1930-03-07

[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved (for the Minister of National Revenue) 'that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following proposed resolution:
Resolved, that it is expedient to amend the Excise Act to provide for power to examine witnesses on oath, and to pay their reasonable travelling expenses; for the imposition of duty on screened malt computed on the quantity after it has been removed from the kiln and screened; for making certain offences indictable, and such other amendments as are deemed necessary for a more adequate enforcement of the act.
He said:	His Excellency the Governor
General having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the favourable consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: On the orders of the day
yesterday my hon. friend the leader of the opposition said that he would like to have certain information with respect to some matters given by the Department of National Revenue, and he intimated that he would have a typewritten list of questions placed on the order paper. I have looked through the votes and proceedings but I am afraid my hon. friend has not placed his list of ques-

Australian Treaty-Mr. Rowe
tions there. I should like to proceed on Tuesday next with the bill amending the export Act which appears in my name, and I would not like to be prevented from so doing because the information which my hon. friend desires to have may not have been brought down by that time. It might be well if the leader of the opposition would give me, perhaps this evening if convenient, the list of questions which he desires answered, and I shall endeavour to have the information presented to him in plenty of time before the debate on Tuesday.


Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition):: I had intended to speak to the
Prime Minister before this time. There were one or two matters about which I thought it might be possible to obviate the necessity of asking for the information, but I will complete the list and hand it to the Prime Minister this evening.



CHIGNECTO CANAL

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. K. SMITH (Cumberland):: Before the orders of the day are called I should like to ask the Minister of Railways and Canals when the house may expect the report of the engineers who have been surveying and investigating the proposed Chignecto canal.


Hon. T. A. CRERAR (Minister of Railways and Canals):: I may say to my hon.
friend that this work was undertaken about the middle of last September. It has been proceeding since that time; I believe the field work is all completed and the data is now being collected and put in form for a report. As soon as that report is ready I will advise my hon. friend.



SUPPLY-AUSTRALIAN TREATY

[Stage Direction]
rROI'OSEI) CANCELLATION OP SPECIAL AGREEMENT WITH NEW ZEALAND AND NEGOTIATION OF TREATY
The house resumed from Tuesday, March 4. consideration of the motion of Hon. Mr. Dunning for committee of supply, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Senn as follows:
['This bill is similar to\nothers which have appeared before this house in previous years. It asks for an extension of time for the applicant to revive a patent, and gives authority to the commisisoner to receive, grant or dismiss the application after he has been satisfied that the applicant has given sufficient and valid reasons. The bill should be referred to the committee on private bills where the commissioner of patents, the Secretary of State if need be, and other officials of the department, will be able to show what, if anything, they have against it.\nMotion agreed to and bill read the second time.']
Mr. W. E. ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, in resuming this debate I desire briefly to call attention to the great importance of the motion now before the house. It vitally affects one of the most important branches of the largest industry of this Dominion, and I do not offer any apology for seconding this motion since I represent a riding which is 90 per cent rural, and since I am engaged in mixed farming myself.

I am sure you, Mr. Speaker, and every other member of this house realizes that agriculture occupies a most important place in this country, as is the case in almost every other country. Agriculture has held a foremost place in the British Empire both in times of peace and in times of war. One might be pardoned for referring to the words of President Lincoln of the United States, who at one time said "that any government which failed to recognize agriculture by allowing any other industry to conflict with its progress, was certainly sacrificing the very integrity of the nation." I submit, therefore, that in this country, in these days of agricultural depression. any action which has in any way retarded the progress of the dairying industry certainly has retarded the general prosperity of the rural communities of this Dominion. I am not a pessimist, yet I am not perhaps as optimistic as some of those hon. gentlemen who have referred to the abounding prosperity which we who are engaged in agriculture are supposed to enjoy at present.
Dairying occupies an important place in the mixed farming of Canada, even in this country where we have not the favourable climatic conditions which may exist in other countries; yet we have developed in this country an enormous dairy industry, an industry which has returned a revenue of 5250,000.000 per year-in one year it amounted to almost $300,000,000-an industry which had established in this country a favourable balance of trade within itself of over $50,000,000. No uoubt it was in view of those facts that the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) speaking at Woodstock on September 23, 1925, said to the farmers of that district that if the great dairy industry were retarded in any way by treaties with other countries, he would take immediate steps to have such treaties abrogated. Three days after an order in council was passed which extended to New Zealand the privilege of sending butter into Canada, not at four cents per pound but at one cent.
When one realizes that New Zealand is blessed with very great fertility of soil and such moisture and heat as eliminates the expense of winter housing and feeding which the farmers in the province of Ontario and the Dominion at large have to face and when one realizes that the Prime Minister spoke with a knowledge of world conditions, one can scarcely conceive how he could, even by the widest stretch of imagination, foresee anything but disaster for the dairy industry of Canada.
From a favourable trade balance of $50,000,000 we have watched it come down till it is now about $15,000,000, and if the present conditions continue there will be absolutely no

Australian Treaty-Mr. Rowe
trade balance in this great industry. We have watched also the increase of imports from New Zealand. When this government came into power we imported scaracely 150,000 pounds of dairy butter from that country, but for the twelve months ending with Janauary of this year we imported over 33,000,000 pounds. We have an increase of 9,000,000 pounds for the last ten months, as compared with the preceding ten months. One does not need to go very far to prove conclusively that this treaty is working to the detriment of the dairymen of this Dominion. It is all very well to say that we are still obtaining good prices for butter, but I wish to say to those of you who probably have not milked as many cows as I have, that the farmers of Canada are absolutely disgusted with the treatment which has been given to them by this government.
Not only did we have a great butter trade, but we had a great cheese export trade. Before the war we exported to the British Empire 163.000.000 pounds of cheddar cheese, while last year we exported only 106,000,000 pounds. Having regard to the rate of decrease during the last ten months, it is probable that the exportation will be reduced to 80,000,000 pounds, or scarcely half of the amount exported seventeen years ago.
When this government came into power we exported about 10,000.000 pounds of butter to the country to the south of us, and we find that for the ten months just passed we have exported to that country only 20,200 pounds. In 1926 we exported to Great Britain over
18,000,000 pounds of dairy butter, while this year we have an exportation to Great Britain of 800 pounds.
I ask the house to pause for a moment and consider the question if the dairy industry of this country has not been damaged. We find that New Zealand exported to Great Britain during this same period, an increase from 51,000.000 pounds of cheese to 174,000,000 pounds. The Argentine, Switzerland, Denmark, and almost every country upon the globe, has made great progress during the last ten years in their exportations of agricultural products to the British Empire. The importation into Great Britain from foreign countries of bacon amounts to 800,000,000 pounds, while we exported last year only about 34,000,000 pounds.
These figures are alarming to the farmers of Canada. I regret exceedingly the absence from the house of the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) and trust that it may have no relation to his recent illness. I may be pardoned for referring to the report of the remarks which he made last year at the Royal Winter Fair. They are as follows:
Pointing out that Canada is faced with the alternative of speeding up production or dropping to the status of a non-exporting country, Doctor Motherwell said:
"Some writers and observers take the ground that Canada should be satisfied, if farm prices are to be maintained on a profitable basis, with growing just sufficient to feed ourselves. But that surely would be a very unambitious program for a young country like Canada, with its tremendous productive capacity and possibility. Speaking for myself, I hope never to be associated with an apparently standing-still or declining agriculture."
The report further states:
But in point of volume we are at present almost hopelessly handicapped. Last year we supplied only 34,500,000 pounds of bacon in a total British import of 989,800,000 pounds, about 3J per cent. Ten years ago we supplied
240.000.	000 pounds.
While I think the figures given by the hon. minister were 20,000,000 pounds out, it is a fact that for the nine months just passed we exported to Great Britain only 21,000,000 pounds of butter. It will readily be seen that we have lost the British trade to the extent of 200,000,000 pounds.
Pause for a moment to consider the relation between this and the dairy industry. I may be pardoned if I make a real agricultural analysis of this matter, because I know there are many of you who have not carried a milk pail or piloted a wheelbarrow as I have done for an odd hour before the eight hour day as well as after. There is no doubt in the world that no feed produces the same high class bacon, or produces it as cheaply as the byproducts of butter, such as skim milk and buttermilk. Consider what it would mean to this country if we had the use of the by-products from the 50,000,000 pounds of butter which will come into this country during 1930. I think that is a fair figure to give, because I base it upon the increase during December of last year and up to the present time. Then if we had maintained our export trade as have the other countries of the world, we would have had the by-products of an additional
25.000.	000 pounds of butter. How would that work out? Taking it upon the basis as worked out by an experimental union in this Dominion, we find that it would provide 70 pounds of milk per day for 160,000 litters of 10 pigs each. What would that mean to the bacon industry of this country? It would feed
1,600,000	hogs up to within six weeks of their marketing when little of Canada's unsold wheat would be required to finish them for market. I see the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) smiling; I know he has fed hogs and must realize that that is true. Those hogs would produce over 200,000,000 pounds of bacon, or almost a comparison to the amount



Australian Treaty-Mr. Rowe
of exports to Great Britain which we have lost during that period. I ask: Is that fair? We have lost not only in that but in many other respects. In fact, I wonder whether we are not going to be a country of hotels; we can scarcely board ourselves and the United States visitors who come over to see us out of curiosity.
When our hon. friends opposite were in opposition they told us that when they came into power they would give us a market for our products and -that Canada would flourish and become a great country. We are extending our markets by sending ambassadors and trade commissioners to all the corners of the earth and by a deficit of $7,500,000 on the merchant marine which made twelve trips to New Zealand last year, helping to make up that deficit by over $500,000 trading with New Zealand trying to sell her $800,000 worth of goods more than we did before the treaty was entered into, and allowing her to sell us in 1929 $10,000,000 more, and the year just ended almost $15,000,000 more of farm products which our farmers could produce. Is that fair to our great farming industry?
It is a fact that in no country of the world is agriculture properly developed unless it is developed on a sound economic policy of maintaining the fertility of the soil. Therefore you will realize that had we milked enough cows in Canada to have produced
50,000,000 pounds of dairy butter that will be imported in 1930 by present indications, and to have produced 25,000,000 pounds that we formerly exported, would that not have been worth while for the soil of this Dominion? It is all very well to say that we are milking the same number of cows, but I find from the government statistics that in 1927-28 we were milking 102,000 fewer cows in Canada, and we know that since then they have been going over to the United States at the rate of 2.000 cows a month. In fact, I think that is a very modest estimate, because I know one drover who told me that he was selling 500 cows a month to the United States himself. It would take only four drovers like him to sell all the cows that the Bureau of Statistics tell us we are selling to the United States.
We know from the analyses of the government Department of Agriculture that the production of 1,000 pounds of pork returns to the fertility of the soil $23.50 worth of equivalent of artificial fertilizers such as phosphoric acid, nitrogen and potash and that 1.000 pound dairy cow returns to the soil about, $25.40 worth a year. Therefore if we had the 240,000 cows that would be re-

quired, 'because it would take 160i,000 cows at the average rate of production to produce the 50,000,000 pounds of butter we are importing, and 80,000 to produce the 25,000,000 pounds we formerly exported'-and even then that would be only a standing still process; it would not be any great increase in our production-what would be the result? It would mean that we would have returned to the fertility of the soil the equivalent of $6,400,000 worth of fertilizer. In the same way, with the hogs that I have endeavoured to show, we might have produced there would be returned to the soil over $6,000,000 worth. During that same period the increase in the use of artificial fertilizer in the Dominion has cost our farmers about $15,000,000. These are matters of economic consequence to the farmer, because while we hear a great deal about prosperity, there is in Canada to-day no other class that is labouring harder, working earlier, toiling later and getting less for its effort than the agriculturist.
Let us consider what this means to the appreciated value of the soil. During the same period we have watched New Zealand increase the number of her hogs while we have suffered a decrease of 15 per cent in the number of ours. We have 15 per cent fewer breeding hogs in Canada than we had when the New Zealand treaty came into effect. We have lost in hog population more than a total of 400,000. During the same period New Zealand has increased her holding of hogs more than 30 per cent. She has increased the number of her milking cows and the fertility of her soil.
Let us compare the land values in New Zealand with those in Canada. Many are ready to sell their farms for the price of the house and bam, and there are few farmers in Canada who have good farm buildings who do not realize that the present price of his farm house and buildings is little more than the value of the buildings. We have farms with $12,000, $15,000 and $20,000 worth of buildings on them, while in New Zealand all they have is a $5, or $6 rubber blanket over their milking cows during the short rainy season and the cattle are walking around in grass up to their knees. The result is that in New Zealand they pasture 100 cows to 100 acres, whereas we have trouble with between 25 and 50 cows to 100 acres, and all the expense of winter feeding in this much colder country. In New Zealand without any farm buildings their farm values have increased until they are able to sell farms at from $300, $400, $500 to as high as $700 an acre. On the other hand, in Canada you can buy more farms

Australian Treaty-Mr. Rowe
than anybody in this house could pay for, all the way from Kingston to Montreal, at $35, $40 and $50 an acre. Surely there is no comparison as to our recent progress. We have watched these conditions, and we realize that this order in council is vitally affecting the great basic industry of this Dominion. It is affecting more than the dairy industry, because while it is chiefly a dairy question, at the same time the matter of beef cattle enters into it, because not all the cows that are giving milk to-day are dairy cows; some of them have missed their calling and should properly be in the beef herd. One thing is certain, and that is that we have had a reduction in our beef exports and to-day it is almost eliminated so far as our British market is concerned, dropping in all meats from 77 million dollars worth in 1920-21 to about 7i million in 1929, while we have had an increase in the importation of mutton, bacon, and all the way along the line. We are suffering at the very foundation of sound economic agriculture by this loss in connection with the dairy and the live stock industries.
Surely all one has to do is to look at the tonnage of the railways. I do not wish to take any advantage in regard to the unsold wheat, but if some of it had been fed to the bunch of hogs to which I have referred, for their last six weeks, of maturity, it would have been much better than to have it stored in western elevators. WThen we find that on the railways of the Dominion there have been
7,000	fewer car-loads of live stock shipped during the last twelve months than were shipped in the previous twelve months, we must realize that the problem in this Dominion is not only a grain problem. It will never be only a grain problem. I say to my good friends from the western provinces, as I have said before, the time is not far in the future when they will realize that the home market and mixed production on the farm constitute the only way in which one can succeed in perpetuating soundly agriculture in this Dominion. When we find the department itself worrying about the matter, and this government worrying about anything like this, it is time for the rest of us to become alarmed. The department is sending out circular letters with long questionnaires, one of which I have under my hand. While they did not think of sending me one, some of my neighbours received them. The hon. member for Haldi-mand (Mr. Senn) placed one of them on Hansard and I want to keep away from duplicating his argument as far as I can. This paragraph, which he did not read, says:
This department is naturally very much concerned to note this most extraordinary 2419-241
situation in a country such as ours where so many of our people are farmers and where the possibilities for the production of all these articles and many more besides are so great. Now we have been told time and again that this condition of affairs is due very largely to a disinclination on the part of the farmer to produce any more than barely enough to enable him to make ends meet since he feels that the more he produces the less are his chances of getting a fair or rather a remunerative price for his product.
What we are very anxious to learn right now, therefore, is just how our Canadian farmers view the situation and just what their attitude is toward production or greater production. We believe that if you and the other farmers to whom this questionnaire is being sent would do us the favour of filling in replies and making any comments that may occur to them that we should be in a position to work out some policy that would do something toward remedying the situation and helping restore our export trade in live stock products of one kind and another. Such trade is essential we believe if our farmers are to hope to do more than eke out a bare living on the land and we are confident that Canadian farmers are capable of doing much more than that. This might be true more particularly, we believe, if such suggested greater quantity production were associated with a still greater development and use of the cooperative principle and its organizations in making the best possible marketing disposition thereof.
Might we ask you, therefore, to give the matter your most careful and thoughtful consideration and as already requested fill in and return to us with any additional comment you care to make, the questionnaire included herewith.
I shall not weary the house by reading all the answers. In the questionnaire suggestions are sought as to the best crops to grow, cooperative efforts and a lot of other things that might better have been suggested to the farmers. Some answers were received; I shall read only two. Question No. 16 reads:
Have you any suggestions to offer as to just what might be done by governments, farmers1 organizations, individual farmers or dealers in the principal prbducts of the farm (mentioned in No. 15) to speed up production and make farming a more profitable industry?
In reply, Mr. F. M. Tobin, of Woodstock, Ontario, says, and I submit this for the consideration of the government:
Protect and develop our home market, enable our own people to buy what the farmer has to sell; the production will keep pace with the demand, both by farmer and workman. Our natural resources will then create a wealth that will stay in Canada and not be just a means of furnishing money to buy from every country in the whole world that cares to dump its products on our market.
In answer to question No. 15, Mr. James Pullin, of Sweaburg, who operates 150 acres and has forty dairy cows, says that he would improve conditions:

Australian Treaty-Mr. Rowe
With a better home market. To increase the tariff undoubtedly would improve conditions and prevent such a lowering of prices as we have seen up to the present time. Three-quarters of my family have left Canada. They have done well enough to return home at times to visit, so may be classed as some of the returned exodus, but they are still abroad.
This is no doubt addressed to the present government:
If you can work out a saving policy to remedy the situation, please shoot, don't spare ammunition.
I am very glad that the government have at last realized-it seems rather strange it should be on the eve of an election-the serious situation in this country, and they now intimate that they are trying to solve a problem that is agitating business men in this country from one end of the Dominion to the other, and alarming those who are dependent upon agriculture for their livelihood. W,e have heard so much talk from the government about the abounding prosperity of agriculture for so many years now that those of us who are engaged in it, even though our bank accounts have been getting smaller and smaller all the time, have been throwing out our chests with pride that someone believes that we are engaged in an industry that is prosperous.
1 do not wish to refer to the western wheat situation. No doubt that would be unfair; I think that it would. But I submit that if we are going to put agriculture on a sound basis in this Dominion we must follow in some degree the advice given by these farmers of Woodstock and Sweaburg, and other mixed farmers in their answers to the questionnaire. While I do not speak for my party, I can speak for some of the farmers, and I can tell the Prime Minister that when he goes to the country, an opportunity for which the farmers of this country are anxiously waiting, he will get his answer because I am convinced that more farmers will vote against the present administration that is in power at Ottawa than have ever voted against a federal administration in this country before.
For seven years we have had good crops in this Dominion. The Lord has blessed us with good weather and bountiful harvests. After those seven years, in which we made rapid progress, we have seen our returns declining; we have seen the schoolteaeher leave the farmhouse and trip out on the road to school at the age of eighteen or nineteen, and bring back more money than her father and brother labouring on a two hundred acre farm receive as the net return for their year's labour. Is there not something wrong with

a situation of that kind? It has been difficult for this government to remedy the situation because never until recently has the government submitted that there was such a problem. It is only with the approach of an election that they concede the problem, and of course, it is difficult to expect a solution from those who have never before admitted the problem. We on this side of the house have been trying to tell the government ever since 1925 just what the situation was, but they failed to listen to us. But now conditions are getting worse. There has been a stock market crash, followed by a business depression. The large industries are considering whether to continue or not. Bank managers have had to get up at annual meetings and try to bolster up courage by saying that conditions are better than they ever were before. At last it is beginning to be realized that agriculture is the basic industry of Canada, and that when it declines, when it gets on an unsound economic basis and loses the widespread markets it has enjoyed in the past, all the subsidiary industries that are dependent upon it begin to feel the pinch. The Scriptures speak of seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. If we should have seven years of not so plentiful harvests in this country as we have had in the past, I wonder what would be the situation in this Dominion?
There is a further point which I think is relevant. When New Zealand was negotiating with this low tariff government, our representatives when they came to negotiate, had no weapon in their hands with which to defend the Dominion of Canada as we only had a 4 cent tariff while New Zealand had a 40 per cent tariff. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister and other members of the cabinet go to the imperial economic conference, if it is held next fall, how are they going to protect Canadian agriculture's place in the British market, as in meats it is already almost gone and in eggs it dropped from over 6,000,000 dozen in 1920 to below one million in 1929. We are not exporting to Great Britain anything like the amount of bacon that we exported when this government came into power. Even in 1910 we exported to Great Britain almost one hundred per cent more bacon than we do to-day; in other words, over 48,000,000 pounds as compared with 21,000,000 pounds for the ten months of this year. That is the situation in the agricultural industry in this country. Let me go back a little further. Long before the present membership sat in this house, away back in 1870, sixty years ago, Canada exported to the British market, 15,000,000 pounds of

Australian Treaty-Mr. Dunning
bacon annually, as compared with the present annual rate of export of about twenty-three to twenty-four million pounds in 1930.
What a great opportunity for a diamond jubilee celebration of the pork industry! Think of it. We have just increased by one-third in sixty years the production of that great industry, which is so relevent to the prosperity of the dairy industry.
I am not going to detain the house much further. I only wish to say, Mr. Speaker, that these are questions of sound economic consequence to the welfare of this Dominion, and I hope that my remarks will not be taken as coming from one selfishly interested in this particular industry. I realize that only as this great basic industry prospers can other industries prosper; on the other hand, only as other industries prosper can we hope to maintain the great benefit of the home market for our farm products. The policy of the Conservative party is that the only way to solve these problems is to protect the home market for ourselves, to give all our industries the benefit of this home market, and thus afford our working men the opportunity to fill their dinner baskets with the products of Canadian farms rather than with farm products imported from New Zealand or any other country. And this is the only way in which to maintain those great channels of export trade, which, as you know, Mr. Speaker, took us many years to establish. We have lost that connection at the present time, and it will take a long time to regain it, and we cannot do so until we protect the home market. This is the only way to restore confidence in our great basic industry of farming, and so provide an incentive for our boys and girls to stay on the farm and reestablish a supply for export demand.
Personally, I hope this government may very soon decide to go to the country, because I realize full well a change of government is of vital concern to me and to all others interested in farming, and unless steps are taken very soon to this end, farming is a job that will not be sought by very many people. I should be very glad, Mr. Speaker, to take you in my automobile and show you, within a radius of twenty miles of my home, from fifteen to twenty homesteads that this year will not even be pastured, but in my experience I have never seen those farms idle before; they have always been operated by their owners, who in many cases inherited the land from their forefathers. I could show you, sir, a farm with a good house and barn on it that when this government came into power could not have been bought for much less than
S10.000,	but just before the opening of this
session was sold for $3,500, the purchase price being extended over twenty years at five per cent interest. That farm was peddled around for a considerable time before it was disposed of; in fact if agriculture were not so depressed I might have bought the place myself. But, Mr. Speaker, not only in Ontario but also in your native province of Quebec, as I discovered upon the occasion of a recent visit, the agricultural situation is critical, because it depends mainly upon mixed farming, the basic part of agriculture, and it is this part which has been so badly hit by the mismanagement of the present administration.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance):	Mr. Speaker, the amendment
now before the house is a vote of want of confidence in the administration, and while its wording is not strictly of a political character, of course the debate will to- an increasing degree be made the vehicle for political speeches of the same entertaining character,
I hope, as the one we have just listened to.
My hon. friends who have spoken thus far had had the advantage of reading the transcript of the evidence taken before the Tariff Advisory Board in the recent hearing on this subject. Having regard to the abuse from the other side of the house to which this government has listened in connection with its policy of having matters of this kind investigated by the Tariff Advisory Board, I think the two members who have spoken in this debate should be the first to move a vote of thanks to the government for having given them an opportunity to secure in printed form the statistics and other evidence put in by some of the witnesses, at any rate, in the recent inquiry.
At the outset I want to give the house a little information as to this hearing and the proceedinas which led up to it. One year ago the dairy council of Canada approached my predecessor, the late Hon. Mr. Robb, with reference to their industry, and Mr. Robb immediately intimated that he would be very glad indeed to give a reference to the tariff board immediately which would afford an opportunity to the dairy council and to all others interested in the industry to present their case before the board.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Was that in writing?


Mr. DUNNING:: It was at an interview,
I believe, but it may have been confirmed in writing. I have had occasion since to speak to the gentleman to whom it was given, and I can ascertain positively whether or not it was in writing.
374	COMMONS
Australian Treaty-Mr. Dunning


Mr. CHAPLIN:: The minister does not
say that that was the first time the National Dairy Council asked for an investigation?


Charles Avery Dunning: Perhaps if I proceed my hon, friend may get his answer. The answer made to my predecessor on that occasion was that the dairy council did not then want an investigation, for the reason that they were not satisfied that they had their facts in sufficiently good shape to be able to proceed effectively with their case. Just a few months ago, since I became Minister of Finance, the dairy council came to me and said they were now ready to proceed before the tariff board, and I immediately gave the reference required and asked the chairman to proceed with the hearing as quickly as possible in order that the people concerned might have an opportunity of placing the facts in their possession and any argument in favour of their contention before the board. The hearing was held on January 14 and 15. I hold in my hand a transcript of the evidence then taken. A great many of the figures quoted, particularly by the mover of the amendments now before the house, are taken from this evidence presented before the Tariff Advisory Board.
Naturally, my view is that this motion, coming as -it does before the government has had an opportunity of communicating to the house in the budget its fiscal proposals for the year, is just simply an attempt to make political capital out of a tariff board hearing of a case which certainly is not yet completed, and about which no one can yet be sure of having all the facts. That, however, is perfectly within the rights of our hon. friends opposite, and I do not intend at this stage to attempt to wade with them through the evidence of this case. There is a proper time, from my point of view, for me to discuss that kind of thing; other members have greater freedom in that regard than I possibly can have.
The amendment proposed reads:
That in the opinion of this house, order in council No. 1757, passed on the 26th day of September, 1925. respecting certain trade arrangements with the Dominion of New Zealand, should be rescinded forthwith, and immediate steps taken to negotiate a treaty with that Dominion on fair and equitable terms.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that this procedure in dealing with a sister dominion is scarcely calculated to promote good will and good trading relations between the sister dominions of the British Empire. It is arbitrary in its terms-"rescinded forthwith"; without regard to anything else let us get rid of it as soon as we can.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friends apposite say "hear, hear".


James Dew Chaplin: The Minister of Agriculture-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend can make his speech later on. And yet my hon. friends opposite on the public platform will talk loudly about empire loyalty and their desire of building up empire trade, but to a sister dominion, with respect to which we enjoy at the present time very valuable trade relations indeed, unsatisfactory though they may be in certain particulars to some of us, and to some of the people of New Zealand also from their point of view, the proposal of my hon. friends opposite is that the arrangement be "rescinded forthwith". That, I may say, Mr. Speaker, is not the policy of the government. During the past year, numerous interests in Canada have represented to the government the desirability, from their point of view, of their products being included within a treaty with New Zealand, and have urged upon the government the desirability of such a treaty. It must be borne in mind that at the present time there is no treaty directly between Neiw Zealand and Canada. New Zealand extends to Canada her full British preference on everything. She does that her own volition, in exactly the same way as Canada extended her British preference to Great Britain, and there was no question of negotiating a treaty when New Zealand extended her British preference to Canada.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is original.


Charles Avery Dunning: When the Australian
treaty was entered into-and it must be remembered that Australia does not, and never has extended her full British preference to Canada-New Zealand requested that its provisions, in so far as they were more beneficial to her, should be extended by Canada. That was done under the order in council which is being discussed. As I said a few moments ago, during the past year numerous industries in Canada have urged upon the government the desirability of a definite trade treaty with New Zealand in order that more Canadian products might be exported to that country under more favourable terms. The government of New Zealand has been made aware of the desire of the Canadian government to negotiate a treaty with them at as early a date as possible. Communications to that end are not complete.
It is not an easy thing, Mr. Speaker, to discuss matters of this kind between sister

Australian Treaty-Mr. Dunning
dominions of the British Empire over the many thousands of miles of land and sea that intervene, with neither dominion having diplomatic representation in the capital of the other. AVe find very much more difficulty in negotiating matters of this kind as to our sister dominions in which we have no diplomatic representation than we do, for instance, with Great Britain, France, the United States and Japan where each country is definitely represented in a diplomatic manner in the capital of the other.
I do not intend to go further by way of informing the house at the present time as to negotiations, except to convey to the house, on behalf of the government, that the government of New Zealand is aware of the desire of the Canadian government to negotiate a definite trade treaty with that country.
I ask, Mr. Speaker: Is it a good preliminary to negotiations with another country for this house to adopt a resolution such as that moved by my hon. friend from Haldimand (Mr. Senn), to say definitely we will rescind forthwith the arrangement that we have now, regardless of its usefulness to them or its usefulness to us, and that we will start from that basis to negotiate a new treaty? This government does not believe that course would be desirable. I know the argument that my hon. friend, the leader of the opposition is going to put forward. Lawyerlike, he proposes to point out to me that the benefits of the Australian treaty were extended to New Zealand, and that among those benefits is clause 5 of the treaty, which states that six months' notice must be given by either party for abrogation of the treaty; and instead of meaning literally what his resolution says, that the order in council should be rescinded forthwith; he will argue that it will only mean that something will happen six months from now, but I would point out to the house-


Richard Bedford Bennett: The order in council would have to be rescinded forthwith, but the notice could follow. That is not a treaty, only an order in council.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is exactly as I was pointing out, what my hon. friend would say. While all of those speeches delivered by hon. gentlemen opposite are designed to convince the dairy farmers of this country-whom they have succeeded, in some measure, in exciting about this matter-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am glad my hon. friends admit that it is purely political propaganda-


William Earl Rowe: Good politics.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend regards
speeches such as his as good politics.


William Earl Rowe: And yours.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes. While my hon.
friends are trying to convince the dairy farmers of this country that they would forthwith stop this importation of New Zealand butter, my hon. friend the leader of the opposition is making it quite clear in the house, after being questioned about it, that he does not intend to stop it right away, but merely intends that the order in council should be rescinded, and that then we should say that six months hence-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Surely, I said that in the country all summer.


Charles Avery Dunning: That, Mr. Speaker, was not the sense of the remarks of the two hon. gentlemen who moved and seconded the resolution.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It certainly was.


Charles Avery Dunning: However that may be,
even assuming that to be the meaning of the amendment now before the house, may I submit, Mr. Speaker, that it is scarcely a fortunate way of addressing a sister dominion in a matter of this kind. The people of New Zealand who are reading in the press of their country the amendment moved by my hon. friend opposite will not have before them the hair-splitting legal explanation of the leader of the opposition that a complete cutoff is n>ot intended but that six months from now something will happen. That is one point. The other is that this government would rather proceed all along the line in negotiations with our sister dominions in an atmosphere of good' will. We would rather proceed along the line that we have taken in this matter, of making the government of New Zealand aware that we do desire to negotiate a trade treaty with them, as we did some time ago before he heard anything about this amendment of my hon. friends. Negotiations between governments on matters of this kind, necessarily must be confidential, up to the point at least when it can be mutually agreed upon to make them public. We much prefer to say that we want to negotiate a treaty without disturbing the trade between the two countries by giving definite notice now that six months hence trade between the two countries will cease under the existing arrangement. Many industries in Canada-the dairy industry, the lumbering industry, the rubber industry, the fishing industry, and many others-are vitally interested in this trade with New Zealand, and the government of Canada
376	COMMONS
Australian Treaty-Point of Order
at the present time is endeavouring to avoid giving any idea that six months from now trade with New Zealand will cease. And I may say, in that regard, that we have the hearty good will of the government of New Zealand. The government of New Zealand is willing to sit down with us in an endeavour to negotiate a mutually satisfactory treaty which will, of course, immediately replace the existing arrangement, once it is consented to by both parties.
I would like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that an Imperial economic conference is to be held some time during the month of September. We would like to approach this conference with our sister dominions without having hit them over the head in the meantime. We do not think that it is a good way to go into a conference, having endeavoured to damage the other party to the conference before commencing to confer with him. It is not a good preliminary to knock a man down and then say, We will confer with you. It is much better to do the conferring first and the fighting afterwards. That is what the government of Canada proposes to do with respect to negotiations with our sister dominions along these lines. In addition, with respect to butter, dairy products and some other matters we will have at the coming imperial economic conference the advantage of the evidence taken by the Tariff Advisory Board and the advice of that body in connection with the negotiation of any treaty with any of our sister dominions with respect to any matter of trade.
For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I propose to move, or rather since I cannot personally move I propose to ask one of my colleagues to move as a subamendment-


Richard Bedford Bennett: The colleagues of the
minister cannot move it either; the government as a whole is speaking now.


Charles Avery Dunning: I will ask a private
member to do it, then, but even private members on this side of the house are my colleagues, you know. The subamendment is designed to bring the matter more in harmony with what I am sure the people of Canada would desire to be the atmosphere which should exist as between sister dominions of the British Empire, tending to foster interempire trade rather than to destroy it. The subamendment is that all the words after "be" in the fourth line of the amendment be struck out and the following substituted therefor: "Superseded as soon as possible by a treaty with that dominion, and that immediate steps should be taken to negotiate such treaty." The motion would then read:

That in the opinion of this house, order in council No. 1757, passed on the 26th day of September, 1925, respecting certain trade arrangements with the Dominion of New Zealand, should be superseded as soon as possible by a treaty with that dominion, and that imediate steps should be taken to negotiate such treaty.
Mr. PIERRE F. CASGRAIN (Charlevoix-Saguenay):	Mr. Speaker, I desire to move,
seconded by the hon. member for St. Denis (Mr. Denis):
That all the words after "be" in the fourth line of the amendment be struck out and the following substituted therefor:
"Superseded as soon as possible by a treaty with that dominion and that immediate steps should be taken to negotiate such treaty."


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I hardly think that is in order. An order in council cannot be superseded by a treaty; the order in council either must be rescinded or allowed to remain. It cannot be superseded, and the effect of the order in council was to make the Australian treaty applicable to New Zealand. I submit that this subamendment is not in order at all for that reason. The motion is to go into supply; to that motion an amendment has been moved, which amendment is now before the house. The amendment proposes the rescission of an order in council and that immediately thereafter steps be taken to negotiate a treaty. The subamendment is that the order in council will be superseded by a treaty, which of course is nonsense. That is all it is; it cannot be done.


Hon. LUCIEN CANNON (Solicitor General) :: With all due respect to the hon. leader of the opposition, Mr. Speaker, I think he has given in the concluding remarks which he has just addressed to the chair a definite answer to his opening remarks. The only thing I may say is that certainly "superseded" means the removal of something which now exists by something else and I do not. see much in the point raised by my hon. friend.


Charles Avery Dunning: If the intention were to
do what my hon. friend indicates then he would be right, but that is not the intention of the government. The intention of the government is not to rescind the order in council forthwith, but we agree that it is desirable that the order in council, as soon as possible, should be superseded by a definite treaty, and we must negotiate in order to be able to make such a treaty.


Mr. SPEAKER:: In my view the point of order is not well taken.

Australian Treaty-Mr. Stirling


Mr. GROTE STIRLING (Yale):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to offer a few remarks on this question of the New Zealand order in council, as one who in the debate during the session of 1925 and in subsequent debates on this question endeavoured to point out, as did my colleagues, the dire results which we foresaw must follow with regard to one of the most important branches of the agricultural industry in this country if this trade arrangement with our sister dominion were carried through. However, in spite of the representations which we endeavoured to make on those occasions, the government forced through the terms of this treaty and extended them to our sister dominion of New Zealand. We then understood that such action was not sought by New Zealand, and this is the first occasion on which I have ever heard that New Zealand did seek those benefits.
We have endeavoured on various occasions to ascertain from the government what Canada received from New Zealand in return, but to this day we have not heard that Canada has been beneficially treated by New Zealand in return for these preferences. Few there must be who would fail to desire an enlargement, an extension, or the creation if they do not already exist of trade arrangements with our sister dominions, but surely any government which endeavours to advance along that line must have the welfare of the Canadian industry as a basis for their negotiations. In this matter Canada once more has done all the giving, but Canada has received nothing in exchange. We do not know whose advice the government may have sought at the time they blunderingly went forth bearing gifts to New Zealand; if they sought the advice of the officials of the Department of Agriculture, those officials have proved themselves false prophets; if they sought counsel from each other they surely must be condemned for not having sought, from the industry itself, the advice which they needed. We know that they did not consult the National Dairy Council; we had that from the secretary of that council two years ago. The National Dairy Council is one of those bodies which came into existence, part of whose duties was to be a bureau of information on the dairy industry. The National Dairy Council is a body to whom the government might very wisely turn when seeking advice as to the effects of any proposed policy upon the dairy industry. Although the government did not seek that advice, we are perfectly aware of the action taken by the council for we receive the annual reports of that body. I
will draw the attention of the house to a few short extracts from the reports of the last year or two.
In 1927 the council submitted an expression of their view to the Privy Council of Canada, which appears upon page 7 of the report of that submission. The effect of the extension to New Zealand of these terms was fully discussed by the members of the council, and the executive committe was unanimously instructed to make representation to the government along certain lines. This report reads:
The executive therefore respectfully requests as follows:	,	,
1. That the order in council applying schedule 2 of the Australian trade agreement to New Zealand be rescinded at once;
Although the advice of the National Dairy Council had not been sought, in 1927 they sought the government and presented the collective views of the dairymen of Canada. At page 13 of the annual report of the proceedings of that council for 1927, we read:
It is now generally regarded that the reduced make of butter this season is, in a measure, due to the large quantities of butter imported from the two countries in question. Particularly is this true this fall, as the offering of large quantities of New Zealand butter, laid down at Halifax and Vancouver, at a comparatively low price will be a hard blow to our winter dairying this season.
That again expresses the view of the dairymen. The chairman, after referring to the effects which had been produced in the prairie provinces from 1925 to 1926, proceeds as follows:
Now, with not such a good wheat crop, with wheat at only half the 1915 price, with no shortage of labour. Saskatchewan takes a bump of four million pounds in one year. Surely, then, we are justified in regarding this treaty as the prime cause of the trouble.
Again the views of the dairymen of Canada are expressed. Then we come to the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) who spoke as follows:
Now you have had two years operation of the treaty, the question is: What are you going to do about it?
That is a question we have heard many times from the lips of the hon. Minister of Agriculture. The report continues:
I have no statement to make in regard to it, except that, when publicly attacked, I am defending the Australian treaty. I also want to point out that the clause as to six months notice of change is always there to be availed of. and I do not know of any body of men whose natural duty it would be more than yours to look after this. You are tlie spokes-
378	COMMONS
Australian Treaty-Mr. Stirling
men, and as you have said, "the watchdog" of the dairying interests of Canada, and if there is anything to be done the dairymen of Canada would naturally look to you to do it.
The Minister of Agriculture considers that this council is the one to express the views of the dairying industry, and yet they were never consulted before these terms were given to New Zealand. A little farther down the minister continues:
Let me draw your attention to another difficulty, since we are pointing out difficulties in connection with the Australian treaty. Our western people, as you know, are proverbially low-tariff people, and the moment they begin to agitate for a raising of duty, even though it is only to get it back to where it was. they are put in the embarrassing position of being high-tariff on butter, but low-tariff on farm implements. It is no joke to take this position. I suppose it can be done, but it requires explaining. So you will sympathize with us all. I am sure you feel it yourself.
So much for the Minister of Agriculture. Then turning to the report for the year 1928, we find a resolution put before the convention, which reads as follows:
That the National Dairy Council reaffirms its adherence to the principle of adequate protection for the dairy industry on butter and eggs.
Then the chairman proceeds as follows:
What the resolution says is "adequate protection for the dairy industry"; it is not the theory of protection in the abstract, it is not an organization trying to voice universal high tariff or protection, but it is the farmers asking that their product be protected.
, If you shy at the word "protection," and if you think that interferes with some political shibboleth of the west, then of course you won't pass it, but if you regard it as a plain statement of the fact that the dairy industry is entitled to its share of protection, then you will adopt it.
The resolution was adopted. Then, turning to the report of this year, we find on page 11 the imports of butter from New Zealand. These figures have been quoted before in this debate, but I desire to draw the attention
of the hon. members to the gross figures. The	
imports are given for the are as follows:	fiscal years, and
Year	Pounds
1925		
1926		
1927		
1928		
1929		
That is 150 times what	it was six years
ago. There is no other	industry in this
country which could stand up under such a blow. The Minister of Finance suggests that if you propose to start in negotiations with another person, it is a poor start to knock

that person down first. But I would suggest that when a government has as part of its duty the fostering of industry within the country, it is a sad thing to drive a crushing blow between the eyes to that industry, and then, *when it is suggested that the means wherewith that crushing blow was delivered, should be withdrawn, to reply, as seems to be the answrer he would make: We must not be provocative to a sister dominion. It appears to me absolutely necessary that we, on behalf of this industry, must indicate now to our sister dominion that this must stop forthwith and proceed from that stage to negotiate a treaty. Glad we are to know to-day for the first time that that sister dominion desires to have a trade agreement with us.
Turning over two pages in this year's report, we come to what the secretary's report has to say on the export of cows. Pointing out that for seven months in 1928 and for seven months in 1929, an average of 2,000 cows was exported per month, it goes on to say:
The United States continues to buy our cows in large numbers. During the past summer there has been a big demand and there are those who are afraid of the outcome.
Surely every dairyman in Canada is to-day afraid of the outcome. It is not at all impossible that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) is afraid of the outcome. We know his Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) now and for several years past has been afraid of the outcome. His deputy minister unquestionably is afraid of the outcome. The mover and the seconder of the amendment have both referred to the letter which he has sent out recently accompanying an excellent questionnaire in which he, the executive officer of the Department of Agriculture, is endeavouring to find out from the people injured what is the matter with their industry. There is no doubt that everyone who has looked into the matter realizes that something is seriously wrong with this industry, and for the Minister of Finance to tell those of us who took part in prophesying exactly what would result from giving those terms to New Zealand, that we are merely delivering political speeches, is scarcely a worthy remark to fall from the lips of the minister. Who would not be concerned? The Departments of Agriculture, both Dominion and provincial, for years past have been ploddingly, untiringly, carrying on the arduous work of building up this most valuable portion of agricultural industry in Canada. They have preached to the farmers the necessity of building up their herds, of increasing their pig pens, of improving the quality of their butter, cheese and bacon. But now we find ourselves in the position of having, under the policy of the gov-

Australian Treaty-Mr. Adshead
eminent, allowed that industry to slip back into the situation it occupied on a far lower rung of the ladder than that which it has occupied, and from now on we must start in, knowing thankfully that Canada has the resiliency necesary, to endeavour to build up what we have lost, to regain those herds again, to attempt to obtain those markets which we have lost and to demonstrate to the world what the world learned from us years ago, namely, that in quality there is no other agricultural produce in the world to vie with that of Canada. To say that we must not withdraw this treaty is surely a quibbling in terms. It is absolutely necessary, if this industry which has received this crushing blow, is yet to be saved, that that entry of butter, even though it be from a sister dominion, should cease forthwith. Without that the down grade will continue until this industry is but a shadow, and the most serious part of the injury done is not merely that for the time being our dairy farmers are suffering, but that if that industry be destroyed altogether, we shall have one more instance of the fact that we become dependent entirely upon the produce of other countries.
That will not be satisfactory in any province of the Dominion, and whilst dairying is but one of the many industries carried on in British Columbia, in my part of that province it is looked upon as one of the most valuable branches of agriculture because it builds up the land; it tends to form homes and it produces something which we should rightfully suppose could find its market in the domestic market of Canada. We do not know when the government will choose to consult the people on its record, but what a record there will be for the government to carry to the farmers of Canada in this question of the dairy industry ! So far as we on this side of the house are concerned, we shall be interested when the day comes when we can expose to the people of Canada the government's record in this matter.


Mr. H. B. ADSHEAD (East Calgary):: I
wish to make a few remarks chiefly in regard to the butter industry, rather than any other part of the motion. First of all, I want to draw the attention of the house to a rather peculiar situation. Last year when the late Hon. Mr. Robb was Minister of Finance, this comer, the United Farmers of Alberta comer, moved a subamendment to the amendment of my hon. friends to the right. I asked Mr. Robb why he could1 not adopt that particular subamendment, because it was right in line with his policy. "Well" he said, "I fully agree with you that we are in line with that policy,
but the motion before the house is that the Speaker do now leave the chair, and if we adopt that particular amendment it would simply mean, like all other amendments, that the Speaker do not leave the chair." In this case we have a subamendment moved by our hon. friends on the right of the Speaker to the amendment which my hon. friends on this side have moved. If that carries, if what Mr. Robb said is true, then the government are absolutely defeating themselves. It seems to me that is a rather peculiar situation, and I should like to see how we are going to get out of it. Those who have made their bed must lie in it; that is all I cam say about the matter.
I was very much interested in the speech delivered by the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe). He told us that in his day he had milked some twenty-five cows. I thought of the old historic custom that when two armies met in battle, a champion of each side would go out into the centre and they would have a little duel of their own. As I am a member from the west and have in my day milked twenty-five cows on my homestead -I did so once all alone, but never again- and he has milked as many in Ontario, perhaps we had better enter into a milking contest. I will put on a pair of overalls, and so will he and we will milk one or two cows. That will settle the question and get us out of the difficulty.
This motion is a double-edged one. Not only is it a motion to consider the question of butter and its relation to the Australian and New Zealand treaties, but it is also a want of confidence motion in the government on that point as well as a general want of confidence motion in the government. It seems to me that my hon. friends have put the cart before the horse. They have stated that the introduction of New Zealand butter has caused a far less production of Canadian butter because of importations. I rather think the situation is the other way about: that it is the decrease of production of Canadian butter that has caused the importation of New Zealand butter. That is my experience so far as the west is concerned.
In the west in the early times we had to milk cows. The product of a few cows would buy us our groceries and other necessities of life. In the district in which I lived at that time, we could not raise wheat because the land had not been sufficiently broken up and there were summer frosts. At the time I left I was milking about twenty-five cows. To-day that land is all broken up and it is growing wheat. There are not four cows in the whole half section. That is one of the causes of
3S0	COMMONS
Australian Treaty-Mr. Adshead
the decreased production of butter and milk in the west. Wheat production has extended so much because the farmers thought that it was easier. The dairy farmer has to milk his cows twice a day, seven days a week, and fifty-two weeks in the year, and so a good many of them concluded that it would be easier to grow wheat than to milk cows. I am glad to say that to-day there is a very distinct movement back to dairying and mixed farming, which should ultimately prove beneficial. The milk industry itself has developed. Calgary has grown to a city with a considerable population; we have also in the province the cities of Edmonton, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Red Deer and others, all of which are taking large quantities of milk, and that milk, of course, is not made into butter. In Calgary the dairymen have formed themselves, not into a butter pool, but into a milk pool and are rivalling the other dairies in supplying milk direct from the farmer to the consumer-new milk fresh from the cow every morning. When they get twelve cents a quart for their milk, that is better than fifty cents a pound for their butter, which is surely high enough.
There appears to be a variety of opinions on this butter question, even amongst the dairymen themselves. I have before me the pamphlet mentioned by my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) in connection with the butter and cheese industry, giving the evidence of one Mr. Carr before the tariff board. He said that he represented a creamery association in the province of Ontario, and made this statement:
The creamery industry in Ontario at present is in a very serious condition, not only from the demoralizing influence on our butter market but, in the main, from an absolute lack of market owing to the influx of New Zealand butter.
That is the evidence of the gentleman who is applying to the tariff board for an increased tariff on butter.
My hon. friend from Yale (Mr. Stirling) quoted a few minutes ago from the statement of the National Dairy Council. I have here an address made by the secretary of the National Dairy Council, speaking to a dairymen's association in London, Ontario, on March 5th last. He begins by saying:
The dairy industry of Canada is sound.
He does not say that the dairy industry is in a ruinous condition when he is addressing a dairymen's association. He goes on to tell them how to better the condition of the dairy industry, which he states is in a sound condition already. One would suppose that if the statements made by my hon. friend to

my right were absolutely correct, the first thing Mr. Stephen would have told the association was that the dairy industry in Canada was in a bad condition owing to the ruinous competition of New Zealand butter, but he makes no suggestion of that kind at all. He says:
To better the situation-
He does not suggest excluding New Zealand butter, but says:
To better the situation, increase production by herd improvement. This is the dairymen's part in cooperation with the departments of agriculture; more cow efficiency is needed. The manufacturer's part is to consolidate our creameries, also cheese factories.
Incidentally he suggests a duty of 7 cents a pound on butter, with a preference of 3 cents a pound to Australia and New Zealand. As a protectionist, acting on instructions probably from the National Dairy Council, he had to say, as a matter of course, that protection was needed, but in his view the great thing to do for the dairy industry was not so much to exclude New Zealand butter as to increase the efficiency of the dairy herds and find better methods of production.
My hon. friends to my right have not got the whole facts. I do not think that they intentionally withheld any facts, but one thing they did not tell us, and that is what became of this New Zealand butter when it got into Canada. Let us examine the situation and see what became of a large part of this New Zealand butter which was imported into Canada. My hon. friend from Yale last year made a statement in this house which was very valuable and which put me on track, if I may use a slang phrase, that there was something beneath this butter question that we did not know. He said that large quantities of New Zealand butter were being imported into Canada by the creameries-the very men who are complaining-and that this butter was made over and packed and sold in their own commercial brands without any indication on the package of the country of origin. I investigated in order to find out who the sinners were who were doing this thing. At that particular time we asked the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) if the cardboard cartons in which the butter is packed could not contain the country of origin in the same way as when you go into a store in Ottawa you will see the label on different goods, "Made in Germany," or "Made in Czechoslovakia". We asked at that time that all butter brought from New Zealand and Australia should have on the carton the words "Made in Australia" or "Made in New Zea-

Australian Treaty-Mr. Adshead
land," but for some reason or other the minister has not seen fit to accept that suggestion, and to-day we see that the creameries in Canada, the very men who are complaining of the importation of New Zealand butter, are the very ones who are importing it. Would they import New Zealand butter to ruin their own trade? Does that seem sensible? Is it likely that they would import New Zealand butter if it brought their own trade into the condition that my friends to my right would have us believe the dairy industry in Canada is in? I wrote to the Department of Agriculture to find out something about the packing of butter in commercial cartons, and I wish to read a letter that I received; which is very informative, and bears strictly on this question. It is addressed by Mr. Ruddick, dairy and cold storage commissioner, to myself, and reads:
The Deputy Minister of Trade and Commerce has referred to me your inquiry with regard to the sale of New Zealand and Australian butter in Canada.
The dairy produce inspectors employed by this branch of the Department of Agriculture have checked the sale of Australian and New Zealand butter closely during the last two years and have not found any of this butter sold as Canadian butter. The creameries-
Mark you, these are the very gentlemen who are complaining of the importation of New Zealand butlter:
The creameries, jobbers and retailers have sold most of the New Zealand butter in wrappers bearing their regular commercial brands which do not give any indication as to the creamery or country in which the butter is made, and that is quite within the law.


Robert Knowlton Smith: Does not the law require the package to indicate that it is imported butter, not necessarily the country of origin?


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Mr. Ruddick says that the wrappers do not give any indication as to the creamery or country in which the butter is made. In other words, it gives no indication that the butlter is imported; it is put up in packages similar to those in which our Canadian butter is sold, so that a person buying this butter, say, in Toronto or Calgary, imagines it is Canadian butter. I spoke to my own retail grocer about this some time ago. He said, "I have no doubt that I have sold hundreds of pounds of New Zealand butter here, but it is packed in the same packages as those in which we get Canadian butter." This, it is said, is quite within the law, but to my mind it is a legal fraud. He goes on to say something else:
While it would be against the law to brand New Zealand or Australian butter as Canadian,
I cannot see how it would do any harm to the Canadian industry, because New Zealand butter is of excellent quality and to sell it as Canadian would really be an advertisement for Canadian butter.
I cannot see the force of that particular argument.
For the same reason it would not be wise to require that all New Zealand butter should be branded as such.
I differ of course with the dairy commissioner on that point.
The only result of such a requirement -would be to advertise New Zealand butter.
If that argument is sound, then we should not insist on the country of origin being placed on imports from United States and other countries. I remember when years ago Joe Chamberlain was instrumental in putting legislation through the British House of Commons requiring all imported goods to be marked with the country of origin, the Germans sent their magnificent liner, the Deutschland, up the Thames with the words "Made in Germany" prominently displayed.
Canadian dealers are not anxious to do this because they look upon the sale of New Zealand or Australian butter as a temporary matter. New Zealand and Australian butters are not made over in this country.
Then follows what I would term a distinction without a difference.
There is no making over to be done. What they do is to rework the butter slightly to pack it in the right sized boxes for cutting into one pound prints.
I can hardly see the difference between remaking and reworking, but I suppose there is a difference.
I have heard it said that New Zealand butter was reworked for the purpose of adding water. The New Zealand butter makers are too skilful to export butter that would permit of any water being added without exceeding the legal limit of 16 per cent,-
Perhaps they might object to pay freight on water, of which we have plenty here.
-which is the standard for New Zealand, Australia and Canada. If, however, anyone bad New Zealand or Canadian or any other butter which was so low in moisture content that it would pay to add water to bring it up to the standard, there would be no legal objection to doing so. All good butter makers work close to the limit of 16 per cent. It is part of the business of the butter maker to regulate the water in butter, but if he exceeds the limit of course he gets into trouble.
So if New Zealand exported butter to Canada, and did not want to pay freight on water, our good Canadian creameries would add so much water and would get so much a pound for the made-over product. So much
382	COMMONS
Australian Treaty-Mr. Adshead
for the New Zealand butter. What becomes of it when it enters Canada? It is made over, packed in Canadian packages and sold without anything appearing on the package to show that it is New Zealand butter.
I wrote to the commissioner of customs to ascertain what became of some of this butter, and I found that a large number of our creameries imported this butter in bond, then sliced it and put it in their own packages for shipment to the West Indies and other places. The people who purchased that butter no doubt thought it was Canadian butter. Let me give the house some figures furnished to me by Mr. Breadner, commissioner of customs, on August 12th 1929. I simply want to show what becomes of a large part of this New Zealand butter imported into Canada. He says that for the fiscal year ending March 31,	1929, Nova
Scotia imported 8,381 cwt., or 419| tons. Now, what became of that butter? My hon. friends here would say that it came in competition with Canadian butter, and helped to lower the price obtained by our dairymen. Of this amount Nova Scotia exported from bond without payment of any duty, 222 tons.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who exported it?


Herbert Bealey Adshead: A certain amount was
exported from New Brunswick and a small amount from British Columbia. So that a large part of this butter was not even sold in Canada, but was exported to other countries and sold virtually as Canadian butter. Mr. Breadner also says that some of the creameries did pay a duty and then got a drawback. He says:
In your letter you specifically mention drawback on imported butter which is worked over and subsequently exported. The following statement gives the quantity of butter imported in bulk into Canada during the fiscal years
1927-	28 and 1928-29 and sliced, packaged and exported to the British West Indies.


Richard Bedford Bennett: How much was exported?


Herbert Bealey Adshead: That was in 1927-28 and
1928-	29. That was the butter on which the importers paid duty. I gave the figures of the butter imported and dealt with in bond.


Mr. STEVENS:: How much was exported?


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Nova Scotia imported
419J tons and exported from bond without payment of duty 222 tons. From those figures alone it will be seen that a very large quantity of this New Zealand butter was brought in by the creameries themselves. Of course, it did not injure their particular trade because thep exported a considerable quantity of it,

but the cry has gone up that all this New Zealand butter was sold to the Canadian people in ruinous competition with the butter of our own creameries.
There is another point to be considered in this connection. No consideration has as yet been expressed for the consumers, none whatever. What about the consumers, what about the workingmen who have to buy this butter? Surely to goodness at the present time if a workingman pays 50 cents a pound for butter in Calgary that is enough.


Mr. BELL (Hamilton):: Do you think the farmer is gouging the workingman?


Herbert Bealey Adshead: I do not think so.


Leslie Gordon Bell: Neither do I.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Since my hon. friend has asked the question, I will tell him of an incident that happened in my own constituency. I have a dual constituency. In it there is a large number of farmers and a large number of working men. About the time this duty on New Zealand butter coming into Canada came into force, I attended a fairly large convention of dairy farmers, and I said this to them: You have always wanted free trade, and you have always striven to have the duty cut on agricultural implements, and you have succeeded. You have succeeded in having the duty cut on your automobiles, and you have had the duty on binder twine thrown off, and so forth. You are free traders and low tariff men, and now because you have the opportunity do you want to raise the price o.f your butter?? Do you want me to go down to the Ogden shops where five hundred or a thousand men are engaged and tell them that you want to raise the price of butter to 55 or 60 cents in place of the 50 cents they are now paying? If that is the message you want me to take to these men you had better get someone else to take it.


Mr. MACDOUGALL:: Although some of
us suspect the hon. gentleman to be a very strong Liberal, he poses as a labour man in this house-


Herbert Bealey Adshead: I do not pose.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: I say you do.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order, order.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: If my hon. friend
had the opportunity-


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Mr. Speaker, I object to that statement.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: We will say then
that you are a labour man, according to your own lights. If you had an opportunity to

Australian Treaty-Mr. Young (Weyburn)
bring labour into Canada cheaper than the prevailing wage in Winnipeg, would you do it? You are asking for cheaper butter to be brought in. Would you do it in the case of labour?


Herbert Bealey Adshead: I am glad my hon. friend has put that question. I have had it put before. We prevent cheap labour, therefore cheap butter, cheap cattle-


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: My hon. friend puts men and cattle on the same basis.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: We do not place men
and cattle on the same basis. We do not regard men as a commodity to be bought and sold on the market, and that is the very statement made by my friend over there.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: I rise to a point of
order. I must insist on my hon. friend withdrawing that statement. If he is not prepared to make a better defence for the labour people of this country than that, he should certainly not try to pose in this parliament as a labour man.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: I object to the word
"pose"; it smacks of insincerity. However, I am quite satisfied with what my hon. friend may think. But that is the position, and it is an entirely different proposition between cattle and labour, because labour is human beings, and labour is not a commodity to be bought and sold on the market as cattle.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: I know the reason
why hon. friends opposite are so willing to rush to the rescue of the speaker.


Mr. HEAPS:: I rise to a point of order-


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: My hon. friend, by
his words, is in a sort of subterranean way-


Herbert Bealey Adshead: I object to that statement, withdraw that statement.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Well, I will say that the hon. gentleman, in an implied manner, suggests I was trying to put men and cattle in the same class. I absolutely deny that, and I wish you, Mr. Speaker, to ask him to withdraw that statement. I repudiate it absolutely.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: The point is
not well taken. The hon. member has the right to put his own construction on the remarks of any other hon. member. There is no attack in a direct way on the hon. member.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: In summarizing, Mr. Speaker, I would say, first of all, that those who desire higher tariffs appear before the
tariff board and ask for an increase in the tariff. The other point is, that a very large quantity of this butter, as far as I have been able to ascertain, is being reworked by the creameries themselves, that is, they are engaged in the business of importing this New Zealand butter. They are putting it up in their own packages. There is nothing to show that it is New Zealand butter. Speaking for the consumers who have to pay the price, it is high enough and it should be subject to the law of supply and demand the same as anything else.


Mr. E. J. YOUNG (Weyburn):: This agitation for an increased duty on butter, and for the abrogation of the Australian treaty, did not originate among the daily farmers. It originated among, and was worked up by, men who make their money out of the dairy farmers.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Deachman.
Mr. YT)UNG (Weyburn):	Last session
there were two items in the estimates to which I had occasion to call the government's attention. One was the grant of a certain amount of money to the Canadian Horticultural Council and the other the grant of a certain amount of money to the National Dairy Council. I drew the attention of the government at that time to the fact that both these organizations were using this money to carry on political propaganda in opposition to the avowed policies of this government. Unfortunately, the government did not see fit to take the warning, and they made the grants.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is the trouble with that government.


Edward James Young: The result of
that has been that the National Dairy Council has been able to continue its propaganda against the Australian treaty, and has enlisted the sympathy of hon. friends opposite, and between them they have stirred up a political agitation against the Australian treaty, and against the importation of New Zealand butter, the result of which has been the introduction of the amendment by the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn), in the hope that by so doing they would, perhaps, be able to increase the duty on butter.


Mr. LADNER:: Not against the Australian treaty. It is the New Zealand treaty.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The government has accepted it.


James Dew Chaplin: The government is going to abolish it.
384	COMMONS
Australian Treaty-Mr. Young (Weyburn)


Edward James Young: I referred to the Australian treaty in so far as it applied to New Zealand.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I for one, as a member of thj opposition, object to the charge that we stand opposed to the Australian treaty.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: We knew it.


Edward James Young: My hon. friend can explain to his own, constituents, perhaps, exactly what his position is on this matter, but in the meantime we are discussing butter. When I was first elected to this house a friend wrote me a letter in which he prophesied that my bitterest disappointments would come from within the ranks of my own party when I found that some of its members would not be willing to stand up and fight to carry into effect the principles for which this party is supposed to stand. I am afraid my iriend has not been a true prophet. The bitterest disappointment I have experienced since coming into this house occurred only the other day during the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, when the leader of the party over in the corner forgot all the policies he had been advocating and all the principles for which his party has stood during the years they have been here and advocated protection for the farmer and asked for the abrogation of this treaty in so far as it applied to New Zealand, after having taken the position for years that protection could be of no benefit to the farmer. I say it was a disappointment, because one wonders if the hon. gentlemen really have any faith in the doctrines they preacih. However, some of us on this side of the house still believe in those principles, and we are not afraid to stand up and fight for them on the floor of this house.
Now let us consider the question of butter. Why does the world produce butter? Butter is produced in order that we may eat it on our bread, but some hon. gentlemen opposite would seem to think that the object in producing butter is to produce butter, and that the consumption of butter is of no consequence whatever. I have said in this house something which I wish to repeat and which should be repeated every time any of these economic questions is under discussion; that is, that all economic questions should be studied from the standpoint of the consumer, for the interests of the consumer are the interests of the human race.


Mr. EDWARDS (Waterloo):: Who is the consumer?


Edward James Young: You are the consumer; I am the consumer; we are all consumers.


Mr. MANION:: And the dairy farmers are consumers as well.


Edward James Young: Yes, and it is as consumers that their interests must be studied. It should be the first duty of a government to see that all the people of this country have butter for their bread; that is the prime consideration. The complaint has been made that last year we imported some
33,000,000 pounds of New Zealand butter, but have you noticed that the consumption of butter in Canada has gone up? To-day in Canada we consume more butter per capita than any other country on the face of the earth. Our per capita consumption is 30 pounds and a fraction per annum. On the other side of the line the per capita consumption is something less than 20 pounds per annum. In Canada we consume 120,000,000 pounds of butter more than a similar number of people consume in the United States; we consume nearly one hundred million pounds more than we ourselves consumed not many years ago.


Mr. McGIBBON:: That is a good home market, isn't it?


Edward James Young: Yes, it is a good home market. My hon. friends are always talking of developing the home market. We have developed the home market to the point where we can hardly supply it, and immediately they begin to complain; they say we should not be supplying the home market now; we should not be eating the butter ourselves but should export it. They want the government to increase the duty on butter in order that the price may increase in this country, and they say the result will be that more butter will be exported.
Let us see how that will work out. Hon. gentlemen opposite complain that they cannot meet the competition of New Zealand butter in Canada. If that is the case how in creation are they going to meet that competition outside of Canada? If they cannot compete with New Zealand when New Zealand ships butter to Canada, how are we to compete with that country in the London market or the market anywhere else? The price of butter in Canada to-day is 2 cents per pound higher than in the United States, where there is a duty of 12 cents per pound.
Hon. gentlemen opposite are asking that the duty on butter be increased to 4 cents per pound: the dairy council also ask that the rate of 4 cents per pound be applied. Are

Australian Treaty-Mr. Young (Weybum)
they going to be satisfied if they get that rate? I think not; in fact, they say so themselves. They say: "After we get the 4 cent rate we will ask for a rate of 7 cents." Does anyone suppose they will be satisfied if they get a 7 cent rate? Of course they will not; then they will come and ask for a 10 cent rate, and so it goes on. That is the worst of this protectionist system; it is never satisfied. The protectionist knows only one word; he can only say "more".


Mr. LOVIE:: Like Oliver Twist?


Edward James Young: Yes, like Oliver Twist.


Leslie Gordon Bell: He was starving
to death.


Edward James Young: Yes, he was
starving to death and now you would raise the price of butter beyond the reach of the people and starve them also. I have a question I should like to ask some of my protectionist friends. What adjustment will you make in the Canadian tariff which will have the effect of increasing the export price of butter? You want to put butter on an export basis; you want to raise the price of it by so doing. What adjustment will you make in the Canadian tariff that will have the effect of increasing the export price of butter?


Mr. IRVINE:: Is that question directed to the Minister of Trade and Commerce?


Edward James Young: It is directed to anyone who can answer it, to any hon. gentleman opposite who thinks these matters can be adjusted by increasing the tariff.
Complaint has been made also that the farmers are selling their cows to the United States; I think someone said that one man sold 500 cows. Surely the farmer is the best judge of whether he should sell or milk his cows; surely when a farmer has raised a cow he is the man to say whether he will milk or sell that cow. Why do farmers sell their cows? They do so because it pays them to sell the cows. If a farmer came into this house and asked any hon. gentleman opposite, or if I asked the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens), or his genial neighbour the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion), or the hon. member for Muskoka (Mr. McGibbon) or any of the hon. gentlemen opposite, "Why don't you milk cows?", what would you say to me? You would say, "It is none of your business." You would say it was a piece of impertinence on my part to ask that question, because you are the best judge as to what pays you best, and that is 2419-25
what I say to you. When you say to the farmer, "You must milk your cows instead of selling them," it is a piece of impertinence; the farmer himself is the best judge as to what he shall or shall not do in his own business.
Some hon. gentleman referred to conditions in Saskatchewan and stated that Saskatchewan is not producing the amount of butter which was formerly produced. Why is that? That condition has resulted from the fact that the prairie farmers will milk cows and make butter when they are driven to it, but while they can make a living growing wheat they will do so. When conditions are such that they cannot make a living growing wheat then, of necessity, they may turn to dairying and make their wives and children help keep them. As soon as conditions recover so that the farmer can make his living by growing wheat, he will not make his wife work, any more than hon. gentlemen opposite want to make their wives work slushing around milking cows.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: May I ask a question? If it is a good thing to sell butter at as low a price as possible in this country would it not be an equally good thing to sell wheat at 50 cents a bushel, for example?


Edward James Young: Who is asking
you to sell butter at a low price?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: You are.


Edward James Young: No, I am not


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: You want us not
only to sell our own butter at a low rate but to use New Zealand butter as well.


Edward James Young: I have demonstrated beyond question that the system you advocate will not increase the price of butter. You have admitted that you cannot compete with New Zealand butter. I am not asking you to sell cheap butter; butter will bring its own price in a free market. Let the economic forces have free play and the price will adjust itself. AVhy should the farmer be expected to churn his cream into butter instead of selling it as table cream? The farmers of my acquaintance who make a practice of shipping cream are disappointed when they get only churning cream prices. They do not want to sell cream for churning purposes because they get better prices for cream sold for table purposes. It seems to be a catastrophe in the eyes of the hon. gentlemen opposite that a farmer should sell his cream in the city for table purposes; they would have him make butter of it. and let



Australian Treaty-Mr. Ladner
it go sour so that he would have skim milk to feed to his pigs. In passing I might refer to the hon. gentleman, who is now back in his seat, who said that the farmer, instead of holding his wheat for a decent price, should feed it to live stock in order to have the use of fertilizer for the land. Here again I say: The farmer himself should be allowed to decide what he will do with his wheat.
I am pleased that the Minister of Finance is willing to negotiate a trade treaty with New Zealand. I am always glad to see negotiations being made for treaties which will break down trade barriers between this and other countries, and I hope in negotiating such treaties that he will not yield to this organized clamour-for that is all it is-which has been raised throughout this country for an increase in the duty on dairy products.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with great interest to the remarks of the speaker who has just taken his seat, breathing forth the old time free trade theory. Although we find him a strong advocate in words, we do not find him to be always so strong in action when it comes to an issue, as he generally discovers some scheme and some way by which he is able to support whatever the government does. One thing which struck me as being of special significance was the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) constantly saying "hear, hear" to the statements of the hon. member for Wey-burn (Mr. Young) bearing particularly upon his free trade utterances. That seems particularly significant in view of the present capitulation of the government to the views of the opposition.


Edward James Young: They have not capitulated.


Mr. MACDONALD (Richmond):: Not yet, but very soon.


Leon Johnson Ladner: The fact is that the Minister of Finance engineered a motion which in effect is acquiescent in the contention which has been made for a long time by this party.


Henry Herbert Stevens: A little different, that is all.


Charles Avery Dunning: I wish the hon. member would explain to the house his position upon the Australian treaty.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I shall be very glad to do that at the proper time and place, but my position has never been inconsistent. This motion is brought about by the difficulties which have resulted from the order in council No. 1757 of the 26th September, 1925, passed by this gov-
emment with reference to New Zealand, difficulties which could have been avoided but which have accumulated as a result of the government's policy, which has proved to be a fiasco. When this treaty was originally proposed, the late Minister of Finance, Mr. Robb, whom we all so much respected and whose departure we all so much regret, sent a representative from the department to Australia to negotiate the treaty. The tentative arrangement made at that time was published in the press during October of 1924, and provided that the duties were to be adjusted upon eggs, cheese and butter, as follows:
Original October Present tariff 1924 scheme
Br. Pref.	Gen.	Br. Pref.	Gen.cts.	cts.	cts.	cts.Eggs, per box. 2	3	1	4Cheese, per lb. 2	3	1	4Butter, per lb. 3	4	2	5
In other words, under the October, 1924, tentative proposal the general tariff was to be raised. Our friends in Australia, and through them, New Zealand, would have received the preferential benefits through a lowering of the British preference and an increase in the general tariff. As soon as that proposal was promulgated to parliament, the free traders throughout the country, like the hon. member for Weyburn said, "We will have nothing to do with anything which has a semblance to-protection to the agricultural interests of this country; we insist upon the government refusing to enter into that arrangement; we insist upon the government making a treaty upon a low tariff and free trade basis." That was the demand which brought the government to its knees. The late Minister of Finance, Mr. Robb, sent Mr. Ross to Australia, and in 1925 a new arrangement was made as follows:
Br. Pref.	General
Eggs, per box	
Free	3 centsCheese, per lb	
Free	3 centsButter, per lb	1 cent 3 cents
Under the October, 1924, scheme the general tariff on butter was raised from four to five cents and the British preference was lowered from three to two cents per pound. Under the new proposal, being the present trade arrangement with New Zealand, the duty upon butter was reduced to one cent per pound and the general tariff was reduced from four to three cents per pound. In other words, the government bowed its knee to the free traders, mainly from the middle west, and the dairying industry of Canada has suffered to such an extent that the industry is in decline from one end of Canada to the other. Now, what was the consequence? The figures have been given to the house and

Australian Treaty-Mr. Ladner
it is not my intention to go over them again. It was a catastrophe to the dairying and other branches of that industry. We in British Columbia are particularly interested in developing our trade relations with New Zealand and Australia. The trade figures for 1929 issued by the Department of Trade and Commerce show that the amount of imports from New Zealand totalled $12,771,239. Of that total the butter imports amounted to $8,685,257, sausage casings amounted to $1,919,900, and wool imports amounted to $1,163,735, those three items accounting for approximately $11,-
700.000.	The advantages of this trade arrangement could have been gained just as well under the October, 1924, scheme, which left a protection in favour of the farming interests of Canada through the general tariff and which gave a slight reduction to New Zealand under the preference. But that is where the government made their mistake; they worked out the policy upon a free trade basis instead of protection for the agricultural industry of Canada. I need not restate the consequences, as they have been pointed out to the government by other speakers.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to note the position of the government at the present time. You will remember the platform of 1919, that chart, as the Prime Minister described it. This chart was going to reduce the tariff on practically everything, and entirely eliminate it on a great number of articles coming into Canada. The Minister of Railways (Mr. Crerar), who I am sorry is not in the house, in a very forceful statement in October, 1921, said this:
Our goal is the ultimate elimination of the principle of protection in our fiscal policy.
To-day he is here no doubt to carry out his principles and his convictions. We find that the Minister of Finance said only a week ago Monday that he still upholds low tariff principles.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is right.


Leon Johnson Ladner: The Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) has long since sounded the death-knell of protection. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) has given utterances to similar statements. My point is that from this free trade area of Canada we find injected into the cabinet the very strong and able group of men who for a lifetime, have been strongly in favour of free trade principles, who have so declared themselves before the people of Canada on numerous occasions, gentlemen who found the same principles embodied in the Liberal platform and who now on the eve of an election are forced to make a change in their policy so 2419-25}
far as the New Zealand trade arrangement is concerned so that they may not be embarassed when they go before the people. But I think the people will recognize that in a government composed as I have indicated, of men of such traditions and convictions in regard to the principles of free trade, it is not to be hoped that the dairy industry of Canada will receive any better treatment as regards negotiations with .New Zealand than they have already received under the present administration.
This is not a new matter to parliament and the people of Canada. Consistently year by year the dairy interests of Canada have placed before the government and the members of the house their protest and the grounds of their protest with respect to the arrangement with New Zealand. I have a memorandum of the National Dairy Council of Canada delivered to the government on the 6th of March, 1928, addressed to "the right hon. the president and other members of the privy council," dealing with the order in council regarding New Zealand. The memo-raniduim requests that the order in council applying to New Zealand should be rescinded at once. It also states that the National Dairy Council is representative of all the daily interests of Canada, of which the milk and cream producers are by far the greater number. Then it gives a number of associations which have _ supported this move, namely:
Dairymen's Association of Nova Scotia.
Nova Scotia Farmers' Association.
New Brunswick Farmers and Dairymen Association.
Manitoba Dairy Association.
Alberta Dairy Association.
Saskatchewan Dairy Association.
British Columbia Dairymen's Association.
Western Canada Live Stock Union.
Canadian Milk Producers' Association of Montreal.
Ontario Milk Producers' Association.
These are all powerful and well organized groups of people interested in the agricultural life of the country. That memorandum, as I say, was presented in March, 1928. The trade figures were available. The government could see the march of events. They had an opportunity of realizing the consequences to the dairy interests of this country, but they made no move. The government knew we were heading towards a great injuiy to the dairy industry of Canada.


Mr. MALCOLM:: Will the hon. member
give his figures to show the lessening of the dairy production in Canada He is assuming that the dairy industry has declined.
388	COMMONS
Australian Treaty-Mr. Ladner


Leon Johnson Ladner: The figures have been
given.


James Malcolm: The only figures given
were those of exports, not of production.


Leon Johnson Ladner: The figures of imports of
New Zealand butter have been given by other speakers showing that the importation has been increasing and the exports are decreasing, I have the figures and if the minister wants them I will give them.


James Malcolm: I do not want my hon. friend to assume something that is not so.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Is it not a fact that imports have increased and exports have decreased?


James Malcolm: That is quite true.


Leon Johnson Ladner: And that dairy cows are
being sold and are less by a great number to-day than they were before?


James Malcolm: That is not the case.


Peter McGibbon: If the minister will
ask the Bureau of Statistics, he will find that the production of milk has materially decreased. I received the figures the other day.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I will say this to the
Minister of Trade and Commerce:	If the
inference from his observations is that the dairy and agriculture industries are in such good shape in this country, why are we receiving all these protests from one end of Canada to the other? Are not these protests sufficiently convincing, combined with the minister's own trade returns compiled in the report of 1929? It is surely unnecessary to go into the figures to show that the dairy industry of this country has been tremendously injured by these large imports from New Zealand, because of the favourable conditions under which dairy products can be produced there.


Mr. BROWN:: Will the hon. member explain the higher prices we are getting now for dairy products?


Leon Johnson Ladner: I have mot the figures with respect to that.


Peter McGibbon: It is admitted that
butter would be eight or ten cents , more a pound than it is were it not for the importation of dairy butter from New Zealand.


Edward James Young: Is an increase
of from one to four cents going to increase the price eight cents?


Leon Johnson Ladner: Who is contending that?
Price is determined by demand and supply.


Edward James Young: The hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I am not arguing his case. My hon. friend from Weyburn is such an ardent free trader he would faint if anybody suggested he would :be in favour of putting into effect the slightest protective measure. Still, I have no doubt that in some portions of his constituency he has a nice way of explaining to his constituents that he is not really in favour of destroying the industry.


Edward James Young: The hon. member is very badly mistaken.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I should like to conclude my remarks as speedily as possible.


Mr. GARDINER:: Is the hon. member in
favour of the Australian treaty?


Leon Johnson Ladner: That has nothing to do
with the resolution under consideration, but I can say quite positively that I am in favour of the Australian treaty.


Robert Gardiner: Is that not the basis
of the order in council?


Leon Johnson Ladner: Not entirely. With respect to the Australian treaty as well as the New Zealand treaty-


Charles Avery Dunning: There is no New Zealand treaty.


Leon Johnson Ladner: The order in council, I
should say; this makes effective the provisions of the Australian treaty with respect to New Zealand. When the matter originally came before parliament in 1924, in the form in which it was put, raising the general tariff, and in that way giving preference to Australia and New Zealand, it was quite apparent that no injury could be done to the industries of this country and that trade relationships between these countries would be improved. What we object to, and what I pointed out at the time, is that by reducing the tariff and putting it on a low tariff and free trade basis the government was bound to injure a number of industries in this country. That is exactly what has occurred. To-day the best evidence of it is in the capitulation of the government to the viewpoint which this side has advocated on this very motion.


Mr. NEILL:: Did the hon. gentleman not
vote for the treaty as it was passed, and which contained section five extending the provisions to New Zealand?


Leon Johnson Ladner: I did.


Mr. VENIOT:: And claimed credit for
forcing the government to pass it?

Australian Treaty-Mr. Ladner
3S9


Leon Johnson Ladner: I certainly supported it
because, as regards British Columbia, when the good and the bad of the treaty are taken together, we have an advantage with our exports of canned salmon, paper and pulp, fish and articles of that kind-


James Malcolm: Lumber.


Leon Johnson Ladner: If the minister had been on the job, he would have known that we have lumber-


James Malcolm: Our lumber exports to Australia have doubled this year.


Leon Johnson Ladner: The minister's figures are correct except for the fact that he has got them reversed. I read from his own official report under the heading of "Wood, unmanufactured (including lumber)" that our exports to Australia in 1928 amounted to $1,405,712, and in 1929 to $826,856.


James Malcolm: That is ridiculous.


Leon Johnson Ladner: These are figures from
your own department.


James Malcolm: My hon. friend must be reading the wrong statement.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I am quoting from an official report of the Department of Trade and Commerce, published under the authority of the Hon. James Malcolm, Minister of Trade and Commerce.


James Malcolm: Then my hon. friend cannot be right in his interpretation of the figures.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I am not going to have a minister of the crown tell me, when I read from his own document, that the figures are not correct.


James Malcolm: What page are you
quoting from?


Leon Johnson Ladner: From page 124. It says under the heading of "Wood, unmanufactured (including lumber)" that we exported in 1928, $1,405,712, and in 1929, $826,856. Now that includes lumber. That is what we in British Columbia want. We hope that the government will succeed. We are with you in that matter and will give you all the help we can.
So far as British Columbia is concerned, Mr. Speaker, we are strongly in favour of improved trade relations with New Zealand and any other country, particularly our sister dominions. We believe that increased trade is a good thing. We have things that we can send to New Zealand; they have goods that they can send to us. I for my part have always contended, as I think the members from British Columbia and the members of this party have contended, that it is possible to enter into trade arrangements with other countries without smashing the industries that are indigenous to Canada. That can be done, and the criticism that we have to make of the government is that they yielded to a theory and fantasy of free trade ideas and embodied them into a practical trade agreement to the quite unnecessary injury of the dairy interests of this country. That is the mistake which they made. They now see the error of their ways, and they are willing to amend the treaty. They come down to the house, and in their anxiety to adjust the treaty, they move an amendment to the motion that we have submitted. We say that it is a good thing that they do this. Coming from British Columbia, I would urge the government, in negotiating another treaty, which the government have announced as their policy, that they take into consideration the lumber and saw mill interests of British Columbia, and endeavour to make an agreement that will enable us to send our goods down there to greater advantage than we can at the present time.


John Livingstone Brown: What does the hon. member propose to accept from New Zealand?


Leon Johnson Ladner: Whatever they can send us provided it is not going to destroy an industry that is indigenous to this country. We believe in protecting the agricultural and manufacturing industries of this country, to provide work for our own people and develop business in Canada. The hon. gentlemen on the other side do not believe in that, and that is the difference between us.


Mr. HEPBURN:: Will the hon. gentleman state in the house if he is opposed to the present Australian treaty?


Leon Johnson Ladner: I spoke on that a moment ago.


Mitchell Frederick Hepburn: Answer the question,


Leon Johnson Ladner: I have already answered it. The hon. gentleman was so much interested in the subject that he was not in the house. We desire to see a treaty made that will bring benefits both to New Zealand and to Canada. It is significant that although we have brought this grievance to the attention of the government annually ever since 1925, it is only now, when an election appears on the horizon, that the government indicate a willingness to take a course consistent with what the agricultural industry in this country has been demanding for many years.
Australian Treaty-Mr. Ladner


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend surely
will not deny that in previous years the criticism from the other side of the house has always been of the Australian treaty.


Leon Johnson Ladner: The Minister of Finance has forgotten his facts and his Hansard. The facts are not that way.


Charles Avery Dunning: Does my hon. friend say that his party are in favour of the Australian treaty?


Leon Johnson Ladner: We are not discussing the Australian treaty; we are discussing the New Zealand trade arrangement. The hon. minister is constantly trying to escape from the issue that is actually before the house. Although he does not always speak in the most favourable terms of lawyers, he exhibits real legal acumen when he comes to analyse a motion and debate its merits.


Mr. DUPUIS:: Would the hon. gentleman explain why he is in favour of the Australian treaty and against the Australian treaty as applied to New Zealand?


Leon Johnson Ladner: If the hon. gentleman had been listening to my remarks for the last half hour he would have grasped my answer.


Vincent Dupuis: The New Zealand treaty is simply the Australian treaty applied to New Zealand.


Mitchell Frederick Hepburn: Get some help.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I have already answered
the question.


Vincent Dupuis: I do not see how my friend can be against the New Zealand treaty, and then say that he is in favour of the Australian treaty, because the New Zealand treaty is simply the Australian treaty applied to New Zealand.


Henry Herbert Stevens: There is a six cent dumping duty against Australia, but not against New Zealand butter.


Vincent Dupuis: Let my hon. friend from South Vancouver (Mr. Ladner) answer the question himself.


Henry Herbert Stevens: You are not cross-examining him.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I have already covered that question in my main remarks. I sincerely hope that the government will earnestly proceed with the steps which they indicate in the resolution, but I have my doubts. The New Zealand trade agreement should have been adjusted long before this. There has been a quite unnecessary delay on the part of the government. As I have already said, they see

an election in the offing, and now they are willing to be considerate and diplomatic, but there is nothing definite in their declaration of policy, nothing beyond a pious wish to proceed to negotiate. I hope that these negotiations will mature. Nobody is more anxious than I am to see the trade of Canada develop with New Zealand and every other part of the empire, and here is an opportunity for the government to consummate an arrangement which will be of distinct advantage both to New Zealand and Canada, if due regard is paid to the manufacturing and agricultural interests of this country.


Mr. W. E. TUMMON (South Hastings):: The hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), in his remarks on this subject, stated that those who had spoken from this side of the house against the importation of New Zealand butter into Canada at a duty of one cent a pound had obtained an array of arguments from the brief of the National Dairy Council before the tariff board. Let me say at the very beginning that while I received a copy of that evidence I have only glanced through it, but from what I read in the report I think that if the hon. Minister of Finance had referred to the speeches in Hansard delivered from this side of the house from year to year since 1925, he would have read practically the same arguments as those advanced in the dairy council brief.


Charles Avery Dunning: I do not want to interrupt my hon. friendi's remarks, but I am sure he would be the first to admit that the speeches to which he refers were in criticism of the Australian treaty.


William Ernest Tummon: The criticisms from this
side of the house were criticisms against the importation of butter into Canada at one cent per pound duty. Last year when the importation, of that butter at one cent per pound duty was before this house, the hon. minister who was speaking for the government said:
Just so long as the dairy farmer of Canada was able to sell his milk at from $2.10 to $2.40 per hundred pounds, he was content to dispose of his product at that price and buy his butter wherever he could obtain it.
He was referring, of course, to the price of milk that is received by those who are able to ship their milk to the large cities, such as Montreal and Toronto. I believe that the price that is being obtained this year for milk is even higher than that received last year. But last year when speaking on this question I endeavoured to show that it was not the dairy farmer whose farm was so geographically situated that he could take advantage of the high price which is obtained

Australian Treaty-Mr. Tummon
in the cities with which the importation of butter into Canada at one cent per pound duty came into competition. The farmer whose farm is so geographically situated that he is within a zone, whence the farmers send their milk into the large cities, can obtain the high price that is being offered there. But there are many farmers in the Dominion whose farms are so geographically situated that they cannot take advantage of the high prices for milk offered in the cities. These farmers are the ones who must depend upon the production of cheese and butter as an outlet for their product, and to-day they are receiving perhaps from SI.25 to $1.50 per hundred pounds for their milk.
Going back to the Statistics of Dairy Factories for 1928, a blue book distributed by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, at page 4 I find the following:
Dairying owes its modern development and expansion to the introduction of the factory system for the making of cheese and butter.
I think that is correct. I can, recall some thirty-five years ago or more the dairy industry in the district from which I come, the Belleville district, one of the leading dairy districts of the Dominion, whose dairy products are known throughout the old country. If I were asked to-day to say what factor of all others has helped to build up that industry, I would answer that it was the cheese and butter factories.
Turning now to the Bulletin of Agricultural Statistics for December, 1929, at 'page 430 I find that the number of cows in the Dominion that were actually milked during 1928 was 3,226,424-mark you, not the number of dairy cattle in the Dominion, but the number of dairy cows that were actually milked in 1928, according to the figures given by the Bureau of Statistics. That represents a decrease of over 69,020 cows compared with 1927. Turning again to the Statistics of Dairy Factories for 1928, at page 6 I find that the number of cows whose milk was sent to the factories-that is, to creameries and cheese factories, to combined butter and cheese factories and to condensed milk factories-was 2,197,273. That represents a decrease of over
40,000	cows compared with the previous year. Thus of the 3,226,424 cows milked in 1928, the milk of 2,197,273 went to the factories- to the cheese factories, the butter factories, the combined cheese and butter factories and the condensed milk factories. In other words, the product of two-thirds of the total number of cows that were milked in the Dominion in 1928, according to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, went to the factories, and the
product of only one-third of the total number of cows went to other places, that is, it was used as whole milk or converted into home-made butter and cheese.
Therefore when the argument is advanced that the dairy farmer is content to take from $2.10 to $2.40 per hundred pounds for his milk and to get his butter elsewhere, the members of the government who present that argument are simply saying to over two-thirds of the dairy farmers of this Dominion: You can dispose of your product just how you like; we Are not interested in you at all. The figures that I have quoted respecting our dairy factories should, I think, be considered as the most reliable that are obtainable; for on page 433 of the monthly bulletin the following statement appears:
It is desirable to emphasize that the more certain items are those relating to the production of creamery butter, factory cheese and miscellaneous factory products, the figures for which represent actual returns from all the dairy factories throughout Canada.
The figures of the quantity of milk that goes into home-made butter and cheese and is consumed fresh and otherwise are merely estimated, as I understand it, being based upon an assumed milk production and not upon actual returns; for the statement proceeds:
For home-made produce and for whole milk, the figures given are estimates based upon an assumed milk production.
Thus for those branches for which annual returns are received, such as dairy factories, the result is a decrease of 47,170,053 pounds of milk compared to 1927, and a decrease of 417,666376 pounds of milk compared to 1926. The total number of patrons is less than the number for 1927 by 24,488. There was a decrease in the number of cows whose milk went to factories of 69,020, and a decrease in the total number of factories by 66.
As I have intimated, Mr. Speaker, I live in a dairy district, a district where almost every farmer is a dairy farmer, and to prove that the dairy industry is in anything but a healthy condition to-day all I ask you to do is to go through that district and talk to the farmers. Five or six years ago, farm after farm in that district could boast of large herds of dairy cattle, but to-day many of those herds have been entirely done away with. Many of the farmers at the present time are reducing the size of their herds. Frankly, they are discouraged. I can set you down almost any place in that district, and within a radius of a few miles you will find dozens of farms for sale, with no buyers. And that is the condition of the dairying industry in Canada to-

Divorce Court-Mr. Woodsworth
day, practically-an industry that is discouraged, an industry, if I may use the term, that to a certain extent, is being destroyed by the action of this government in allowing the importation of butter into Canada at one cent per pound duty.
At six o'clock the house took recess. After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 22, to incorporate Executor Trust Company.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 25, respecting the Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company and to subdivide the unissued capital stock.-Mr. Kaiser (for Mr. Geary).

[Stage Direction]
Mr. P. F. CASGRAIN (Charlevoix-Sague-nay) moved the second reading of bill No. 24, respecting a certain patent of George Yates.
Henry Herbert Stevens: Explain.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: This bill is similar to
others which have appeared before this house in previous years. It asks for an extension of time for the applicant to revive a patent, and gives authority to the commisisoner to receive, grant or dismiss the application after he has been satisfied that the applicant has given sufficient and valid reasons. The bill should be referred to the committee on private bills where the commissioner of patents, the Secretary of State if need be, and other officials of the department, will be able to show what, if anything, they have against it.
Motion agreed to and bill read the second time.



MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE ACT

[Stage Direction]
On the order:
Second reading of Bill No. 7, an act to amend the Marriage and Divorce Act.-Mr. Bourassa.
Mr. HENRI BOURASSA (Labelle) (Translation) :: Mr. Speaker, I wish, in this respect,
to give a few words of explanation. This bill is, so to speak, subordinate to the resolution of which I gave notice and which bears the number 27 on the orders of the day. If I do not now move the second reading of this bill,

the reason is not that I do not wish the house to look into it but because I want to avoid all overlapping in the discussion. I think that the second reading will be more appropriate after the house has considered resolution No. 27.


Hewitt Bostock: Stands.



DIVORCE COURT FOR ONTARIO

[Stage Direction]
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre) moved the second reading of Bill No. 20, to provide in the province of Ontario for the dissolution and the annulment of marriage.
He said: This is the same bill as was introduced last year. My position on this question of divorce is precisely as stated on various occasions last year, and so I do not think it will be necessary for me to say a great deal to-night. I would recall to the attention of the members the number of bills presented last year; they became somewhat of a nuisance to the house and especially so when some of us urged that they be taken up with the same care as other bills. At that time the Prime Minister informed the house that if we would allow the passage of these bills certain action would be taken looking to the relieving of the house of the difficulties under which we found ourselves. At page 1795 of Hansard of 1929, the Prime Minister said:
It might be possible for the remainder of the present session to allow bills to pass second reading and to go to the committee as has been the ease in the past, and for hon. members who wish to raise objections to particular bills, to raise those objections in the committee, it being understood that between now and next session the members of the government and other hon. members of the house will do what they can towards finding some means of freeing parliament from the necessity of continuing to deal with divorce bills along the lines which we have followed thus far.
We ought to have from the Prime Minister a very distinct statement as to what the government has done in this regard anid as to whether or not the government is proposing legislation along these lines. If such legislation is forthcoming, I shall be very happy to withdraw my bill in favour of some better scheme, but since we have had no intimation as to action by the government I felt that the only thing I could do was to reintroduce this bill.
Let me point out that this bill concerns the province of Ontario alone; it does not provide for any court outside of that province. As most of the members of the house know, for some years the majority of the provinces have had divorce courts. On account of the feeling which prevails very generally in the

Divorce Court-Mr. Woodsworth
province of Quebec, I felt that it might not be wise to introduce a bill which would give authority for the establishment of a court in that province, therefore my bill is limited to the province of Ontario. There will be still enough work for the Senate to do, as I understand that out of about three hundred bills to be brought before that committee this year, there are some forty originating in the province of Quebec.
Let me point out further that the grounds for the granting of divorce are not being enlarged. It has been thought that by the establishment of divorce courts in Ontario we would be facilitating the granting of divorces, but I am inclined to think that the establishment of proper courts would tend to limit the number of divorces. Of course the number of divorces tends to increase not only in this country but in other countries, so that it is quite possible there may be some increase, but such increase would not be because of the establishment of the court. The stricter procedure which would be found in properly organized courts would tend to limit the number of divorces and therefore I cannot see that anyone can consistently urge that we should reject this bill on the ground that it would make divorces easier to obtain.
Perhaps the most serious objection to the present procedure is the fact that there is no provision made for the wife who may be divorced or for the children involved. We simply declare that the people are separated and should the wife desire to obtain any financial relief she is forced to go to the provincial courts. Members will recall that there were a great many cases last year in which children were involved, and our present procedure makes no provision for the custody or maintenance of those children.	_
I propose to enumerate, without developing them, the objections which I think we all realized last year must be made to our present procedure. I am sure that many members had these evils brought to their attention in a way that had not previously been done. Although I introduced the bill last year, I myself did not realize the seriousness of the evils until we reached the actual discussion of the various divorce bills.
These bills originate in the Senate and the Senate committee acts more or less as a court. But that Senate committee is not a proper court. I understand it is the practice to have a lawyer act as chairman, but a number of the members of the committee are not lawyers and have had no training whatever in the application of the rules of evidence and know nothing of court procedure. They are not
bound in any way by precedent; there is no appeal; there is no king's proctor such as exists in some of the provincial courts to safeguard the rights of the absent party. Once the decree is pronounced there is no delay and the decree is irrevocable. In the provincial courts a certain time elapses and at times reconciliations are effected.
There is a great deal of publicity in connection with the work of the Senate committee. As we all know, some hundreds of copies of evidence printed in complete detail are freely circulated among the members of both houses and many copies find their way into other hands. I do not think it is at all desirable in the interests of public morality, and certainly it is not in the interests of the parties concerned, that there should be such wide publicity as there is under the present arrang-ment. We learned last year of how extensive had become the practice of procuring evidence by means of private detectives, and of how in some cases attempts had been made to bring about crime in order to secure sufficient evidence to warrant a divorce being granted. There is also a great deal of unnecessary expense in this present procedure. Wealthy people can afford to come to Ottawa and bring their witnesses if they wish to do so, but the poorer people find it next to impossible to incur such heavy expenditure. Under the prevailing practice the services of a lawyer must be engaged at Ottawa as well as in the home town, and that, together with the expense of bringing witnesses to Ottawa, makes parliamentary divorce a very expensive procedure. Tlie House of Commons is equally responsible with the Senate in the granting of divorces, but ordinarily the procedure in the house is, as we all know, entirely perfunctory. It was stated last year that this house was a sort of court of revision, but I do not think we have ever really acted as a court of revision. We have never taken ourselves seriously. Last year we did consider several cases and it was rather strange that the two cases which received careful consideration were both thrown out by the house. What about the hundreds of others that did not rome under this serious consideration? I do not of course suggest, that all the others would also have been thrown out, but it is rather strange that this was the fate of the two that received considerable attention last year.
Further than that, while it is said that we are a court, I pointed out last year that one-third of the jurors are, on their own confession, prejudiced. I think that is generally accepted as being quite a proper statement, because something like one-third of the mem-
[Stage Direction]
Divorce Court-Mr. Woodsworth
berg have strict religious principles regarding divorce. According to their principles, they believe they should vote against every case. How can they consider in any proper and disinterested way a case of divorce that comes before the house? They would be debarred in any properly constituted jury.
Last year many members had not given very much attention to the question and some rather wild statements were made on the floor of the house. For example, it was stated that the Anglican church was opposed to the establishment of a divorce court for Ontario. As a matter of fact the synod of the Anglican diocese in Toronto at its annual meeting in May last adopted by a vote of eighty-two to twelve the following resolution:
This council being ever anxious to uphold the sancity of marriage and deploring the increase in divorce, is of the opinion, after careful examination, that there being no extension of the existing ground for divorce, the establishment of a divorce court for Ontario (in lieu of the present divorce proceedings before parliament) dealing with the subject according to the recognized procedure of the courts, and including the question of the custody of the children and provisional alimony for a deserving wife (and mother), would make for the better administration of the existing law of divorce.
So that the statement made last year is not in accordance with the facts.
Further, the following resolution was carried unanimously at the forty-fourth annual meeting of the County of York Law Association held at the city of Toronto on the sixth day of January, 1930.
That this association, having 648 members of the legal profession practising in the city of Toronto and the county of York, is strongly in favour of the establishment in Ontario of divorce courts, and considers that every effort should be made on behalf of the association to urge that the necessary legislation should be passed by the Dominion government so that such courts may be created at the earliest opportunity.
I should like also to quote from a paragraph from the Montreal Gazette of February 18, 1929, when this matter was up for discussion. The Gazette concluded its article by saying:
A separate divorce court, therefore, would not necessarily open the door to more divorces.
Then follows this statement:
Lord Brougham, a former Lord Chancellor of England, who carried out many law reforms in the mother country, declared that it was certain that "no inquiry can be more proper to a court of law, or less adapted to a chamber of parliament, than that of the facts which entitle parties to a divorce." If the merits of the Ontario claim were less valid than actually they are, the burden that increased, and increasing applications for divorce places 
upon the parliamentary divorce committee, has become such that the interests of parliament and the country demand early action which will relieve parliament of these purely judicial functions.
I think it is manifest to us all that it is not the principle of divorce that is now under consideration. As the hon. member for La-belle (Mr. Bourassa) said very clearly two years ago, rightly or wrongly'-I do not think he said rightly-
Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: No.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: -the principle of divorce was conceded at the time of confederation. It may be the opinion of some that it should not have been conceded, but it was, and that brings divorce directly under federal jurisdiction.


Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: The hon. member is not quoting me when he uses the verb "conceded", because I do not think anybody asked for it. It was introduced, I may say, surreptitiously.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Let me quote the
exact words used by the hon. member-two years ago. Referring to the bill which had then been introduced by the hon. member for Stormont (Mr. Smith), he said:
The bill which has been referred to this evening, does not mean the adoption by this parliament of the principle of divorce. Unfortunately that principle was adopted at confederation, and I think it is one of the great mistakes that was then made. So it is not a question of adopting or putting aside the principle of divorce. The question is, in what manner shall the power to grant divorce be exercised with the least evil to society and with the preservation of the family spirit and the maintenance of the social fabric. I do not think the manner in which divorces are granted by this parliament makes for a lesser number of divorces, or for the granting of them with the greatest impartiality, or with the greatest care for the welfare of families and society generally, and I believe everybody is convinced that it is largely haphazard whether a divorce is granted or refused by parliament under the present procedure.
I think after the many discussions of last year it is unnecessary to state the case at greater length. I feel quite confident that there are many members who would like to relieve parliament of this responsibility which, under the existing procedure, we are not discharging in a proper manner and which has led to a condition of affairs that has become little less than a public scandal.


Mr. A. N. SMITH (Stormont):: Mr. Speaker, as the sponsor of the bill introduced in 1928 dealing with this particular subject, again brought in last year and now introduced

Divorce Court-Mr. Smith (Stormont)
by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth), I would like to make clear my views on this question, which have been greatly twisted by many people. The bill, as you know, came in as a Senate bill, and I undertook to sponsor it, not in the form in which it came from the Senate, but rather with the understanding that when it came up in committee, certain amendments would be offered. It was not my intention at that time, nor has it been my intention at any time, to make divorce easier. I would like to state most emphatically that I am absolutely opposed to the principle of divorce, but divorce being something that we have with us and that was incorporated as part of our constitution, I felt there might be justification for bringing in some measure that would give those who clamour for a divorce court an opportunity of investigating it. Had the bill gone to second reading and into committee, my intention was to propose to amend it as I shall explain. I have not seen the bill brought down this session, but I understand that it is practically word for word the bill that I was sponsoring two years ago, the preamble of which read:
An act to provide in the province of Ontario for the dissolution and the annulment of marriage.
His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the (Senate and the House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:
My proposed amendment would have made the preamble read:
An act respecting the dissolution and the annulment of marriage in the province of Ontario.
His Majesty,-
And so forth. The first clause of the bill as brought down last year read:
The law of England as to the dissolution of marriage and as to the annulment of marriage, as that law existed on the fifteenth day of July, 1870, in so far as it can be made to apply in the province of Ontario, and in so far as it has not been repealed, as to the province, by any act of the parliament of the United Kingdom or by any act of the parliament of Canada or by this act, and as altered, varied, modified or affected, as to the province, by any such act, shall be the law of the province as to dissolution of marriage and as to annulment of marriage.
I proposed to amend that clause, so that its closing words would read:
-shall be in force in the province of Ontario.
I did not propose to amend in any way clause 2 of the bill brought down last year, but I proposed to add as clause 3-and this is the main amendment that I would have proposed-the following:
3. This act shall come into force on a day to be fixed by proclamation of the governor in council. Provided such proclamation shall be issued only upon the receipt by the Secretary of State of Canada of a duly certified copy of an order in council of the lieutenant governor in council of Ontario agreeing to the issue of said proclamation.
The original clause 3 would then have become clause 4. With those amendments, whatever may be said for or against the principle of having divorce courts, the bill would have left the matter entirely to the consideration of the government of the province of Ontario, so that it could not possibly be said that this parliament was insisting upon Ontario having a divorce court against its will. We would merely be providing the machinery whereby the province of Ontario could have a divorce court at any time that the government of that province decided to ask for it. That was as far as I would have gone in sponsoring the bill.


Peter McGibbon: What would the hon.
gentleman do in case Ontario did not ask for a divorce court?


Arnold Neilson Smith: Then things
would remain as they are, and we could consider whether any further action should be taken.
The question of granting divorce, and the method of granting it, is a very large one. At present we have no other machinery than is provided in this parliament for granting divorce in Ontario and Quebec. The fact remains that every year divorce in the province of Ontario is stetadily increasing. From the province of Quebec, fortunately, very few divorce cases are brought to this parliament, and in this bill iwe are not concerned in any way with the divorce problem in that province. I have some figures here which I gathered in 1928. In the session of that year, 296 notices of intention to apply to parliament for bills of divorce were given in The Canada Gazette. Of the foregoing, 268 petitions were actually presented in the
Senate and dealt with by the committee on divorce, as follows:
Unopposed eases heard and recommended.. 233 Opposed cases heard and recommended.. 7 Unopposed cases heard and rejected		3
Opposed cases heard and rejected	 6
Cases not dealt with owing to delays not having expired, etc	 [DOT]	19
Total	  ..268
Of the petitions recommended, 94 were by husbands and 146 by wives, the grounds being as follows:
Adultery	237
Other grounds	 3
396	COMMONS
Divorce Court-Mr. Smith (Stormont)
Of the applications recommended, 215 were from residents of the province of Ontario, and 25 from the province of Quebec.
A comparison of the number of divorces and annulments of marriage granted by the parliament of Canada in the last ten years follows:
1919..
1920..
1921.. 1922. .
1923..
1924..
1925..
1926.. 1926-27
1928..
100
102
130
124
240
From those figures you will see, Mr. Speaker, that divorce is increasing rapidly in the province of Ontario, and it was for that reason that I was very glad to bring a bill before parliament, subject to such proposed amendments as I have outlined, that would allow Ontario to give consideration to the matter of establishing a divorce court in the province and considering whether such a court would have the effect of lessening or increasing divorce. If it would have the effect of increasing divorce and making it easier, then certainly the premier of the province and his cabinet would not think of asking for a divorce court, but if after giving serious consideration to the matter they were of the opinion that it would lessen divorce, I am quite sure that they would pass an order in council agreeing to the issue of the proclamation bringing the act into force. That was my idea in sponsoring the bill.
If the sponsor of the bill brought down this year will signify his willingness to consider amendments of that character if the bill goes into committee, I would be very happy to vote in favour of the second reading of his bill; not, I want to make clear, in any way to make divorce easier, but that Ontario would then have the opportunity of considering whether or not the establishment of a divorce court in the province would lessen the large number of divorces. I would be quite content to abide by the decision of Premier Ferguson and his cabinet as to whether such a court would have the effect desired. I do not think anybody in this house, certainly none of my friends on this side of the house that I have been in touch with, is anxious to do anything to make divorce easier. In fact my conversation has led me to conclude that everyone looks upon divorce as an evil; something that we have, but something that we would like to get along without. I want to make it very clear that in sponsoring the bill of two years ago I did so only with the under-fMr. A. N. Smith.]
standing that I would propose the amendments which I have outlined to-night, and I would again point out to the sponsor of the bill this year that if he will give me the assurance that he will accept such amendments to his bill, I shall be pleased to vote in favour of the second reading of it.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Does the hon. gentleman, as a resident of Ontario know whether Premier Ferguson has expressed himself favourably to the idea of a divorce court for Ontario?


Arnold Neilson Smith: I do not know, and that is why I propose these amendments, because I do not think it would be right to give Ontario something they did not want and had not asked for; but such legislation would allow this parliament to grant Ontario a divorce court if and when the Ontario government asked for it. It would not make Ontario take it whether it wanted to or not,


Mr.  J. E. LETELLIER@Compton) (Translation: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre in discussing Bill No. 20 has given us a further proof of his eloquence. Indeed, he insisted that this measure especially applied to the province of Ontario. It is of little consequence to him whether the bill is adopted or not, providing that the government brings down some kind of a measure which will give better results. I should like to know whether the hon. member is referring simply to a resolution which most of the members have received from the Anglican clergy of the province of Ontario.
I have here a copy of this resolution and if you will allow me, sir, I shall read it to the house:
Circular letter to all members of parliament Toronto, February 21st, 1930.
Re: Divorce Court for Ontario:
The Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto at its Annual Meeting last May declared itself emphatically in favour of the proposed court, the following unanimous recommendation of their Council for Social Service being adopted by Synod (clergy and laity) by a vote of 82 to 12.
"This Council being ever anxious to uphold the sanctify of marriage and deploring the increase in divorce, is of the opinion, after careful examination, that there being no extension of the existing_ ground for divorce, the establishment of a divorce court for Ontario (in lieu of the present divorce proceedings before parliament) dealing with the subject according to the recognized procedure of the courts, and including the question of the custody of the children and provisional alimony for a. deserving Wife (and Mother), would make for the better administration of the existing law of divorce."

Divorce Court-Mr. Letellier de St. Just
Synod Journal, 1929,
Pages 86 and 146.
The Premier of Ontario, having expressed the opinion of his government that in this matter Ontario should be represented by the members of the Ontario constituencies in the House of Commons, the Toronto Anglican Diocesan Council for Social Service beg to forward the above facts for your information and to express the hope that you will see your way clear to support the Bill to establish the court if and when it is introduced in the House of Commons at the ensuing session. We would draw your attention to the following considerations:
(a)	This is not a matter of creating divorce where it did not exist before, but merely of improving the method or machinery of administrating the present law of divorce.
(b)	Nearly all the other provinces have such a court.
(c)	This is for Ontario alone in which we and the Ontario members are primarily interested and we beg to express the hope that a sufficient number of members from Ontario will be present to vote on the division (if any), to insure its carrying in the event of its encountering the same opposition as it did last year.
Communications in regard to this circular letter may be made to the undersigned.
B. Merson,
Secretary.
Toronto Anglican Diocesan Council for Social Service,
135 Adelaide St. East,
Tonronto 2.
I quite agree, sir, that this resolution has its importance; however, unless this is followed up by a petition showing that the majority of the people of Ontario are anxious to establish a divorce court, this house should not adopt the bill of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. I would like to point out the example of the province of Quebec, although up to the present day, I must admire the attitude of the people of these two most beautiful provinces of our dear Canada-I mean the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, Let me now quote an article from a well known newspaper in the province of Quebec, "L'Action Catholique":
Quebec will not have these courts
Monday, November, 26, 1928.
During a recent convention of the Ontario conservatives, held in Toronto, a very important question was debated, divorce.
The Gazette, which publishes a full account of this meeting, states that the conservatives of Ontario declared themselves in favour of establishing a uniform code for the proposed provincial courts of divorce.
The resolution with reference to the subject matter requests that should a measure be introduced in parliament, at Ottawa, to establish divorce courts in the Canadian provinces not having, at present, such courts, jurisdiction of these courts be so restricted as to assure uniformity in the divorce laws of Canada.
The addresses delivered by a number of lady-delegates may be thus summed up: All Canadians, in every province of Canada, must have the same facilities to divorce. This privilege must no more be restricted to the wealthy class, and on this score, the cost of the proceedings must be lowered. _
The sitting during which this resolution was adopted, the Gazette adds, was almost entirely assigned to the lady delegates.
If such is the case, the first conclusion which we must draw, is that the introduction of women in active politics will not always bear the moral benefits which might be expected from it. It was unnecessary that women should take part in this movement in order to fall into the error of encouraging divorce, and thereby more radically compromising the future of the Canadian family.
We are of the opinion that, at the Toronto meeting, the women did not prove to our satisfaction that they will become a safeguard by throwing themselves into the political turmoil. Their normal part is not one of disrupting the family but rather of constituting themselves its bulwark and guardian. The easier divorce becomes, the more it will spread. We find an example among our neighbours to the south, who each year outdo themselves by breaking their past records. We even have such an example in Canada, where the causes of divorce are increasing already in a most alarming way.
Let us hope that our province will not inaugurate these divorce courts, even if such abstention should constitute a break m the uniformity desired.	.	.
We have no desire for this uniformity in decadency, for we wish to live and progress. Our people have overcome all obstacles because they remained faithful to the Ten Commandments and to the laws governing the Church.
If other elements of Canada's population want to die out, we shall not help them, but can we prevent them? They will certainly succeed by rushing towards divorce. Our duty is to ward off this death menace.
Our Catholic faith, still a living emblem, is without gainsay our best safeguard against this plague known as divorce; recalling, moreover, the old proverb which says that opportunity makes the thief, let us not allow in our home that opportunity which a divorce court would
afford.	.
We have no advice to give to our friends, belonging to the other provinces and creeds; however, we can sincerely tell them that, if to their practice of restricting the size of the family they add the plague of divorce, it will be in vain for them to struggle so much to keep up their preponderance. They certainly will be vanquished, because they are committing suicide.
The future belongs to those who make provision, and alone the prolific really endeavour
to do so.	_
Thomas Poulin.
Mr. Speaker, I have had personal knowledge of the griefs caused by divorce, not only in our own province, but also in our neighbouring province. I had the opportunity of visiting various parishes in the United States where the number of divorces was large, and where much laxity existed. I therefore believe
398	COMMONS
Divorce Court-Mr. Letellier de St. Just
that Quebec and the other provinces have reason to oppose the establishment of such a court. I question whether one would be better protected by these courts in Ontario. I have my doubts. What court in Canada is higher than that of parliament?
Thanks to the experience I have had since I have been in this hotuse, I have come to the conclusion that the Senate has performed its duty in this regard and that the committee on private bills has done all in its power to give justice to whom it belongs. Last year, I personally observed what was being done in the committee on private bills. The committee considered the case of a Montreal citizen; I think that the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre alluded to it. If this case was withdrawn, the reason was that the committee found fault with one of the parties. The husband was free to again introduce a bill this year; however, I am not aware of his having yet taken such a step.
I could quote from numerous articles which have appeared in the most important newspapers of this country, they all highly protest against the establishment of a divorce court.
I would like to read a few extracts from an article which appeared in one of the principal newspapers of the province of Quebec, they are as follows:
Wedlock-this is always the foundation stone from which we start-is not a human institution. It takes root in the deepest seated instincts of our nature and thus goes back to the Creator himself. Ante-dating the State, in no way does it depend on it as to the essential principles which govern it. If, to attain the aim God has assigned to wedlock, it must be indissoluble, man cannot alter it. Should he trangress the Divine Will, he cannot do so without upsetting the entire family structure.


Hewitt Bostock: The hours for private
bills being exhausted, the house will now revert to the amendment of Mr. Sena to the motion for committee of supply and the subamendment thereto of Mr. Casgrain.



SUPPLY-AUSTRMJLAN TREATY PROPOSED CANCELLATION OF SPECIAL AGREEMENT WITH NEW ZEALAND AND NEGOTIATION OF TREATY.

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Hon. Mr. Dunning for committee of supply, the amendment thereto of Mr. Senn, and the subamendment of Mr. Casgrain.
William Ernest Tummon: Mr. Speaker, when the house adjourned at six o'clock I was dealing 
with that part of the dairy industry from which annual returns are received, namely the dairy factories. Before proceeding further I wish again to note that the returns received from these dairy factories reveal that 2,197,278 cows furnished to the factories 6,701,274,406 pounds of milk. Now, according to this Monthly Bulletin of Agricultural Statistics for December 1929, which statistics deal with milk production for 1928, the total milk production of the Dominion for that year was 14,512,897,961 pounds.
When a year ago I tried to deal with this subject, in giving the total number of pounds of milk produced in Canada for 1927 I used figures from this monthly bulletin for that year, and according to the figures then given there was a decrease in the total production in the Dominion of over 345,000,000 pounds as compared with 1926. Since that time a different method has been adopted in estimating the total pounds of milk produced. We are told now that there is an average increase of 21 per cent in the production of cows in the three prairie provinces, and an average increase of 10 per cent in the production of cows in the older parts of Canada and in British Columbia. Therefore they take the total number of cows that are being milked m the Dominion, and they apply that as the basis m order to reach the total production of milk for 1928. That is how the figures are arrived at that I have just quoted of over
14.000.	000.000 pounds. Not only _ that, but they have gone back to 1925, when the importation of butter at one cent per pound came into effect, and they have adjusted their figures back to that year.
Now, I want the house to note this, that two thirds of the total number of cows that were milked in the Dominion in 1928 produced 6,701,274,406 pounds of milk. This represents the production from cows from which annual returns are received by the department. That leaves less than one-third of the total number of cows milked to be accounted for. In other words, it means' that in order to make the total production of milk as estimated, of over
14.000.	000.000 pounds, less than one-third of the total number of cows milked in 1928 had to produce over 7,000,000,000 pounds of milk. That is, each cow from which we have no annual returns had to produce two and one half times as much as every cow from which we have records. On that basis we are told by the government that the dairy industry is progressing.


James Dew Chaplin: 
William Ernest Tummon: Now, let me make a in the United States and conditions in
coqjparison for a moment between conditions Canada. These are the comparative figures:
United States	Tariff
1920	2Jc.	per	pound1921	6c.	per	pound1925	after	4	years	of	8c.	per	pound	duty1928	after	3	years	of	12c.	per	pound	duty
Canada
Fiscal Year	Tariff
1920 British preference (per pound).. 3c.
General (per pound)	4c.
1924 British preference (per pound).. 3c.
General (per pound)	4c.
1926	le. per pound duty.
1927	1c.	per	pound	duty.1928	lc.	per	pound	duty.1929	lc.	per	pound	duty.
months
ending
January
30, 1930 lc. per pound duty.
Total Pounds Butter Imported 37.454,172 18,558,388 7.212,013 4,659,288
Total Pounds Butter Imported 3,741,628
198,341
Australian and New Zealand butter only- 4,828,468
Australian and New Zealand butter only- 5,705,960
Australian and New Zealand butter only- 14,195,789
Australian and New Zealand butter only- 25,211,011
Australian and New Zealand butter only- 23,949,468
In other words, in 1925, the American dairy farmer had a protective tariff of 8 cents, and the Canadian dairy farmer had a protective tariff of 3 cents preferential and 4 cents general. In 1925, the American tariff was raised and in the same year the Canadian tariff was reduced, and' the conditions are represented by the figures I have given here. The importations of butter into Canada have increased tremendously while the importations into the United States have fallen off, and they are now producing almost as much butter as they require to feed their great population. The United States government protects its people, in contrast to this government here.
Mr. MacLEAiN (Prince):	Will the hon.
member give the figures in the United States and Canada for those years, as to the price paid?


William Ernest Tummon: I have not the figures
here, otherwise I should be pleased to accommodate my hon. friend. But no doubt he can get the figures for himself as easily as I could get them for him.
We were told a year ago, and it has been said here to-day, that the Americans were purchasing our cattle and paying handsome prices for them; and I recall the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) saying last year that we would raise the calves and let the Americans milk the cows. Well, Mr. Speaker, I have been trying ever since to figure out just how we are going to raise the calves
if the Americans have the cows. The condition is not quite as good as it was some time ago so far as the purchase of cattle in Canada by Americans is concerned. In the district which I have the honour to represent, and along the St. Lawrence, they are offering very small prices now for dairy cattle. Mr. Charles E. Ladd, of Cornell university, chairman of the milk stabilization committee in New York state, has issued some interesting figures bearing on the present and future supply of milk in New York state and of dairy products throughout the United' States. He says:
There are now in this milk shed more than enough dairy heifers for all replacement purposes. There is also an impending over-supply of dairy products in the United States.
So that it would appear as if the conditions of .the dairy industry in that country are such as to eliminate the necessity of importing Canadian dairy products such as milk and cream, and also dairy cattle.
There is no doubt that the importation of butter at one cent per pound duty is having a damaging and demoralizing effect upon the dairy industry in Canada. The hon. the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) this afternoon mentioned empire trade. I do not believe that it is the wish or the desire of a sister dominion to destroy one of the main branches of the basic industry of agriculture in Canada, no more than Canada would desire to do such a thing to a sister dominion.

Australian Treaty-Mr. Kellner
Let us by all means trade within the empire, but for the sake of stability let it be on a fair and equitable basis to all concerned.
Canada, I think, is in a unique position in comparison to any other part of the British Empire. Occupying as we do the northern part of this continent, meeting on a boundary of three to four thousand miles one neighbour only, a neighbour with a huge population, mighty in agriculture and in industry, a neighbour producing the same products that we are producing, and one that protects the people of her country from the competition of the products of other countries including Canada, we find ourselves met by the strongest competition not only in the markets of -the world but in our own markets as well. That is the problem we meet three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. Let us take some of the $900,000,000 that we send annually over to that country and use it to trade within the empire, but let us not destroy one of the main, branches of the agricultural industry of Canada, which in the past has been part of the very life blood of this country.


Mr. D. F. KELLNER (Athabaska):: Mr. Speaker, the argument has been developed in the house to-day that- this resolution is more or less a political football; in fact, I think the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) referred to it as a method of making campaign speeches, while another hon. member stated that in so far as the west was concerned the National Dairy Council is something of an organization created by the dairies of the country rather than by the producers.
In January last the United Farmers of Alberta had a convention, and at that convention there were present almost five hundred delegates. They were all farmers, and they represented between thirteen thousand and fourteen thousand other farmers. They passed a resolution covering this Australian treaty, and I have a copy here which I should like to read:
Whereas, the Australian Treaty of 1925 was designed to confer trade advantages upon certain industries which in virtue of their highly privileged position ' under the customs tariff have been built up at the expense of other classes of Canadians, while industries in a less favoured position were totally disregarded both in the negotiation of the treaty and in the terms of its enactment; and
Whereas, this special consideration shown to certain industries exemplifies one of the worst evils of the protectionist system, which is rooted in the distribution of new privileges to the already highly privileged; and
Whereas, the policy upon which the treaty was based is one of discrimination especially against important branches of the industry of agriculture, and

Whereas, the enactment of the treaty was opposed by the U.F.A. group in the House of Commons in 1925, as a discriminatory and economically unsound measure;
Therefore be it resolved, that this convention while reaffirming its adherence to the principle of freedom of trade, and its determination to use its influence with a view to the progressive reduction of the Canadian tariff, protests against the operation of the prevailing system in a partisan and discriminatory manner;
And further, that this convention, in virtue of the reasons enumerated above, call upon the Dominion government to denounce the treaty.
There, Mr. Speaker, is the opinion of the organized farmers of Alberta, the people who are producing the milk, and who are hit by this treaty. In that province I think we are hurt about as badly as in any part of Canada, and when the production drops about 12,000,000 pounds from 1926 to 1928, and the number of cows is reduced by some 100,000. it requires little argument to show that our province is being affected. It is all very well to put a lot of figures on Hansard about the reduction in the number of cows and the reduction in the production of butter, but I very much doubt if it brings to our mind a clear conception of just what is possible in the dairy industry of western Canada. For instance, if we compare what we have failed to accomplish in that country with the accomplishments of such states as Minnesota, for example, the climate of which is not unlike that of Canada, we will see to what degree we have failed to take advantage of our opportunities. There can be no very effective argument that physical conditions are materially better in the state of Minnesota than they are in Canada; our climate is comparatively similar, although we have a little longer to feed, but what they can grow in the state of Minnesota, we can grow in western Canada. In looking over reports of production I find that in the year 1928 the state of Minnesota produced 100,000,060 pounds of butter more than the entire Dominion of Canada produced. To my mind that is very illustrative of the lack of production in Canada, as compared to what it might be.


Edward James Young: Has the hon.
gentleman any figures as to the per capita wealth production of farmers in Minnesota as compared with that of Canadian farmers?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I would suggest that the hon. member put that question on the order paper. The argument was advanced a while ago that the reason our production in Canada has fallen off is that we are making a great quantity of cheese for which we are selling milk, and that we are receiving more for the whole milk than we would for the

Australian Treaty-Mr. Kellner
butter. I went to the trouble to look at the figures as to cheese, and I found that thirty years ago Canada produced 100,000,000 pounds of cheese more than it did last year. That is where we are getting in the manufacture of cheese. In regard to the sale of milk, there are certain districts in Ontario and Quebec where that is probably applicable, but it does not apply to western Canada. There is not one pound of milk in the three prairie provinces sold across the line as raw milk. So that when this large volume of butter, cheese and beef is brought in under these agreements there is no question as to what it is doing to the western farmer. For instance last year in the province of Alberta, we received 252,000 pounds of this imported butter. One of the other speakers said that butter was purchased by the dairies and butter dealers, who sold it in their own wrappers. Of course it was; I do not know any other people who could purchase it, and if it were not to be purchased by them the only alternative would be to send it in on consignment, and quite a considerable volume has come in in that way. Here is the point: of the 252,000 pounds of butter that came into Alberta there was not one pound anyone could detect as imported butter; it was sold as butter produced in Canada, and 'I am satisfied it would not have received as favourable consideration if the people had known it was imported.
I also want to call attention to our possibilities in the way of increasing our butter production, and what it means to the country. The basic industry of agriculture is in an entirely different position from any other branch of industry, and has infinitely more possibilities. I am going to quote from an article written by the United States Secretary of Agriculture, in which he says that the United States is the second largest gold producing country in the world, but that it would take all the gold they could produce for fifty years to equal the value of one year's production of dairy products. If all those things are possible across the line, most assuredly they are possible in this country, and I think the reason we do not have them here is found in our fiscal policy.
When the minister was speaking this afternoon I think he over-stressed a wee bit his love for these other dominions. When you look at the tariff schedules you are almost convinced that they do not reciprocate that love. Looking at the tariff on butter going into Australia I find that the British preference rate is 12 cents a pound, while the general rate is 14 cents. Compare that to our rate of one cent per pound. The New Zealand rate is 20 per cent and 40 per cent which, applied to butter at 2419-26
40 cents a pound, is 8 cents and 16 cents. In South Africa it is 4 cents and 4i cents, and in the United States it is 12 cents a pound. So that there can be little argument in support of any suggestion that we should give any special consideration to these dominions, which give us absolutely none as far as butter is concerned.
I think a word should be said about the condition in which the Canadian farmer finds himself to-day. A good deal of time has been spent in the house emphasizing what we owe to our returned men, and I think every member of this house joins in the sentiments expressed in that connection. A little sentiment should be associated with our farmers, because when the war was on the established farmer was not permitted to enlist; they would not accept him but asked him to stay home and feed the army; that was the job allocated to him and he could not leave it. The Canadian papers in this country from coast to coast were filled with advertisements of inspiration to the farmer to go into increased production, and he did. I think the Canadian farmer surprised the world with the amount of produce he was able to deliver during the war. But after the war came the smash, and many an interesting story could be told of the condition of the Canadian farmer when the market dropped. In fact, I have a very vivid recollection of what happened to me when it was all over, and there are many others who passed through the same experience.
Then the government came along and said, " This is only a passing phase, we will build up the beef trade with England." An investigation into ocean rates was held with the idea of obtaining a cheap rate on beef shipped on the hoof. The argument raised was that the chilled beef had not been going over regularly and sometimes when the consumer in England had wanted it on Saturday night he could not get it until the next week and he would not buy. A commission investigated those rates and finally we did get a lower rate and started to ship beef. In the city of Edmonton there is a very fine plant, or rather the relic of one, erected by private individuals in order to prepare this beef for the British market. For a time we sent a lot of beef over there, but for the last two years not one hoof has left this country.
Then we were advised to go into the pork business, to raise hogs and send our pork over to the old country. We did that for a short time, and we sold it to the British markets cheaper than at the Canadian price, but eventually that market got away from us.

402	COMMONS
Australian Treaty-Mr. Smith (Cumberland)
At the present moment the wheat market is in a pretty wobbly condition, and anyone who has followed the fluctuations of that market will realize that western Canada today is in its most critical position. If the wheat market goes much lower the Canadian west will have the worst times ever known. But what has the government offered to relieve these conditions? The only solution they have advanced to the country is that of immigration. They said, "We will go over to Europe and obtain a lot of immigrants and as soon as you get sick and tired of this game, get off and we will put someone else upon the land." There are hundreds upon farms in the west who have not one cent invested; the Canadian and imperial governments own the whole thing, the farms, equipment and all. When the established farmer desires implements or equipment for his farm, he is forced to pay from five to ten per cent more than the immigrant who buys through the soldier settlement board. If there is any sentiment to be wasted upon sister nations, there should be a little to spare for the established farmers who are forced to operate under these unfair conditions.
_ ft is my opinion that in a country which is to be successful, any government worthy of the name should have certain ideals as to the people who live within its boundaries, and if we are to adopt as a national policy the reduction of the earning power of farmers until we reach the stage where they absolutely refuse to stay on the farm, and then go over to Europe and bring immigrants in to take their places-according to the former Minister of Immigration, Mr. Forke, we brought in last year nine more than we lost during the year.


An hon. MEMBER:: What did they cost?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I have not that information; like my hon, friend across the floor, I have some questions upon the order paper, and I hope to have that figure within a short time.
It seems to me that the one thing which should be paramount to this parliament during the present session is to see if something cannot !be done to stabilize the farming markets of Canada. If we complete this session and absolutely ignore that situation,
I do not think we are doing our duty to the people.


Robert Knowlton Smith: Mr. Speaker, I join with those who have spoken from this side of the house in protesting against the tremendous importation of butter into this country from New Zealand. The figures have been given already; they are 
of alarming proportions, and I think they are sufficient to convince this house that unless this dumping is stopped without further delay it will not only rob the Canadian farmer of his home market but will have a tendency to pass the dairying industry, at least in some parts of Canada, entirely out of the picture so far as agriculture is concerned1.
My main purpose in rising, Mr. Speaker, was to read into the records of this house a resolution passed by the Nova Scotia Farmers' Association, outlining the unfair competition with which they are confronted1. This resolution, which was passed at the annual meeting of the Nova Scotia Farmers' Association held at Truro last month, reads as follows:
Resolved that the Nova Scotia Farmers' Association now in session view with alarm the large steadily increasing quantities of butter imported into Canada from New Zealand to the serious detriment and unfair competition of the farmers of Nova Scotia.
Further resolved that we petition the federal government at Ottawa to place a higher duty on butter imported into Canada from New Zealand sufficiently adequate to protect the farmers of Nova Scotia in the home market and that this be effected with the least possible delay, or, in the alternative, the federal government be urged to abrogate the order in council extending the provisions of the Australian treaty to New Zealand under which its butter enjoys preferential-duty rates entering Canada.
Further resolved that a copy of this resolution be forwarded to the Hon. W. R. Motherwell, Minister of Agriculture at Ottawa, and the federal and provincial members in Nova Scotia.
It was discovered in Nova Scotia some few years ago that there were certain phases of the farming industry in which we could not compete. For instance, we could not compete with western Canada in the raising of beef, and due to the changed conditions of supply overcoming demand we were not able to market large quantities of hay, as had been the case in years gone by, and it was found that it was necessary to go into mixed farming if the farmers of that province were to eke out an existence. Dairying being one of the main factors, almost the essential, of mixed farming, the farmers in that part of Canada took up that phase of the industry; they improved their herds, and up until 1925 were making considerable progress. Not only was that industry steadily improving, but the offshoot, the swine industry, was thriving under the new conditions. But since New Zealand .butter has been dumped on the markets of the Dominion, and great quantities in Nova Scotia, coming in by millions of pounds in almost every shipload, the farmers of Nova Scotia are to-dlay in a desperate position, due,

Australian Treaty-Mr. Kennedy
I think, almost entirely to the dumping of this butter on the Canadian market. It is impossible to carry on mixed farming in any part of the country unless dairying is associated with it. The speeches which have been delivered in the house not only depicted what a great benefit the dairy industry is in itself, but showed by figures and illustrations what the by-products and the offshoots of the dairy industry are in the contribution they make to the soil, and in other respects.
This afternoon the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Adshead) stated that covering a certain period some 419 tons of butter were landed in the city of Halifax from New Zealand, and that 222 tons of that butter after it had been imported were exported, I believe he said, to the British West Indies. I think we can at least say that a sufficient quantity of it, and other vast importations remained in Nova Scotia, to cause very serious damage to agriculture and to create havoc with our dairy industry.
In this connection may I in conclusion read, from yesterday's issue of the Halifax Herald, the views of a gentleman who was at one time a member of the provincial legislature, and not a Conservative at that. I believe he was what was called at one time a farmer-labour member. This is what he has to say, and I am sure the hon. member for Hants-Kings (Mr. lisle}') will be interested in the quotation:
Action to prevent the importation of New Zealand butter was advocated by J. A. MacDonald, former provincial member for Hants county and one of the beet known farmers iq Nova Scotia who was in Halifax yesterday, attending the opening of the legislature.
Mr. MacDonald stated that unless some such action was taken the farmers of this province would be driven from their lands and homes, as it was an impossibility for Nova Scotia to compete with New Zealand.
In this province cattle must be housed during the winter season, said Mr. MacDonald, while in New Zealand they are in the pasture. In addition to that feed ranges as high as $50 a ton. "I can say that nothing in the past fifty years in the agricultural life of this province has caused greater hardships to the Nova .Scotia farmer than the flooding of this province with New Zealand butter. Unless our federal members take immediate action, hundreds of farmers who depend on dairying for their livelihood will be forced to close out and leave the province," he said.
Air. MacDonald declared that as a result of the new federal legislation, he knew of several farmers in his district who were giving up their farms in the spring and leaving for the United States. "It is most unfortunate", he said, "in view of the fact that conditions in other sections of the province and in other lines of industry show healthy improvements."


Mr. D. M. KENNEDY (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the trouble with the dairy industry or agriculture in general in Canada is due wholly to the Australian treaty as applied to New Zealand. Undoubtedly, however, that has had some influence on Canadian agriculture. The farmers in western Canada have resented this treaty and its application to New Zealand possibly as much because they were asked to sacrifice the protection they had for the sake of giving the motor industry and the pulp and paper industry an advantage in the markets of Australia. It is that idea of discrimination that has affected as much as anything else the western farmers and made them protest against this treaty. That is the case so far as my knowledge of western Canada goes. One thing of course that has helped to drive dairying out or decrease it in certain sections of Alberta is the fact that we have had over a period of years fair crops of wheat at fair prices. For the last five years the Peace River constituency has had crops averaging around twenty and twenty-five bushels, with grades ranging from No. 1 northern to No. 3 northern. I do not care what anybody says or what advice farmers are given, you will not get many of them or their wives or sons or daughters to milk cows while they can grow wheat and get grades like that at the prices that have prevailed .during the last four or five years. They simply will not do that.
I am, however, quite free to admit that the wiping out of the Australian treaty and its application to New Zealand by order in council would give the dairy farmers of Canada some advantage for a time at least. I am not greatly impressed by some of the arguments in favour of either free trade or protection, but in this case I .think the people who are arguing that the Australian treaty and its application to New Zealand hurt the farmers, are on good ground. I do not know that I could agree with several hon. members who have argued the matter regarding the extent of the damage to even the dairy farmers of Alberta.
This debate is developing into a sort of empire trade debate, and it is because I wish to offer a suggestion along that line that I am on my feet. It seems to me a tragedy that Canada has struggled for a certain number of years to put on the British market a quality of bacon and other pork products in competition with Danish products, and has convinced the British buyer that Canadian pork products are just as good as the Danish, and yet our exports to Great Britain have steadily decreased while the
m

Australian Treaty-Mr. Kennedy
exports from Denmark to Great Britain have increased more than the exports of the Canadian product to Great Britain have decreased. In other words, we lost the market after we had demonstrated that we could produce a quality of product that would sell there in competition with the best in the world. We are, I believe, having a conference in Ottawa in a few days to deal with the question of increasing agricultural production. I do not know whether or not we should strive to increase our cattle production. The situation as between ourselves and the United States is not any too promising in. view of the tariff increases in that country. The attempt made by the Alberta government some years ago to get a new market in Japan has not developed into anything worth while. Certainly the success attending the attempt to get live cattle into the British markets has not been anything to brag about. But I do not see any reason why we should not be able to increase our hog production and get into the British market. We have had an empire marketing committee working on the question of marketing empire products. I do not know whether that marketing committee has got very far with this question, but it seems to me, as there is going to be an imperial conference in London and we are going to have there representatives of this government-or possibly another government that may be elected before then; whatever party sends representatives-something ought to be done along this line. I am not prepared just now to suggest details. The question of increased production of pork products or dairy products is not one of getting more immigrants or more credits in Canada, but one of markets. The market is there. It- seems to me that if a committee were appointed, an imperial committee representing the old land and the dominions, the dominions would guarantee to produce and ship to the old land a certain amount of products under contract, so that on the one hand we would be assured of the market, and on the other, that the market being assured, Britain would get the products, there would be an opportunity to increase Canada's production of hogs, bacon and other pork products, an opportunity to provide an almost certain return for the farmers of Canada. There is no use going to the farmers of western Canada and saying: We want to increase our hog production; so many years ago we produced a certain number of hogs in Canada, and to-day we have so many less. They would just laugh at you. But if the federal Department of Agriculture will 
cooperate with the provincial departments and the pools, anid say: Here is an assured market; if you will undertake to produce a certain quantity of goods and deliver them regularly over a period of years, you will be absolutely certain that you will get the British price, whatever it may be, based on the competition of Denmark or Ireland or whatever country is supplying the British market with that particular product. If we can come to an agreement regarding a certain market and a certain quantity of products to supply that market, that would be something constructive. There may be some difficulties in the way so far as the old land is concerned; I do not know.
I do not believe the farmers of Canada have confidence in the present organization that stands between them and the British market; I mean the packers. The farmers, right or wrong, are absolutely convinced that the packers have been taking and will continue to take too big a toll of the price that is charged the consumer for farm products. But if the market is made available in Great Britain, I believe that the farmers will respond, provided they are guaranteed that the packing industry is not going to take any more than a just share of the price that is paid by the consumer; but they will not respond, I 'believe, unless there is that guarantee. Now that we have a cooperative director in .the Department of Agriculture and the idea of cooperative marketing of farm products has taken hold throughout the whole Dominion, I think that this government and all provincial governments might well settle down to the idea of getting together and taking hold of the packing industry, if need be, just as has been done in Denmark. There the government is backing up the cooperative organizations; the farmers have confidence in the organization that handles their products. I believe in this way a definite contribution could be made to increased production that would mean real wealth and increased stability for agriculture in the Dominion of Canada.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: I rise to support the amendment introduced by my hon. friend from Haldimand (Mr. Senn), introduced may I say in a speech that did credit to him and to the best traditions of the Canadian parliament. My reasons for supporting the amendment I wish very briefly to outline to the house.
Before doing so, may I say that about a week ago I received, as did every federal member, from the province of Nova Scotia, a resolution from the farmers' association of

Australian Treaty-Mr. Macdougall
that province in convention assembled, in which they condemn the arrangement entered into with New Zealand by this government by means of an order in council. In that resolution they express their belief, and I presume they know their own business, that the application of this New Zealand arrangement has materially prejudiced the farmers of Nova Scotia and in many cases made the successful prosecution of the dairy industry in that province impossible.
There is no one in this house more anxious than I to see trade developed between the component parts of the British Empire. I certainly desire to see a treaty between Canada and New Zealand or any other part of the British Empire looking towards the development of trade, but if we are to trade even with a component part of this empire, great as our love for the empire may be, it is absolutely essential that whatever trade be carried on between us and the motherland or any other part of the empire should be done on terms that are fair and just to Canada. The Canadian people expect that, and they will not be satisfied with anything less.
There is absolutely no question at all that this New Zealand arrangement-not a treaty; it is a misnomer to call it a treaty, because there never has been a treaty with New Zealand-has been injurious to Canada. I notice that hon. gentlemen sitting on the front benches opposite to-night are afraid to discuss this question on its merits, and they are always interjecting, "What do you think of the Australian treaty?" If they have any questions to ask about the Australian treaty, they can be discussed at the proper time; the Australian treaty is not at all in question today. What is in question is the application of the same terms to New Zealand, applied not by means of a treaty negotiated by our representatives, but by order in council. It is well to emphasize that point because if there ever was a party in the history of Canada that went around raving and ranting and pawing the air about orders in council it was the hon. gentlemen who sit opposite, and although times without number they branded orders in council as being opposed to the veiy spirit of democracy, it was by order in council that they effected an arrangement which New Zealand did not even ask for, and by which the dairy industry not only of Nova Scotia but of the whole of Canada has been placed in jeopardy. If you ask me to prove that, I can prove it very easily out of the months of hon. gentlemen opposite, because if there ever was a subamendment introduced to any parliament which was in essence a confession of helplessness and failure,
it was the subamendment to which we listened this afternoon proposed by one of the members supporting the government. They admitted in that subamendment-I think it is well for the country to notice this point-that they were wrong when they passed that order in council applying the terms of the Australian treaty to New Zealand. They admitted that the Dominion of Canada had been prejudiced; admitted that, without New Zealand asking for it at all, they had put through a deal by which the interests of the dairy farmers of Canada were prejudiced. If they did not admit that, what was the purpose of moving the subamendment?
Let us consider that subamendment for a moment. It is very interesting. I do not believe that in the whole political history of Canada a government ever put itself in such a humiliating position as the present government did when they moved this subamendment. I ask hon. gentlemen who listen to this subamendment to appreciate just what it means;
That all the words after "be" in the fourth line of the amendment be struck out and the following substituted therefor:
"superseded as soon as possible by a treaty with that Dominion, and that immediate steps should be taken to negotiate such a treaty."
There are a few admissions made by the government in that subamendment. One is that we never had a treaty with New Zealand -that is important to note; the arrangement was made by order in council. The second admission is that in the hearts and minds of hon. gentlemen opposite they feel that they were wrong when they passed that order in council, and now they want to get out from under. If there is any proof needed to show that they were wrong, it can be found in the trade returns of this government. According to the returns published by the Department of Trade and Commerce we find that in 1925 when this arrangement was made-which, by the way, New Zealand never asked for; it was foisted upon New Zealand by order in council-we imported from that Dominion $1,713,830 worth of goods; in 1929 our importations had mounted to $14,987,302 in value. So that in respect of this trade arrangement we have a pitiable and lamentable experience repeated-the experience of this government in regard to all its trade negotiations. Probably I am a little incorrect in saying there were negotiations; there were none leading up to the arrangement. But all their trade arrangements ever since this government came into power have resulted in one way- in our selling less goods to the country with which they made the trade treaty and in that
406	COMMONS
Australian Treaty-Mr. Macdougall
country selling more goods to us. I see my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) smiling. Let me refer to a treaty in which he took a hand-the trade treaty with France. May I say at the outset that I have for my hon. friend the highest regard.


Ernest Lapointe: Thank you.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: He is without doubt a parliamentarian of long experience, a man eloquent in debate and somewhat skilled in dialectics, a man who possesses the high cultural qualities which have ever been the dominant characteristic of the noble race from whose loins he is sprung. But, sir, he was a signatory of this trade treaty with France, the results of which to this country have been deplorable. In 1923 when he signed that treaty we imported from France $14,649,543 worth of goods; in 1929 those imports had nearly doubled, having reached a total value of $25,310,762. In 1923 when he signed that treaty with great acclaim from his supporters, we exported to France $17,349,151 worth of goods; in 1929 our exports had dropped to $16,942,678 in value. What I said of the personal qualities of the Minister of Justice still stands, but it cannot apply to his capacity as a negotiator of trade treaties. Much as I admire him, I must confess, after studying the trade returns published by the Department of Trade and Commerce of this government, that when we send the Minister of Justice to negotiate a trade treaty with another country it were as well for us to send a sparrow to a convention of eagles.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish most heartily to congratulate my hon. friend from Haldimand not only upon his masterful presentation of the case in support of 'his amendment, but also for the fact that he has brought this very urgent question to the attention of parliament and of the people of Canada. There can be no doubt whatever that the interests of our farmers have been seriously prejudiced by the undemocratic action of this government in giving to New Zealand trade terms which New Zealand never asked for, terms given under an order in council, a one-sided arrangement by which the position of the dairy farmers of this country has been jeopardized; and I feel that every man who realizes the importance of the dairy industry to Canada should emphatically register his protest against this autocratic act of a reactionary and undemocratic government.


Alan Webster Neill: Before the hon. gentleman sits down, will he allow me a question? I understood him to say that our imports of butter from New Zealand amounted to $40,000,000 last year. Is that correct?


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: I did not mention butter at all. I just gave the house the value of our imports from New Zealand.


Alan Webster Neill: Those imports amounted to $40,000,000 worth?


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: No, I said nothing about any $40,000,000 worth. My hon. friend to-morrow can see in Hansard what I did say. I gave the house the returns which I received from the Department of Trade and Commerce, and if he questions their correctness it is his duty to take the matter up with that department.


Alan Webster Neill: I understood him to say that our importations from New Zealand amounted to $40,000,000 worth.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Mr. Speaker, I have been accused of many things in my day, but surely it is not fair to accuse me of the understanding of my hon. friend.
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temiscouata): Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of the house overlook the fact that our people butter their bread more now than they did in previous years. Indeed, no butter was exported from Canada to Europe last year because our domestic demand was greater than the domestic supply. The position taken by my friends opposite is tantamount to telling the people of this country that they shall not use New Zealand or Australian butter when our domestic production is insufficient to meet the needs of the home market.
I wish to draw a very important fact to the attention of the house. Some years ago mostly all our farmers were selling their milk direct to the butter factories or the cheese factories, but now some of them sell their milk to the creameries. It is contended by the farmers that the owners of creameries are not fair in their dealings with their patrons, and in fact deceive them, making lower tests for the butter fat and giving correspondingly lower prices, although they apparently are higher. I cannot give more details at the moment, and must leave it to the technicians to settle. But what I wish to demonstrate is this, and I think that no farmer member will dispute my statement, if conditions are the same in the big cities of the other provinces as they are in the cities of Quebec and Montreal, for instance, I do not speak of

Australian Treaty-Mr. Pouliot
those who operate butter factories or cheese factories in rural centres; I speak rather of those who are to a large extent intermediaries between the farmers and the consumers, for instance, those who make ice cream and butter. Take John the farmer. He sells his milk to the butter factory. The test is made there, controlled by departmental officials who go there to see that the farmer is getting the full amount that is due him for the quality of milk that he sells. He is paid according to the quantity of fat, on a test that is fair to him. That is the price that is paid in butter and cheese factories. On the other hand, if he sends his milk to Quebec or Montreal creameries-I do not know what the practice is in other provinces but I know that that is the case in Quebec-it goes to creameries that are not controlled or supervised by government inspectors or officials. The farmer has not the proper apparatus for testing his milk as to the fat content, and he has to rely on the report that comes from the creameries; those creamery people do not seem to be honest, and instead of paying the farmer on the basis of the fat content they reduce the quantity of fat and increase the price. The farmer in fact gets no more and sometimes less from the creameries than from the butter factories. If he sent it to the butter factory he would get $10; he gets no more than $10 from the Quebec or Montreal creamery and, as I have said, often less. I do not know whether it is a federal or a provincial matter, but I have been told by people who are interested, people who have good cattle and who wish to improve their herds, that at least in our part of the country the matter is a very serious one so far as the future of small butter and cheese factories is concerned.
I would direct the attention of the new Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Crerar) who is, I think, acting at the same time as Minister of Agriculture-and I take this opportunity of congratulating him on his appointment-to the necessity of seeing if something cannot be done. We have very capable officials here in the Department of Agriculture, especially in the dairy branch. I know Doctor Rudd'ick, who is an authority on the subject, and Mr. Singleton also. I sometimes have the opportunity of meeting them to discuss matters that interest my people, and I would ask the Acting Minister of Agriculture if he would be good enough to see that our country people who send their milk to those creameries are not fooled by the owners of those creameries, and that they are paid the amount of money that is due to them without false representations regarding milk test. I
desire to bring that to the attention of every hon. member who is interested in the welfare of the farmers of this country. The principal income of the farmer is usually derived from the dairying industry, and in the province of Quebec, and especially in my district, I am glad to say that the farmers have improved their herds. Even at the last Toronto fair our people were successful in securing several prizes for their cattle, which goes to show that they are ambitious, that they wish to do well; and the best way to encourage them is to give them a chance to sell their products near their own homes instead of having to ship them to some distant point. Where there is a butter or cheese factory in a parish it gives the farmers a chance to get quick money, and when they get the money, especially when it pays well, it is an encouragement for them to go on improving their stock.
I am not a technician in agriculture; I am simply repeating to the house what is said to me very often in my office when people come to me with their grievances or their troubles. There should be no deceit practised on those farmers, Mr. Speaker, so far as the price to be paid for their milk is concerned. The price is governed by the market, and those creameries should be made to pay the prevailing price. That is why I ask the Acting Minister of Agriculture to be kind enough to see to it, if it comes under his jurisdiction, or, if it is a provincial matter, to discuss it with the provincial authorities, that the *creameries be inspected just the same as butter factories or cheese factories are regularly and carefully inspected, in order that the farmers may not be fooled by the owners of those concerns as to the .price of the milk.


Mr. J. A. FRASER (Cariboo):: Mr. Speaker, I should like in the first instance to call the attention of the house to a remark made by the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Adshead) in regard to the export of butter in bond from different parts of the Dominion. I believe he referred principally to the maritime provinces. It seems to me he must be labouring under some misapprehension in regard to the amount of butter that is exported in bond from any part of the Dominion of Canada, because I find on referring to returns of the trade of Canada for the nine months ended September last that while the total imports of butter amounted to 6,268,549 pounds, the total exports amounted to only 461,387 pounds. That means that over the whole Dominion of Canada only 7 per cent of the imports were exported so that if the total quantity had been exported in

Australian Treaty-Mr. Fraser
bond it would have left 5,800,000 pounds of imported butter on the Canadian market to be distributed among the trade in competition with our own product.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to read the motion of the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn):
In the opinion of this house order in council No. 1757, passed on the 26th day of September, 1925, respecting certain trade arrangements with the Dominion of New Zealand should be rescinded forthwith, and immediate steps taken to negotiate a treaty with that dominion on fair and equitable terms.
One would conclude from the wording of that agreement that the present trade arrangement with New Zealand is not fair and equitable, and that a basis exists for a statement of that kind. Let us take a look for a moment at the arrangements under which we are working in regard to the trade treaty, with New Zealand. In my opinion, without a doubt, those terms are unfair to the dairymen of the Dominion of Canada. The Canadian general tariff imposes on the importation of butter a rate of duty of 4 cents per pound; the order in council rate of duty is one cent per pound. For the arrangement to be fair the import duty levied on butter in New Zealand should be about the same as we impose on butter imported into this country. But the records show that the general tariff on butter imported into New Zealand is 40 per cent ad valorem, which would amount to 16 cents per pound on butter valued at 40 cents. Our rate of duty is only 4 cents. That would- seem to be a one-sided arrangement, so far as the import and export of butter are concerned between these two dominions. I find also they have a preferential rate under which exports from Canada would enter New Zealand, and that rate is 20 per cent ad valorem. Very well, let us examine that situation. Twenty per cent on a 40 cent pound of butter would mean a rate of duty amounting to 8 cents, so far as Canada is concerned. The result is that if we wish to ship butter into New Zealand we have to pay 8 cents per pound, while New Zealand is continually shipping butter into Canada at one cent per pound. Such a state of affairs is not fair, and the dairymen of Canada would seem to have good reason to complain of an administration that allows a condition of that kind.
I go further: I find that between New Zealand and Australia there is a reciprocal arrangement in regard to the imporation of butter. I am told that the rate of duty imposed by New Zealand on butter coming from Australia is only 4 cents per pound. [Mr. Fraser.3
That is another reason the dairymen of Canada should not submit to the treatment they are receiving from their own government. While we are allowing New Zealand to ship butter into this country at the rate of one cent per pound, New Zealand charges us eight cents on butter shipped to her, and offers Australia, her sister dominion, a rate one-hialf that offered to Canada. I do not think that is a fair arrangement; it is a condition with respect to which the dairymen of Canada may be justly aggrieved. I submit that New Zealand has no cause for complaint if the dairymen of Canada ask to have the treaty revised and a better basis of trading instituted, because she cannot complain about Canadian treatment so long as she is treating Canada in the way I have outlined. I do not blame the Canadian dairymen for complaining about the unequal treatment they have received from the government of our own country, which could remedy this condition if they saw fit. In addition to the fair trading privileges which New Zealand offers to other dominions but withholds from Canada, she also has the immense advantage of her own climatic conditions. We were told this afternoon that while the dairyman in Canada has to erect expensive barns to house his cattle properly because of our climatic conditions, in New Zealand the dairyman has to provide only a five-dollar rubber blanket, and he lets his cattle run in pasture during the whole year. That is another reason why the present arrangements should be modified and the treaty revised. It is quite apparent that the dairymen of New Zealand are prospering while our own dairymen are losing money. I say that because it has been placed on the record already that land used for the purpose of dairy farming in Neiw Zealand readily changes hands at the rate of $350 pier acre, while in Canada you are lucky if you get from $40 to $50 per acre for similar land.
I should like to look at the result of the present arrangement between New Zealand and this country, and in that connection I desire to put a few figures on Hansard, in each case from the official records, with regard to Canada's exportable surplus of dairy products, cheese and butter. The net exportable surplus of dairy products in Canada in 1921 amounted to $50,737,323. In other words, in 1921 the dairymen throughout Canada provided that amount of good hard cash with which to pay for goods we might desire to import. That is a favourable trade balance as far as the dairying industry is concerned.
Let me now refer to the two items chiefly affected by the treaty with New Zealand,.

Australian Treaty-Mr. Fraser
namely, butter and cheese. These two items make up the greater part of that favourable trade balance. I find that in 1921 the favourable trade balance with regard to butter was something over $5,000,000, while the balance with regard to cheese was over $37,000,000, making a total favourable trade balance of over $42,000,000 with regard to these two items alone. This, less the imports of butter and cheese amounting to about $2,000,000 leaves a net favourable balance of something over $40,000,000 in 1921 to the credit of the dairy industry of Canada, giving us part of our favourable trade balance throughout the world. That is quite a respectable sum of money, a balance of trade in the right direction, and one would think that that increase would be encouraged when making treaties or trade arrangements with any country, no matter what country it might be.
Let us apply the same test to conditions which prevailed after the application of the order in council. Taking the summary of trade in Canada dated December, 1929, I find that the exports in butter during 1928 had been reduced to $S05,055, and the exports of cheese had been reduced to $25,467,642, making the total exports $26,272,697. The imports of butter amounted to $5,937,170, and the imports of cheese to $554,373, totalling $6,491,543, leaving a net exportable surplus of butter and cheese amounting to $19,781,164. It will be noticed that between 1921 and 1928 the net exportable surplus contributed by these two items of dairy products had been cut in two as a result of the working of this order in council.
To show that there is a progressive decline in the exportable surplus, and that dairy production, so far as butter and cheese is concerned, is not contributing to the favourable trade balance as it was before the order in council was put into effect, I will quote the results in 1929. The exports of butter had dropped to $583,065 and the export of cheese to $18,503,575, or a total of $19,086,640. But in that year, 1929, the imparts of butter amounted to $12,714,253, and the imports of cheese to $624,137, a total of $13,338,390, leaving a net favourable trade balance attributable to those two items of only $5,748,250. Since 1921 the favourable trade balance in these two items has been reduced to $5,748,250, or about one-eighth of what it was in 1921. I think everyone will agree that that is bad business not only for the dairymen of the Dominion of Canada but for the Dominion as a whole.
This inequality and unfairness in tariff matters produces many complaints from the
dairymen. The claim is made that dairying is not as profitable as it was before, and we have heard speaker after speaker repeat that. The men engaged in this industry would be pleased to get out of it if at all possible. In addition to that, the dairymen have just cause for complaint in that the tariff arrangement between this country and New Zealand is not reciprocal. If it were we would have no complaint, but I have shown that the duty imposed by New Zealand is very much larger than the duty we impose upon New Zealand butter.
The number of cows milked in New Zealand has increased, as has been pointed out this afternoon. The number of cows milked in Canada has decreased. The exports of hog products have been diminishing, and production of butter is declining, as is the production of cheese. The favourable trade balance which in years gone by had been produced by butter and cheese is disappearing, but in spite of all these handicaps the Canadian dairyman has very materially increased the quality of his butter. We have heard a good deal about the amount of butter which is consumed per capita in the Dominion of Canada. Part of that increase unquestionably is due to our climatic conditions, but considerable credit must be given to the improved quality of the butter produced by our creameries. Is there anyone here who will say that the variable standard of dairy butter produced some twenty or twenty-five years ago was as palatable as the standardized article produced by our creameries at the present time? The dairyman has contributed to that standardization by progressive methods, and to him must be given some of the credit for the increase in home consumption, as well as the increased demand for our butter in foreign countries.
Why should a remedy for these conditions be denied to the dairyman of the Dominion of Canada? The only reason I can think of is that probably the government is afraid of what the consumer might say. It was said this afternoon that the consumer would object to any increase in the price of the commodities which we are discussing. I am fairly well acquainted with consumers, as I have been catering to them nearly all my life, and I want to say with as much emphasis as possible that the Canadian consumer is not a cheap skate who puts price before quality. He will pay a fair price for any article provided the quality is standard, and he will pay an extra price for a superior article. The
Dominion Elections Act

whole argument regarding the consumer should have no force, because after all he is a fair-minded and reasonable person and if he gets a standard article he will pay the price without any complaint.
That brings to my mind the attitude of this government towards the producer and consumer in general. It has been said by this government and its supporters that in order to make conditions easier for the producer they would lessen the cost of the implements of production. So far as the dairying industry is concerned they have apparently done that, for I understand that cream separators come into Canada free of any duty. How does that apply to the industry under consideration? By cheapening the implements of production, what do you do with the production? It seems to me that the rnorq you cheapen the implements of production, the more you lessen that production, and that statement will pretty well apply to many other articles than those connected with the cheese and butter industry.
I have only to say in closing that as regards the dairy industry I am heartily in accord with the resolution moved by the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn) and shall be pleased indeed to give it my support.
On motion of Mr. Maybee the debate was adjourned.



DOMINION ELECTIONS ACT


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have a motion I should like to have passed in regard to the appointment of a committee. I desire to move:
That a special committee consisting of Messrs. Anderson (Toronto-High Park), Bancroft, Bird, Black (Yukon), Bothwell, Boys, Cahan, Cannon, Cantley, Dussault, Elliott, Girouard, Guthrie, Hanson, Jacobs, Kellner, Kennedy, Ladner, Laflamme, Lapierre, MacDonald, (Cape Breton South), McPherson, Power, Ralston, Ryckman, St-Pere, Sanderson, Sinclair (Queens) and Totzke, be appointed to consider amendments to the Dominion Elections Act, 1920, and to the Corrupt Practices Inquiries Act recommended by a committee appointed at the last session for consideration of parliament at the present session which amendments were appended to the committee's report presented to the house on the 5th of June, 1929;
That the said special committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to examine witnesses under oath and report from time to time; and that section 1 of standing

order 65 respecting the number of members of select special committees be suspended in relation thereto.


Sir GEORGE PERLEY:: Is that practically the same committee that dealt with the matter last year?


Ernest Lapointe: The same names.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the house adjourned at 10.40 p.m.
Monday, March 10, 1930