports and Imports of Eggs 1920-1929
Exports	Imports	ExcessYears	doz.	doz.	doz.1929 .	. . 6,324,838	6.515,928	- 191,0001921 .	. . 5,444,914	6,579,737	-1,135,7231922 .	. . 3,619,356	8,140,548	-4,531,0001923 .	. . 2,990.111	6,623,253	-3,523,0001924 .	. . 2,716,604	4,980,704	-2,264,0001925 .	. . 2,466,270	2,721,736	- 255,0001926 .	. . 1,776,559	4,156,474	-2,380,0001927 .	. . 527,946	3,226,645	-2,699,0001928 .	. . 988.586	996,880	- 8,0001829 .	. . 1,147,829	713,290	+ 434,000
IMr. Brown.]
These figures show that the excess of imports over exports has gradually declined from 1922 dowrn to 1928, when the excess was only
S,000	dozen; and in 1929 the position is reversed and we have an excess of exports over imports of 434,000 dozen. In the face of these figures I do not see how it can be maintained that the poultry business is being injured by the present condition of things. The very fact, as was referred to by the hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) that we have increased the value of our products from about $40,000,000 to over $80,000,000 is in itself sufficient proof that present conditions are not working to the injury of the egg producers of this country. And there is no reason to believe that these conditions will not continue to improve. For instance, take one factor the grading regulations, which were referred to so favourably this afternoon. By the way these regulations were opposed by the Conservative spokesmen throughout the country. I know I had to meet in my election campaigns the arguments of my opponent against the grading of farm products, particularly pork products, and it was hurled against me as a serious charge that I had not protested against the grading of hogs. So it has been in regard to all these matters; our Conservative friends resisted the steps for reform and later they come along and claim credit for the results that have been achieved.
It is regrettable, Mr. Speaker, that the business of the house should have been taken up in this way this afternoon. Like other members who have spoken, I think it has been an encroachment upon private members day, and certainly I think it has been done for no other reason than political propaganda. But I very seriously doubt if the farmers of Canada will be as easily and as long deceived as have been the farmers of the United States. One need only refer to them again to show what a hopeless position they have placed themselves in by supporting for so many years, as they have done, the policy of protection. They have been forced therefore to try some other expedients, which are just as lacking in economic soundness as the policy of protection.


George Reginald Geary: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the remarks of the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) in the vain hope that he might perhaps take up the invitation so lately extended to him by my friend from Wetaskiwin (Mr. Irvine). I wonder if my hon. friend realizes the potentialities of his position. There he sits with my friend from Weyburn (Mr. Young) and others on the left flank of a very considerable body of members of this house who share

Importation of Eggs-Mr. Geary
his views. Think of the alluring possibilities of his position! These gentlemen are for free trade, they are for cutting down the tariff; yet they are supporting a government which members to my left say does nothing of the sort. Do they recall the session of 1926 when one lone highwayman from Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) was able to drag from this government no less a thing than old age pensions? Think of what they could do with the numbers they have! The opportunity is in the hands of my hon. friends at this moment.


John Livingstone Brown: "What's done we partly may compute, but know not what's resisted."


George Reginald Geary: If the tariff is to be
lowered, the effective force is in their hands, and theirs only. All they have to do is to dissociate themselves from those protectionists who sit on their left, when they will see how far they can get with the alleged free trade that they advocate so strongly. I mention this for the consideration of my hon. friends lest they should not have seen the possibilities that lie before them.


John Livingstone Brown: We are too wise to be
caught by straws of that character.


George Reginald Geary: I have little knowledge, Mr. Speaker, of the particular commodity which is the subject of this debate. I have been educated considerably this afternoon as to importations and exportations of eggs. But although I have very little knowledge of the production of eggs, that is because I come from a constituency where I suppose a small boy in a very short evening's chore could gather up all the eggs that are laid in a day. But we in South Toronto are consumers, and if it is not too bold of me, I would beg that I might, instead of Mr. Deachman, represent for a minute the consumers.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


George Reginald Geary: Let me tel! you that we
expect to pay for the farm produce that is consumed in the city of Toronto at a fair price; and we do not by any manner of means wish to get that produce at a screwed-down price that in the ultimate analysis penalizes the farmer.


Edward James Young: Is it not a facr that the good women of Toronto banded themselves together some years ago and refused to buy eggs because they thought the price was too high?


George Reginald Geary: I do not remember it at
all; it may be true. But I have known women, good as they may be, to band themselves
together for things of which I do not approve. But the argument advanced by my hon. friend from Weyburn has been an eye opener to me and has given me a great deal of pleasure. We in the city have been rather the target of his criticisms in the past. To-day I am glad to see him espousing the cause of the urban dweller, and, as far as I could gather -and I think I am correct-declaring from the house tops to all andl sundry who may choose to hear that the farmer has been ready to sacrifice, even to the cost of his product, in order that the city diweller and the poor person may get some benefit.


Edward James Young: No, he refuses
to accept the bait that is on the hook.


George Reginald Geary: Let me say that in Toronto I must go on many a platform and say that there is a possibility of farm produce costing more than my hearers want to have it cost. But I am bound to say, at the same time, that that is one of the things which we must do in an urban municipality, out of fairness to the farmer outside, in order that he may get a fair price for his product, and in order that we, in turn, may be protected from the depredations of outside competition. We must be prepared, therefore, when the occasion comes, to pay the price, and I think you will find very little objection to paying the fair price, whatever it may be.
As I understood the argument, it was rather" in favour of the urban dweller and at the-eost. of the farmer. To be sure, my hon. friend-the member for West Elgin (Mr. He,p-" burn)-in his quaintly amusing fashion made-' a joke of the matter, but while I enjoy even his humour I suggest the matter is more serious than he makes it out to be. It is al! very well to take calculations extending over a year and find averages. The point is that at certain times that does not work out in practice, and that the impact of the importations from foreign countries does work to the detriment of the producer here. It is a serious matter, and I am quite prepared, with the motion of my hon. friend the member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber), to go before the farmer and the farmer's wife and let them be the judge as to who 'is on the right side of this question. I can speak for those of my own province, but I cannot speak as well for 'those in the far west; I know comparatively so little about them. But this I do know, that the farmer's wife and the farmer's daughter in the province of Ontario are vitally interested in the price per dozen that they can get for the eggs that they produce and dispose of in the market. And I am quite
678	COMMONS
Importation of Eggs-Mr. Dunning
prepared that this matter shall go out from this house as a joke from the other side, and as a very serious matter, even if it is just about eggs, from this side of the house.
There is little I want to add, Mr. Speaker, except to confess to some confusion over the argument of the hon. the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm). As far as I could gather from his remarks, his ideal is such a balance of production and consumption as will make this country economically selfsufficient or independent. I am surprised to hear thait, because I have always understood that that is one of the propositions that the government is dead set against, that this country can, be economically independent. I noticed again that his proposition is that we should supply the home market and let it go at that. That amazes me greatly, particularly when I think of the functions of the minister himself. I understood that his efforts were directed very largely to finding markets outside; that the home market was all very well but that every effort should be made to extend our markets, and to that end trade commissioners have been established in many foreign countries. Will he extend that same argument to wheat? Shall we grow wheat just for our own home consumption, or shall we grow enough for export? Then as to butter, does he hoLd the same view? If he does, he will be with us in our desire to get rid of the New Zealand agreement? Because his argument there does not hold water. We have not in butter that balance of production and consumption which the minister says is so desirable. Too much butter is coming in from New Zealand. In that case I suppose the minister's view must be that the duty is too low, and that so much butter should be kept out of this country. If so, why does he oppose the motion on the order paper to rescind the New Zealand order in council? The minister rather went back on that just now. He did not think it a disaster to produce so much that we have some to export. If he does not think it is a disaster, perhaps it is just a matter of terminology. Perhaps he means it may be harmful. If it is harmful, then we should not produce enough to allow us some for export. I say that the fear which he seeks to impose upon us in regard to greater production of eggs is supported by no argument at all. He either means disaster or harm, and must stick by it, or if he does not mean disaster or harm then his argument of this afternoon went for nothing.
The difficulty is this, Mr. Speaker, that the government across the way has adopted ithe
	>
clothes that originally belonged to the party on this side. True, they never did fit, and everybody knows how difficult it is to make a good appearance in clothes that do not fit. In each of the two matters that we have discussed in this house of late, the government have succeeded in doing what? Not hurting the industrialist, not hurting the urban dweller, but their blows have been struck, in each case, at the farming industry-under the New Zealand treaty and under their refusal to-day so to adjust matters that this seasonal importation of surplus eggs from the United States shall cease. Again I ask my hon. friend the member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown), is he content to sit with the party over there, which has never shown, according to some of my friends to my left, any inclination towards so-called free trade? Is he content to sit there and let the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Howard) be protected in regard to his industry, and the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) be protected in his industry, and the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Euler) be protected, either for himself or his friends, in regard to the articles that are produced around Kitchener?


John Livingstone Brown: We do not readily jump from the frying pan into the fire.


George Reginald Geary: I can go through the party to his left, Mr. Speaker, and name the protectionists there; these are the people he is consorting with and supporting. I only suggest to him that his professed views and those of his friend near him must have been submerged for reasons which smack of political expediency and inconsistency of the worst kind.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance):	I do not desire to enter upon
the discussion of this subject, as I wish to remain within the rules of the house. I rise merely, sir, to direct your attention to Hansard of this afternoon and evening, in order that in the future, when motions of this kind are before the house, we may know from you exactly what the rules of debate are with respect to them. I have, in common with other members of the house, listened to motions for the adjournment of the house in order to permit discussion of a matter of great, urgent public importance. That is the rule which is invoked in order to produce the discussion which we have had so far in this debate, and my reason for asking you to read Hansard, Mr. Speaker, is in order that one may know, in future, when to appeal to Your Honour for a ruling as to the relevancy of

Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Bennett
the discussion. As I understand it, this privilege of moving that the house adjourn in order to permit the discussion of a matter of urgent public importance has been surrounded, necessarily, by safeguards in the rules and in parliamentary procedure generally in order that there may not be involved in the use of it an infringement upon the privileges and rights of members of this house who have given notice on the order paper of their intention to move certain motions at certain times.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What rule conflicts with
this discussion, for instance?


Charles Avery Dunning: I am not speaking of
any .conflict; I am speaking of the infringement which it involves upon the time of the members of the house who, in a bona fide manner, have given notice on the order paper of their intention to make certain motions It is well understood that a motion to adjourn, such as has been made upon this occasion, always is in order and the discussion upon it must proceed Immediately and can continue, as we are continuing to-day, but incontinuing it, and to the extent to which we have continued it, we are using the time of this house which, under the rules, I submit should belong to members who have given due notice on the order paper of their intention to introduce certain resolutions.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Charles Avery Dunning: Please do not understand me, Mr. Speaker, as arguing that it is not competent for any hon. member to move the adjournment of the house at any time, but the abuse of that privilege necessarily would involve that hon. members who have given notice of their intention to discuss certain matters would be crowded out of their time entirely. Hence, from my study of the rules, this would seem to be the reason for the need of strict relevancy of discussion which particularly surrounds the discussion of motions of this kind. I submit to you, sir, that in discussing a matter of urgent public importance, which is stated in the resolution to Telate to the importation of certain eggs which is now taking place, under the rules referring to this kind of motion the discussion should be kept strictly to the immediate matter of public urgency and should not be allowed to wander far afield -into a genera! discussion of tariff principles or a general discussion of any kind whatever.
I merely ask, sir, not for this particular case and with no desire to stop the debate, but
in the interests of the proper conduct of public business in this house, that you should carefully look into the matter in order that on the next occasion a similar motion is made we may have guidance from you as to the latitude which may be permitted in discussions of this kind. I hope my hon. friend from South Toronto (Mr. Geary) will not think I am referring to his remarks particularly; I have referred' only to the general debate to which we have listened this afternoon and this evening.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, it is quite obvious that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) has not forgotten the usual role he plays in matters of this kind. I do not think he is qualified, either by experience or training, to lecture this house in the conduct of its business.


Charles Avery Dunning: Mr. Speaker, I must
object; in no sense did I lecture the house.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is what it was.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am in no sense lecturing the house; I am exercising my right as a member of this house to discuss a matter relating to the conduct of business of this h'ouse.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I thought the usual custom was for one member to be on the floor at a time, and I had the floor.
In accordance with the rules of this house, Mr. Speaker, this afternoon a motion was made; twenty members stood in their places and the member was accorded the right to proceed. I join issue at once with the Minister of Finance; the adjective " great " does not precede the words used. The words are, " of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance." That definite matter was specified in the notice handed to the Speaker; twenty members of the House of Commons intimated their desire that it should be discussed, and the matter has been discussed.
If the discussion has wandered far afield from the definite urgent matter of public importance, surely it was competent for the Speaker of the house to direct attention to that fact, being in charge, or for the minister who has just spoken to do the same thing. Apparently, however, he was so much annoyed at the observations made by his colleague the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm), to the effect that increasing the protective duties would lower prices, while his colleagues behind him have said that an increase in the tariff would increase prices, that he found it convenient at this stage of the debate to rise and deliver what could be de-
680	COMMONS
Importation of Eggs-Speaker's Ruling
scribed only as a lecture upon parliamentary procedure to his colleague, the Minister of Trade and Commerce, and the rest of the members who have participated in this debate. I feel perfectly certain that the Minister of Trade and Commerce must be extremely grateful to his colleague for having lectured him for having spoken about so many matters other than eggs, and for having given such an illuminating talk upon the principles of a scientific tariff. I was interested in listening to those remarks, as were many other members of this house who have not had that large experience in customs tariff matters which has been obtained by the Minister of Trade and Commerce in his business and who do not realize how nicely adjusted a thirty per cent duty is to imports and exports in the particular commodity with which he deals-furniture. I feel quite certain that with his exposition of the matter, together with the friendly lecture given by the Minister of Finance, the debate will now proceed with respect to eggs.
I merely rose to say, Mr. Speaker, that the discussion has wandered far afield, but the duty of the Chair is to maintain the relevancy of the discussion, and the leader of the house is not supposed to sit to the left of the Speaker. At this late stage, just before the question is put, the Minister of Finance finds it necessary, in the absence of the Prime Minister, to make the observations to which we have just listened with such exemplary patience, but I am sure no fault can be found with him and we thank him for the paternal and kindly interest that the father of the house has taken in this matter of procedure.


Hewitt Bostock: The motion as handed in by the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber) leaves no doubt that, by itself, it refers to a question of public importance, but as to the urgency of the question itself I have grave doubts. Subsection 3 of rule 31 states:
He-the mover-then hands a written statement of the matter proposed to he discussed to the Speaker, who, if he thinks it in order and of urgent public importance, reads it out and asks whether the member has the leave of the house. If objection is taken, the Speaker requests those members who support the motion to rise in their places and if more than twenty members rise accordingly, the Speaker calls upon the member who has asked for leave.
What happened this afternoon? The motion was handed to the Speaker, who looked around; he had his doubts, I am sure, as to the urgency of this egg question, but twenty members rose, no one protested, and the debate went on. Under rule 31, Beauchesne states at paragraph 249:
[Mr. Bennett.)
In doubtful cases, the question of urgency and of importance are left for the house to decide by giving or withholding its support.
This afternoon that support was given to the presentation of the motion and therefore, under the circumstances, without committing the Chair for future motions of a similar nature, the debate must go on.
I hope hon. members will not travel too far afield and that they will concentrate on eggs. It is said that one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. This is a case in point, where one should refer to eggs only.


John Arthur Clark: Mr. Speaker, I feel very grateful indeed that you agree with members on this side of the house that this question is of great and urgent public importance, and I am sure that the constituents of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) and of the hon. members for Weyburn (Mr. Young), Melfort (Mr. McLean), Lisgar (Mr. Brown), and other constituencies will be very much interested when they find that their respective members do not consider this matter to be of great public importance. This industry produces annually agricultural products to the value of nearly
8100.000,000, which amount would be considerably increased if we considered the value of poultry as well as of eggs, and anything that affects detrimentally this great industry immediately becomes a matter of urgent public importance.
The price of eggs to-day is lower than it has been in the corresponding months as far back as hon. members can remember. What has depressed the price of eggs at this particular time of the year? The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) and other hon. members have said that the supply of eggs is not equal to the demand, and that this condition has brought about some importation, while the hon. members for Lisgar, Weyburn, Melfort and so on have said that the imports are infinitesimal when compared to the total production. I admit all that, but I contend that without the importation of one egg the price of eggs could be depressed. The price has been depressed from 50 cents to 30 cents per dozen, which depression could be brought about by one American quotation in the city of Toronto or the city of Montreal. When such a quotation is made the market price is automatically depressed to the price at which such eggs are offered. It is not a question of whether or not the supply of eggs coming from a foreign country is infinitesimal as compared to the total consumption or total production.

Importation oj Eggs-Mr. Clark
the whole test is whether there is a country with an available supply which can be offered at low prices. That is what has happened. Thi9 house has never heard hon. members form this side object to competition within Canada; the farmers represented by members on this side of the house do not object to legitimate competition from farmers within Canada, but whether we represent urban or rural constituencies we do object to unfair competition from foreign countries when our producers can be protected against such competition. British Volumbia eggs are being accumulated in Vancouver and are available at fair prices to the markets of eastern Canada, but this government has permitted the price of eggs to be depressed to a point where the producers of British Columbia cannot afford to send eggs to the eastern markets. We ask that the Canadian producer be given an opportunity to compete in the markets of Canada.
I was astounded at hearing the one member of the cabinet who rose in his place to defend the position of the government declaring for the policy of the Conservative party. He said that when a product is protected competition follows automatically and production increases. In that way we would have more Canadians producing our products, and not more Americans. We do not object to the price being depressed so long as it is depressed by fair competition within Canada. The hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce has made the strongest argument which could be made for his department, namely, that when this industry or any other industry is given a fair amount of protection the production is increased within Canada and the price is automatically adjusted; supply and demand work automatically to produce a fair price for the commodity, and whether it be eggs or other products, they will have an opportunity of entering the world markets. WThat we are interested in knowing is whether or not the cabinet and the Liberal party agree with the statement of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, the only member of the cabinet who has spoken to-day. It is an extraordinary spectacle and one which should be drawn to the attention of the house, that the members of the cabinet have been conspicuous by their absence throughout the debate.
This matter should be of particular interest to the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell). I do not desire to criticize the absence of the minister if that absence is due to ill health, but surely there is an acting minister of agriculture who could express his
ideas as to what should be done for this great industry. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) should be interested in this subject, as it is his duty as much as the duty of the Minister of Trade and Commerce and the Minister of Agriculture to give an expression of the government's policy in this matter. We have heard nothing from the government except the Minister of Trade and Commerce who has laid down the doctrine of this party, which doctrine is flatly contradicted by the supporters of the government who have spoken.	,
The members of the house are interested in knowing whether or not we have a minister of trade and commerce for the United States and a minister of agriculture for the United States. Whether one examines the trade with the United States or the trade treaty with France or the trade treaty with Italy, the same result will be found. In 1920 we had a surplus of trade with France amounting to 850,000,000, but that has been changed to an adverse balance of 810,000,000. The balance of trade with Italy amounted to over $56,000,000 in 1921, and it has been reduced to about $7,000,000.
I regret to hear the hon. members across the floor of the house treat this matter as a joke, and I regret hearing the hon. Minister of Finance argue that this is not a matter of urgent public importance. As a representative of one of the great cities of Canada I think I represent the consumer, even more so than the hon. member for Weyburn and other hon. members of the Liberal party, and I believe that the people of Vancouver, as well as the people of the other great cities of Canada, are quite prepared to support the agricultural interests of this country. They are quite prepared to pay fair prices for agricultural products and are quite prepared to support that industry so that it may become and continue to be one of the prosperous industries of the country.


Hewitt Bostock: Is it the pleasure of the house that the hon, gentleman shall have leave to withdraw his motion?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.
Motion withdrawn.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. SPENCER:: Referring to answers given in Hansard 27th February, 1930, with reference to the Canadian
Questions

Farm Loan Act, how many of the applications had been definitely refused according to provinces, up to the 31st December, 1929?


Charles Avery Dunning: Of applications disposed of as of December 31, 1929, no loans were granted or were granted in amounts unacceptable to the applicants, in the following cases:-British Columbia, 395; Alberta, 1,265; Manitoba, 27; Quebec, 58; New Brunswick, 200; Nova Scotia, 53.



TOPOGRAPHICAL BRANCH SALARIES

Mr. FAFARD:: 1.	Are there any employees in the topographical branch of the Department of the Interior who receive no salary?
2.	If so, what are their names and what companies do they represent?


Mr. LAPOINTE (for Mr. Stewart, Edmonton) :: 1.	Yes. Two companies have lent assistance to the topographical surveys to hasten issue of standard topographical maps.
2.	(a) J. D. Pond, Canadian International Paper Company.
(b)	M. Peterkin, T. A. Ruddy, C. H. Irish, A. C. Hoey, J. Ashfield, P. O'Brien, P. J. Stringer, all of the James Maclaren Lumber Company, Limited.



INVERNESS, N.S., HARBOUR AND PIER

Mr. MACDOUGALL:: 1.	What are the expenditures by the Department of Public Works on the harbour and pier at Inverness, Nova Scotia, during the years 1927, 1928 and 1929?	*
2.	Was the work done under contract or days labour?
3.	If the latter, what wages were paid, and how many hours a day did employees ivork?
4.	Who was foreman and how much did he receive during the years above mentioned?


Mr. ELLIOTT:: 1.	1927-28, $4,058.68; 1928-29, $4,066.43; 192930, $3,599.22.
2.	Days labour.
3.	Ca) During fiscal years 1927-28 and 192829, wages were paid at the following rate per day:-foreman, $5; watchman, $2.75; team and driver, $6; horse and driver, $4; pile-drivers from $3 to $3.25; carpenters, $3.50; labourers, $2.50 to $3.
During fiscal year 1929-30, foreman and watchman were paid by the day, the wages being the	same	as the	two previous	years.All others	were	paid by	the hour and	as follows : team	and	driver, 60c.; horse and	driver,
45c.; carpenters, 45 to 50c.; piledrivers, 30c.; stationery engineer, 35c.; labourers, 30c.; boys employed, 20c.
(b)	10 hours 'a day.
4.	(a) D. R. McLean.
Ob) 1927	
$355	001928	
405	001929	
442	50



FISH COLLECTING SERVICE

Mr. SHORT:: 1. How many collecting boats Avere employed by the Fisheries department during the \-ear 1929?
2.	What were the names of the boats?
3.	On what routes did they operate?
4.	How much Avas paid per month for each boat?
5.	From Avhom were they chartered?
6.	Was any commission over and above the chartered price paid? If so, to whom Avas commission paid?
7.	What quantity of fish was carried by each boat?
8.	What was the total amount expended on the fishing collecting service for 1929?


Mr. CARDIN:: 
Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: 
Mr. ELLIOTT:: 1.	The supply of Nepean sandstone is not purchased direct by the government, but is included in the general contract. The contractor has the right to purchase where he desires, provided the stone complies with the specification.
2,	3 and 4. No information.



RIVIERE DU I-OUP DREDGING CONTRACTS

Mr. SHORT:: 1.	How many dredging contracts were given by the government for work to be done at Riviere du Loup (en haut) in 1926?
2.	What were the numbers of such contracts.'
3.	To whom were they awarded?
4.	At what dates were they awarded?
5.	At what dates were they paid for?
6.	On whose recommendation was payment made?


Mr. ELLIOTT:: 1 and 2. Only one contract
in 1926.
3.	Les Chantiers Manseau Ltee.
4.	May 6, 1926.
5.	Payments were made on the following dates: 1926-27: Progress estimate No. 1, July 8, 1926; progress estimate No. 2, September 8, 1926; progress estimate No. 3, September 21, 1926; on account of final estimate, March, 26, 1927; 1927-28: Balance of final estimate, April 14, 1927; 1928-29: Revised final estimate covering increased depth of channel required, June 19, 1928.
6.	Payments made on the recommendation of the chief engineer, and certified by the district engineer that the work had been satisfactorily carried out.



GOVERNMENT STEAMER VERCHERES

Mr. DICKIE:: 1.	Did the government of Canada at any time own a steam vessel by name Vercheres?
2.	If so, on what date was such steam vessel acquired?
3.	From whom was such vessel acquired?
4.	What was the purchase price?
5.	What sums of money, if any, were spent by the government in each calendar year on repairs to the steam vessel Vercheres from the date of its acquisition to the 31st December,
1929?	,
6.	Has the government disposed of the vessel Vercheres? If so, on what date, for what price, and to whom?
7 Has the Durchase price been fully paid.


Mr. CARDIN:: 1.	Yes.
2.	3 and 4. The wooden steamship Vercheres was built by the government at the government shipyard, Sorel, P.Q., in 1906 at a cost of $29,344.13.
Questions

5.
Fiscal year 1907-	08	
1908-	09	. .. ] 1Q2 171909-	10.. . 1910-	11	
1911-	12	1912-	13.. .. 1913-	14	
1914-	15	1915-	16	
1916-	17	
1917-	18	
1918-	19	
1919-	20	1920-21	1921-22..	1922-23.. .	1923-24.. ..	1924-25.. .	1925-26.. ..	1926-27.. .	1927-28	6.	Yes. 31st July, 1928-$5,000-Les Chan-ticrs Manseau Ltee.7.	Yes.3.	What was the deficit or surplus on the operations of the Canadian National Railways in 1920, 1925, and 1929?4.	What did the relief from the customs duty and taxes of all kinds amount to, in the budgets of 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	Total interest-bearing debt: At March 31, 1921, $2,628,342,369; 1925, $2,617,706,4511929, $2,471,194,355.
2.	Annual interest charges thereon:	At
March 31, 1921, $134,845,309, 1925, $130,686 -Sol; 1929, $122,999,970.
3.	Operating surplus or deficit: 1920, $30,210,724 (deficit); 1925, $32,264,414 (surplus); 1929, $45,062,080 (surplus).
4.	As estimated in the budget speeches:
1924.. .. 1925		Decrease	Ificrease $1,000,000
1926 ..	, .. 25,000,000	
1927 .. ..	, .. 27,000.000	
1928	, .. 19.000,000	
1929 .. ..	.. 25,000,000

Less		1,000,000
government steamer alcoma


Mr. DICKIE:: 
Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: L The government owns the steel steamship Vercheres, formely named Algoma,.
2.	31st July, 1928-$85,000-Les Chantiers Manseau Ltee.
3.	Yes.
4.	Sorel, P.Q. Official No. 111803.
5.	Toronto, Ontario. 1901.
6.	Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Official No 111803.



NATIONAL DEBT

Mr. PREVOST:: i i1).	total amount of the national
debt in 1921, 1925, and 1929?
[DOT] 2io^Ila1tn3.as the year,y interest on said debt m 1921, 1925, and 1929?

Decrease .. ..$ 119,000,000



SEED, FEED AND FERTILIZER ACTS

Mr. ROWE:: 1.	What amount of estimates was used during the past year in connection with the enforcement of the Seed Feed and Fertilizer Act?
2.	What amount was spent in construction of the elevator and seed cleaning plant in Moose Jaw ?
3.	Has the above mentioned elevator and plant been completed?
4.	If not, how much is estimated as necessary to complete the same?
5.	Under what item in the estimates of the fiscal year ending March 31, 1931, is such amount included?


Mr. LAPOINTE (for Hon. Mr. Stewart, Edmonton):: 1. The amount that was used during the past, year in connection with the enforcement of the Seed, Feeding Stuffs and Fertilizers Acts cannot be separated from the total amount for inspection and laboratory salaries and services which also included seed crop inspection, the inspection of hay and straw, the inspection of binder twine, the inspection of insecticides and fungicides, market reporting and promotional work as all this work is carried on by the same inspection staff of the Seed branch. The total expenditure for the inspection and laboratory salaries and services
68E

Unopposed Motions for Papers
provided in the estimates for the current fiscal year was $313,460 of which $293,338 was expended as at February 28, 1930.
2.	$250,000.
3.	No.
4.	$33,000.
5.	Item 41.



TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Mr. CAMPBELL:: 1.	What was the total cost of the royal commission on technical and professional services?
2.	What was the amount paid to each of the three commissioners?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	Payments to date: 89,509.61.
2.	No remuneration has yet been paid to commissioners. Travelling expenses of commissioners paid as follows: E. W. Beatty, nil; Sir Geo. Garneau, $442.40; Dr. Walter C. Murray, $1,656.40.
AIR MAIL SERVICE	a


Mr. STEWART (Leeds):: 1.	What was the total number of passengers carried by each of the contractors for air mail service during the year 1929?
2.	What amount was due to or received bj each contractor for passengers so carried in the year 1929?
3.	What was the weight of volume of freight
or packages or other material carried by each contractor for air mail service during the year 1929?	,
4.	What amount was due to or received by each such contractor for freight, packages, or other material transported by each contractor for air mail service during the year 1929?


Peter John Veniot: No information.
PICTOU ISLAND CABLE CONNECTION On the question:


Mr. CANTLEY:: 1.	At what date did the Pictou island cable connection with the mainland last go out of commission?
2.	What was the cause of cable ceasing to operate?
3.	Have representations been made to the postal authorities or any department of the government relative to the failure of cable communication with Pictou island? If so, by whom ?
4.	When will cable communication be reestablished with Pictou island?
5.	Has the Postmaster General considered the matter of air mail service to Pictou island during the winter months, either by the diversion of the air mail planes serving Prince Edward island or the Magdalen islands or otherwise?


Mr. CANTLEY:: It is now nearly two weeks since I put on the order paper question No. 5
in regard to Pictou Island cable connection. The minister has had ample time to obtain from his officials the information asked for, and I wish to know from him when I may expect an answer to mj' question.


John Campbell Elliott: So far as the Department of Public Works is concerned, all the information available will be placed at the hon. member's disposal at the earliest possible date.


Thomas Cantley: When will that be?



QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN


Mr. MacLAREN:: What amounts, by years, have been paid for governmental purposes by the Dominion government to the provinces of Manitoba, since 1870; Alberta, since 1905; Saskatchewan, since 1905; and New Brunswick, since 1867?



UNOPPOSED MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


James Arthurs: For a copy of all letters, correspondence, documents, communications and other papers, regarding death of an ex-service man said to have been caused by mistake of medicine administered, at Christie street hospital, Toronto.



LOUISEVILLE, QTJE., POST OFFICE CARETAKER

William Earl Rowe: For a copy of all correspondence, reports, recommendations and other documents, exchanged between the Department of Public Works or any officer of the department, the Civil Service Commission and all other persons, regarding the appointment of the caretaker of the Louiseville, Quebec, post office, made during the year 1926.



RETURNING OFFICERS

Mr. GARDINER:: For a return showing the names and addresses of all returning officers appointed to date; also a copy of all letters, telegrams, and other communications, received by the chief electoral officer or any member of his staff, recommending the appointment of any person to the position of returning officer; also copy of all letters, telegrams, and other communications sent by the chief electoral officer or any member of his staff, inquiring as to the qualifications of persons suggested for the position of returning officer.



CONTROL OF CANADIAN FORCES OVERSEAS

Hon. E. B. RYCKMAN (East Toronto, for Sir George Perley) moved:: For a couv of memoranda, orders, and correspondence, on the files of the Department of

Radium Supply-Mr. Cotnam
Overseas Military Forces of Canada, setting forth the policy adapted in 1917 for the control of the Canadian forces overseas, and similar documents showing the means whereby that policy was made operative.


James Malcolm: I would like to appeal to my hon. friend to allow this matter to stand for a day or two until I get some further information.
Motion stands.



AIR MAIL SERVICE

Mr. H. A. STEWART (Leeds) moved:: For a copy of all tenders, letters, memoranda, reports, recommendations, or other writings, in any way relating to all contracts in force for the year 1929, in respect to air mail service.


Peter John Veniot: The first part of the resolution has been complied with; that is, the tenders have been laid on the table of the house. With that exception I can produce all the other documents.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: The contracts
have been laid on the table but not the tenders.


Peter John Veniot: I thought both tenders and contracts had been tabled.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: No, only the
contract.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Mr. I. D. COTNAM (North Renfrew) moved:: That, in the opinion of this house, the time has come when the government should take immediate action, with a view to the nationalization of the supply of radium.
He said:	Mr. Speaker, I do not think 1
owe any apology to the house for undertaking for a short time to draw the attention of hon. members to a question which, I believe, is of real national importance. In order to understand the necessity for the introduction of this resolution, it might be of interest to some of those who are not of the medical fraternity to consider for a short time something of the history of the discovery of radium and of the uses to which it is being put at the present time in medical therapeutics.
During the latter part of the nineteenth century a number of men on the continent of Europe and in Great Britain experimented 
with electricity with the result that about 1895 the so-called X-ray or Roentgen ray was given to the world. The study of X-rays led Mr. Henri Becquerel to study certain radioactive compounds which he discovered in uranium ore. Following Becquerel's studies, Madame Curie and her distinguished husband, Pierre Curie, began the study of pitchblende, which contains uranium ore. Perhaps no more brilliant story in the history of scientific research has been recorded than the history of the discovery of radium through the effort* of Madame Curie and her distinguished husband. They began the study of radium compounds in the year 1896, and late in 1898 they discovered a new compound to which they gave the name of radium. At that time radium was derived from pitchblende ore, which was obtained1 from Austria, then practically the only known source of supply in the world. To-day it requires one ton of the richest pitchblende ore in order to obtain one gramme of radium, the radium being present only in the proportion of one to several million parts of the other metals present. In 1904 the cost of a gramme of radium was $160,000.
Following the discovery of radium, scientists in different parts of the world endeavoured to obtain radium from other ores, with the result that in the United States an ore called camotite was discovered in Colorado, and the Americans began producing radium from car-notite ore. Camotite, however, was very poor in radium content, with the result that the cost of radium was excessive. In order that the house may understand just why radium should be so expensive, let me say that in the ease of camotite, in order to extract one gramme of radium five hundred tons of ore have to be treated. That means the handling of about 2,000 tons of sandstone which is associated with that ore. To extract a gramme of radium it is necessary to 'use 500 tons of chemicals to treat the camotite, and at 'least 1,000 tons of distilled water, and over 1,000 tons of coal, or its equivalent in electrical energy.
About the year 1913, just prior to the war, pitchblende ore was discovered in the Belgian Congo. This ore contained a very high radium content compared with the camotite ore of Colorado or the pitchblende ore of Austria. During the period of the war, not much was done with regard to obtaining new sources of supply, but after the war, about 1921 or 1922, pitchblende was taken in considerable quantity from the Belgian Congo. This pitchblende ore contained about forty times as much radium as the camotite ore of Colorado, and

Radium Supply-Mr. Cotnam
on account of the cheapness of labour in the Congo and the exceeding richness of the ore, the American producers of radium were gradually compelled to contract their business, not being able to carry on against the keen competition from the Congo.
At the .present time, in order to obtain the radium, this pitchblende ore is carried some sixteen hundred miles to the sea from Kanaga in the Belgian Congo. Thence it is transported to Belgium, where it is refined by similar processes to those I have outlined for the treating of carnotite ore. It takes a period of probably six months from the time the ore is mined before even a small quantity of radium can be produced, and even the very richest pitchblende ore at the present time requires at least one ton to give one gramme of radium. That explanation will help to satisfy the minds of those who think that the cost of radium treatment in the past has been excessive. It is due to the very small amount of radium present in these ores, and it is not likely that we shall ever obtain ores which are richer in radium content. Radium is always present even the richest in the uranium compounds in the proportion of only one to two or three million parts.
Following the discovery of radium, it was found that certain radium rays could be used therapeutically with great benefit ;n certain types of disease, and to-day radium has come to be associated in the minds of the public with the treatment of cancer, and rightly so because probably no other therapeutic agent that has been introduced to medical science in this or any other country has obtained in so short a time such a foothold in the treatment of disease.
As to the prevalence of cancer in this country, I might perhaps quote a few statistics taken from the vital statistics branch of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. I have here a table showing the number of deaths in eight provinces, exclusive of the province of Quebec, which was not included in the registration area until the year 1926:
Number of Deaths and Rates per 100,000
Population from Cancer in the Registration Area as of 1921*
Number Per 100,000 Year	of deaths population
1921	
4,826	751922	
5,118	791923	
5,157	781924	
5,528	831925	
5,526	821926	
5,774	851927	
6,010	871928	
6,470	92
'Includes the provinces of Prince Edward Island. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
The figures including the province of Quebec are as follows:
Number Per 100,000 .Year	of deaths population
1926		 7,614
1927		 7,919
1928		 8,514
Evidently, from our statistics, there has been a gradual increase in the number of cancerous cases in this country. Whether that increase is relative owing to more accurate methods of diagnosis or whether it is absolute is perhaps a difficult question to answer. But I think it is within the knowledge of practically every doctor in this house that there has been an absolute increase in the number of cancer cases which we see in our practice from day to day. Speaking for myself, I think I might confirm that statement.	_
Now let us take tuberculosis. These are the figures-also derived from the vital statistics branch-taking in the eight provinces, exclusive of Quebec, showing the number of deaths from tuberculosis:
Number of Deaths and Rates per 100,000 Population from Tuberculosis in the Registration Area as of 1921
Year	Number of deaths	Rates per 100,000 population1921	
4,789	751922	
4,741	721923	
4,818	731924	
4,650	691925	
4,532	671926	
4,652	691927	
4,637	681928	
4,654	66
Including the province of Quebec, that is, taking in the whole Dominion exclusive of Yukon and the Northwest Territories, the deaths from tuberculosis from 1926 to 1928 were as follows:
Number of Deaths and Rates per 100,000 Population from Tuberculosis in Canada
Rates per
	Number	100,000
Year	of deaths	population1926	
7,929	841927	
7,782	821928	
7,860	81
Hon. gentlemen will notice that whereas tuberculosis was formerly considered and was termed by a very eminent medical man, " the captain of the men of death," that position has been usurped in this country by cancer. From the study that has been made of cancer not only in Canada but all over the world, there seems to be a general opinion that the disease is on the increase and that we must use every effort in our power to cope with this menace to the human race.

Radium Supply-Mr. Cotnam
The history of medicine throughout the whole world records that during the last fifty or seventy-five years medical men have been attacking most of these disease problems with a considerable degree of success by applying to their solution the proper methods. For instance, with the discovery of the bacteriological causes of certain diseases, for which we must give credit to that eminent Frenchman, Louis Pasteur, we find that a great number of diseases that formerly were treated more or less empirically and in the dark are being conquered one by one. We all know in particular the hon. member for Kingston City (Mr. Ross) will bear me out in this statement that during the South African war the death rate from typhoid fever was appalling, and yet during the great war, owing to the fact that we knew the exact causation of the disease, we were able to reduce to a minimum the death rate from this cause. The same thing is true of tuberculosis. It was only after the discovery of the actual cause of the disease that we were able by introducing proper methods of sanitation and treatment gradually to master that great menace to the human race. Smallpox has practically been eliminated as one of the world scourges by vaccination. The bubonic plague has also been brought under control. Then with the discovery of the diphtheria bacillus this disease which used to be so fatal to the children of this and other countries has virtually been eliminated; today if diphtheria is treated in time very rarely indeed should it result fatally. Malaria and yellow fever are twm other scourges that scientific research has brought under control, the causation of these diseases having been discovered. We have only to recall the disastrous attempt of that famous French engineer, De Lesseps, to build the Panama canal, to realize how all his carefully prepared plans were frustrated by malaria and yellow fever. Later, of course, we all know that this great engineering project was carried to a successful conclusion by our American friends simply because scientific research enabled them to adopt the proper preventive measures to protect their workmen from these diseases. Infantile paralysis, if taken in hand in time, can be cured. Through the research efforts of our Canadian. Doctor Banting, diabetes has been robbed of its terrors.
What has been accomplished in the cases I have mentioned encourages me to urge that we should make a really formidable attack against cancer which is probably the greatest menace that we have to our national health to-day. Hardly a home or family but what is affected directly or indirectly by the ravages

of this disease. At the present time we do not know the exact causation of cancer. In the past most cancer cases were treated by surgery. To-day, I think it may safely be said that surgery has been superseded by radium in the treatment of certain types of cases; other types are best controlled by a combination of radium and surgery; certain other types can actually be cured by radium. And yet that therapeutic agent has only been known to the scientific world for the comparatively short period of thirty years. Perhaps no other curative agent in such a brief space of time has attained such a position in the treatment of disease as has radium in the treatment of cancer. The treatment of cancer by radium is still in its infancy. Radium in small quantities may be not only useless but even harmful. One great surgeon has said that ten cents worth of radium may do one million dollars' worth of damage. It is a substance that should be employed by men who are experienced in its use, and it should be applied in sufficient quantities to do the work which it is supposed to do. At the present time the cost of treatment by radium is really prohibitive to the average poor man.
The object of this resolution is twofold. In the first place, we should be able to secure an adequate supply of radium; we should be able to place that radium in accessible centres, and it should be placed there in the hands of experienced men, those centres where radium treatment is obtained may become centres for cancer scientific research, and the country that can give us a Banting or a Best may perhaps solve the cancer problem of the world to-day. We are still groping in the dark for a cure for a cancer, and the causation of cancer, and I can conceive of no higher objective in the realm of government in this country than that we should secure cooperation between the federal and provincial Departments of Health. If the federal Department of Health has any function at all, surely this is a place where it should function. I know the time-worn objection will probably be trotted out on this occasion that this is another case of contribution by the federal government, by grace, to the provincial health departments. There is no place to-day in this country where we need so much cooperation as in this matter, the study and care of the national health and happiness of the people, and if the federal Department of Health will cooperate with the provincial departments of health I think some basis can be arrived at whereby we shall have proper handling of this cancer problem. A question such as this cannot be deaLt with from the

Radium Supply-Mr. Cotnam
point of view of the boundary between Manitoba and Ontario, or between Saskatchewan and Alberta. Unfortunately cancer knows no provincial boundaries. It is widespread in this country, and where it is taking such a toll of life surely there could be no greater objective for the federal Department of Health than to devise some means whereby radium could be placed at the disposal of those people who are so unfortunate as to be suffering from this terrible scourge.


Mr. BRADY:: What is the present method by which radium is being used in Canada?


Ira Delbert Cotnam: Since this resolution was
placed on the order paper, the province of Saskatchewan, apparently, is in the van. The government of Saskatchewan already have a certain supply of radium, or are, I understand, ready to procure a certain quantity for therapeutic purposes. Otherwise the radium in this country is being used by physicians in private practice, bought out of their own private income, or out of what may be donated by private individuals for philanthropic purposes.


Sir EUGENE FISET:: The province of
Quebec bought their own supply.


Ira Delbert Cotnam: I know that a certain
amount of work has been done, but my idea in bringing this resolution before the house is this:	We are not making a concerted attack
on the cancer problem, and I believe the Dominion should take this matter up and that the whole subject should be studied in all its bearings. Canada should not be in the rearguard but rather should be in the vanguard in this movement in the fight against cancer. In France, which was the home of radium, they have already nationalized their supply. They have at the present time fifteen national institutes; the supply of radium is furnished by their central government, and these institutes all cooperate in order to secure the very best results in the treatment of cancer. No man buying radium out of a private income, no ordinary individual, can buy in the quantities which are necessary for effective treatment. As everyone knows, radium can be continually in use and still not deteriorate. Where radium is owned by private individuals there is usually a great deal of waste in the use of the radium itself. In Belgium there is a system of nationalization. Sweden has taken up this subject very actively, and probably some of the best radium work in the world to-day has been done in Sweden. In Australia I understand that their legislative organization is somewhat similar to what we have in Canada, with a federal parliament and provincial legislatures. Last year or the 2419-44
year before they nationalized their supply of radium, and they secured from Great Britain the services of the assistant director of the radium institute in London, who went over to supervise and control the use of their nationalized supply. The director of the radium institute in London was authority for the statement that radium in small quantities, was likely to be ineffective and inefficient. The house can understand, therefore, why it is impossible for ordinary hospitals or private physicians to obtain and have in their control a supply of radium which would be effective in fighting this great cancer menace. It would require at least $40,000 worth for effective treatment.
The proposal that I wish to place before the house is briefly this: that we should establish centres under government control where radium could be obtained in sufficient quantities; that we should have, in the maritime provinces one or two centres; one or two in the province of Quebec; two or three in Ontario; one in each of the prairie provinces, and probably one in British Columbia. That, of course, is a tentative proposal. The thought is that these centres should become primarily cancer research centres; that the men there should thoroughly understand the whole cancer problem, and be in a position to give the very best treatment, and that, radium alone not being sufficient, these institutes could probably be established in existing institutions and be run in cooperation with hospitals.
It was very interesting to read the report of the radium subcommittee of civil research which was charged to examine the radium requirements of Great Britain in relation to the present sources of supply and to submit recommendations. They say this:
Of the various forms of cancer for which radium has been tried, none affords a more striking example than cancer of the womb. The number of women who died of this form of cancer in 1926 was 4,409,

And the report goes on to say:
-there can be little doubt that if there had existed an adequate supply of radium in this country available for medical treatment, the lives of many of these women might have been prolonged, and much suffering avoided.
They go on (to say further:
Knowledge of the biological and curative properties of radium for the treatment of cancer and of the technique of its application has advanced very rapidly in recent years and has greatly increased, and is likely still further to increase, the amount of radium required for medical purposes in Great Britain.
Owing to the lack of trained personnel and to the inadequacy of their available hospital accommodation it is probable that not more


Peter McGibbon: Mr. Speaker, my only excuse in rising to support this resolution is the hope that a discussion upon this subject may get beyond the confines of parliament, reach the people of Canada and carry some hope to the :tea thousand or more who are dying yearly from this disease, many of whose lives could be saved under proper treatment. I was rather, shall I say surprised, to hear the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Young) come to the defence of the government. I did think that possibly the Minister of National Health (Mr. King, Kootenay) would have taken that role, but perhaps the hon. member for Saskatoon is anticipating coming events and thinking of the time when he will occupy that position himself.
It does seem strange, Mr. Speaker, that the government can conveniently muster that same old defence of provincial obligations and hide behind the British North America Act. It is equally true that they can disregard those things when they so desire. The hon. member who has just spoken said that the first intimation should come from the provinces. Might I remind him that two years ago he voted for the Old Age Pensions Act which embodied this vicious principle and which originated with the government he supports. The hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. Heenan) announced the other day to the press that the government was willing to assist in some scheme of unemployment insurance. How is it that in questions which affect votes the government is always willing to violate this principle, but when it comes to something affecting humanity the lives and homes of the people, they hide behind the question of provincial obligations?
I think the ihon. member for North Renfrew (Mr. Cotnam) deserves the thanks of this house for having brought forward this resolution, which must of necessity carry a message of comfort and cheer to the people who are suffering from the scourge of that great black plague which for a number of years, has been sweeping over this country with increasing velocity. They will realize that things are not as hopeless as they seem to be. Through the instrumentality of the mineral mentioned in this resolution hope has been brought to tens of thousands of people who previously were in the depths of despair.

Let us look at the ascending death rate from this disease and see if we can justify this resolution. The following is the death rate per 100,000 in the province of Ontario from
1902 to 1929:		
1902	
54	.81914	
69	.61917	
79	.31920	
85,	.01923	
90.	.01929	
99.	.0
The house will see the enormous rapidity with which this disease has been increasing in the province of Ontario. It has been increasing here at the rate of about three per cent per year, and in the United States it has been increasing at the rate of about two and one half per cent.
This brings us to the object which the hon. member for North Renfrew had in mind, the curtailment of this disease and the treatment of it through the instrumentality of radium. I am afforded by the resolution an opportunity to place before the house and the country some of the effects which have been achieved both by radium itself and by the combination of radium and surgery. The statistics which I shall present, if the house will be good enough to bear with me, are prepared from tlhe records of the most famous surgeons in the United States and Great Britain dealing with this matter. Incidentally I might say that possibly in this country we have not had very much experience along this line. In the city of Toronto there is only one-half of one gramme of radium, when at least two grammes are required for treatment. As a result we have to go to the Standard Chemical Company of New York and buy radium or the emanations of radium for the treatment of patients in this country.
I want to draw the attention of the house to another fact, and that is that in considering the primary operation of treating a patient with radium or by a major operation, the initial death rate in many forms of cancer runs as high as 10 per cent under the major operation, while with radium it is practically nil. Moreover, the radium treatment lends itself to a greater application because, as every medical man knows, there are comparatively few men so skilled in surgery as to perform the difficult operations that are required for the eradication of carcinoma, while with radium the treatment is relatively simple and the death rate from the initial operation is practically nil. We are told by those who are most skilled and experienced in the use of radium that in many forms of cancer, as the hon. member for North Renfrew has said,

Radium Supply-Mr. McGibbon
radium is much to be preferred to a major operation with the knife, for instance, in all forms of cancer of the tongue, cancer of the uvula, the tonsils, the pharynx or nasal cavities, radium is preferred while in cancer of the cervix uteri, the major operation formerly known as hysterotomy is now no longer performed by the best surgeons. Radium has superseded it because the results have been better. About four years ago in New Orleans I was taken by one of the leading surgeons to the state hospital where they had 2,000 beds, most of which contained two patients At that time he told me he had given up performing hysterotomy for carcinoma, because he had got much better results from radium. His results have been confirmed by the leading doctors of New York and London, so that this instrument, which is comparatively simple in skilled hands and undoubtedly much to be preferred by the patient, has decreased the death rate from carcinoma to an enormous extent, as I shall show a little later.
In addition to that, there is something that is very important, and it is this: once the public understand there is a method of treating carcinoma other than by an operation as understood previously, you will have them appealing to the surgeon much earlier and with less fear, and they will seek advice during that stage of the disease when advice will be most useful to them and also to the surgeon so far as getting results is concerned. I have under my hand a record of some results of Doctor Gray Ward of New York in regard to radium. This was based on the results in the Women's Hospital there. In regard to carcinoma of the uterus or cervix uteri he found 20.1 per cent living at the end of five years and in cases of cancer of the cervix only he found 53.1 per cent living at the end of five years. I only need to appeal to the medical men and surgeons here for confirmation when I say that those results compare very favourably with anything previously recorded in medical literature.
I also have a record of some results by Doctor Hurdon in London. He had 169 cases of cancer of the cervix and 18 cases of cancer of the body, or a total of 187 cases. After five years there were 70 per cent of these still alive, and they were treated with radium. That was taking the operable and inoperable cases together. When he took the operable cases alone he had the astounding figure of 95 per cent still alive after a period of five years.
I pause to put this question to the house: When you have any instrument, no matter
what it is, that will produce such valuable results in a disease that has caused so much death and trouble in the world, is it not something of which the house and the country should take cognizance?
I might for a moment, if time will permit, tell the house what some other countries have been doing, because nearly every country in the world, outside of Canada, is spending a great deal of time on and has a number of institutions devoted entirely to cancer research. That as something which, as I said before, the Department of Health should have been taking into consideration long ago, but I also think sometimes that if any original idea whatever strikes this department, it would have to have something like a shock-absorber to be prevented from being shattered to pieces.
May I read a memorandum by the Minister of Health of Great Britain on cancer of the breast, which is a very common disease in this or any other country, with a very high mortality? I will read it only in part:
The memorandum sets forth the results of the special investigation carried out at Leeds, and contained in the Ministry of Health 1926 reports on public health and medical subjects No. 34. This investigation showed that, with the modern complete operation, 52 per cent of all the patients were alive and well after three years-
That is 52 per cent of cases of cancer of the breast. I have given the facts as to cancer of the cervix and of the body of the uterus, and I have also pointed out that for cancer of the nasal cavities, the tongue, lip et cetera, radium is far superior to surgery. The memorandum continues:
Thirty-nine per cent after five years, and 30 per cent after ten years.
But this is the point I want to impress upon the house:
But if the patients were classed as being in the early, middle and late stages of the disease when operated on, it was found that of the early cases 94 per cent were alive and well after three years.
Let us compare that with the idea that the public have had of this disease in the past.
Of the early cases 94 per cent were alive and well after three years, 95 per cent after five years and 87 per cent at the end of ten years.
I wonder, if we could get that across to the suffiering public, whether it would not hold out a little hope to them and with that hope induce them to appear before their medical or surgical advisers earlier in the stage of the disease so that the treatment might be much more efficacious.
694	COMMONS
Radium Supply-Mr. McGibbon
This is another statement I would like to put on Hansard. It reads:
On the average women affected by cancer of the breast have, in the absence of effective treatment. roughly one-sixth of the normal duration of life to look forward to; those subjected to the complete operation during the comparatively early stage of the disease at which the average patient applies for treatment under present unsatisfactory conditions have about one-third of the normal duration to expect; while those so operated upon at an early stage may anticipate approximately two-thirds of the normal after life-time.
We see there the statistical results of early treatment of the disease. It is something that we should make an effort to let the public fully appreciate, especially those poor women who have a cloud hanging over their heads, a cloud of depression that probaibly none of us realizes, and who are suffering the agony of a possible return of their malady.
Let me quote a few comments from Dr. Malcolm Donaldson, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, England. He favours radiation as against hysterectomy for the following reasons:
1.	The negligible mortality due to the . radiation treatment.
2.	The fact that statistics of survival rate in no way inferior in the case of radiation to those following hysterectomy.
3.	By improving the technique of radiation treatment the number of patients who seek advice early will be increased and the results will correspondingly improve.
4.	It will bring into general use radiation treatment for those cases which have passed the possibility of being completely restored to health.
5.	It will encourage the younger generation of gynaecologists to adopt a method of treatment which the greater number will be able to carry out more successfully than Wertheim's operation, recognized as one of the most difficult operations in the whole domain of surgery.
That summarizes the advice that has been given out by that hospital based upon their experience. I should like also to quote :a 'statement of Mr. Chamberlain, then Minister of Health in Great Britain, when attending a lecture on this subject by Lord Moynihan, then Sir Berkeley Moynihan. Mr. Chamberlain was apparently very much alive to the duties of his position. He spoke as follows:
We have come here to-night to take advantage of a unique opportunity-the opportunity of hearing the views of one of our greatest surgeons upon a subject which is of the very first importance and interest to the nation. Of all the diseases known to us none is looked upon with greater repulsion and apprehension than cancer, partly because of its nature, partly because of the mystery which surrounds its origin, but most of all, perhaps, because it

appears to be marching on in a sort of irresistible progress, taking a greater toll of victims from our midst year by year.
I would like the house to note the following:
In 1850 the deaths from cancer were recorded as about 300 per million living; in 1900 as 800 per million, and in 1925 as 1,336 per million, so that in the short space of two generations or less the death rate from cancer appears to have increased fivefold. These figures are the more remarkable when you contrast them with those pertaining to other diseases. Forty years ago the death rate from tuberculosis was four or five times that from cancer; to-day the cancer death rate is about one-third greater than that of tubercidosis. Making allowances for certain qualifications, these figures still justify the general public anxiety and make it necessary that we should use all our resources in fighting this great evil.
I would like the Minister of Health to note that phrase:
We should use all our resources in fighting this great evil.	.
He continues:
In that fight everybody must take part-the ministry of health, the local authorities, the research investigators, the medical profession, and the general public. As Minister of Health I am directel by act of parliament to take measures for the prevention and cure of diseases.
That is what I would like to impress upon the Minister of Health for Canada.
I do not claim to be able to speak on radium myself, but I have had a number of patients treated with it, and I have given much consideration to the subject. I have investigated practically all the statistics that I have been able to find, and I feel that I am in a position to give these facts to the public from my place in this house better perhaps than anywhere else. That has been my principal object in speaking to-night.
As the hon. member for North Renfrew has said, the radium treatment is still in its infancy. A great deal has been learned in the last four years. Some harm was done in the earlier stages of its use through not knowing how to handle it properly, but experience is being gained every day.
One of the things that require serious consideration in the treatment is the dosage. That is one justification for the hon. member for North Renfrew claiming that we should have special hospitals and that the radium treatment should be in the hands of a competent surgeon only. It should go hand in hand with major surgery, as it must, because the major operation is performed first, and then the radium seeds travel along the lympathics and blood vessels so as to attack anything that has

Radium Supply-Mr. McGibbon
escaped the surgeon. That is one reason, I say, why the government would be justified in establishing hospitals for clinical research where nothing else would be done but cancer research, and where patients could go and be treated without cost to themselves, if necessary.
Those are some of the things that have to be considered.
In figuring the dosage the following factors have to be considered: First, the amount of tissue that has to be destroyed in the body. Upon that will depend the amount of radium to be used, and the duration of the treatment. Roughly speaking, 10,000 milligramme hours is the maximum dosage, and about two grammes of radium are required. I do not know if any province in the Dominion of Canada has got that much. The city of Toronto has only half a gramme and as I say, we have to send to the Standard Chemical Company of the United States to get the radium that we require for treatment.
Another factor that enters into the dosage is the resistance of the body to radium treatment.
Another factor is that radium, through radiation, loses about sixteen per cent of its efficacy in the first twelve hours, and that must be considered now that we are getting our radium from New York. We have to consider the time that the radium will be in the mails or *express. We used to gather the emanations from radium in glass; now we gather them in gold or platinum tubes. These are from two to six centimetres long. Some years ago I went through the plant of the Radium Insti-tue in Philadelphia and was shown how the emanations were collected and sealed in glass tubes for distribution throughout the country. To emphasize the security of the investment, I may say that radium loses about 50 per cent of its efficacy after about 5,000 years. So we are pretty safe in investing our money in rradium.
There are one or two other things I want to put on Hansard. Doctor Sampson Handley reports that for icancer of the breast he uses both surgery and radium. The results-which after all are what interest the public-the results, I say, show 48 per cent free at the end of eight years; that is both local and auxiliary recurrence were absent. Then he compares the results of surgery and radium treatment of cancer of the tongue, and reports that when he used surgery the death rate was 10 per cent and the duration of life from 6 to 24 months; while when he used radium his patients were alive and well from four to six years afterwards. As I said before, cancer [DOT]of the oral cavity, the tongue, the lips, the
uvula, ithe pillars of fauces and the buccal cavity responds best to radium. I might go a little further and say that all epitheliomata, that is, cancer of epidermal origin, comes in the same class; that is, radium is preferable to any other line of treatment.
Now, I want to call the attention of the house for a moment or two to what is going on in other parts of the world in the direction of cancer research. In 1922 the ministry of health of Great Britain appointed a departmental .commission to investigate the causation, prevalence and treatment of cancer and to advise the ministry. In 1923 the British empire cancer campaign Started, a voluntary ergniza-tion with headquarters in London. Its object was to correlate and extend all the existing efforts for the cure of cancer. This organization distributes one and a quarter million dollars' worth of radium each year. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is something which I think this country should take note of. When you get a single institution in Great Britain dispensing a million and a quarter dollars' worth of radium each year for the treatment of cancer, those in charge of that institution must think something of radium as a curative agent. In 1923 the League of Nations set up a cancer commission. France has a number of anti-cancerous institutions. If I mistake not, sir, there was another *cancer institution started in London to celebrate the recovery of King George. I am speaking from memory, but I think one individual gave something over half a million dollars to start the institution. In Stockholm they have an institution for the treatment of cancer that was organized way back in 1910. This institution is supported both by the government and the city and has a world wide reputation. Belgium has given a subsidy of a million gold marks for cancer research. The United States have many institutions for the control of cancer. There is the cancer committee in connection with the American Medical Association, also the cancer commission of American public health which was started in 1927, while in Boston they have the Collis B. Huntington Memorial hospital for cancer reasearoh. Sweden, to which I think the member for North Renfrew referred, has recently collected $1,000,000 as a jubilee fund to purchase six grammes of radium for presentation to Kinig Gustav on his seventieth birday. I think Sweden has something like eighteen grammes of radium. *We in Ontario have, I think, less than one half of one gramme.


Mr. YOUNG (Saskatoon):: For my own
information, may I ask the hon. member if
696	COMMONS
Radium. Supply-Mr. King (Kootenay)
the Ontario Medical Association has ever approached the Ontario government to supply this radium?


Peter McGibbon: I do not know and I
do not care.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I am asking
just, for information.
\


Peter McGibbon: I am trying to get this
government to take some interest in the lives of the people of Canada.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I am not concerned with either government; I juSt wanted the information.


Peter McGibbon: I dto not know. I feel, Mr. Speaker, like apologizing at this late hour of the night for taking so much time, but this is a subject in which I am intensely interested, for it affects vitally not only the people of Canada but humanity in general. And I do think for once this government might abandon their opposition to spending a little money in what they may consider the provincial field when they realize that the province of Ontario alone is losing 3,000 people every year from the ravages of cancer, while 10,000 people in the Dominion have their death sentence read to them every year by some medical man, without any effort being made by the provincial or Dominion governments to bring to a solution one of the greatest problems that has ever presented itself to the human mind. I appeal to the Minister of Health who I know is endowed with a deep feeling for humanity, to break loose for once, just for once, and say that he will support this resolution, that he will give to some institution, even if it is under his own control, financial assistance. For instance, he might establish a cancer clinical research institution in every province. It would1 cost only $200,000 for each institution. We build many a wharf that is not needed nearly so much as a cancer research institution. Let me assure the minister that an investment in radium will bring a return of 100 per cent a thousand years from now, and he will be doing for humanity something that will make his name go down in the history of the country as no political achievement of his ever will.


Hon. J. H. KING (Minister of Pensions and National Health):: Time will not permit me to follow the remarks of my hon. friend (Mr. McGibbon) in this important discussion. Radium is now being used very effectively in the treatment of a serious disease, one to which the medical profession is giving perhaps more study than any other affliction from (Mr. A. M. Young.]
which the human system is suffering. The hon. member who introduced the resolution (Mr. Cotnam) asks that we should nationalize the use of radium, on account of the fact that it is such a rare product and costs so much; and his suggestion is that the government of Canada should supply the wherewithal by which this substance may be placed in certain centres and there be made available to our people. Ordinarily that would be a reasonable request, but when we know that in Canada we have a certain amount of radium in use, supplied by authorities who are in provincial control, authorities who control not only the purchase of radium within their provinces but also, through subsidies and local legislation, the institutes in which this material is placed, the situation is a little different.
I am told by the Department of Health that if we had l&i grammes of radium in Canada, which would cost $750,000, we would be able to supply the radium requirements of our country. The provincial governments deal with health problems, and have dealt with them successfully; and I take exception to what has been said to-night; there is probably no country in the world that has done as well as Canada in the treatment of tuberculosis, through its provincial governments and municipal authorities. So that for $750,000, divided among nine provinces, these institutes can be established in our university towns, and medical centres, and this treatment can be given. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if it is because this government, by careful administration and economies in administration, has built up substantial surpluses over a period of years that we have the drive during this session of parliament upon the federal treasury. I would like to bring to the attention of hon. members in this connection a statement made by the late Hon. Mr. Robb, former Minister of Finance. He said it was his hope and pur-post to maintain the revenues so that he would be able to take care of maturing obligations until 1933. I think we all realize what that means. It means that we will be reducing our interest cost and getting to a point where we can decrease taxation. But if all these requests that have recently come before us-and this is a very small one-were acceded to, what would be the result? May I say just here, sir, that this discussion should have taken place in the legislatures of Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec, where they are dealing with their local problems-


Peter McGibbon: \Ve would rather give
you the glory.

Divorce Court jor Ontario


Mr. KING (Kootenay):: My hon. friend
may think he is getting glory out of this-


Peter McGibbon: No, I say we would
rather give you the glory.


John Warwick King: He talked a long while to-night on an expenditure of $750,000 for something which is in the control of our provincial governments.


Mr. RENNIE:: Build another park in
Ottawa.


John Warwick King: 
Richard Bedford Bennett: Private benefaction.


John Warwick King: Yes, and various
medical centres where they have supplies that are available and are being used. In Canada there has been some movement. The province of Quebec has provided 1| grammes, which is placed in the institute in Montreal and is being used there, and further supplies will probably be furnished by that government. It is estimated that their requirements
would be about three grammes. In the province of Saskatchewan legislation has recently been passed whereby they hope to secure two grammes for that purpose.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Tuesday, March 18, 1930