1930-05-20

[Stage Direction]
Sixth report of the select standing committee on miscellaneous private bills-Mr. Glen.

Mr. J. A. GLEN (Marquette) moved:: That all private bills reported upon to-day in the sixth report of the select standing committee on miscellaneous private bills be placed upon the order paper of the house for consideration this day in committee of the whole and for third reading.


Mr. A. N. SMITH (Stormont):: Mr. Speaker, I understand that the evidence in connection with these various bills is not even before the members of the house. Yesterday some sixty bills to which some members had objection went through the committee stage and were given third reading here, and later the evidence was handed to us. The same thing occurs again to-day; the standing committee has considered these bills without having the evidence before them, and I cannot see how that committee possibly could know what they were doing.


Mr. IRVINE:: We considered them as we
always have considered them.


Arnold Neilson Smith: At least we
always have had the printed evidence before us.
Motion agreed to on division.



UNEMPLOYMENT IN ALBERTA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. J. GARLAND (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct the attention of the government to reports emanating from the province of Alberta which indicate that there is still a grave condition of unemployment in the principal cities of that province, and particularly in Calgary. In the town of Drum-heller, in the mining area in my constituency, I find that 80 per cent of the miners are out of work, and it is estimated that there are approximately 1,000 men who are either out of work entirely or who are working only two shifts a week. I wish to ask the government if there is any hope that their hearts may be softened in this matter and that they may extend some relief to meet this situation.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: I might say to my hon.
friend that the heart of the government always has been soft in these matters. At present an investigation is being made with respect to the conditions to which he has referred.



GENERALS DIE IN BED

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Toronto Northwest):: Mr. Speaker, I have received numerous communications from soldier associations in the Toronto district inquiring if the Minister of
Pension Act Amendment

National Revenue (Mr. Euler) proposes to take any action regarding the publication of a book entitled Generals Die in Bed by Charles Yale Harris. This book contains many libellous statements with reference to the Canadian troops, and I would like to know if the minister proposes to prohibit its publication and sale in Canada.


Hon. W. D. EULER (Minister of National Revenue):: This matter has not been brought to my attention; I have not read the book, but I will make inquiries.



PENSION ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. H. KING (Minister of Pensions and National Health) moved that the house go into committee to consider the following proposed resolution:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to amend the Pension Act, to carry into effect the recommendations of the special committee on pensions and returned soldiers' problems submitted to the house on 14th May instant; and to provide for the salaries to be paid to the chairman and members of the pension tribunal, the president and members of the pension appeal court, and for pension to be granted to any member of the said bodies, or of the commission, on retirement; and for the salaries of the other proposed officials, and travelling and living expenses as prescribed; and for the constitution of a branch of the department to be known as the veterans' bureau.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in. Mr. King (Kootenay) thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 265, to amend the Pension Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.
Mr. KING (Kootenay):: The bill is being printed but will be available for second reading this evening, if that is agreeable to the house.


Mr. BENNETT:: That will be agreeable.



RETURNED SOLDIERS' INSURANCE ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance) moved that the house go into committee to consider the following proposed resolution:
That the time for receiving applications for insurance under the Returned Soldiers' Insurance Act be extended for three years from the 31st August, 1930.
Motion agreed to and the house went into, committee, Mr. Johnston in the chair.

Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in. Mr. Dunning thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 264, to amend the Returned Soldiers' Insurance Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Would the minister explain the actuarial situation?


Mr. DUNNING:: I have not those details
before me, but the bill constitutes acceptance of the recommendations of the special committee which has been dealing with returned soldiers' problems. The time has now expired for the acceptance of applications for insurance, and the recommendation has been made that this time be extended for a further period of three years.
Mr. DUNNING moved the second reading of the bill.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
Section 1 agreed to.
On the title.
Mr. McGIBBON:: Could the minister give us any information as to the cost of carrying this insurance?


Charles Avery Dunning: I did not think that we
would reach this stage of the bill to-day and I did not bring the figures with me. This matter was gone into thoroughly by the special committee, but I would be willing to leave the bill in committee.


Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: What interpretation is to be put upon the phrase "reasonable expectation of life?" I know of one case where the man is able to participate in hockey games and other sports, although there is no question that he is suffering from a disability. He has been refused insurance but I should think that when a man can participate in sports he has a reasonable expectation of life. My understanding was that the interpretation of this phrase would be very wide, and that a man unable to obtain insurance from other companies would be able to avail himself of the provisions of this act. Could the minister give me any information in this regard?


Charles Avery Dunning: My department is concerned only with the actuarial administration of the act; the feature of the act to which the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Ross) refers would be administered by the Department of Pensions. The minister, I know, is getting the information now and he will be here in a few moments. My understanding

Relumed, Soldiers' Insurance Act
of the matter is that in practice a most liberal interpretation is placed upon the phrase to which my hon. friend calls attention. One can understand how difficult it must be to administer such a section correctly. A reasonable expectation of life of course would not or should not include a man who is very evidently dying. That, at least, is my personal view. On the other hand my hon. friend directs attention to a case in which he says there was a reasonable expectation of life, but apparently, if we are to judge from his information, the insurance was not granted. I think this would be a matter of taking up the specific case with the pension department in order to get the facts. I have not the information personally.


John Warwick King: The case is looked into by a medical officer under instructions of the pension commission. He goes through the file and if he wishes to make further examination the matter is referred to the unit. The individual is then examined and his case is reported upon.


Peter McGibbon: What I am concerned about is whether the spirit of the act has been carried out or been abused.


John Warwick King: It has been carried out.


Peter McGibbon: The spirit of the act was in favour of taking care of such cases. Granted that a man has returned from the war and cannot get insurance owing to being a war casualty or suffering from some disability attributable to war service, it seems to me it is going a long way under the terms of the act to shut the man out from the benefit of the insurance, because all we tried to do was to place him in the same position as he was prior to the war.


John Warwick King: I understand the cases are being looked into very carefully and dealt with liberally. The rejections are fairly few and the cases are thoroughly investigated.


Arthur Edward Ross: This is the case of a returned man who for years believed in the possibility of obtaining a pension. He is turned down. He is still continuing at his work and in addition to that he is able to take part in hockey matches of a league nature and so on. Yet we are told he has not a reasonable expectation of life.


John Warwick King: I should like to have the name or number of that individual, so that I may look into the matter. It does not seem to me right, because in many cases men who would not be considered fit for insurance are being taken care of under this legislation.


Arthur Edward Ross: My understanding of the measure is that it is a sub-standardized case that would be covered and I think it is unfair to shut out such a case as this.


John Warwick King: I shall be glad to look into it.
Bill reported.
Mr. DUNNING moved the third reading of the bill.


Peter McGibbon: As the minister is now in his place, could he give us the information for which I asked a few minutes ago, as to the loss, if any, in carrying this insurance?


John Warwick King: The net insurance in force is $72,508,725.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is the amount of risk?


Peter McGibbon: I want to know the loss, if any, to date in carrying the insurance.


John Warwick King: I do not think there is considered to be any loss.


Peter McGibbon: That is, the insurance is carrying itself?


John Warwick King: Yes.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.



WAYS AND MEANS


[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of ways and means, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
The CHAIRMAN:: When the committee rose last night we were considering item No. 84:
Customs tariff-84. Onions, in their natural Btate, including onions grown with tops, shallots, and onion sets, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 30 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than three-quarters of a cent per pound.


Mr. McMILLAN:: Just before the item carries, I have before me a few gems of expression which are said to have fallen from the lips of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) in London last Friday and which I should like to place upon Hansard. This is number one:
You have all heard Thomas McMillan talk about the iniquities of high protection, but I saw him in the House of Commons last night vote for higher duties on fruits and vegetables than had ever been proposed before.
2270	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
Surely the hon. gentleman as the leader of a great political party ought to be big enough to be fair, and big enough not to strike anyone below the belt when his face is turned. When he told that audience that I had voted for higher duties than ever had been proposed before, why did he not tell them that at the same moment I had voted for duty free fruits and vegetables from all the rest of the British Empire? But even with such a qualification that expression was whopper number one. When I read that expression I was reminded of an incident during Sir Wilfrid Laurier's first visit across Canada to the Pacific coast with big D. C. Fraser, afterwards Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, in his party. After leaving Victoria they sailed up the Fraser river to Ladner's Landing, where a banquet was served. A Cornish man, William Ladner, was host, and a right royal host was old Bill Ladner. I knew him well. In his address of welcome to the distinguished party, he naturally extolled the grandeur and fertility of the Fraser river valley and its delta, and after numerous lavish expressions, " Why," he said, "talk of fertile valleys, all you need to do is just step outside and you will be able to walk on soil that will produce sixteen tons of hay per acre." Then Fraser called out " My God, I knew we had some awful liars in Nova Scotia who went west, but I never knew that one of them had settled here."
We have heard the statement, Mr. Chairman, that I supported higher duties on fruits and vegetables than were ever imposed before. Yet there sit on the opposite benches no less than ten members of t'he shadow cabinet gathered about their leader, and who were sworn to office on the 13th of July, 1926. They scarcely allowed the ink on their signatures to dry before passing order in council No. 1088, under which they were enabled to place high valuations on certain fruits and vegetables with this effect: They raised the duty on tomatoes all the way from 30 to 76 per cent, or an increase of 255 per cent. They raised the duties on peaches from 30 to 80 per cent, or an increase of 266 per cent. On one carload of onions, the item we are now discussing, they actually raised the duties by high valuations, all the way from 30 to 83 per cent, or an increase of 276 per cent.
Now what about the duties on these vegetables that are mentioned in the present Dunning tariff? I find that in this tariff the duty on onions is three-quarters of a cent a pound, whereas under the order in council of the shadow government the duty was one and

a half cents a pound. The duties on other vegetables compare as follows:
1930 budget cents per lb.
Asparagus	 3
Cabbage	 1
Carrots	 1
Cauliflower. ...	2
Celery	 2
Cucumbers	 1
Lettuce	 1J
Spinach	 1
Tomatoes	 2
Duty under the shadow cabinet cents per lb.



2
3
5
If you take those ten articles you will find that the duty has been raised by this budget 14f- cents, or an average of l-4f cents per pound. The duties on those ten articles were raised under the shadow cabinet 33 cents, or an average increase of 223-75 per cent. And yet, sir, the hon. leader of the opposition will stand before an audience in the city of London, an audience from western Ontario, and tell them that I have voted for higher duties than were ever proposed before. What do you think, Mr. Chairman? Do you think that any man will ever become Prime Minister of Canada if he goes around telling the people of Canada the like of that? Is it any wonder that our friend the Minister of Justice at Woodstock said that the Moses who was found-on the beach at Winnipeg would never reach the promised land?
Number two. " Sir John Macdonald and others believed that the principles which made the American republic a great nation would do the same for Canada, and so the national policy was born." That, sir, is another whopper not even a half truth. The principles which have made the United States a great nation were not the principles of high and higher duties upon import trade. No, sir. It is because the United States has, within the bounds of her own territory the greatest free trade area in the world, and contains the greatest diversity of climate and production to be found on the whole face of the globe. That, along with her inherent wealth of great natural resources, have made the United States a great nation.
Number three. " Laurier, the leader of the Liberal party, he said, adhered to that policy till 1911, but then by his manifesto rejecting that policy and sponsoring reciprocity he was swept from power." Mr. Chairman, I am always ready and willing to stand or fall by the doctrine enunciated by Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
What was that doctrine?
When Laurier was first chosen as the leader of the Libera! party in Canada, he refused to

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
accept that leadership, on the ground that he neither belonged to the race, nor did he profess the creed of the majority of his countrymen; and it was only after he was appealed to again and again, by his Liberal friends, Protestants themselves, and told that Liberal principles knew neither race nor creed, and the only reason they wished him as their choice, was because they believed he was their ablest man, that he at length consented to accept that great responsibility.
And Mr. Chairman, can we ever forget a notable occasion on the floor of the House of Commons when Laurier arose in his place, and announced to the Canadian people, that he stood there as the acknowledged leader of a great political party, and as such, he represented neither the principles of Protestantism, nor the principles of Roman Catholicism, but that he hoped he would always be able to represent the true principles which should actuate a great Canadian people, and when he approached any great question of state he would seek to approach it, not from the standpoint of Protestantism or from the standpoint of Roman Catholicism, but from that point of view which would appeal to the hearts and consciences of men, irrespective either of their religious or political proclivities. That, sir, was the spirit in which Laurier announced the doctrine of Liberalism in Canada. Those words will continue to manifest the spirit and doctrine of true Liberalism until the end of time; and I, sir, as the representative of my people in this house, am willing to stand or fall by that doctrine.
Number 3:
Laurier adhered to that policy till 1911.
That, sir, is another of the hon. gentleman's whoppers.	[DOT]


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Thomas McMillan: If the hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) will search Canadian history, he will find that not only Laurier but all the leaders of political thought in Canada had long maintained that the natural avenues of trade on this continent were north and south. They held to this common sense view, despite the opinion of high protectionist forces.
The experience of the old reciprocity treaty of 1842 to 1854 demonstrated the wisdom of that freer trade with the United States. Liberals went down to defeat on three successive occasions fighting for a renewal of those conditions: first, in 1886 under the leadership of Hon. Edward Blake; second, in 1891 under the leadership of Sir Wilfrid Laurier; and a
third time on the Fielding reciprocity agreement of 1911, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier was defeated after fifteen years of the most prosperous rule in the history of Canada. The brightest page in the history of that splendid Liberal record is the page which records the fact that Laurier was asked to step down and out, fighting for the finest freer trade agreement ever offered to the people of Canada and without the slightest breath of scandal attaching to his name.
That fact, sir, is the conscious pride of every Liberal as it was the crowning satisfaction of our noble leader. It was that record which made Sir Wilfrid Laurier the pride of the Canadian people in opposition, as he was the statesman in office,-


Mr. SPENCE:: Mr. Chairman, I rise to a
point of order.


Thomas McMillan: -and when that agreement was offered to the Canadian people, there was really no difference as to its benefits on the part of any party.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Thomas McMillan: The only mistake was
that Laurier-


John Frederick Johnston: Order.


James Houston Spence: On the point of order, Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask if the hon member is discussing the duty on onions?


Thomas McMillan: Yes, sir, certainly.


An hon. MEMBER:: What are you reading from?


Thomas McMillan: I am reading from my speech, the way you did the other day, word for word.


James Houston Spence: Mr. Chairman, I should like your ruling on the point of order.


John Frederick Johnston: I understand the hon. gentleman is developing his argument with respect to the item under discussion.


Thomas McMillan: The only mistake was that Laurier did not put the'measure through at once, but rather gave the Tory party the time and opportunity to trump up the false cry of "Let well enough alone" and the more effective although hollow slogan of "No truck or trade with the Yankees." Notwithstanding the nature of that cry during the campaign, one of the first international acts of the Borden government was to send their representatives to Washington, hat in hand, to beg of the American government to relieve the grain situation of western Canada by
2272	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
allowing western Canada grain to be shipped to and stored in American elevators, which of course was agreed to at once.
While the Canadian farmers failed to secure free access to the United States markets for their beef, cattle, wheat, potatoes, and other agricultural products in 1911, yet, sir, by gracious enactment of the American government under President Wilson in 1915, we did secure that boon for four successive years; and if the Tory Canadian government of that day had had the common sense to reciprocate we might have had those arrangements permanently confirmed.
However, in Mr. Fielding's first budget as finance minister in the Mackenzie King government, he invited the United States to consider such a reciprocal trade agreement. Mr. Robb placed a standing offer on the statute books for the same purpose, and it remains till this day. Liberals still feel that with such a reciprocal trade agreement with the United States, we could successfully meet any high protectionist opposition anywhere in Canada, and obtain a decided boon to Canadian agriculture. The natural course of trade proves that we would be proceeding along reasonable lines.
Consider the present trade situation between Canada and the United States. The entire foreign trade of Canada with all the world during the fiscal year just closed (1929-30) was $2,391,361,045, while with the United States it amounted to $1,411,538,383. The trade of Canada with all the rest of the world was $982,822,662; or Canada does with the United States $428,715,721 worth more trade annually than she does with all the rest of the world; and that, in spite of all the obstruction caused by two adverse tariff walls which the respective governments have built up between these two countries.
Is that not at once a tribute to the power of natural trade laws and an indication of the only rational trade policy? It points at once to the wisdom of a full degree of freer trade in natural products between these two countries, which would injure no one and would be just as certain to benefit both countries as has been the internal development of each country, unhampered by any tariff restriction between individual states or individual provinces. If this tariff restriction now carried to such a degree between the several countries of the world is beneficial, why not carry it to its logical conclusion? Why not build up high tariff walls between every state, every province or every county in each province, and then we would dearly realize how ridiculous such impositions are. Canada is now the best customer of the United States. For every

dollar's worth of goods we sell to the United States we buy practically $1.60 in return. The United States sold to Canada last year nearly twice as much as she sold to all of South America, twice as much as she sold to Germany, and over three times as much as she sold to France. Surely such a good customer as Canada is worth keeping. More than that, Canada's good will towards the United States has been amply demonstrated on many occasions, and on no occasion has it been demonstrated to a greater extent than in passing during the present session the act to prohibit liquor clearances. While it is true that this parliament passed the measure abolishing liquor clearances, as a measure of self respect, and to make our Canadian government and its customs officials entirely free from the possibility of being accused of trafficking with a gang of rumrunners, lawbreakers and crooks of the lowest kind, it nevertheless had the effect of expressing good will towards the United States. However, the high protection forces in that country seem to have obtained possession of power to such a degree that they have no intention of allowing trade to develop normally, and flow freely back and forth between these two countries as it should, and as it would if it were freely permitted.
In lieu of the limited revisions of farm duties for which President Hoover asked, congress has increased its present tariff bill in some two thousand particulars. For the American farmers, it is now only a poorly disguised swindle; and to American consumers generally it is a bill of abomination. That tariff bill, if passed, will do Canada a serious economic injury, and I want to say to my fellow citizens whose servant I am that before [DOT] leaving Ottawa a year ago at the close of the session I left a communication addressed to *the Prime Minister, to the effect that if the United States congress continued to manifest the spirit towards Canada indicated by the Hawley-Smoot tariff bill, it was the duty of the Canadian government to show in some tangible way that it was a treatment resented by the people of Canada. The tariff bill is being bitterly assailed even by many of the brightest minds in the American republic. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and of Columbia university, has assailed the tariff bill and has said that it is certain to do more harm to America's prosperity, trade and international relations than any previous tariff enactment of the American nation. Not since the most prominent economists of Europe issued their famous anti-tariff manifesto in 1926 has such an impressive document come

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
*to notice as the manifesto addressed to President Hoover on Monday, May 5, 1930, endorsed by 1,028 economic experts from 46 states and 179 colleges, urging him to veto the Hawley-Smoot tariff bill.


Mr. HEAPS:: Mr. Chairman, I rise to a
point of order. The hon. gentleman has been speaking for half an hour, and he has read every word of his speech. I ask for a ruling.


Thomas McMillan: It may be that I am
reading my speech, but I have the subject matter in my mind and it is of importance to hon. members in this house and to the citizens of Canada as a whole. I want to have it on Hansard in the best possible form.


An hon. MEMBER:: Hand it in.


John Frederick Johnston: I have been following the remarks of the hon. gentleman as carefully as possible and it is my opinion that he has drifted far afield from the item now before the committee. I would ask him to direct his remarks towards item 44, which has to do with onions.


Mr. CAMPBELL:: May I draw your attention to the fact, Mr. Chairman, that you have not ruled on the point of order raised by the hon. gentleman. Is the hon. member opposite going to be allowed to read his speech; what is your decision?


William Irvine: I move that the hon. gentleman be allowed to put his speech on Hansard.


Thomas McMillan: If that motion were
passed I would be pleased to put it on Hansard. I will not be much longer, however.


John Frederick Johnston: Is it the pleasure of the house that the hon. gentleman have leave to place his speech on Hansard?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No, no.


John Frederick Johnston: The rule as to the
reading of speeches has been disregarded in this house for many years. For this reason I cannot rule the hon. gentleman out of order at this time.


Thomas McMillan: The manifesto says:
We cannot increase employment or raise wages by raising tariff walls and restricting trade. All nations must recognize this fact sooner or later. It will not only inspire fear, but it will injure investors in industry in other lands; it will beggar farmers, labouring men. miners, and construction, transportation and public utility employees. Countries cannot permanently buy from us unless they are permitted to sell to us. There are few more ironical spectacles in history than that of the American government as it seeks on the one 2419-144
hand to promote exports and on the other to increase tariffs. In this way it makes exporting even more difficult. Finally we urge our government to consider the bitterness which a policy of higher tariffs will inevitably inject into our international relations.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I rise to a point of order. It is my opinion that this farce has continued long enough, and I think it is time that it was stopped.


John Frederick Johnston: I think the point is
well taken by the hon. gentleman. I must ask the hon. gentleman who is delivering his address to bring his remarks to bear on the matter before the committee.


Thomas McMillan: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I shall do so. Since Canada is the best customer of the United States-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Thomas McMillan: -and the foremost export nation of the world, per capita-
Some 'hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Thomas McMillan: -the American manufacturers are now taking notice. Canada's action is the climax of protests from thirty-three countries-


Abraham Albert Heaps: I rise to a point of order.


Thomas McMillan: -and the first serious counteraction of them all.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I insist that the hon. gentleman must observe the rules of the house. I would also ask the Chairman to assert his authority.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: I think lion, gentlemen should allow the hon. member to conclude his speech.


Thomas McMillan: 
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Thomas McMillan: Canada, after eight years of capable administration-


Abraham Albert Heaps: I wish to know whether the hon. gentleman is going to observe the rules of proper procedure in this house, and I wish to know if the chairman will so rule.


John Frederick Johnston: Order.

2274	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Thomas McMillan: If the hon. gentleman
will give me a chance-


Abraham Albert Heaps: I wish to know if the hon. gentleman is to observe the rules of proper parliamentary procedure.


John Frederick Johnston: I ask the hon. gentleman to bring his remarks to bear on the item before the committee; I insist that he do so.


Thomas McMillan: Certainly, Mr. Chairman. I shall now direct my remarks to fruits and vegetables.


An hon. MEMBER:: We have not reached that item.


Thomas McMillan: I have shown conclusively that notwithstanding the remarks of the hon. leader of the opposition the party opposite have increased the duties two and one-half times more than has this government. There is no doubt that the Prime Minister and his cabinet in introducing the present budget have taken the steps they should have taken in order to represent the feeling of the great majority of Canadian electors.


Richard Bedford Bennett: This is the step they should have taken nine years ago.


Thomas McMillan: It is the first duty of
any government to correctly interpret the enlightened sentiment of the Canadian people. There is no question of doubt but that he has represented the sentiment of the Canadian people, and the best proof that this budget is good is the manner in which it has been received throughout the country and the whine which it has occasioned from the opposition. It seems to me that no budget would be right if it did not bring out that whining disposition of hon. gentlemen of the opposition. Therefore, in conclusion let me say that I thank them for having presented their part of the budget.


Mr. GOTT:: I have the honour to represent in this house the best onion growers in the Dominion of Canada, and I doubt if there is an acre of onions grown in the riding represented by the hon. member for South Huron. With regard to the reference which the hon. gentleman made to the mammoth Conservative meeting in western Ontario on Friday last, I want to tell him that it spells ruin for every Liberal member in western Ontario.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Eccles James Gott: The Minister of Finance laughs at that. I do not think he is any too safe in his own riding. I think a wave of indignation-	,


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Eccles James Gott: This is the first time I have
occupied the time of the house this session.


Charles Avery Dunning: Mr. Chairman, I wonder
if we could agree on our procedure here. The hon. member for South Huron wandered pretty far afield and made a sort of budget speech, and I gather that my hon. friend from South Essex is travelling in the same direction. I wonder if we could not agree, as a sporting proposition, that the hon. member for South Essex be allowed to do so, and that following his remarks the members of the committee endeavour to get down to the item under discussion. I make this suggestion merely as a matter of fairness in view of what has happened. I was interested in the remarks of the hon. member for South Huron; he made a very interesting speech, but from the point of view of procedure in committee I just suggest that following the hon. member who now has the floor we might try to do as we did yesterday and deal with the item under discussion.


Eccles James Gott: All I desire to do is to make
a protest on behalf of the people whom I have the honour to represent here. I protest against onions from Bermuda and the West Indies coming into Canada free. They have three crops a year in the West Indies, all grown under cheap labour, which is going to place the onion growers of Essex county under the most severe competition which they have ever known. We have striven for a number of years against strong competition from different quarters; we are up against competition from Mississippi on tomatoes; we have competition with Virginia on cabbages; we are up against competition from Louisiana on cucumbers and competition from Michigan on potatoes. Now we are going-


Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):: Can you not
stand any competition at all?


Eccles James Gott: Perhaps the hon. member might keep quiet. I do not think he is coming back to the next parliament. I think there is a wave of indignation sweeping across this country to-day against the present government, cutting such a wide swath and gaining such a momentum as it goes on that fifty budget speeches such as the Minister of Finance brought down will not save the government, and a million speeches such as the hon. member for South Huron just delivered will not save him or any of the Liberal members in western Ontario.
I want to protest against these onions from the West Indies being allowed into Canada

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
free. They come here under a cheap ocean rate, at any time of the year with their three crops, and the onion growers in Essex county will be up against the most serious competition they have ever experienced. I could not let this item pass without putting in my protest on behalf of the people whom I have the honour to represent.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Last night I raised a question as to whether the packages should be made to pay duty on entering Canada. I think last night the minister said it would be very difficult for the Department of National Revenue to differentiate between the contents of the package and the package itself. I think until the present budget was put into effect there was no duty collected on the cases in which vegetables and fruits were packed when they entered Canada, and as a result of this new method of calculating duty we have had a tremendous increase in the cost of these vegetables and fruits. I understand that in the case of lettuce the increase is from 45 cents to $1.28 per case.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Here are the figures as we
have them from people who have actually paid the duties, and I think those are the people who really should know. I am very anxious indeed that the minister should do away with the collection of duty on cases or ice in which these vegetables may be packed. I do not see any difficulty about it; I think the duty could be collected on the invoice value of the vegetables, and then there would be no need to pay a duty on that extra weight represented by the package in which the vegetables come. This is not a concession in the true sense of the word; we are simply asking for a little common sense in the administration of the new duties. You can take a case of lettuce as a very striking example. I believe the contents of that case would not weight much more than about half the total weight of the container, the ice, and the lettuce itself, yet we are asked to pay duty on the ice and on the crating which contains the lettuce. For the last time I ask the Minister of Finance to see if he cannot bring in some amendment whereby duty will not be collected on the packages in which the vegetables and fruits come to Canada, as is the case at the present time.


Milton Neil Campbell: Mr. Chairman, for some years past doctors, dieticians, nurses and medical magazines have been telling the people that they should eat more raw vegetables and fruits, until the vegetables which are covered 2419-144.1
by these items which we are discussing to-day have become of the utmost importance. The doctors all point out to-day how important it is to eat lettuce, tomatoes, celery and other vegetables of that kind, and people have taken them at their word, and you find that even in the little country villages, during the winter time these fruits and vegetables are available to the people who desire them. Now, just when the people have acquired this taste and are taking the advice of the doctors, we come along with these almost prohibitive duties and penalize those people for doing what is most necessary in the interests of their health and the health of their children.
May I point out that I can hardly believe that this is in the best interests of the growers themselves. Supposing we allow these prohibitive duties to continue on these vegetables throughout the season; it would simply mean that up to the time they were produced in abundance in Canada people would hardly use them at all. If people get out of the habit of using them during about eight months of the year, they will not use them in any great quantities during the other four months. It would seem to me that at least outside of the period during which they are produced in abundance in Canada, we ought to give the people every chance in the world to use these vegetables, and it seems to me that by educating the people and keeping that taste alive during the winter and the off season, people will be much more liable to use the native products during the time when they are on the market. As a matter of fact, I find that the growers themselves have not asked for this duty.
Now I should like to quote some figures I received from a fruit and vegetable dealer in the city of Ottawa.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend said the growers had not asked for these rates?


Milton Neil Campbell: They have not asked
for the duty throughout the whole season.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend probably was not in the house last night when I indicated that I proposed to move amendments which would have the effect of restricting the application of the specific duty to seasons which the growers state are satisfactory, which would not affect the winter consumption.


Eccles James Gott: That would be what the
growers have asked for.


Milton Neil Campbell: I congratulate the minister on correcting the mistake he made at the start, at least to that extent. Now I
2276	COMMONS
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should like to place these figures on Hansard, which have been given me by a fruit and vegetable dealer in the city of Ottawa. On lettuce, which had a value of $1.50 f.o.b. point of shipment, the old duty was 45 cents while the new is $1.28; on strawberries the old duty was 2+ cents per quart, while the new duty is 5 cents per quart; on cabbage, the old duty was 60 cents per case of 112 pounds, while the new duty is $1.12.


Charles Avery Dunning: Those figures cannot be correct.


Milton Neil Campbell: They were given to me by a reputable dealer whose name I cannot announce publicly. On carrots, worth $2 per case, f.Ojb. California, the old duty was 50 cents while the new is 85 cents; on cauliflower, valued at $1 per case, f.o.b. California, the old duty was 30 cents while the new duty is 90 cents; on onions, valued at $1 per case f.o.b. Texas, the old duty was 30 cents while the new duty is 40 cents.


An hon. MEMBER:: Name your authority.


Milton Neil Campbell: I am under an obligation not to give this name publicly.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why read it?


Milton Neil Campbell: On spinach at 40 cents per bushel, the old duty was 12 cents per bushel, while the new duty is 22 cents per bushel; on celery, valued at $3 per case f.o.b. California, the old duty was 90 cents per case while the neiw duty is $3; on Mexican tomatoes, the old duty was 38 cents while the new duty is 90 cents.
This dealer assures me that just as soon as the home grown vegetables come on the market in sufficient quantities, the American shipments are shut off. I have a circular letter issued by a Montreal wholesale fruit house.


Charles Avery Dunning: The dealers again.


Milton Neil Campbell: The dealers again. This was sent to the particular dealer to whom I have referred, and reads as follows:
The proposed Canadian tariff on fruit and vegetables (in effect since May 2) is working a decided hardship on the receivers and distributors of fruit and vegetables in Canada.
(1)	Because it will increase the duty on imports to the consumer about 150 per cent.
(2)	Because the receivers and distributors of fruit and vegetables are obliged to reduce their turnover and increase the cash outlay.
(3)	Because the growers only requested a seasonable duty on a few articles but no general increase for the full twelve months.
(4)	Because the fruit receivers of Canada, especially of eastern Canada are 100 per cent behind the movement of "trade within the empire," especially with Bermuda and the West
(Mr. Campbell.]
Indies. Unfortunately the receipts from this source are totally insufficient (and for many years to come) to meet the demands of Canada for fruit and vegetables.
(5)	The duty on the first twenty carlots of fruit and vegetables we passed since the new tariff was in effect on May 2,
amounted to	$7,383 13
under old tariff	 3,381 73

an increase of about 118 per cent, ivhich automatically must be passed on to the consumer.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is on twenty carloads.


Milton Neil Campbell: On the first twenty
carloads. I notice that the Regina Leader, in an editorial, refers to the question of ice, and points out, apparently in a vein of sarcasm, that ice being a native product which ought to be protected, a duty on this commodity is logical. The following editorial from the Regina Leader-Post of May 7, should prove very interesting:
Here are some concrete examples the fruit men have found. A carload of lettuce arrived in Regina Tuesday. The receiving firm was called upon to pay $181.92 in duty alone. Under the old schedule the duty cost would have been $156.34. A car of strawberries also arrived in Regina Tuesday and to-day are being consumed in various homes in the city. The receiving firm paid $529.92 in duty. Under the old rate the same charge would have been $250.24. Practically the same proportion runs through a whole list of articles that Reginans use every day, cabbage, tomatoes, cauliflower and all the popular fruits that have to be imported in the off-Canadian season.
The editorial continues:
Shippers declare they are now paying duty on ice in which head lettuce and similar commodities are packed. One dealer said that he received Tuesday a shipment of green peas. Each crate contained a piece of ice. The peas in a crate weighed forty pounds. The ice and crate weighed thirty pounds. He paid duty on all three.
I have a list prepared by the Winnipeg Evening Tribune, which I do not intend to read but which shows an average increase of 118 per cent in the rates of duty paid on different vegetables. I congratulate the minister on meeting this situation as he has, but I would ask him to consider that the harder it is for people to secure these necessary articles, the less they are going to use during the season in which they are on the market. To that extent the home grower will be injured.


James Houston Spence: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I
should deliver my speech in Irish so that I could go down in history as having been in competition with the hon. member for South Huron (Mr. McMillan). However, I will not

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
inflict an Irish speech upon the house. The hon. member for Huron seemed to be worried about the high protective policy of a low tariff party, as he referred to the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens), stating that he had applied the dumping duty. Let me say to my hon. friend that that was in the month of June or July, when Canadian products were on the market and at that time it had very little effect upon the prices paid. I do not know what proposals the government intend to substitute for the present ones, but I would like to express my views regarding protection for the fruit and vegetable growers.
I do not believe that they have too much protection, but I am opposed to both specific and ad valorem duties. A high tariff is not always the best protection to any industry as there are other means of helping along such an industry as the fruit and vegetable industry. There should be means of assisting this industry other than those which will take money out of the pockets of the people. I am not criticizing the government for their lack of knowledge of how to apply a tariff policy, because they have never applied a policy of any kind.
The hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Glen) made the statement that he hoped the time would soon come when the fruit and vegetable growers would have no protection whatever. Should that day ever come, there will be no fruit or vegetable growers in the country. To-day many of them are out of business because of the insufficient protection they have received since this government came into power, and before that as well.
I intend to speak from the marketing point of view, and may I say that I do not intend to speak in my own interests. I have been associated with the fruit and vegetable growers of this country for the last thirty-seven years. I know many of them throughout the province of Ontario, and I know the difficulties with which they have to contend. Their success or failure may not have depended entirely upon the tariff, as there were other conditions which they had to meet. Before I came to this house in 1922, and since that time I have advocated protection for the fruit and vegetable growers. Climatic conditions in the United States are more favourable to the growers in that country. They are enabled to produce two or three crops per year much more easily and cheaply than one crop can be produced in Canada. How can we meet that competition without protection? I have always advocated specific duties on fruit and vegetables as a means of blocking the unscrupulous dealers. These men have been
defrauding the government and putting out of business those legitimate wholesale men who have paid the full duty. The Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Euler) has stopped that to some extent, but we know that five-ton trucks are leaving Toronto, Hamilton and St. Catharines to go to Buffalo where they load up with grapefruit and pile oranges all around the outside and pay the duty upon faked invoices. Specific duties afford one means of protecting the fruit and vegetable growers of this country.
The next thing I have done is that I have advocated an embargo to prevent a glut when we have in Canada a greater supply than we can consume. That happens nearly every season in connection with the different commodities as they come along. One might, however, as well talk to the town pump as to the present government. In my early days in the house I gave quite a bit of advice along this line, 'but it was of no avail because nobody ever listened to me. No duty of any kind could have prevented a glut on the Toronto market or other Canadian markets during the week between the 3rd and the 10th May.


Eccles James Gott: Nothing but an embargo,


James Houston Spence: Nothing 'but an embargo could have prevented a glut in asparagus. On the 3rd May, when I was in Toronto, asparagus was being sold at $3 a basket of two dozen, some a little higher and some a little lower. On that date there was a good deal of United States asparagus in the market and more coming in. I tried to impress upon my colleagues that we should cut out importations of asparagus, but they said to me: "If you do not buy it, they will ship it to you on commission, and you cannot refuse it." I said: "On that account I think it should be cut out." The result was that the following Saturday asparagus 'had dropped to $1.50 and many hundreds of baskets were left over that could not be sold at all.


Charles Avery Dunning: The hon. member will not agree then with the statement made by the hon. member for Mackenzie with respect to the price of asparagus being increased to the consumer following the budget?


James Houston Spence: It dropped from $3 to $1.50 from the 3rd to the 10th May, but I say that nothing short of an embargo will give the Canadian growers the protection they want.
The same thing is true of strawberries. A duty of three cents a pound on strawberries seems very high protection, but if the United States growers have a surplus, they will dump it on to the Canadian market in Toronto or Montreal at any price. They will send the
2278	COMMONS
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berries in on commission and kill our own markets. Therefore I say: Let them keep their own stuff.
In Canada between Burlington and Hamilton we have developed a great district for growing melons and in that particular district we grow the best melons in the country. They grow a good quality in Leamington, but in Toronto we get more from the district between Burlington and Hamilton. Last year, in the season when our melons were at their prime and everybody wanted Canadian melons, the floors of the Toronto market were glutted with foreign melons, some of which were not fit to eat at all and some of which should not have been allowed into the country. There were such melons as honeydews, honey balls and casabas from California. I have no complaint about the Arizona or Mexican melons, but whenever we have in our markets more Canadian melons than our people can consume, the proper thing to do is to impose an embargo upon the foreign product and shut it out. It is that kind of protection alone that will safeguard our own growers.	[DOT]
Two years ago we had an enormous crop of carrots in Canada, but just after we had harvested our own crop in November, from, say the 15th to the 20th of December, along _ came Texas carrots. We had thousands upon thousands of bags of Canadian carrots on our floors and everywhere else, and we were trying to dispose of them, but as is well known, the people buy the new stuff with the result that the foreign carrots were a big detriment to the native grown. In a case of that kind let me advise the government-and if my own party were in power I should say the same thing-that those carrots should be kept out of Canada until the greater part of our own crop is consumed. Then let t'he foreign product in and give a fair deal to the consuming public. The price of carrots at that time was very low. In the spring they were dumped by the hundreds of bags and they could not be sold for a quarter because the market was flooded from the month of December when these Texas carrots should not have 'been permitted to enter at all. They should at least have been kept out until the 15th of February, if the government do not favour a complete embargo, because the people ought to be encouraged to eat our own products instead of the foreign stuff that is very expensive. For instance, the market that year for our carrots was seventy-five cents for a seventy-five pound bag. The Texas stuff was sold at $3.50 a hamper and because they were fresh vegetables with nice tops on them, they were being bought freely by everybody,

probably by many who really couldn't afford to buy them. But it would take three hampers of carrots worth $3.50 apiece to fill a seventy-five pound bag after you had cut the tops off. Is it an economical way for the people of Canada to live to buy carrots at that price? I say it is not, and the government should step in and take care of the situation in some way. The growers of fruits and vegetables have been asking for a seasonal tariff, but that will not be sufficient.


Edward James Young: What season
would the hon. member suggest for carrots?


James Houston Spence: I might suggest a season, but it would be impossible for a government to apply a measure of that kind without having somebody who was properly qualified to give them advice along that line. Some years you might apply a tariff from the first of April; other years the season might be later and you might apply the tariff from the first of May.


Edward James Young: The hon. member said a few minutes ago he wanted carrots shut out in January.


James Houston Spence: I did not say anything of the kind. I said that if these carrots were kept out until the major part of the large production we have in this country was consumed, that would be better for Canada and I still say so.
I am going to give the committee some figures that I have prepared myself and that I know are correct to a cent. It has been said in the house that the growers resent the idea that they want to increase the price of their products to the consuming public. All they ask for is a fair duty and that I am prepared to give them. The horticultural council made their presentation and everyone knows who compose that body. They seem to have had a great deal of influence with the Liberal party in the last few days in getting the government to change their attitude and perhaps it is a good thing.
My belief is that a countervailing tariff should have been introduced in this country when the Fordney-McCumber tariff was put into effect. At that time many people in Canada were making money out of shipping stuff to the United States, but the Fordney-McCumber tariff cut off 60 to 75 per cent of our exports. That was the time to introduce countervailing tariffs and not to-day. My idea is that an embargo is the only thing that will be of any use.


Mr. MILLAR:: Does the hon. member approve of countervailing duties to-day?

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


James Houston Spence: I am not giving it much consideration just at present.


Edward James Young: Would the hon. member put an embargo on peaches?


James Houston Spence: I would put an embargo on everything of which we produce in this oountry a sufficient crop to supply the demand.


Edward James Young: Would the hon. member put it on peaches?


James Houston Spence: Anything at all.


Edward James Young: On pears?


James Houston Spence: Yes.


Edward James Young: And yet we cannot produce enough to supply the local market.


James Houston Spence: We can at certain seasons of the year. I am not advocating the imposition of an embargo except at seasons of the year when we can supply the demand. My hon. friend will not lose a cent by it, so he need not worry about his free trade philosophy. We have a secretary belonging to our association and during the first week this new tariff was put into effect we engaged him to go around the different warehouses and
Cauliflower,
Under old duty
Cost in	United	States	$1	00Duty	
0	30Freight	
0	97
Increased	cost	per case	 0	54
find out the amount of duty that was paid. During the first week the amount was $25,643.96, whereas under the old tariff the amount would have been $13,059.84, so that there was an increase of $12,584.12. Yet the government tells us that it wants to reduce taxation. Is that reducing taxation? It is taking money out of the pockets of the people who can least afford to pay it.


Charles Avery Dunning: How many cars were
involved?


James Houston Spence: He took, not the number of cars, but the amount of stuff that came in and the duty that was paid. That applies only to jobbers who belong to the association. You can add 50 per cent for the people who do not belong to the association, who are working independently. To my mind, both an ad valorem and a specific duty should not be applied.
Lot me give the cost to a cent of some actual cases that came in in several cars of stuff on the 3rd of May.
Cauliflower runs about one dozen head to the crate, sometimes thirteen to fifteen. The figures are as follows:
Dozen Size
Under new duty
Cost in	United States	$1	00Duty	
0	84Freight	
0	97
An hon. member said that the price of	given work out to a good deal more than 3
cauliflower had been raised by the budget 3	cents per head.
[DOT]cents per head, but the figures I have just
Celery
Under new duty
$3 75	Cost in	United States	$3	751	13	Duty	
2	602	93	Freight	
2	93$7 81	$9 28Increased cost	$1 47
Under old duty
Cost in United States	
Duty	
Freight	
The middlemen are always accused of robbing the public, but can you see, Mr. Chairman, how the middleman can make money on a case costing $9.28. Every time the price goes up, the less you sell, and the less profit there .is.


Charles Avery Dunning: How much celery is there in a case?


James Houston Spence: From four and a half to
six dozen. At this time of the year they are very large heads. The unfair thing about it is this: We are paying for the weight of the boxes. We pay 2 cents a pound on the weight of the case that the celery comes in, and the same with regard to the cauliflower.
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Charles Avery Dunning: If my hon. friend will
permit me, the secretary of the horticultural council tells me that the tariff made a difference on May 10 of 42 cents on sixty bunches of celery.


James Houston Spence: I am figuring by the case.


Charles Avery Dunning: I was trying to get down to the actual increase, and it worked out at two-thirds of a cent on a bunch of celery on May 10.


James Houston Spence: I think it works out over two cents a bunch increase.
California Carrots
Under old duty
Cost in United States	$1 75
Icing, freight and refrigeration..	..	1 49
Duty	 0 53
Under new duty
Cost in United States	$1	75Icing, freight and refrigeration.. ..	1	49Duty	
1	74

Increased cost, per case	$1 21


Charles Avery Dunning: The secretary of the
horticultural council says that the difference is 38 cents per sixty bunches.


James Houston Spence: I am talking about cases.
I am giving the absolute cold facts as to shipments that have come in, and I can swear to them.
Cabbages a few months ago were very high, and an ad valorem duty was applied. When cabbages were $5 a case in Texas, an ad valorem duty of 30 per cent was applied. But since the cost of cabbage has come down, the consuming public can afford to get a cheap bite. The figures are as follows:
Cabbage
, Under old duty	Under new duty
Cost in United States	$2 00 Cost in United States	$2 00Freight and icing	
1	73Duty	
0	60
Increased cost	 0	60
What I do not like about that is that the crate containing the cabbage weighs from 18 to 22 pounds, and we have to pay a cent a
Texas Carrots (in Under old duty
Cost in United States	$1 00
Freight and refrigeration	 1 55
Duty	 0 30

Increased cost, per ease	 0 70
Freight and icing	 1 73
Duty, including crate	 1 20

pound on that, which adds one-quarter of a cent to the cabbage in the crate. Here are some figures on Texas carrots.
100 pound bags)
Under new duty
Cost in	United States	$1	00Freight	and refrigeration	
1	55Duty	
1	00
That makes a difference of 70 cents in duty alone on one bag of carrots, or an increase of over 250 per cent. I am not accusing the
government of doing something wrong because I do not think they knew just what they were doing. Here are some figures on lettuce:
Lettuce
Under old duty
Cost in United States	
$2	00Icing and freight	
1	62Duty	
0	60
Increased cost, per case	 0 54
Under new duty
Cost in United States	$2	00Icing and freight	
1	62Duty	
1	14
IMr. Spence.]

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
As all hon. members know, lettuce is packed in layers with a layer of ice in between, and the ice in a crate will weigh 20 to 25 pounds at the shipping point. The ice melts in transit and the water soaks into the wood as it melts. Now we are charged for the ice and the water that has melted and soaked into the wood; and we are charged for the wood too. It comes to a good deal more than 1J cents a pound; it will be 2 cents a pound. The wood in a case of lettuce will contain a certain amount of moisture and weigh more on that account. In the old days we paid an ad valorem duty of so much on the case, and the only people interested in the weight of the crate were the railway people, and they always succeeded in making it a little more than it was. The middlemen are criticized by everybody and are called robbers, but if we were able to get money out of the pockets of the people as the government does, and at the same time make people believe that taxation is being reduced, we should have a happier time than we do have now.


Mr. EVANS:: To come back to the item under consideration, on this car of onions that came into Winnipeg I find that the old duty would have been $165, and the new duty is $231, or an increase of 40 per cent.


Charles Avery Dunning: Who says so?


John Evans: It is furnished here.


Charles Avery Dunning: By whom?


John Evans: By the Winnipeg Tribune. Is that not true? Is it the intention of the government that onions should be raised in duty 40 per cent? Does the minister understand that the new tariff will work out that way, or what?


Charles Avery Dunning: In a normal season the tariff will be exactly what it has been.


James Allison Glen: We are dealing somewhat at large with several items. The discussion has wandered from onions to fruits and vegetables, and I think it is well at this juncture that I should say something in reply to the leader of the opposition who addressed some remarks to me last night.
He asked why I supported the budget. In the first place, I think the hon. leader of the opposition had better clean his own doorstep before accusing anyone else because, as I remember the vote on the budget, there were three members of the Conservative party who were of a similar mind to myself in that they could vote for the budget because of certain things contained in it-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Because of personal
promises they had given.


James Allison Glen: Personal promises have nothing to do with public records.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is what we thought.


James Allison Glen: They saw in the budget certain provisions which they considered of value to their constituents. No one, and least of all the leader of the opposition, would have any right to discipline his followers. Are they to be bound by all the provisions of the budget, or will you say to them: Yes, you can support the budget because of these items which we can favour, and you can protest against those that we do not favour. That must necessarily be the conclusion. But let me say, Mr. Chairman, that the leader of the opposition by his words has indicated to his followers just what attitude they should adopt. It was apparent when he spoke that several of his followers were kicking over the traces, and when they were making their statements his face was a study in black and white. At page 1822 of Hansard of May 6, the leader of the opposition in dealing with the iron and steel schedules, which are the largest items we have in the budget, said:
With relation to the iron and steel industry in all its complicated schedules, I have only this further to say. In committee we will have the fullest opportunity to hear explanations with respect to every item, the relation of one item to another, and the revenues that may be expected from the application of the tariff in the particular way indicated. It would be a waste of the time of this house for me to endeavour to go over these items in detail.
There we see that when he gets full information with regard to the items in the tariff he will be in a position to approve or disapprove of them. Now, if the hon. leader of the opposition intended to approve of any of those items he had no licence to vote against the budget; if he intended to disapprove of all he should certainly have voted against the budget. But he did not know what he would do. In my judgment his proper course was to let the budget go to committee of ways and means, where he could register his approval or dissent as he thought fit and could do so more intelligently. But, no, he votes against the budget on the amendment which he moved and which will be found at page 1834 of Hansard. Let me quote it:
That all the words after the word "That" be struck out, and the following substituted therefor:

"while this house welcomes and approves of every measure that will afford to Canadian agriculture, industry and labour an equal oppoi-tunity and fair competition in the development of the rich and varied natural resources of the Dominion, and provide for the extension of inter-empire trade by mutually advantageous preferences and agreements, with due regard,

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
in either ease, to the interests, of consumers, it is of opinion that the proposals which were submitted by the Minister of Finance on May I, are in several important respects so completely at variance with the policies of this government, as heretofore declared by its official leaders in parliament and elsewhere, that this administration having lost the confidence of the country, cannot safely be entrusted with the direction of the fiscal policy of Canada nor the carrying into effect of proposals to which it has heretofore been opposed and which constitute a breach of its solemn pledges to the electorate, and which are deceptive, fail to estimate the financial results of their operations and which create distrust of and contempt for representative institutions."
Now, Mr. Chairman, I should like you to note the words:
- are in several important respects as completely at variance with the policies of this government,-
The only assumption is that there are included in the budget, proposals which do not come within the four corners of the amendment, but which the leader of the opposition approves. Yet he endeavours to convey the impression that when one votes for the budget he thereby approves of all its provisions.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And against the amendment.


James Allison Glen: No. The hon. gentleman's
words imply that there were several pio-posals iii the budget with which he is in favour, but he voted against them.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I voted for the amendment.


James Allison Glen: But surely the converse must be true also, that when one votes against the budget he therefore disapproves of all its provisions. Now, I think the hon. leader of the opposition is too shrewd to permit himself to get into that difficulty. He knows that when he votes against the budget, according to his reasoning in the first instance, he must therefore disapprove of all its provisions. What after all is the meaning of his amendment? Simply this, that the administration has lost the confidence of the country. It is not an amendment to the budget. It simply asks for a vote of no confidence in the government. No doubt it was framed to catch the votes of certain hon. gentlemen opposite, [DOT]and it was so far successful in that only three escaped.
Now, Mr. Chairman, there are provisions in the budget which I favour, and without any doubt in my judgment the most important of those provisions is the British preference. Like the hon. leader of the opposition, I must leave it to the committee of ways and means stage to deal with them in detail. I realize, 
as all members do, that what advantage will be taken of these provisions only the future can determine. But what does the hon. gentleman say? In one breath, at page 1923, he says:
As an earnest of our affection and goodwill, as an expression of the hope we all have that some day a closer economic alliance of empire states may find being, I commend the measures for British preference which the minister proposes.
And yet further on the hon. leader of the opposition qualifies that by these words:
To grant trade preferences to another state or empire without founding those preferences on a mutually helpful treaty is unsound business, profitless and filled with ill will and misunderstanding.
Now, I should just like to suggest to the hon. leader of the opposition-


Eccles James Gott: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Chairman.


James Allison Glen: I am replying-*


Eccles James Gott: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Chairman. A few minutes ago the Finance minister asked us to curtail our remarks. I did so, at his solicitation. The hon. gentleman has not yet referred to the subject before the committee.


The ACTING CHAIRMAN (Sir Eugene Fiset):: I think the point of order is well taken. The discussion has wandered all over the budget for the last two hours. The item under discussion is onions.


James Allison Glen: Mr. Chairman, I am dealing with the free importation of onions from the British isles, and I am following on the lines that were adopted by the hon. gentleman's leader in answering his remarks. If the hon. leader of the opposition was in order then, I am absolutely in order now in replying to his remarks. I was going to suggest that the Right Hon. Ramsay MacDonald-
Mr. MoGIBBON: Are we to understand, Mr. Chairman, that your ruling is ignored?


Eugène Fiset: Again I declare the item under discussion is onions. When the hon. leader of the opposition made his speech we were not in committee.


James Allison Glen: Yes, Mr. Chairman, we were in committee, and the hon. leader of the opposition said that as my reply would take five minutes he had not the time to grant it.
I am now replying to him, and I think it very bad tactics on the part of the opposition members to refuse me an answer to what their leader said. I am quite satisfied that he does not approve his follower's action.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman will
remember that last evening he spoke first and I replied to him. This is the rejoinder.


James Allison Glen: The hon. the leader of the
opposition asked several questions. I wanted to reply, but permission was not granted.


Charles Avery Dunning: In the interests of the
conduct of parliamentary business may I ask when this reply, rejoinder and re-rejoinder is to end. I am not criticizing one side more than the other, but may I state that we are really not dealing with onions at all.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: The hon. minister suggested that the matter be closed at the conclusion of the remarks by the hon. member for South Essex (Mr. Gott). That hon. gentleman shortened his remarks in order to meet the views of the minister; yet the item is dragged out.


John Frederick Johnston: That is the reason I
am calling the attention of the hon. member to the item under discussion.


Eccles James Gott: I could talk for a week on
onions, because I know my onions.


James Allison Glen: I purpose to speak on the
British preference so far as it applies to onions. The extension of the British preference has a distinct parallel in a matter of great historical moment which has happened recently. When Mr. Ramsay MacDonald made his offer to Mr. Hoover to have the disarmament conference and when Mr. MacDonald visited the United States and unconventionally sat upon a log to discuss matters with the American president, he made what I thought was the greatest gesture towards peace. The conference has taken place. Resolutions have not been introduced to substantiate the view's of either of these gentlemen ; nevertheless no one will say that the conference was not of sufficient importance to bring matters before the world. There is a distinct parallel in the present instance.


Eccles James Gott: I say that the ruling of the
chairman has been completely ignored.


John Frederick Johnston: There is no doubt
about it that the remarks of the hon. gentleman are entirely out of order and I would ask him to direct his remarks to the item under discussion.


James Allison Glen: The Minister of Finance has
made an offer to Great Britain of a British preferential tariff, and the item under discussion is one of the items affected. I draw a parallel between the action of the disarmament conference and that of the present
Minister of Finance, although they are along different lines. I hope the results derived from the British preference are as great as those anticipated by the minister. However, no matter what the results might be, and no matter what may be achieved by the minister, no one can say that the gesture of Canada towards Great Britain is not a worthy one To adhere to the point of order raised; I wish to say that I intend to support the item of onions.


Eccles James Gott: You have not said much about it so far.


James Allison Glen: I am supporting the item of
onions under the British preference for the same reason I voted for the budget, because it contained in a large measure other items which would be affected by the same preference. I must say that I do not approve of certain proposals contained in the budget;
I have already made myself clear on that point. My viewpoint has been confirmed by no less an authority than the leader of the opposition. It is an unexpected pleasure to find that hon. gentleman saying that prices would be raised to the consumer.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman is
thinking of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm). It was the Minister of Trade and Commerce rvho said that duties which kept out imports brought about domestic competition and cheapened goods to the consumer.


James Allison Glen: I never knew the leader of the opposition was a free trader, nor did I know that he would agree that a tariff placed upon goods would increase the price to the consumer. Now he places it upon record, and he also said in London that there would certainly be an increase in price to the consumer. In the Toronto Globe of May 17 he is quoted as saying that the new tariff would cost Toronto about $2,000,000. I do not know where he got the figure $2,000,000, but probably it was just an intelligent guess.
_ Mr. BENNETT:	No, it is not just an
intelligent guess. It is based upon the consumption of some 800,000 people in Toronto at a time when Canada is not supplying the fruit and vegetables in question. The tariff that the government has placed upon them means that much more money to be paid by the city of Toronto.


Charles Avery Dunning: Did my hon. friend take into account in his calculation the importations from the British West Indies?


Richard Bedford Bennett: No.
2284	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Charles Avery Dunning: That would seem to have been a very important omission.


James Allison Glen: The hon. gentleman also said in Toronto that the consumers would pay, and he asked who would receive the benefit. His answer was that it would not be the farmer. I do not want any better corroboration than that.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I must say that the hon. gentleman is very easily satisfied.


Eccles James Gott: If the kind of speech my hon. friend is making disconcerts his audiences when he is electioneering as much as it annoys the opposition there will not be a Liberal elected in Ontario.


James Allison Glen: It may be that the leader of the opposition is not the man who is declaring the policies of the opposition party, because at a meeting addressed by Premier Ferguson I find that that gentleman disagreed somewhat from the policy of the leader of the opposition.


Mr. COTNAM:: I rise to a point of order. The hon. gentleman has not been directing his remarks to the item under discussion, and he has completely ignored the ruling of the chair.


John Frederick Johnston: I am afraid the hon. gentleman is not the only sinner, but I must say he is coming somewhat closer to the item than he did before.


James Allison Glen: I repeat that the leader of the opposition is apparently not the only leader of the party opposite. I find that in the city of London the premier of Ontario attempted to lay down the policy of the Conservative party. I had understood that the premier of Ontario had stood aside in order that the present leader of the opposition party could rule and control his party. I find, however-


John Frederick Johnston: I shall have to call the hon. gentleman to order. He has transgressed the rules of procedure.


James Allison Glen: After the words of the premier of Ontario-


John Frederick Johnston: Order.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The remarks of the hon. gentleman constitute contempt of the rules of the house.


James Allison Glen: I think that the leader of the opposition has had his tariff made for him, and he will have to find some other policy upon which to go to the country.


Eccles James Gott: Has the minister any idea
how many onions will come in from the British West Indies and from Bermuda?


Charles Avery Dunning: During the last calendar year 3,913 crates came in.


Eccles James Gott: How many pounds are there
in a crate of onions?


Charles Avery Dunning: I do not know.


Eccles James Gott: If the industry were reasonably protected we could grow sufficient onions in the county of Essex to supply the whole of Canada.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Is it still the intention of
the department to include crates and packages in compiling the duty?


Charles Avery Dunning: I have consulted with
the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Euler) regarding the administrative features with which he dealt with last evening. He informs me that he finds it very difficult to devise any means whereby the package could be eliminated from consideration. As a matter of fact, in setting the specific duties, my hon. friend understands that the weight of the package is only a factor when the specific rate applies; it is not a factor under the ad valorem rate. In computing the rates which ought to be charged under minimum specific rates, allowance was made in each case for the ordinary package. That is to say, from the point of view of the growers the specific rate would be higher than is stated in the proposals if the package were eliminated from consideration. The difficulty is in administration, and it will be a great deal easier to administer if the package of lettuce, onions, or whatever it may be, is simply treated as such for duty purposes when the specific rate applies. When the ad valorem rate applies the weight of the package does not apply at all. I think my hon. friend's difficulty will be largely removed when we get to the items upon which I propose to move amendments which will reduce the application of the specific minimum to certain short seasons of the year.


Eccles James Gott: I warn the minister that if this arrangement goes through it will have the same effect with regard to our onion growers as the New Zealand treaty had with regard to butter producers.


James Dew Chaplin: Is this one of the fifty
items, or is this one under which we expect to have increased business?

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, with the West Indies we expect to do an increased business in the off seasons.


James Dew Chaplin: My understanding is that
last year these articles were admitted free from the West Indies.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, my hon. friend is
right; there is no change.


James Dew Chaplin: Then you cannot expect
to get any extra business owing to a change?


Charles Avery Dunning: There is not any change.


James Dew Chaplin: I asked the minister a
question and he did not answer me. I asked the question:	You do not expect to have
any increased business owing to the preference under this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: Well, of course there is
the imposition of the minimum rate under the general tariff, which has the effect of widening the British preference as far as the West Indies are concerned during the season in which the specific minimum will apply which in this case, is all the year.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-85. Mushrooms and truffles, fresh, dried or otherwise preserved, the weight of the package to be included in the weight for duty: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 27J per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than ten cents per pound.
James Dew Chaplin: I should like to get some information under this item. What were the total importations of mushrooms?


Charles Avery Dunning: They are untraceable, because mushrooms formerly were in the general vegetable basket, n.o.p.


James Dew Chaplin: I think the minister must be mistaken, because I have a return here showing an importation of 800,000 pounds.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend is not
speaking of fresh mushrooms; he is speaking of canned mushrooms which come in under another item entirely.


James Dew Chaplin: These are fresh, dried, or
otherwise preserved. They are not only fresh mushrooms; the full item is 800,000 pounds.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend is surely
quoting the wrong item.


Edward James Young: The word is
"or," not "and."


James Dew Chaplin: I am speaking to the minister, who knows something about these matters, with the help of his assistants.


Charles Avery Dunning: I think my hon. friend
is quoting the new item rather than the old one. The new item reads " Mushrooms and truffles, dried or otherwise preserved." The old item was 87, which included vegetables, n.o.p., at 15 per cent, 27i per cent and 30 per cent, or item 86 which included preserved vegetables generally.


James Dew Chaplin: At any rate, last year's
importations amounted to 800,000 pounds, and we may assume that there will be a similar importation this year, which will come under this heading. Will canned mushrooms come in under this item as well?


Charles Avery Dunning: I cannot say as to the
imports, but they will come under this item.


James Dew Chaplin: Whatever imports there
are will come in under this item, then. I find that out of that importation of 800,000 pounds only 24 pounds came from the United Kingdom, and the bulk of the trade came from France. I want to find out what was the idea of the minister, whether he thought that trade would be diverted from France?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is one of those absurdities of which I spoke yesterday. That is not regarded as likely.


James Dew Chaplin: Then it is really an
absurdity to make the item free.


Charles Avery Dunning: No; I regard it as a
greater absurdity to have a tariff against the United Kingdom on an article which we do not import from there, and which cannot come from there.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-86. Beets for the manufacture of sugar: British preferential tariff, free, intermediate tariff, 27i per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Mr. FRASER:: What were the imports
under this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: They entered formerly
under a general item. We cannot trace these beets separately because they were included in a general item before. .


Mr. MANION:: What else did the general item cover?


Charles Avery Dunning: Vegetables, n.o.p.; it was the whole of the remainder, in the old tariff.


James Dew Chaplin: There could not have been any quantity of beets brought into the Canadian market for this purpose. Our importations of beets were only 45 tons.


Charles Avery Dunning: 
Arthur Edward Ross: From what part of the British Empire does the minister expect these beets for the manufacture of sugar to come?


Charles Avery Dunning: I do not expect them to come from anywhere.


Robert James Manion: What were the importations of beets last year?


Charles Avery Dunning: They came in under the
item of vegetables, n.o.p., to an untraceable extent.


Arthur Edward Ross: What is the idea
of this change?


Charles Avery Dunning: We are giving a classification to beets now; we are trying as far as possible to get away from the so-called basket items, which have the effect of making it impossible for us to know what is imported of the different varieties of vegetables. We are separating them into their own classes for the future, so that our statistical information will be of greater value than it has been in the past.


Arthur Edward Ross: Is this one of the
50 items?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Mr. SPENCER:: I should like some information as to what quantity of beets was exported to the United States from Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: We exported sugar beets to the value of $245,000.


Robert James Manion: What were the total imports under the item of vegetables, n.o.p.?


Charles Avery Dunning: They amounted to $1,700,000, including all sorts of stuff.


Robert James Manion: Scattered from all over the world? Where was the large proportion from?


Charles Avery Dunning: lit includes a number of
items we are now separating. The total imports amounted to $1,726,000 of which $1,677,000 came from the United States.


Robert James Manion: Practically all of it.


Charles Avery Dunning: From the Netherlands
we imported under this item articles to the value of $4,000; from Mexico, $3,000; from France, $1,400; from China, $2,000; from Hong Kong, $37,000. These are the principal amounts in the total which I have given as coming in under the item of vegetables, n.o.p. Of course that includes all sorts of strange things, as my hon. friend can understand.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

Customs tariff- 87. Vegetables, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty:
(a) Asparagus: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 27^ per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than three cents per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: This is the first of tho
items upon which I propose to offer an amendment. I will ask my colleague the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Euler) to move the following amendment:
That after the word "rate" in line three, the following words be inserted: "from April 15 to May 31 inclusive."
The item would then read:
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from April 15 to May 31 inclusive, the duty shall be not less than three cents per pound.


Robert James Manion: What are the imports of
this item, and where from?


Charles Avery Dunning: This is another one which is in the basket; it is included in the $1,700,000 worth of general vegetable imports.


Thomas Langton Church: Mr. Chairman, I desire to
call the attention of the minister to the injury he has done during the past few weeks to the consumers of this country. The restaurants in the city of Toronto have raised their charges for vegetables by 50 per cent. These charges were raised on May 3, immediately after the budget was presented. What does the minister propose to do to protect the consumer? There is no need of the Canadian National Exhibition sending over to Japan and paying thousands for a troupe of acrobats and tumblers to perform before the grandstand when we have enough acrobats and tumblers in this government to give all the performances needed.
We have been hearing about onions, and more especially a brand known as the Glen onion. The hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Glen) shed copious tears for the poor vegetable growers on the prairie after voting for the budget. This wonderful onion should be called after him and exhibited out at the experimental farm so that the people could see how one can blow hot and cold for protection and free trade at once. The restaurants of Toronto have raised their prices during the past week, as appears from a statement in the Evening Star of May 19, made by the head of a large restaurant company in Toronto, as follows:
"The duty on vegetables will be passed on to the consumer within the next few days", stated M. McCann, president of the Martin Cafeteria Company, Ltd., when asked to-day about the effect of the Dunning budget on restaurants.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
"At present we charge the public 15 cents for a portion of celery, but we will have to charge them 25 cents from now on," declared Mr. McCann. "It is absolutely impossible to buy Canadian celery until the fall and the duty makes the American product prohibitive in price. We have only one course open to us, namely to pass the charges on to the consumer and that is what we will have to do.
Take strawberries, grapefruit, iceberg lettuce, spinach, green peas, beets and cabbage for instance. All of these articles are now almost prohibitive in price under the new tariff.
It means that we will have to raise prices and the consumption of these vegetables will fall off. It doesn't help the Canadian grower any. We always use Canadian vegetables in season.
We are already protesting to the government through the medium of our association, the Ontario Restaurant Association.
Some of our Toronto members are Muirheads, Hunts. Sparfield's, Stoodleigh, Ellen Bradley, and McConkey's.	_
When the public find the price of all their favorite vegetables up by 50 per cent they'll soon kick."
Such a row is going to be raised as the Minister of Finance never heard before. The minister brought down his budget speech on May 1, but he is now introducing a second budget speech covering one of the most important industries we have in Canada. I have in my hand a list of prices prevailing on the St. Lawrence and North Toronto markets, which show increases of from 20 to 30 per cent on some vegetables on the May 1st tariff. Toronto expects to entertain next month over
300,000	Shriners and there is going to be they say scarcity of food. The following advertisement was issued by the Loblaw Groceterias, Limited:
Prudent housekeepers are buying their staple grocery-
And vegetablerequirements now. The experience of large American cities where the Shriners' conventions have been held was that the supplies of food products were almost depleted before the convention was over. All our busy groceterias are now well stocked with quality merchandise at the usual Loblaw low prices.
Other stores are issuing the same type of advertisement on food and vegetables. The consumer is going to be made to pay. What kind of advertising will this be for Canada when these visitors come here and find that they have to pay 50 per cent increase for a half grapefruit?
What does the minister intend to do to protect the consumer who has been thus fleeced during the past two or three weeks? We cannot blame the wholesaler because he has to raise his price to the middleman, who in turn passes it on to the retailer. The latter is not to blame. The consumer has to pay it all. There
are over 150,000 people in downtown Toronto who find it hard enough now to have to pay from 25 to 50 cents for a luncheon, but these prices have been raised to as high as 75 or 80 cents.
Where is this wonderful Consumers' League; where is it and what is it? Where is this great Mr. Deachman who spends so much time before the tariff board? How is the hon. member for Marquette going to protect the consumer? He came in as a free trader, but he is now a high protectionist. He voted one way for the budget and then he adopted another attitude regarding the resolution. We have quite an exhibition of hon. members across the chamber tumbling over each other and turning handsprings to get on the protectionist band wagon before the great catastrophe which will occur within a few weeks.
What is the minister going to do about the conscription of food to supply these 300,000 visitors? What is he going to do to protect the consumer? What is he going to do to protect the middleman and the retailer and regulate prices. Is the hon. minister going to put an item in the supplementary estimates to return to these poor working people the extra money they have been forced to pay the restaurant owners? This is an illustration of the kind of budget which has been presented. There have been a lot of hallelujahs, hurrahs and hosannas, but the small wage earner will be forced to pay 75 or 80 cents under the new tariff of May 1st for a meal which cost him previously from 30 to 40 cents. Young people will be forced to leave restaurants because they could not pay the prices charged. One owner told me that this tariff had raised the rates 50 per cent, and that increase had to be passed on to the consumer. These people may be forced to go without luncheon because of these increased prices. They cannot spend money like water as do some members of the Consumers League who appear before the tariff board. So I am now glad to see the change of heart which will restore the old prices. The rates charged the past two weeks were prohibitive.
Who put the gun to the minister's head and made him bring in a second budget? The minister announced in his speech that this budget was to be so-and-so, but he now offers an amendment to one of the items. Is he going to bring in an amendment to every one of the remaining 350 articles in the schedule? Are we going to have another budget speech? The British chancellor would stick to his guns and would refuse to change his budget one iota once it had been brought down. But in the
2288	^	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
house we have a wobbly kind of tariff; nobody knows what it is to be until the people get it in their tax bills directly or indirectly. Therefore there should be some protection for the
600,000	people of Toronto and for the 300,000 Shriners who are coming to Canada next month. These people are visitors and they should not be changed extortionate rates all along the line as a result of this tariff. Once these prices are raised many dealers are not going to lower them. The people of the west have been .complaining for many a day in regard to the taxes imposed in the tariff and the complaint is not going to be lessened by the tariff the minister has put on this particular item.


James Dew Chaplin: Would the chairman kindly read the amendment again?


Charles Avery Dunning: As to asparagus?


James Dew Chaplin: This is, I understand, an amendment the minister is going to move in respect to other items also.


Charles Avery Dunning: It will not be identical
as to dates. The date iis specific in this case.


James Dew Chaplin: When did the minister
become converted in regard to this proposition? Yesterday he told us he might change his mind in a year, but I do not think he ever intended he would change it every week.


Eccles James Gott: And on every item.


James Dew Chaplin: Yes, on every item. Let me read what the minister had to say a few days ago when he delivered his budget speech. Speaking on the item of vegetables, he said:
In revising the customs tariff on fruits and vegetables the government has given serious consideration to the representations of growers and consumers, as presented on several occasions before the Tariff Advisory Board.


Mr. LACOMBE:: Hear, hear.


James Dew Chaplin: Somebody says: 'Hear,
hear." If the minister and the cabinet gave the matter such serious consideration, they must have come to a serious conclusion.


Liguori Lacombe: This is a serious conclusion.


James Dew Chaplin: That is what I am anxious to know, because I am afraid it is not. I think this will show it is not. The minister continued:
The irregular nature of the severe competition which Canadian producers frequently face from the earlier-maturing crops of other countries has been weighed in the light of various suggested remedies, most of which were found to have inherent defects, a fact long since recognized by the growers themselves.

This is the choice item:
Seasonal tariffs, for instance, are not applicable to a country such as Canada, with its extremes of distance, latitude and climate.
Is it any wonder that my hon. friend opposite says we have now reached a point where we are getting somewhere; that it is serious. I think the minister should make some explanation of his change of heart within a week or so. The statement I have read is reported on page 1629 of Hansard and is taken out of the budget speech of the minister himself.


Mr. STEVENS:: Distances have shortened; climates have changed; latitudes have changed also.


Charles Avery Dunning: Probably neither of my
hon. friends was in the house last night when I spoke of this matter.


James Dew Chaplin: I think I was present.


Charles Avery Dunning: It was quite evident on checking over the representations made by the growers-and as I said last night, I pay particular attention to those who are growing anything in this country-that to arrange any season which would be acceptable at one and the same time to the growers of British Columbia, of the middle west, of Quebec and of the maritime provinces, would be a most difficult matter on many of these items. The growers have met me since the presentation of the budget and have suggested to me seasons which they say they can themselves agree upon. I submit that they know their own business much better than I could and perhaps they know it as well as the hon. member for Lincoln. I am content to propose to the house a reduction from the original proposals which is involved in the growers' suggestion as to dates between which the specific minimum duties proposed in the budget should apply instead of in some cases all the year round. I am content to take the responsibility and whatever odium attaches to it. I think the growers will themselves believe that I have endeavoured to give fair consideration to their requests; and at the same time I had in mind views expressed by hon. gentlemen on all sides of the house with respect to the desirability of reaching, if at all possible, such a conclusion.


Eccles James Gott: Have the growers intimated that a duty of three cents a pound on asparagus from April 15 to May 31 will be sufficient to safeguard the Canadian market?

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Charles Avery Dunning: I cannot say that the growers in every case are satisfied with the specified rate, but they are satisfied with and recommend the dates between which the specific rate will apply.


Mr. STIRLING:: Do I understand that
the minister wishes the committee to believe he has made these alterations as a result of representations made to him by the growers since the introduction of the budget?


Charles Avery Dunning: I stated that since the budget I had had conferences with the growers' representatives and that these proposals which I am making as to dates are the result of those conferences.


Grote Stirling: Then I think I should draw the attention of the committee to the fact that these seasonal dates which the minister now suggests are those which the growers have had before the Tariff Advisory Board for three or four years. Surely that is not why the minister has seen fit to make this alteration.


Charles Avery Dunning: The dates are not the same in all cases.


Grote Stirling: They are very close.
In an endeavour to assist so far as the growers could at this late date, they certainly have agreed to the alteration of a date here and there, but surely the minister does not wish the committee to believe this change of front on the part of the government is due to representations made to him by the growers since the introduction of the budget.


Henry Herbert Stevens: A change which he rejected in his budget speech.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-87(b). Beans, green: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-87(c). Brussels sprouts: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 27| per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than four cents per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: There is an amendment here.


Mr. ELLIOTT:: I move that the following be substituted for item 87 (c) :
87(c). Brussels sprouts: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 274 Per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
2419-145	'


Charles Avery Dunning: There will then be no fixed specific minimum in the case of Brussels sprouts and the only change from the old tariff will be a reduction from 15 per cent to free under the British preference.


Eccles James Gott: What will the rate be now per pound?


Charles Avery Dunning: There will be no specific duty per pound. The duty will be an ad valorem one.


Grote Stirling: Thirty per cent under the general tariff?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Grote Stirling: Any date?


Charles Avery Dunning: Any date.


Eccles James Gott: That is the year round, not
seasonal?


Charles Avery Dunning: The year round.


Grote Stirling: Will the minister kindly say whether beans, green, have been altered in any way?


Charles Avery Dunning: Beans, green, are exactly as they appear in the budget items.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-87(d).	Cabbage: British
preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less thane one cent per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: I move in amendment to insert the following after the word "rate" in line 3, "from June 15 to January 31 inclusive." The item will then read: Cabbage, provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from June 15 to January 31 inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.	.


Peter McGibbon: I think we all must
admire the ability of the minister and of the government to swallow themselves, to steal the policy of the party opposite, try to make it their own and get away with it in the country. If a farce has ever been enacted in any other legislature in the world that can equal this, I certainly have never heard of it. I think, Mr. Chairman, and I believe the country will be of the same opinion, that it is now time that the party that has written the prescriptions for the good of this country for so long should collect the fee, and we will do that after the next election.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
[Stage Direction]


Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
Customs tariff-87(e).	Carrots and beets,
n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: I move that this item be amended by inserting after the word "rate" in line 3, the words "from June 1 to February 28 inclusive." The item will then read: Carrots and beets, n.o.p., provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from June 1 to February 28 inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-87(f). Cauliflower and eggplant: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: I move to amend this item by adding after the word "rate" the words "from May 15 to October 31 inclusive." The item will then read: Cauliflower and eggplant, .provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from May 15 to October 31 inclusive, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound.


Mr. COOTE:: Can the minister explain on what basis these tariff rates on vegetables have been set. Asparagus comes in at a rate of three cents per pound; Brussels sprouts, 4 cents per pound; cabbage, 1 cent per pound; carrots, 1 cent per pound; cauliflower, 2 cents per pound; celery, 2 cents per pound; cucumbers, 1 cent per pound; lettuce, free; parsley, 2 cents per pound; rhubard, 1 -cent per pound; spinach, 1 cent per pound; tomatoes, 2 cents per pound and watercress, 5 cents per pound. It is a little hard to understand why there is so much difference in the specific rate when the ad valorem tariff seems to be the same all the way through.


Charles Avery Dunning: There are just the same differences in value in vegetables as there are in cereals. Oats, for instance, differ in value per pound from wheat, and the same is true of all these vegetables. The manner in which these figures were arrived at was by arriving first at a fair average value for the year for the particular commodity, and then endeavouring to set a specific minimum in close proximity to what the existing ad valorem rate would produce.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.

Customs tariff-87(g). Celery: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: I move to amend this item by inserting after the word "rate" the words "from July 1 to February 28 inclusive." [DOT]The item will then read: Celery, provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from July 1 to February 28 inclusive, the duty shall be not less than two oents per pound.


Mr. LADNER:: May I inquire what the imports are under this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: Last year, $584,604, of which almost all came from the United States. We have got a nice little trade starting from West Indies. In the first four months of this year, from January to May 10, 4,668 crates of celery came in from the West Indies.


Leon Johnson Ladner: They came in free, I presume?


Charles Avery Dunning: No, but anything which came in following May 1st would come in free.


Leon Johnson Ladner: With respect to all these vegetables under item 87 from paragraph (a) to paragraph (p), I presume that none come in from the United Kingdom.


Charles Avery Dunning: No, not to any appreciable extent, but there is quite a quantity coming in from the West Indies. It is evident from the figures I have obtained that now there are properly equipped steamers on that route the possibilities of developing that business are considerable. For instance, last year, 9,679 crates of carrots came in from the West Indies, 14,000 odd crates of tomatoes, and 785 crates of celery. Notice also the quick jump for the first four months of this year, from January to May 10, when celery jumped to 4,668 crates.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Paying the duty?


Charles Avery Dunning: Part of it. A considerable quantity came in just after May 1.


Mr. RYERSON:: The reason for that increased importation would be largely on account of our own celery being off the market at that period.


Charles Avery Dunning: I presume that our own celery is always off the market in that month.
I was making a comparison between the imports of celery from the West Indies during the whole of the last calendar year with the first four months of this year, from January to May 10. The quantity imported in the

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
four months of this year was six times more than the imports last year. That amount came in during our off season, and I think my hon. friend will agree with me that in that off season it is desirable to get celery from the West Indies if we can.


Mr. CAHAN:: Does the minister state that under the natural conditions of growing celery in the West Indies, we shall receive it only in the off season?


Charles Avery Dunning: I would not say that
necessarily.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The West Indies produce
celery throughout the year, crop after crop, and what I cannot understand is why the minister should open the Canadian market to all these vegetables from the West Indies. Certainly some consideration should be given during certain seasons of the year at least to those who grow celery on the island of Montreal, for instance, for the supply of that great city. I doubt if for the present celery, tomatoes, peas, beans and cucumbers from the West Indies will find a market in the western prairies until some more suitable method of preserving them in transit is found. Why in the world you should allow all these vegetables, produced by labour at less than one-quarter the cost of labour in Montreal, to come freely into competition there with the produce of hundreds of small farmers in and about that city, I cannot possibly conceive.


Mr. FANSHER (Lambton):: Does this off season tariff apply to all countries including the United Kingdom?


Charles Avery Dunning: Only the countries under the general tariff.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Are these new rates immediately effective?
Mr. DUNNING' No. Arrangements will have to be made pending the disposition of these items for the National Revenue department to advise immediately as to the results. The rates will be made effective as speedily as possible, but the}'' are not yet through this committee.


James Dew Chaplin: There may be some more changes.


William Russell Fansher: Will there be any rebate made on importations since the first of the month?


Charles Avery Dunning: That is quite impossible.


Grote Stirling: The minister has intimated with something of a shudder that he has accepted the seasonal tariff principle. Could he have another shudder and give us 2419-1451
the seasonal tariff assistance on celery from the West Indies? He has intimated that so far as he understands the majority of the importations of celery from the West Indies will come in at a period when Canadian production will not be hurt. But supposing he should be wrong-


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: He is certainly wrong; you
may start with that assumption; and he will have several shudders before this is acceptable to many farmers, in the province of Quebec, particularly the farmers on the island of Montreal.


Grote Stirling: I will put it my own way. Will he consider the possibility of extending the seasonal principle to the West Indies as well? Perhaps he believes with me that if the celery grower in, say, the Okanagan valley is to be hurt by importations from another country, it scarcely hurts him less if that celery is a Bermudan stick.


Charles Avery Dunning: I have not had the first shudder yet, so I am quite unlikely to have the second. That is the only answer I can make my hon. friend.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Has the minister made no
examination of the possibilities of the production of these vegetables in the British West Indies, as to the conditions under which they are produced there, the seasons when they are produced, and the quantities which will be available in the Canadian market Or is this simply done as a sort of gratuitous gesture to the West Indies since my right hon. friend the Prime Minister paid his recent visit to the nothern fringe of the islands?


Charles Avery Dunning: In conferences with
growers they made it quite clear that they were not disposed to be critical at all of the provision to admit celery free from the West Indies.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: In conference with whom?


Charles Avery Dunning: The Canadian celery
growers' representatives.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I venture to say the hon.
gentleman has not even come in contact, directly or indirectly, with the growers of celery in the province of Quebec, and especially with those in and about the island of Montreal.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend must
know more about my movements and the people I meet than I know myself. I assure him that I have met representatives of the celery growers of Canada,-


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I do not doubt that, but
I am suggesting-
2202	COMMONS
Ways and, Means-Customs Tariff


Charles Avery Dunning: [DOT]-and Quebec was represented.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: And Quebec was represented among those?


Charles Avery Dunning: I did not meet particular representatives; I me.t a small committee of the whole.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That is what I assume. But I suggest the hon. minister did not meet those who represent the small farmers in and about the Montreal district.


Charles Avery Dunning: Undoubtedly I did.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Then I am bound to accept the hon. minister's statement to that effect. But from my knowledge of conditions they did not represent farming, opinion in that district.


Liguori Lacombe: Is the hon. member
against a seasonal tariff?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Oh no, I have advocated a
seasonal tariff time and time again. But what I object to is the destruction of the vital principle of the seasonal tariff by allowing these islands, which can produce these vegetables by the ton, to send them in free of duty at all seasons of the year.


Liguori Lacombe: Does my hon. friend believe that a seasonal tariff is in the interests of the consumers as well as of the producers?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I am n.ot discussing that.
I am prepared at any time to do so.


Liguori Lacombe: This is the place.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I have urged that there
should be a seasonal tariff. But why destroy the vital principle of it? Why destroy every advantage that accrues from it to farmers in the eastern provinces of Canada, as you are doing by opening up to the native labour of the West Indies the entire control and command of the vegetable markets of eastern Canada?


Eccles James Gott: Mr. Chairman, I venture to assert that no representations were made to the government from the onion growers of western Ontario. At any rate, if they were, they were not listened to.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Eccles James Gott: The hon. member for East Essex should be here guarding the interests of the onion growers of his riding. Why does he not do so in this house? He has been loud enough in the press.


Mr. ODETTE:: I introduced a deputation from the Western Ontario Onion Growers' Association. Mr. James, the secretary, met
IMr. Cahan.]
the finance minister and make known the views and wishes pf the onion growers of western Ontario.


Eccles James Gott: Mr. Chairman-


Charles Avery Dunning: On a point of order, Mr Chairman, I submit that we have passed the onion item. Each of these gentlemen have had their say and are completely out of order. May we stay with celery for a little time?


Eccles James Gott: I would merely ask one question of the member for East Essex. Were those represenations made before or after the bringing down of the budget?


Edmond George Odette: Two weeks before the bringing down of the budget.


Mr. STEWART (Leeds):: On what principle does the minister withhold a seasonal tariff on celery and apply it on other vegetables?


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend, I am sure, may be excused in the confusion. I moved an amendment that the tariff on this item should apply from July 1 to February 28, inclusive.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I did not hear the minister move that.


Charles Avery Dunning: I do not blame my hon. friend.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-87(h). Cucumbers: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: The amendment is to make the tariff operative from June 1 to October 31, inclusive. The item will then read:
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from June 1 to October 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-87(i). Lettuce: British pref-ertial tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one and one-half cents per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: This is to be amended, Mr. Chairman, to read:
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from April 1 to October 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one and one-half cents per pound.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
Customs tariff-87 (j). Parsley: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 27J per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: Mr. Euler moves:
That the following be substituted for item 87 (j):
Parsley:	British preferential tariff, free;
intermediate tariff, 27J per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
This involves the same general and intermediate rates which now apply, and free entry under the British preference, but with no seasonal minimum.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-87 (k). Peas, green: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 27J per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Grote Stirling: No	seasonal tariff?


Charles Avery Dunning: No.
Customs tariff-87(1). Rhubarb:	British
preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 27J per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided	that	when	imported	under	the
general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.


Eccles James Gott: Seasonal?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes. The item will be
amended to read:
Provided	that	when	imported	under	the
general tariff rate, from March 1, to May 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.


Abraham Albert Heaps: When is it expected that the new rates will be effective?


Charles Avery Dunning: We will have to consult
the officers of the department, but the rates will be made effective just as soon as possible. I think we can probably say to-morrow.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-87 (m).	Spinach: British
preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 27J per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: This item will be
amended to read:	[DOT]
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from May 1, to October 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-87(n). Tomatoes:	British
preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 271 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: This item will be
amended to read:
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from June 1, to October 31, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Will the minister give me
some reasonable explanation as to why from June 1 to October 31, tomatoes should be allowed to come in free from the West Indies? It is incomprehensible to me that the minister would strike at local industry in that way.


Charles Avery Dunning: The growers of Canada have raised no objection to free importation the year round.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: They must certainly be in complete ignorance of the conditions under which these vegetables are produced in the West Indies. They cannot know of the seasons during which they can be produced and the possibility of increased production. Or it may be that the representatives who met the minister and were informed of these proposed changes did not represent farming sentiment east of the Ottawa river.


Eccles James Gott: The hon. member for East
Essex has stated that two weeks prior to bringing down the budget representations were made to the government through a delegation, and those representations were absolutely disregarded. Bermuda onions will come in by the carload, yet the representations made by that hon. gentleman will carry no weight with the government.


Charles Avery Dunning: They came in free before.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-87 (o). Watercress and whit-loof or endive: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 27J per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than 5 cents per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: There is an amendment to subsection (o) eliminating the minimum specific. The Minister of National Revenue
Private Bills

will move that the following be substituted for 87 (o):
Watercress and whitloof or endive: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
In this case the change is made to eliminate the specific minimum.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-87(p).	N.o.p.: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: There is no change in
this item.
Customs tariff-88. Seedlings for replanting:
(a)	Cabbage:	British preferential tariff,
free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
(b)	Cauliflower: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
(c)	Onion:	British preferential tariff, free;
intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.


Charles Avery Dunning: The proposal in this case is to make the importation of these seedlings free, and is intended to foster our home industries.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
At six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 50, respecting a certain patent application of Thomas Bernard Bourke and George Percival Setter-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 51, respecting a certain patent application of Harry Barrington Bonney-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 244, respecting a certain patent of The R. M. Hollingshead Company-Mr. Black (Yukon).

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on Bill No. 202, for the relief of Mary Ada St. George-Mr. Garland (Carleton)-Mr. Johnston in the chair.
On section 1-Marriage dissolved.
John Frederick Johnston: With regard to certain unopposed divorce bills which were reported from the select standing committee on private bills this day, a motion was moved by the
i Mr. Dunning.]
hon. member for Marquette and seconded by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie that said bills be placed on the order paper for consideration this day in committee of the whole and third reading, and that motion was adopted. We are now on the first of these bills.


Mr. BOURASSA:: This is not on the order paper.


John Frederick Johnston: This is a special motion which was made to-day, and which I read a moment ago. The motion was adopted this afternoon.


Arnold Neilson Smith: Has the evidence been printed in these cases? I understand that the evidence has not been printed, but in spite of that the private bills committee was able thoroughly to understand the bills. To-night we are asked to pass them, but we have not even the names of the cases to see whether or not we are interested in them. I think this is a shameful proceeding.


William Irvine: There is no difference
between the consideration we are giving the bills now before us and the consideration which has been given other bills this session. If we wait until to-morrow for the printed evidence my hon. friend will not even look at it, nor will anyone else. We might as well let these bills go through; this is the way we have done it all the time.


Arnold Neilson Smith: As far as I have observed we have never dealt with a case in which we have not had the evidence available. These bills are being put through without the evidence being printed. I know there were some cases yesterday in which I had not heard all the evidence, and I was waiting for the printed evidence to see whether or not I had any real objection to them. Yesterday we passed about 60 bills in some two minutes and sixteen seconds. I think it only reasonable that these bills should stand over until we have the evidence.


William Irvine: The hon. gentleman should
have advanced this argument some weeks ago when we were considering the bill for a divorce court for Ontario.


John Frederick Johnston: The chairman of the
private bills committee, the hon. member for Marquette, is now in the house and if he cares to do so he might explain why he made the motion,


James Allison Glen: Mr. Chairman, as has been
already stated, these bills passed through the

Private Bills
committee in the ordinary way. We had the list of cases before us and the bills were put through in the usual way. So far as I know there was no evidence before the special committee.


John Frederick Johnston: It is for the committee to decide whether or not we will proceed. We are now on bill 202.


Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: Just a moment, Mr. Chairman; do not be so over-zealous. It is a strange thing that in connection with divorce bills all the rules of the house should not apply. No attempt has been made unduly to hold uip any of these bills, but on the other hand the apostles of divorce should not try to get rid of all the rules which have been established, whether rightly or wrongly, to govern 'legislation in this parliament. As far as I am concerned this is the first news I have had of this procedure. I was informed that yesterday a number of bills were put through in a few minutes, and to-day it is even worse. I understand that a motion was made this afternoon to further the passage of these bills without even giving notice of them. I was under the impression that there wras nothing before the committee to-night but two private bills concerning patent applications. We seem to be granting divorce by secret methods, but surely at least we should proceed regularly in these cases as in any other legislation which comes before this house.


James Allison Glen: The other day the hon. member said I had converted him, but I do not think I shall be able to convert him to-night. I do not wish any injustice to be done to anyone sponsoring any of these bills, and I would ask that the motion be allowed to stand.


John Frederick Johnston: It is for the committee to decide whether or not we will proceed with these bills.


Mr. YOUNG (Saskatoon):: Mr. Chairman, the session is now nearing the end, and as one of the members of the House of Commons appointed to the Senate committee on divorce, I would like to assure the hon. members that I have been very diligent in that duty. I have observed the great care taken by the divorce committee in considering these cases, and even if we had the evidence before us to-night I do not believe that hon. gentlemen would take the trouble of reading it. Where an hon. member has objection to an individual case I do not think the committee should oppose that attitude without having the evidence, but as
these bills have been given careful consideration by the divorce committee of the Senate.
I think hon. members should allow them to pass.


Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: There is no evidence before us that the session is nearing its close.


An hon. MEMBER:: We hope so.


Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: We are hopeful, but we do not know. The whole of yesterday afternoon was taken up in the discussion of one item, and if we continue at that rate we will be here until August. I do not see why all the rules of procedure should be set aside for these divorce bills. In other matters of public interest it has been pointed out that the rules were inconvenient, but the rules are made and maintained for the protection of all, and should apply to all. As far as I am concerned, it is not a question of having the evidence, although I am surprised to hear that the private bills committee of this house passes these bills without having the evidence before it.


James Allison Glen: Not all of them, but a good many.


Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: These private bills may cover the granting of divorces, or the incorporation of companies, and there is a rule of this house which governs the introduction of private bills and their passage through the various stages. If prorogation were announced for say the day after to-morrow, there would1 be some reason for adopting this procedure; but as prorogation may not take place until two or three weeks have passed, there would 'be no harm in allowing these bills to stand to appear to-morrow on the order paper and to be taken up at the next available time for private bills.


Mr. JACOBS:: It is possible that the invitations are out for the weddings of these people, and by holding up the proceedings we would deny them the happiness to which they are entitled.


Peter McGibbon: Does the hon. member
expect to be a wedding guest?


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 2 agreed to.
Bill reported.

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 203, for the relief of Sam Finkel-stein.-Mr. Heaps.
Bill No. 204, for the relief of Martha Barker. -Mr. Gray,
Private Bills
[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 205, for the relief of Janet Ella Pettigrew Thomson,-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 206, for the relief of Margaret Jean McClelland Dewar.-Mr. Hay.
Bill No. 207, for the relief of Ada Margaret Ruddick.-Mr. McPhee.
Bill No. 208, for the relief of Wilhelmina Emily Rudolph.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 209, for the relief of Mabel Orion Baldwin.-Mr. Garland (Carleton).
Bill No. 210, for the relief of Antoine George Massabky.-Mr. Sanderson.
Bill No. 211, for the relief of Dorothy Agnes Dowling.-Mr. Garland (Carleton).
Bill No. 212, for the relief of Arthur Leslie Catton.-Mr. Maybee.
Bill No. 213, for the relief of Ruth Lyford Smith.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 214, for the relief of Rhona Elizabeth Shaw Richardson.-Mr. Black (Yukon).
Bill No. 215, for the relief of Richard Trawny Parsons.-Mr. Harris.
Bill No. 216, for the relief of Armand Dufour.-Mr. Geary.
Bill No. 217, for the relief of Jessie Lillian Gwen Richmond-Parry.-Mr. Sanderson.
Bill No. 218, for the relief of Christina Dale Kingsbury.-Mr. Maybee.
Bill No. 219, for the relief of Gladys Hol-lings.-Mr. Spence.
Bill No. 220, for the relief of Nellie Louise Hughes.-Mr. Anderson (Toronto-High Park).
Bill No. 221, for the relief of Minnie Roberts.-Mr. Black (Yukon).
Bill No. 222, for the relief of Isabella Glennie Lefever.-Mr. Garland (Carleton).
Bill No. 223, for the relief of Aileen Somerville Thomas.-Mr. Gray.
Bill No. 224, for the relief of Harris Charlton Eckmiere.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 225, for the relief of Rhea Blanche Wilson.-Mr. Harris.
Bill No. 226, for the relief of Edna Wall.- Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 227, for the relief of Thomas Edwin Warburton.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 228, for the relief of Thomas Garfield McCormick.-Mr. White (London).
Bill No. 229, for the relief of Thomas Richardson.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 230, for the relief of Leslie Gregory. -Mr. Black (Yukon).
Bill No. 231, for the relief of Muriel Laburnum Christie.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 232, for the relief of Edith Matilda Epplett.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 233, for the relief of Ruth Victoria Spooner.-Mr. Black (Yukon).
Bill No. 234, for the relief of John Henry Coulter.-Mr. Lawson.
[Mr. McGibbon.l
Bill No. 235, for the relief of Gertrude Anne Williams.-Mr. Casselman.
Bill No. 236, for the relief of Leonard George Edward Bond.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 237, for the relief of Grant Johnston.-Mr. Baldwin.
Bill No. 238, for the relief of Burton Orland Boomhover.-Mr. Peck.	[DOT]
Bill No. 239, for the relief of Augusto Tranzzi.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 240, for the relief of Claire Yale Lacourse.-Mr. McPhee.
Bill No. 241, for the relief of Marion Francis Blewett.-Mr. Peck.
Bill No. 243, for the relief of Florence Edna Curless.-Mr. Young (Toronto Northeast).
Bill No. 245, for the relief of Hilda Walker Baker.-Mr. Young (Toronto Northeast).
Bill No. 246, for the relief of Mary Violet Baxter.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 248, for the relief of James Lewis Watterworth.-Mr. TayJor.
Bill No. 249, for the relief of Harvey Men-nie Cross.-Mr. Church.
Bill No. 250, for the relief of Muriel Parke Wood.-Mr. Black (Yukon).
Bill No. 251, for the relief of Albert Hull.- Mr. Ryckman.
Bill No. 252, for the relief of Jessie Coles.- Mr. Young (Toronto Northeast).
Bill No. 253, for the relief of Annie Almeda McCormick.-Mr. Ross (Kingston).
Bill No. 254, for the relief of Madeline Schnarr Niohol.-Mr. Ross (Kingston).
Bill No. 255, for the relief of Phyllis Gertrude Smith.-Mr. Anderson (Toronto-High Park).
Bill No. 256, for the relief of Josephine Laura Calder.-Mr. Young (Toronto Northeast).
Bill No. 257, for the relief of Minerva Gray. -Mr. Young (Toronto Northeast).
Bill No. 258, for the relief of Mary Jane MoCrossan.-Mr. Harris.
Bill No. 259, for the relief of Robert Bruce Hart.-Mr. Harris.
Bill No. 260, for the relief of Hetmanska Bereta.-Mr. Harris.
Bill No. 261, for the relief of Lillian Alberta Sparling.-Mr. MeQuarrie.
Bill No. 262, for the relief of Ebenezer Ward Russell.-Mr. Anderson (Toronto-High Park).

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on Bill No. 247, for the relief of Harry Hutcherson Davis- Mr. Sanderson-Mr. Johnston in the chair.

Pension Act Amendment
On section 1-Marriage dissolved.
Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: I notice, Mr. Chairman, that with this bill we reach the list which appears on the votes and proceedings of yesterday. According to the votes and proceedings, these bills were introduced only yesterday, so that within the short space of twenty-four hours or thereabouts these bills will have been introduced, read a second time, passed through that conscientious committee which examines all these cases without evidence, will have come back here, and under an abnormal decision of the house or of those members who were in the house this afternoon will, all rules being supended, have passed through the committee of the whole house; and then I suppose it will be asked that they be given their third reading-all within twenty-four hours. I hope when all this has been done, the respectable and devotional House of Commons will vote itself a certificate that it is able to do much better as a judge of these cases than the worst divorce tribunals of the United States.


Mr. WOODS WORTH:: I just want to add my word of protest in support of what has been said by the hon. member for Labelle. This morning I looked over the order paper to see what business was coming before the house. I think we have a right to know what business is to be taken up, because we cannot all be present every hour that the house is sitting. I come down here and find that a number of bills have been passed. There were one or two bills that I was particularly interested in, and I have no opportunity of knowing what stage they have reached. As a member of this house I have a perfect right to have some knowledge of when a bill is likely to be called. That is the reason for our having an order paper. There is one bill in particular in which I am interested, and I have not the faintest idea what stage it has reached, whether it has been given a first or second reading. Although we have passed the bill to create a divorce court in Ontario, and although I have no desire in any way to hinder the quick passage of a number of these bills under the circumstances, there are certain limits beyond which we ought not to go, and even for this session we ought to know what bills are 'before the house. I protest against this way of railroading things through.


William Irvine: I might inform the hon. gentleman that the bill to which he refers
did not pass the committee this afternoon, but stands for an examination of the evidence at the committee's next meeting.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 2 agreed to.
Bill reported, on division.
Mr. SPEAKER:: Private and public bills being disposed of, the house will now revert to committee of ways and means.




[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of ways and means, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
Charles Avery Dunning: Mr. Chairman, pursuant to an arrangement made this afternoon in order to permit of the pension bill being proceeded with, I move that the committee rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again this day.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Progress reported.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. H. KING (Minister of Pensions and National Health) moved that the house go into committee on Bill No. 265, to amend the Pension Act.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
John Warwick King: Mr. Chairman,
briefly in explanation of this bill I may say that it is the result of the findings of a special committee of this house appointed to investigate soldiers' problems. They took evidence from various soldier organizations throughout Canada, and after considering that evidence they drafted the bill which is now before the committee. I am pleased to report that the special committee are unanimous in their findings, and I think parliament as a whole and the people of this country will greatly appreciate their work. It has been done with the utmost care, and questions that have been agitating our soldier bodies over a period of years, as well as the great masses of the people, have been dealt with fairly and justly.	,
The major amendments to the act are: First, the revising of the machinery for dealing with the appeal of the soldier from the decision of the pension board. The federal appeal board will disappear and in its place there will be established what is known as a pension tribunal. This tribunal will be com-

Pension Act Amendment
posed of nine members, one of whom will be the chairman, and he will direct the place of residence of the other members and the territory to be served by them. It is suggested that two members shall act in each locality under the direction of the chairman. A change has been made in regard to the soldiers' advisers. It is proposed under the bill that a veterans' bureau shall be established with salaried officials, and it will be their duty to prepare the case of the soldier for presentation to the tribunals and other courts. In addition to these tribunals and the veterans' bureau, there is to be a central appeal court composed of three officials, one of whom will be known as the president.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Three officials.


John Warwick King: Yes. In addition to that there have been important amendments made in regard to widows. This is a question which has been before the pensions committee on various occasions. Previous committees and the committee which sat this session have reported regarding pensions to widows. They have also dealt with those returned men who commuted their pensions, and there is a section in the bill which will restore the pension to the former pensioner. This is generally accepted as a proper procedure. In addition to that there has been an amendment discussed in this house and before various special committees as to the benefit of the doubt; that question also was discussed before the committee which sat this session. This section in particular is well drawn; it is liberal in its scope and I believe if accepted by parliament will prove advantageous to the soldiery, and will do much to ease the situation which has existed in this regard.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I would like to join with the hon. the Minister of Pensions in congratulating the committee on the service it has rendered to the ex-service men. It has brought to bear upon the problem submitted to it patient consideration and a wealth of learning, a portion of which at least arises from experience and expert knowledge derived not only from experience but from observation. The committee has therefore been able to deal with this very complex problem in a manner which enables the house to offer its most sincere congratulation to every member who sat on the committee. We thank the members of that committee for the untiring zeal and devotion which they have shown. I am sure we on this side of the house most heartily join with the minister in making that observation. I have

always felt that we on this side have been particularly fortunate in the personnel of our membership on the pensions committee.


John Warwick King: We on this side
feel the same way.


Richard Bedford Bennett: They have been service
men with wide experience; some of them have had very considerable administrative experience, and they knew at first hand not only the problems of the service men but also something of the psychology of the situation, which, to the inexperienced, is not easy to appreciate. In the main the same may be said with regard to those who represented the government on the committee. The chairman, in particular, has been indefatigable in his efforts and his endeavours have not been limited in any sense by political consideration but his zeal had been prompted by an earnest desire to advance the interests of those who are so fairly entitled to this measure of consideration. One might refer in equally laudatory terms to the membership of the committee chosen from those who sit to my left.
My observation has taught me to believe that there is no difference of opinion amongst the Canadian people when it comes to dealing with problems of this nature. There is a frank recognition of the difficulties in attaining administrative perfection. It is not easy to set up machinery which will accomplish what all the people would like to accomplish, namely, a measure of generous consideration for all those who have risked their lives for this country as well as the widows and) dependents of those who are no more. I think that statement can be made with certainty That being so, the problem is a simple one. From the standpoint of administration the problem is merely to set up the machinery which will enable the end to be attained; the complexity of the problem arises, however, in providing the details for the working of the machinery. The problem would seem to be how we can best attain the objective, and how in detail we can manage to deal with every set of conditions which may arise. We must decide how we can best meet the many difficulties that arise in connection with determining the cause of disability.
No doubt this bill will bring satisfaction to those whom it is intended to assist. As far as I have been able to learn from reading, from listening to the minister and from what I have been told, the measure deals with all those cases which experience has taught have not been adequately dealt with under existing legislation. Where the existing legislation has

Pension Act Amendment
been unsatisfactory it has been repealed and satisfactory provisions have been substituted. So far as the general principle of giving the applicant for pension the benefit of the douibt is concerned, it will be observed that the section clears up the difficulty, so far as the matter lends itself to reasonable legislative enactment. The benefit of the doubt is, of course, a difficult term to define; it has never been defined easily. In cases which have engaged the attention of civil courts the judges in charging juries have pointed out the circumstances of particular cases, and they have laid down the principle that if there be doubt upon the evidence such doubt must be resolved according to certain rules dictated by the judges. In this particular instance the circumstances, evidence and medical opinions are to be considered by the tribunal set up by the bill. Where there is reasonable certainty in the minds of the tribunal, where they can point to certain definite circumstances, and to medical opinions and the other evidence presented before them, they may be in a position to state clearly that there is no doubt as to the cause of the disability or of the right of the applicant to pension. On the other hand, where there is wavering uncertainty as to whether or not the evidence to which I have alluded warrants a definite conclusion, then there is difficulty. To my mind that is the most distinctive section of the measure before us and I think it will meet with universal approval; the psychological value of it is not less than the monetary advantage that may result. Psychologically it will tend to bring a state of satisfaction which to the minds of applicants has heretofore been lacking; it will convince those applicants that after all the country is behind them solidly and that the only difficulty has been the setting up of machinery to enable the people of Canada to express themselves in concrete terms through the medium of a statute. It will prove to those returned men that Canada is prepared to bring relief to those who, through their service, are no longer able to cope with the difficulties of life and carry on as they had done 'before they engaged in the conflict.
On behalf of those associated with me in this house I am happy to think that a measure of this character has not received partisan consideration; it has not been a party matter in any sense but on the contrary it represents the labour of a committee which has worked upon the problem with the one purpose in mind of securing a result which would bring happiness and contentment and such a measure
of compensation as the circumstances warrant to those who by reason of their service have found themselves no longer physically able to carry on as before. I again desire to associate myself with the minister in congratulating the members of the pensions committee upon the wholly impartial, honest and honourable manner in which free from party bias or prejudice they approached the consideration of and found a solution for a great problem, which will without doubt give satisfaction to every man and woman in the country.
Sections 1 to 7 inclusive agreed to.
On section S-Compassionate pension.


Peter McGibbon: Might I draw your
attention to the fact that apparently these bills are not properly printed?


Mr. POWER:: These are all amendments
to section 10.


John Frederick Johnston: Section 6 will be found on page 4 of the bill.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 9 and 10 agreed to.
On section 11-Widow of pensioner.
Leon Johnson Ladner: I wanted to ask the minister a question with respect to this section. This section provides, in short, that the widows of pensioners who draw pension during a period not exceeding ten years shall receive pension, but if the period is longer than ten years the widow does not receive a pension. Phis affects about 174 blind people and the more seriously disabled cases drawing 80 per cent pension and over.


Mr. THORSON:: How?


Leon Johnson Ladner: Because that is the class
under this section. I understand-and I have this information also from parties in different parts of the country-that the soldiers' representative body, the Canadian Legion, desired to have that principle extended to a period longer than ten years, and it seems to me that once the principle is established- as it properly should be established-of granting a pension to the widows, it should not be cut off at the period of ten years. There is no good reason that I can see why, if a man lives and draws his 80 per cent pension for nine years and nine months, his widow should get a pension, while if he lives for ten years and one 'month his widow does not get a pension. I am going to suggest to the minister and to the committee that the principle should be extended for a longer period, and
Pension Act Amendment

I do that in the same spirit that has characterized this whole question and raised it above the level of party politics.


John Warwick King: If my hon. friend does not object I should like to have the chairman of the special committee discuss this point. He is familiar with the discussion which took place when the matter came before the committee and I should like to have him give the views expressed in the committee on this question.


Charles Gavan Power: The suggestion made by my hon. friend was placed before the committee and throughly discussed. At the present time under section 32 (2) of the act, the widow of a pensioner who has died and who at the date of his death was in receipt of a pension in any of the classes 1 to 5 mentioned in schedule A, that is, in receipt of a pension of from 80 per cent to 100 par cent, or who, except for the provisions of subsection one of section 29 of the act, would have been in receipt of a pension in one of the said classes, shall be entitled to a pension ,as if he had died on service whether his death was attributable to his service or not, provided that the death occurs within ten years after the date of retirement or discharge or the date of commencement of pension.
This section was introduced quite a number of years ago largely to cover the cases of amputations. It was felt at that time, shortly after the war, that men who as a result of their war disabilities had to suffer amputation were under a certain handicap in the ordinary affairs of civilian life. That is, they were more apt to meet with an accident such as being run over by a motor oar or a street car, or that kind of thing, than the ordinary pensioner. The soldier organizations at that time made a strong plea to the committee, and this section was inserted in the act. Since that time it has been felt that these men have been able now to find their feet, so to speak, and to get about better than they could earlier in their civilian experience, and it has not been thought necessary to extend the provisions.
However, under this present legislation we have gone this far: We date the ten years during which limitation does not lie from the time this pension of 80 per cent or more has been granted. Perhaps I might explain that a little further. A case arose in which a man had obtained a pension on a basis of, we will say, 15 per cent for an injured foot. Much later on he obtained a pension of 80 per cent or 90 per cent on account of some other
(Mr. Ladner.]
disability or disease. He died, and when his widow came to claim pension, the board- wrongly and improperly I think-dated the beginning of his pension from the 15 per cent pension, and ruled that his widow was not entitled to any pension at all. It is in order to make that point clear that we have proposed the amendment now being discussed, but we have not touched the provision which existed in section 25, subsection 2, up to the present time.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Although there would be very few who would come under that now?


Charles Gavan Power: Not many.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 12-Pension to widow.
Mr. NEILL:: I should like to make a
comment, not upon this particlular section but in order to express a suggestion which might well be drawn to the attention of the government. This section reads as follows:
Subsection one of section thirtydwo of the said act, as enacted by section twenty-four of chapter thirty-eight of the statutes of 1928, is amended by striking out paragraphs (i) and (ii) and by substituting therefor the following as section 32a:
I have no objection to that particular amendment or to any of the amendments; this is a good bill, but this is what I should like to point out: It is highly desirable that these amendments, these new rights which are given to the soldiers, should be communicated to them as soon as possible. When we go home in a few days or a week or two, the men naturally will come to us wanting to know what has been done, and if we give them this bill how can they understand what are their rights? They will have to look up the revised statutes of 1927; then they will have to follow the sections into the amendments of 1928 and then piece them out with the aid of these amendments we are passing to-night. I only want to suggest that we cannot carry around the revised statutes; the men do not have those statutes, and I would suggest that although it is too late now to have the bill entirely reprinted, I think the department might, at the very earliest possible date, print what is called a consolidated office copy and distribute it as soon as possible not only to soldier organizations but also to the members; because it will greatly facilitate the men getting to know what are their rights, which is all-important.

Pension Act Amendment


John Warwick King: I think that is an excellent suggestion, and it will be acted upon.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 13 to 16 inclusive agreed to.
On section 17-Coming into force.
Charles Gavan Power: Perhaps it might be well to give some explanation of this section, which reads:
This act shall come into force on the first day of October, 1930, provided that any appointment required or authorized to be made thereunder may be made at any time after the first day of September, 1930, and any salary or other payment to which any person so appointed may be entitled shall be payable from the date of his appointment.
I think the reason for this is fairly obvious. If it should happen that perchance there be a change in the status of the Dominion-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Not status; oh, no.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Administration.


Charles Gavan Power: Some of us think that the status of the Dominion would be seriously affected.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It would be greatly enhanced.


Charles Gavan Power: Should there be a change in the political situation, the members of the committee thought that the new government, from whichever political party it might be chosen, should have the opportunity of bringing this legislation into force. I have an amendment to offer, to be called section 18, but before presenting it perhaps a little explanation would be in order. The act provides for access to be given to the files of the department and of the pension board, and it has been pointed out in the past by the departmental officers that it would be well to protect to some degree the medical officers or others against whom a suit might be brought by those who might feel themselves injured by such reports.


Richard Bedford Bennett: They probably are protected in any event.


Charles Gavan Power: I am inclined to agree with my hon. friend.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There are decisions to that effect.


Charles Gavan Power: The committee counsel was also inclined to agree, but the officers of the department seemed to think that the medical
men would not feel so secure unless it were specifically stated in the act that their position could not be assailed on account of any report which they might make in the course of their duty.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is very desirable.


Peter McGibbon: All of which is a very bad principle.


Charles Gavan Power: The committee adopted this new section, which reads:
No action shall lie against any person by reason of anything contained in any report of any examination made for the purpose of this act or of part 1 of the Department of Pensions and National Health Act by any officer of or by any other person at the request of the commission, pension tribunal or the department.
I move,. seconded by the Minister of Pensions and National Health, that this clause be added as section 18 of the bill.


Peter McGibbon: I have no objection to that except that I think it is a bad and vicious principle that will lead to inefficiency.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Charles Gavan Power: On behalf of the members of the committee, and on my own behalf, I should like to thank the minister and the leader of the opposition for their kind cooperation and particularly for their remarks of this evening. May I add to what the leader of the opposition has said, that all the members of the committee, coming as they did from every political party, cooperated to the fullest extent possible. There were disagreements and differences of opinion in the committee, but there were none based on party allegiance; they were differences brought about by the interpretation of the act and based upon a desire to obtain by different methods the same result, namely the good of the soldier and the good of the country generally. I wish to thank the house for the assistance given in the passing of this legislation. The report of the committee was unanimous, and although we do not claim that the last word has been said in the matter of pension legislation, we hope that a step has been taken which will do away with many of the difficulties which have hitherto confronted us.


William Irvine: May I be permitted to express the hope that the splendid cooperation practiced in that committee will be extended in the new parliament to all matters of legislation.
2302	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Robert James Manion: On behalf of those on this side of the house who were members of the special committee, I would like to associate myself with the chairman of the committee in my expression of satisfaction at the manner in which all the members of the committee acted in this regard. During the last few years I have been on many committees, and I must confess that I have never attended any other committee where a greater desire was expressed to bring about satisfaction to the soldier and justice to the country.
Section as amended agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.
WAYS AND MiEANS


CUSTOMS TARIFF AMENDMENT
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of ways and means, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
Customs tariff-89. Vegetables, prepared, in air-tight cans or other air-tight containers, the weight of the containers to be included in the weight for duty: (a) Beans, baked or otherwise prepared, per pound: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, If cents; general tariff, 14 cents.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Does the minister not think in connection with the amendments to all these items, that they should be printed and not finally passed until we have an opportunity of seeing them in print?


Charles Avery Dunning: There is no amendment in this case.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, but I refer to the matter the minister mentioned this afternoon. He is amending the tariff on fruits and vegetables.


Charles Avery Dunning: The vegetable items have all been passed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: They are passed as
amended.


Charles Avery Dunning: We shall come in a short time to the fruit items and then we can consider the matter.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-89 (b). Corn and potatoes, per pound: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, cents; general tariff, 2 cents.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-89(c).	Peas, per pound:
British preferential tariff, 1 cent; intermediate tariff, lj cents; general tariff, 2 cents.
Item agreed to.

Customs tariff-89(d).	N.o.p.: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-90. Vegetables, prepared or preserved:
(a)	Dried, desiccated or dehydrated, including vegetable flour, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
(b)	Pickled or preserved in salt, brine, oil or in any other manner, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 32J per cent; general tariff, 35 per cent.
(c)	Vegetable extracts or juices, liquid mustards, soy and vegetable sauces of all kinds: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 324 par cent; general tariff, 35 per cent.
(d)	Pastes, hash and all similar products, composed wholly of vegetables or of vegetables and meats or fish or both, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 324 per cent; general tariff, 35 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-91. Soups, soup rolls, tablets, cubes or other soup preparations, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 25 per cent; general tariff, 274 per cent.
Provided that, if any country imposes upon such goods produced in, and imported from, Canada rates of duty higher than are enumerated in this item, equivalent rates of duty shall be imposed on such goods entering Canada from such country.
Richard Bedford Bennett: The only change in this item is a reduction of 24 per cent under the British preference.


Charles Avery Dunning: And the countervailing
provision.


Richard Bedford Bennett: So far as the countervailing provision is concerned, it is obvious the minister is not in a position to say anything about what the rate may be. That depends upon what other countries may do.


Charles Avery Dunning: The present United States tariff is 35 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-92. Fruits, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty:
(a) Apricots:	British preferential tariff,
free; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Provided that when imported under general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: This is the first of the
fruit items, and I will ask the Minister of Agriculture to move this amendment for me:
That the following be substituted for tariff item 92(a):

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
92(a). Apricots: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from June 15 to August 15, inclusive, the duty shall he not less than one cent per pound.


George Gibson Coote: What justification is there
for including the weight of the package in the weight for duty? Surely there cannot be any reason for that.


Charles Avery Dunning: As I explained this afternoon in connection with vegetables, the matter of the minimum specific rate per pound was considered in relation to the administrative difficulty of dealing with the packages. Undoubtedly, if the packages were eliminated, administrative difficulty in operation would arise; and in addition, one would have to consider the effect upon the minimum specific rate. My hon. friend, of course, appreciates the fact that the weight of the package is not considered when the goods are entering under the ad valorem rate. It becomes a factor only in that short period from June 15 to August 15 inclusive when the minimum specific rates apply.


Mr. ADSHEAD:: But when the ad valorem rate does not reach the specific rate, the specific rate counts?


Charles Avery Dunning: Only during that period
from June 15 to August 15 inclusive, in accordance with the amendment that has just been moved.


George Gibson Coote: It is only in those months
one would ever import apricots, and I am sure there are some seasons when there are not enough apricots shipped from British Columbia to begin to supply the prairies. While we are on this item, I may say that it is because of what I consider an unwarranted increase in the duty on fruits and vegetables so far as they affect the prairie people that I was prompted to oppose the budget. I could not see any justification for some of the proposed increases. I wish to protest emphatically against the inclusion of the weight of the package in the weight for duty purposes on many of these fruits. It seems to me unreasonable.


Milton Neil Campbell: Can the minister tell us what was the value of fruits, if any, imported under item 92 under the British preference?


Charles Avery Dunning: They all came from the United States last year, $122,000 worth.


Milton Neil Campbell: Nothing at all imported under the British preference?


Charles Avery Dunning: Not last year.


Mr. LUCAS:: Under the old item the rates are thirty-five cents, forty-five cents and fifty cents. I presume that was per crate.


Charles Avery Dunning: Per hundredweight.


William Thomas Lucas: What would be the increase or decrease in duty under the new provision?


Charles Avery Dunning: Under the minimum specific rate obtaining from June 15 to August 15 inclusive, there will be an increase in the rate of duty of one-half cent per pound.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Do I understand the minister is now introducing what is called a seasonal tariff?


Charles Avery Dunning: In connection with
apricots, on the same principle as I indicated in connection with vegetables.


Richard Bedford Bennett: May I point out that the minister in his budget speech took a rather different view of the matter?


Charles Avery Dunning: I said so this afternoon.


Richard Bedford Bennett: May I point out that under British parliamentary practice no chancellor of the exchequer would for a minute be permitted in committee of ways and means to change his tariffs? Thas is one thing upon which the British House of Commons is exceedingly insistent, the reason being obvious, that when a policy has been announced touching the whole scheme of taxation, the chancellor cannot change it because, as for instance in this case, taxes for twenty days have been paid under the budget scheme. Now we are to substitute another one for it. A refund of taxation, if there be any, cannot benefit the consumers and in any event, the new provisions becoming effective to-night, the result is that a large number of consumers in Canada have been made to pay something which the government now says they should never have paid. That is the reason why, in England, under our parliamentary system, no chancellor would be permitted and no chancellor would dare to suggest such changes in his tariff proposals. He might change the language of an item; he might change the terms in which it is expressed; but he does not change the whole system and scheme of taxation. Under our budget system the moment the budget is announced it becomes operative. That has been the British parlia-
2304	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
mentary practice, and it has grown up here. I was amused this morning at receiving a letter from the United States complaining that goods in transit had been struck by this tariff. The hon. minister has received many such complaints, no doubt.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend means United States goods in transit to Canada?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, which had been hit by this tariff, and which they say operates retroactively. The permanent official sitting beside the minister has probably seen more of those communications than any other man in this chamber. The minister must see the effect of what was done this afternoon with regard to the fruit and vegetable schedules, and the effect with respect to this schedule. All I can do, having regard to the present state of public opinion, which is certainly the result of the conditions under which government has been carried on in this country for the last nine years, and is very lethargic, with a general tendency to endeavour to maintain a government in power by appealing to this group and that group and getting them across the floor to sit behind the government, with all the difficulties which the Prime Minister had in forming a government, which he has pointed out so frequently that his explanation is almost a classic, the assistance and support given to the government depending upon what the government will do for its supporters-under these circumstances the minister can see that all I can do is to protest against this violation of the general principles of British practice. Some day there will be a public opinion with respect to this matter. It may not be in my time, but there will certainly be a public opinion that will not permit a budget speech to be delivered containing a scheme and system of taxation which becomes operative when the budget is announced, and for the minister then to come into the house and change the system after twenty-seven men have been sitting in a room with the representatives of a particular industry, and the minister saying to them: Arrange this yourselves, and I will do it.


Charles Avery Dunning: No, no.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is the effect. The minister is no more responsible for what he is doing now than some of his permanent officials. He has had a conference between certain gentlemen over there and others-


Mr. MORRISSY:: Not over here.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I quite agree that the
hon. gentleman was not present, and he resents it deeply. He should have been there. I
lMr. Bennett.]
say that such a practice is not consistent with the maintenance of the institutions that have grown up during these years, and if it is persisted in, as it will not be, some day it will bring about very disastrous results. We have already paid a rebate in connection with automobiles. Now we have a claim in connection with tea because we imposed an excise tax once on tea. Now we have the fruit and vegetable consuming population of Canada, who have been compelled to pay very large sums of money under a tariff that came into effect at midnight on the 1st of May, being told en the 20th of May that we are now to have a new scheme of taxation. In the meantime, how are you going to justify having taken that money from them for twenty days? What is your excuse going to be? What are you going to say to them for having put your hands in their pockets and taken that money ? That is the question. You are going to say:	We tried to do something, and we
were wrong, and having been wrong, we have now changed our minds; but we will make no restitution to those from whom we wrongfully took that which we took.


Charles Avery Dunning: Like my hon. friend, I have a very great reverence and indeed almost an affection for British parliamentary procedure. But it must be recognized-I am sure it is recognized by my hon. friend and by all members of the committee-that of necessity Canadian parliamentary practice has developed in certain directions along lines slightly divergent from those followed in the old land. The reason is obvious to all. In England they have no general tariff system. Only a very few items in Great Britain are under a customs tariff. Our necessities in Canada for means of discussion and means of amendment developed a great many years ago. Although my hon. friend would imply that I am the first minister of finance in this country to come to the committee of ways and means with amendments to various schedules, due to developments in the interval since the bringing down of the budget, I think that if he will look back he will find that for many years back there has not been a single Canadian minister of finance who has not on occasion done the same thing.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Oh no, not changing the whole system.


Charles Avery Dunning: If my hon. friend wants a specific instance, my mind goes back to the time when Sir Henry Drayton was Minister of Finance in this country in 1919 and 1920, when changes had to be made in committee of ways and means.

Ways and. Means-Customs Tariff


Richard Bedford Bennett: What were the changes, though?


Charles Avery Dunning: I do not regard as anything out of the way the fact that we have created our own procedure, because our taxation system differs from that of the old land. A procedure must be created in order to enable a parliamentary body to deal with its own particular conditions, and there must necessarily arise from time to time, in connection particularly with revisions of a tariff structure, a tariff structure which does not exist in the old parliament at Westminster to anything like the same degree-


Richard Bedford Bennett: The budget of Mr. Churchill two years ago was a tariff budget.


Charles Avery Dunning: In connection with a
very few items indeed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: A very large number.
There were silks, for instance.


Charles Avery Dunning: A very small number in comparison with our budget.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He did not try to
multiply.


Charles Avery Dunning: The fact that a minister of finance suggests amendments in committee of ways and means is by no means new in the Canadian parliament. The changes suggested have so far commended themselves to the judgment of the committee, and I hope the few that remain to be attended to will also commend themselves to the judgment of the committee.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will the minister put
together in Hansard the two new schedules that he has proposed, so that they can be seen together?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes. As I read it, it
will appear in Hansard-


Henry Herbert Stevens: But that is scattered
through page after page.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend wants
them all together?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Surely, in one statement.


Charles Avery Dunning: I think that can be done.
The statement is as follows:

2306	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


AS PROPOSED BY BUDGET RESOLUTIONS OF MAY 1, 1930
[Stage Direction]
Tariff Item		British Preferential Tariff	Inter- mediate Tariff	General Tariff
				
87	Vegetables, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty: (a) Asparagus	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than three cents per pound. (b) Beans, green	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.(c) Brussels sprouts	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than four cents per pound. (d) Cabbage	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound. (e) Carrots and beets, n.o.p	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound. (f) Cauliflower and eggplant	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound. (g) Celery	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound. (h)	Cucumbers	
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound. (i)	Lettuce	Free Free	27j p.c. 27* p.c.	30 p.c. 30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one and one half cents per pound. (j) Parsley	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound. (k) Peas, green	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.(1) Rhubarb	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall not be less than one cent per pound. (m) Spinach	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound. (n) Tomatoes	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound. (o) Watercress and whitloof or endive	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than five cents per pound. (p) N.o.p	Free	27* p.c.	30 p.c.88	Seedlings for replanting: (a) Cabbage	Free	Free	Free(b) Cauliflower	Free	Free	Free(c) Onion	Free	Free	Free89	Vegetables, prepared, in air-tight cans or other airtight containers, the weight of the containers to be included in the weight for duty: (a) Beans, baked or otherwise prepared, per pound..	Free	1* cents	1* cents(b) Corn and tomatoes, per pound	Free	li cents	2 cents
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff

[Stage Direction]
Tariff Item		British Preferential Tariff	Inter- mediate Tariff	General Tariff
				
87	Vegetables, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty: (a) Asparagus	Free	27| P-C.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from April 15 to May 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than three cents per pound. (b) Beans, green	Free	27! P-c.	30 p.c.(c) Brussels sprouts	Free	27! P-c.	30 p.c.(d) Cabbage	Free	27! P-c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from June 15 to January 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound. (c) Carrots and beets, n.o.p	Free	27! P-c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from June 1 to February 28, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound. (f) Cauliflower and eggplant	Free	27! P-c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from May 15 to October 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound. (g) Celery	Free	27! P-c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from July 1 to February 28, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound. (h) Cucumbers	Free	27! P-c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from June 1 to October 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound. (i) Lettuce	Free	27! P-c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from April 1 to October 31 inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one and one half cents per pound. (j) Parsley	Free	27! P-c.	30 p.c.(k) Peas, green	Free	27! P-c.	30 p.c.(1) Rhubarb	Free	27$ p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from March 1 to May 31, inclusive, the duty shall not be less than one cent per pound. (m) Spinach	Free	27!p.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from May 1 to October 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound. (n) Tomatoes	Free	27! P.c.	30 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from June 1 to October 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound. (o) Watercress and whitloof or endive	Free	27! P-c.	30 p.c.(p) N.o.p	Free	27£ p.c.	30 p.c.88	Seedlings for replanting: (a) Cabbage	Free	Free	Free(b) Cauliflower	Free	Free	Free(c) Onion	Free	Free	Free89	Vegetables, prepared, in air-tight cans or other airtighl containers, the weight of the containers to be included in the weight for duty: (a) Beans, baked or otherwise prepared, per pound...	Free	1! cents	1! cents(b) Corn and tomatoes, per pound	Free	lj cents	2 cents
2419-146J
2308	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
AS PROPOSED BY BUDGET RESOLUTIONS OF MAY 1, 1930-Con.
Tariff Item		British Preferential Tariff	Inter- mediate Tariff	General Tariff
				
89	Vegetables-Con c'uded. (c) Peas, per pound	1 cent	1} cents	2 cents(d) N.o.p	Free	27} p.c.	30 p.c.90	Vegetables, prepared or preserved: (a) Dried, desiccated or dehydrated, including vegetable flour, n.o.p	15 p.c.	27} p.c.	30 p.c.(b) Pickled or preserved in salt, brine, oil or in any other manner, n.o.p	15 p.c.	32} p.c.	35 p.c.(c) Vegetable extracts or juices, liquid mustards soy and vegetable sauces of all kinds	15 p.c.	32} p.c.	35 p.c.(d) Pastes, hash and all similar products, composed wholly of vegetables or of vegetables and meat oi fish or both, n.o.p	15 p.c.	32} p.c.	35 p.c.91	Soups, soup rolls, tablets, cubes or other soup preparations, n.o.p	15 p.c.	25 p.c.	27} p.c.92	Provided that, if any country imposes upon such goods produced in, and imported from, Canada rates of duty higher than are enumerated in this item, equivalent rates of duty shall be imposed on such goods entering Canada from such country. Fruits, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty: (a) Apricots	Free	20 p.c.	25 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound. (b) Cherries	Free	20 p.c.	25 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound. (c) Cranberries	Free	20 p.c.	25 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two and one-half cents per pound. (d) Peaches	Free	20 p.c.	25 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one and one-quarter cents per pound. (c) Pears	Free	20 p.c.	25 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than three-quarters of a cent per pound. (f) Plums or prunes	Free	20 p.c.	25 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than three-quarters of a cent per pound. (g) Strawberries, raspberries and loganberries	Free	20 p.c.	25 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than three cents per pound. (h) Berries, edible, n.o.p	Free	20 p.c.	25 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound. (i) Quinces and nectarines	Free	20 p.c.	25 p.c.93	Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound. \pples, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty	Free	20 p.c.	25 p.c.Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than three-fifths of a cent per pound.	
[Stage Direction]
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
AS AMENDED IN COMMITTEE OF WAYS AND MEANS, MAY 19 AND 20, 1930-Con.
Tariff Item		British Preferential Tariff	Inter- mediate Tariff	General Tariff
				
89	Vegetables-Concluded.	1$ cents	(c) Peas, per pound	1 cent	2 cents90	(d) N.o.p	
Vegetables, prepared or preserved: (a) Dried, desiccated or dehydrated, including	Free	27$ p.c.	30 p.c.vegetable flour, n.o.p	
(b) Pickled or preserved in salt, brine, oil or in any	15 p.c.	27$ p.c.	30 p.c.other manner, n.o.p	
(c)	Vegetable extracts or juices, liquid mustards, soy and vegetable sauces of all kinds	
(d)	Pastes, hash and all similar products, composed wholly of vegetables or of vegetables and meat or	15 p.c.	32$ p.c.	35 p.c.15 p.c.	32$ p.c.	35 p.c.91	fish or both, n.o.p	
Soups, soup rolls, tablets, cubes or other soup prepara-	15 p.c.	32$ p.c.	35 p.c.92	tions, n.o.p	
Provided that, if any country imposes upon such goods produced in, and imported from, Canada rates of duty higher than are enumerated in this item, equivalent rates of duty shall be imposed on such goods entering Canada from such country. Fruits, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty:	15 p.c.	25 p.c.	27$ p.c.(a) Apricots	
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from June 15 to August 15, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.	Free	15 p.e.	20 p.c.(b) Cherries	
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound.	Free	15 p.c.	20 p.c.(c) Cranberries	
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two and one-half cents per pound.	Free	15 p.c.	20 p.c.(d) Peaches	
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from July 20 to October 1, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one and one-quarter cents per pound.	Free	15 p.c.	20 p.c.(e) Pears	
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from August 1 to December 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than three-quarters of a cent per pound.	Free	15 p.c.	20 p.c.(f) Plums or prunes	;	
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from July 15 to October 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than three-quarters of a cent per pound.	Free	15 p.c.	20 p.c.(g) Strawberries, raspberries and loganberries	
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from June 1 to July 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than three cents per pound.	Free	15 p.c.	20 p.c.(h) Berries, edible, n.o.p	
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound.	Free	15 p.c.	20 p.c.93	(i) Quinces and nectarines	
Provided that when imported under the genera] tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound. Apples, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the	Free	15 p.c.	20 p.c.packages to be included in the weight for duty	
Provided that when imported under the genera tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than three-fifths of a cent per pound.	Free	15 p.c.	20 p.c.2310	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
AS PROPOSED BY BUDGET RESOLUTIONS OF MAY 1, 1930-Con.
Tariff Item		British Preferential Tariff	Inter- mediate Tariff	General Tariff
				
94	Grapes, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty, per pound	Free	11 cents	2 cents.95	Cantaloups and muskmelons, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty	Free	20 p.e.	95a	Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one and one-half cents per pound. Melons, n.o.p., each	Free	2J cents	3 cents96	Fruits, fresh, in their natural state, n.o.p	Free	20 p.e.	25 p.e.
Mr. SHORT:: The minister had all this
information before him before he brought down his budget. Why did he not make his changes then? A strong delegation came here last year from the fruit and vegetable growers. A delegation of three hundred put their case up to the minister, and he knew every particle of it. He had all the information then that he has now. Why not have brought down these changes in the budget itself?


Charles Avery Dunning: I have explained that
several times.


Harry Bernard Short: But not to the satisfaction of the house.


John Evans: I see items in this budget that are put on the free list when coming from the British Empire. That British preference is all right for some parts of Canada, but there is still one area of the Dominion that is discriminated against by these latest restrictions placed on the British preference, because all these goods carrying the preferential rate have to come in through a Canadian port. This entails a long haul from the maritime ports for a good part of the year to central Canada, which more than offsets any benefit under the British preferential rate. The prairies never get any benefit from lower tariff rates. Again, from the prairies to Vancouver there is a discriminatory freight rate, and I suppose it is the same from Vancouver back to the prairies. The fact is that for the three prairie provinces to get any benefit from the British preference, these restrictions should be taken off the entry of goods under that preference. In the west we have to buy practically all our fresh fruits, and this portion of the Dominion has been, and still is, discriminated against in almost every measure put through this house.


Charles Avery Dunning: Will my hon. friend
please tell me how it would be of advantage to the west for fruits coming from other parts of the empire to enter through American ports rather than Canadian ports? I myself cannot see it.


John Evans: I think from the West Indies they could come through American ports to central Canada without entailing the long haul from the maritime ports to Ontario.


Charles Avery Dunning: They can do that now.


John Evans: No, they must come in direct through a Canadian port.


Charles Avery Dunning: Is there any American
port that offers better or closer facilities? If so I should like to know.


John Evans: I think perhaps the terminus of the Canadian National Railways at Portland would be a much shorter haul. Then, as I say, if they come in through the western port of Vancouver there is the discriminatory freight rates before they are landed on the prairies.


Charles Avery Dunning: Would there be any improvement if they came in through Seattle rather than Vancouver? I think if my hon. friend studies the question he will find the provision that goods to enjoy the British preference must come in through Canadian port3 makes no difference whatever to western Canada.


James Dew Chaplin: Mr. Chairman, I understand that we are discussing item 91.


Charles Avery Dunning: Item 92 (a).


James Dew Chaplin: When did we pass 91?


Charles Avery Dunning: Some time ago.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
AS AMENDED IN COMMITTEE OF WAYS AND MEANS, MAY 19 AND 20, 19SC-Con.
Tariff
Item
95
95a
Grapes, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty, per pound	
Cantaloups and muskmelons, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty - -	-
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate from July 20 to October 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one and one-half cents per pound.
Melons, n.o.p., each	
Fruits, fresh, in their natural state, n.o.p	
British
Preferential
Tariff
Free
Free
Free
Free
Intermediate
Tariff
1} cents 15 p.c.
21 cents 15 p.c.
General
Tariff
2 cents 20 p.c.
3 cents 20 p.c.


James Dew Chaplin: I have been in the house right along and I never heard "soups, soup rolls, tablets, cubes or other soup preparations" discussed.


Eugène Fiset: Item 91 was passed without discussion.


James Dew Chaplin: I want to ask a question
or two on that Mr. Chairman, if you will allow me to revert to it?


Eugène Fiset: Certainly.


James Dew Chaplin: Another item that I did
not hear discussed was 90 (d), pastes, hash and all similar products. At recess we were at vegetables, and had discussed 90 (a), (b) and (c), but had not touched 90 (d), or 91, soups and so on, as far as I know. Does the minister expect any more business to come under the British preference on these items?


Charles Avery Dunning: What items is my hon
friend referring to?


James Dew Chaplin: Item 90 (d) and item 91.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is pretty hard on me, Mr. Chairman, to keep pace with the information required by hon. members when I have to revert to items already passed. If that were general it would mean an end of orderly discussion.


James Dew Chaplin: I have heard the word "orderly" before, and I am willing to wait for the minister. I am just as much interested in these items as the minister is, and I have been just as much in attendance as he has been. The minister promised from the beginning that he would give us information as to the imports and exports of these different items. Evidently this one was slid over in a hurry-at any rate I never noticed it.


Charles Avery Dunning: If my hon. friend will move to revert to item so and so, I shall not oppose the motion. But I do want to point out that it makes my task very much more difficult to have a discussion start on one item and run over into other items. My hon. friend the leader of the opposition spoke on this item, I moved an amendment and my hon. friend from Rosetown (Mr. Evans) spoke on it. I am merely asking for such cooperation as can reasonably be extended to me. At best this task is not particularly easy. If my hon. friend will move to revert to a specific item I shall not oppose his motion.


Eugène Fiset: Shall the amendment carry?


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item 92 (a) as amended agreed to.
James Dew Chaplin: I move, Mr. Chairman, to revert to item 91.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Charles Avery Dunning: Now it is agreed that we are on item 91. We have passed (a) as amended in item 92.


James Dew Chaplin: What are our exports to the United Kingdom under item 91?


Charles Avery Dunning: They were $343,000.


James Dew Chaplin: What are our imports from the United Kingdom?


Charles Avery Dunning: A very small amount, less than $3,000.


James Dew Chaplin: What are the imports from the United States under this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: They are $1,847,000.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


James Dew Chaplin: From these returns it is apparent that there is very little chance of any increased business under the British preference.


Charles Avery Dunning: I would not agree with my hon. friend on that.


James Dew Chaplin: I do not know how you could disagree. You have changed the duty by two and a half per cent. Great Britain shipped us $1,500 worth and we shipped them $343,000 worth.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend has overlooked the countervailing provision.


James Dew Chaplin: Well, the countervailing
provision will have the effect, I hope, of this country making and exporting more soups. We sent Great Britain $343,000 worth, they sent us only $1,500 worth. If that is the basis on which the minister hopes to help Great Britain, I am satisfied it is on a pretty lame leg.


Henry Elvins Spencer: AVhat is the American
tariff against these articles?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is thirty-five per cent. Customs tariff-92(b). Cherries:	British
preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound.


Charles Avery Dunning: In conformity with the
amendment I moved in connection with apricots, Mr. Chairman, I would ask the Minister of Agriculture to move for me:
That the following be substituted for 92(b). Cherries:
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than two cents per pound.
That, I may say, in the case of cherries is the old general rate. Also:
That the British preferential rate shall be free, the intermediate tariff, 15 per cent, and the general tariff, 20 per cent.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: I understood the Fordney-McCumber tariff was half a cent a pound on cherries entering the United States. Do the countervailing duties bring ours down to that amount?


Charles Avery Dunning: The countervailing duties do not apply in connection with cherries or fruits generally.


Mr. SI  EEDSMAN@: I want to discuss the duty on fruits. I do not wish to confine myself to the item under discussion at the fMr. Dunning.]
present time. I would rather discuss generally the schedule in regard to fruits. Since the introduction of the budget I have been particularly concerned with the increases in the tariff on fruits.


James Dew Chaplin: I rise to a point of order. This afternoon we had an understanding that there would be no further reversion to general tariff or budget discussions. I think that understanding should be enforced, if we are going to do business.


Liguori Lacombe: We are considering the
budget,
1 he CHAIRMAN: The point of order is well taken. It was the desire of the minister that we should discuss each item as called.


Charles Avery Dunning: The hon. gentleman who has just risen to address the committee has not imposed upon our time to any great extent. Judging from his opening remarks I think he will be able to speak on one of the fruit items to illustrate the point he has in mind.


Robert James Manion: How does the minister
know what is in the mind of the hon. gentleman? He has not yet stated the particular item in which he is interested.


Mr. STEEDSMAN:: I wish to meet the wishes of the committee. As the minister has said, I have not taken up the time of the committee in the discussion of these items. I am interested because my constituents are interested, but if the committee prefers I shall confine my remarks to the item of strawberries and raspberries which appears later on the sheet.


Charles Avery Dunning: That would be better.


James Steedsman: I am quite willing to wait until that item is reached; I shall then make my statement to the committee.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-92(c). Cranberries: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than 2i cents per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: The amendment in this case is:
Cranberries:
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate the duty shall be not less than 2| cents per pound: British preferential tariff, free: intermediate tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Robert James Manion: I may have been out of the chamber when the minister explained why he made the changes. What is the purpose of these changes?
Mr, DUNNING: I did explain the changes, but my hon. friend is always very courteous and I shall be pleased to explain them again. The same principle applies as applied in the case of vegetables with which we dealt this afternoon. After much difficulty the growers have agreed upon the seasons which they think will be suitable, and instead of making the specific minimum to apply the year round I now propose that it apply for a short season. Also, instead of the ad valorem rates being as they were originally-free, 20 per cent and 25 per cent, I now propose that they be: free, 15 per cent and 20 per cent.


Robert James Manion: I asked why the change was made to 15 per cent and 20 per cent.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is a matter of bringing the two into conformity with each other, on account of the other change.


Robert Edwy Ryerson: I did not clearly understand the minister as to the effect of the change produced by the amendment. Before he answers I would like to point out that cranberries are not produced to any extent in this country.


Charles Avery Dunning: Are they not produced in this country?


Robert Edwy Ryerson: Not in marketable quantities.


Charles Avery Dunning: Oh, I think so.


Robert Edwy Ryerson: There are a few grown in the maritime provinces and probably a few in the north country, but 99 per cent of the cranberries used in this country are of the imported variety. As it stands at the present time the tariff will work a considerable hardship on the consumer.


Charles Avery Dunning: The amendment which I have proposed effects a reduction.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-92(d). Peaches:	British
preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than li cents per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: The amendment in this
case is:
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from July 20 to October 1, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than II cents per pound: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Why is the tariff put on the percentage basis this year as compared with a poundage basis last year?


Charles Avery Dunning: There is a wide range
in the values of these articles which come into the country in one season of the year virtually as luxuries and at another season of the year as articles of common consumption by all the people. The old specific duties of so much per hundredweight levied a much lower duty on the articles termed luxuries than the articles used for common consumption. The provision for an ad valorem rate ensures tha; there will be some reasonable parity on the basis of ad valorem, particularly when the article is consumed as a luxury at some period in the year.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-92(e). Pears: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Provided	that	when	imported	under	the
general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than | cent per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: The amendment in this
case is:
Provided	that	when	imported	under	the
general tariff rate, from August 1 to December 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than \ cent per pound:	British preferential tariff,
free; intermediate tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-92(f). Plums or prunes: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less thna J cent per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: The amendment in this
case is:
Plums or prunes:
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from July 15 to October 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than J cent per pound:	British preferential tariff, free;
intermediate tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-92(g). Strawberries, raspberries and loganberries: British preferential tariff, free: intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than 3 cents per pound.
2314	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
Mr. DUNNING; The amendment in this case is:
Strawberries, raspberries and loganberries:
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, from June 1 to July 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than 3 cents per pound: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.
Mr. CANTLEY:: Would the Minister of
Finance tell me the quantity of strawberries exported from Canada to the United States last year?


Charles Avery Dunning: There was exported
$37,000 worth.


Thomas Cantley: What is the rate of duty when entering the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is li cents per pound.


Thomas Cantley: I would like to point
out that during the last two or three years a considerable quantity of strawberries has gone into Boston and the cities in Massachusetts adjacent to the province of Nova Scotia. I was wondering what effect the minister's proposal would have on that trade.


James Steedsman: Mr. Chairman, I must confess that I am pleased with the changes the minister is now making in these schedules. Certainly I was very much disturbed when the budget was brought down to note the increases in the tariff particularly on fruits. While I have a great sympathy for the producer of fruits and I know that in many cases he does not get the cost of production for his product, on the other hand I must remember the cost of fruit to the people whom I represent in Manitoba particularly, and I just want to bring to the attention of the committee the prices we pay for fruits such as these, particularly berries and apples.
Last year, while travelling between Brandon and Calgary, I was fortunate enough to encounter the present premier of British Columbia on his way home, after having been in Ottawa. Discusing this matter of fruit and fruit prices on the prairies, I told him what we had to pay for raspberries and strawberries, and he was horrified. I asked him what the producer in British Columbia usually got for his strawberries per quart, and he said that if he got six or seven cents he thought he was doing very well. I said, "Well, what do you think we pay for them in Manitoba?" He said he did not know; he thought possibly we paid sixteen or seventeen cents a quart. My wife had paid in the early part of the summer thirty-three cents a quart, or $8 for a case of twenty-four quart boxes of strawberries. Before I left

Ottawa, when I visited the markets here I discovered that the people were bringing in strawberries at the end1 of the season in pails and baskets, and could not sell them for the cost of picking. When I got home I found that my people had been paying $8 a case for strawberries, which worked out at about 33 cents for a small quart box.
If it is true, as the premier of British Columbia told me-and I have no reason to believe it is not true; as a matter of fact I know it to be the truth-that the growers out there get only seven cents a box, suppose we add seven cents a box, which would give the jobber 100 per cent on his money; that would bring the price up to 14 cents. Then suppose we give the retail merchant 100 per cent on his money, which would bring the price up to 28 cents per box, leaving 5 cents a box to pay for freight, and I am sure it does not cost that much from British Columbia to Manitoba. That is the situation with regard to fruit, particularly raspberries and strawberries, on the prairies. We have ipaid as high as $9 and $9.25 a case for raspberries and from $8 to $8.25 per case for strawberries. That is the usual price, from year to year.
Now, Mr. Chairman, is it any wonder that we become alarmed when there is a suggestion that the duty on these articles should be raised? What is the trouble? Again in discussing the question with the gentleman to whom I referred, he made the statement that he would institute an inquiry into the matter and find out where the difficulty was, realizing that the growers of fruit in British Columbia and other parts of Canada were not getting the cost of production while we were being charged prices which we could not afford to pay. Let me point out to the committee the $8 a case for strawberries means the price of 10 bushels of wheat to buy one case of strawberries. How many people on the farms of Manitoba ever get a strawberry? Not 50 per cent of those people ever see one berry; they could not afford to buy them.


Mr. WARD:: Not 15 per cent.


James Steedsman: Not 15 per cent, that is right, and the remainder get only a few berries occasionally. That is the situation as it prevails in Manitoba, and I have no doubt throughout the prairie sections of Canada to-day. I would like to suggest to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, or since he is not here to the Minister of Agriculture, while I agree that it is perfectly proper to establish trade relationships with other countries and appoint trade commissioners there, here is a

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
place where we could use internal trade commissioners to find out what is the matter between the growers of fruit and we who consume it. I do not know that apples are in a different position from the berries, as far as we are concerned, and perhaps if I may be pardoned I might refer to apples while I am on my feet because I do not wish to come back to this question. A few years ago we used to buy apples by the barrel, and we used to get them at from $3.25 to $3.75 per barrel. The consequence was that we had all the apples we wanted. Now we get them mostly by the box.


Grote Stirling: Are those Ontario apples?


James Steedsman: Yes.


Mr. GOULET:: You can buy them by the barrel yet.


James Steedsman: Yes, but we pay $10 to $11, and I have paid as high as $12 for them. We pay from $2.75 to $3 a box, and there are three and a fraction boxes in a barrel, which brings it up to somewhere between $9 and $12 a barrel. The result is that the people in the part of country from which I come are buying a box of apples instead of a barrel; they are not getting the amount of fruit they need or desire, simply because they cannot afford to buy it. If there is any man here who thinks the people of the prairies, especially the agriculturists, can afford to exchange the price of 10 bushels of wheat for one little case of strawberries, I should like to know how it can be done.
I want to enter my protest, Mr. Chairman, against the system, not particularly against these duties, because we must realize that a cent a box on strawberries is not going to make much difference when we already pay $8 a case, or 33 cents a box for them.


Mr. MALONEY:: In regard to the statement that it takes 10 bushels of wheat to buy one small case of strawberries, I should like to remind the 'hon. gentleman of the fact that if he is anxious to see this country developed and built up he must support our own fruit industry as well as everything else. To-day in Ontario and the eastern section of Canada we are prepared to buy western wheat in preference to any other, even if it costs $10 a bushel. I should also like to remind hon. members opposite that while they are growing wheat in the west, at the same time they could grow strawberries. They grow vegetables and other articles which have been discussed here to-night, and there is no reason why they should not grow berries as well. Let me say also that a properly canned strawberry is infinitely superior to some of the poor stuff we get from outside this country during our off season. In order to maintain our home market for strawberries and all these other delicacies we are ready to use the preserved articles rather than bring in from the outside something that will interfere with the market of the farmers in this country. We are told that the west is suffering; why not develop the British Columbia fruit market? There is no better fruit in the world than that produced in British Columbia; we buy it down here together with Nova Scotia fruit, and we grow our own as well. Let the west get together with the east and British Columbia and the maritime provinces, and then indeed this country will be prosperous.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-92 (h). Berries, edible, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff. 25 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than 2 cents per pound.
Charles Avery Dunning: The amendment in this
case is just to change the rates to free under the British preferential tariff; 15 per cent under the intermediate tariff, and 20 per cent under the general tariff.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-92 (i). Quinces and nectarines: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one cent per pound.


Charles Avery Dunning: The amendment makes
no change in the body of the item, but changes the rates to free under the British preferential tariff; 15 per cent under the intermediate tariff, and 20 per cent under the general tariff.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-93. Apples, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Provided that when imported under the general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than three-fifths of a cent per pound.


Charles Avery Dunning: The amendment proposed is simply in connection with the ad valorem rates, to make them free under the British preferential tariff; 15 per cent under the intermediate tariff, and 20 per cent under the general tariff.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Mr. WHITE (London):: What difference
is there between the old rate of 90 cents and the new rate of 25 per cent?


Charles Avery Dunning: The minimum of three-fifths of a cent per pound is based upon the old 90 cent rate.


Grote Stirling: Is the minister going to have some remarks to make later on regarding an emergency tariff?


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


Harry Bernard Short: How many apples were imported into this country last year from the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: The imports in 1929 were valued at $944,000, of which $917,000 worth came from the United States and $25,800 worth from New Zealand. In the same year Canada exported apples to the value of $4,867,000, of which $3,844,000 worth went to the United Kingdom. I believe those would be Nova Scotia apples.


Harry Bernard Short: How many apples were exported to the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: I am coming to that.
The exports to the United States were valued at $252,000; to Belgium, $311,000, and to Newfoundland, $100,000.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-94. Grapes, fresh, in their natural state, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty, per pound: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 1J cents; general tariff, 2 cents.


Charles Avery Dunning: There is no amendment in this instance.


James Dew Chaplin: Is there any provision
made for crushed grapes?


Charles Avery Dunning: They would come under the item covering fruit pulp; this item covers grapes in their natural state.


James Dew Chaplin: I understand that last year a considerable importation of grapes was made under the classification of fruit pulp. It is quite obvious that grapes could not be classified as fruit pulp, because it would necessitate including the skins, stalks and stones. In order to beat the customs department, someone had an order passed by the department to the effect that crushed grapes were to be classified as fruit pulp, and in that way they saved themselves the small item of $30 per ton on many thousands of tons of grapes.


Charles Avery Dunning: By having them classified as fruit pulp?


James Dew Chaplin: Yes. The farmers in my county are interested in the growing of grapes, and it has been found that certain people have been allowed to-I would like to have the minister's attention for a moment.


An hon. MEMBER:: Go ahead and talk.
_ Md CHAPLIN: I will go ahead just when it suits me. This is a matter of interest, not only to the people of Canada but to the minister. There are in the province of Ontario over fifty wine manufacturers. Some operate in the grape growing districts, while others are outside of those districts and have the grapes shipped to the factory. Several of these manufacturers were able to obtain special privileges -I do not mean that they were tipped off, but the whole trade was not notified of the regulation passed by the department, and everyone was not put upon an equal basis- whereby they were enabled to import several thousand tons of grapes upon the payment oi a duty of $10 per ton, while others had to pay $40 per ton. The result was that the farmers in my district got the worst of it.


Charles Avery Dunning: This happened last year?


James Dew Chaplin: Last year particularly, but to some extent the year before. They crossed the Niagara river with a tractor, or some other means of providing power, and set a crusher up through which they passed the grapes. They did not require a building to operate in, they simply crossed the river and set up their machinery in the open field. Let me tell the minister of one instance: The machinery did not work, but they filled the barrels with grapes and had a boy tramp a few down, and were able to cross the border and have those grapes classified as fruit pulp.


Charles Avery Dunning: I cannot quite follow my hon. friend, and perhaps he can clear up the point for me. Item 105, which we have not yet reached, covers fruit pulp, but this item is a new one, except with regard to fruit pulp coming in from Australia and New Zealand.


James Dew Chaplin: Fruit pulp was covered before by the tariff.


Grote Stirling: You mean under 96?


James Dew Chaplin: It was under that classification that this stuff was brought in.


Charles Avery Dunning: I have no desire to contradict my hon. friend, but as far as we can discover, instead of coming in as fruit pulp under the item just referred to which relates to Australia and New Zealand, it must have come in as fruit, n.o.p., at 25 per cent, which would produce the result he spoke of.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


James Dew Chaplin: I am not certain as to the item under which it was brought in.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is important in this discussion.


James Dew Chaplin: It was brought in as
crushed fruit. It came in under a different item.


Charles Avery Dunning: It would.


James Dew Chaplin: It did not come in as grapes, as it ought to have done. It came in on the basis of $10 -a ton.


Charles Avery Dunning: That would be 25 per cent. That would be about right would it not?


Grote Stirling: It came in under item 96 of the old tariff.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is fruit, n.o.p.


James Dew Chaplin: That is why I asked the minister whether there had been any change to take care of crushed grapes. Grapes could not be crushed with other fruit to make fruit pulp, because, as I explained before, you would have to separate the skins, stalks and stones to make it so that it could be mixed up, otherwise the rest of the fruit would be spoiled. I think it would be well, therefore, for the minister to take care of that item right alongside the grape item by inserting an item "crushed grapes," so that there would be no misunderstanding. Under item 105, fruit pulp, the duty has been changed more than sufficiently to take care of the price situation.


Charles Avery Dunning: "Fruit pulp" is certainly intended to include crushed grapes. When grapes are crushed they are a pulp, and as a matter of ruling they would undoubtedly come in as fruit pulp. I can assure my hon. friend that was the intention.


James Dew Chaplin: Item 105 reads, "fruit pulp, with sugar or not." If sugar were put with the grapes, the whole thing would be fermented before it arived.


Charles Avery Dunning: But the item reads: "with sugar or not." Whether the pulp has sugar in it or not, it comes in under that item. That is the intention.


James Dew Chaplin: What objection can there be to putting grapes by themselves? They are not changed because they have been crushed. They are not fruit pulp in the same sense as other fruit pulp. They cannot be mixed with anything else and be called fruit pulp. You can take the pulp of certain fruits and mix them all together and they are imported in that form. Some are being brought in at present in that form.


Charles Avery Dunning: When we have a fruit pulp item, what difference does it make whether the pulp consists of one fruit or two or three fruits mixed?. I am sure I cannot get my hon. friend's point that crushed grapes are not covered under the item "fruit pulp." If one kind of fruit is pulped, it is just as much fruit pulp as if two or three kinds of fruit are put together and pulped. From the point of view of customs administration, if it is a fruit that is pulped or crushed, as my hon. friend describes the condition of the grapes, it cannot be anything other than fruit pulp. The fruit pulp item being incorporated in the tariff now takes the crushed grapes out of the item into which it was formerly ruled, namely, fruit n.o.p. If fruit pulp is present as an item in the tariff, nobody is going to put crushed grapes into "fruit, n.o.p." when there is such a close description as fruit pulp. Therefore I think we have crushed grapes covered.


James Dew Chaplin: We have had one experience of what will be done by somebody and it was a pretty costly one. If the minister wants to get an orderly tariff, why should crushed grapes not be put alongside of grapes, or why not have one item, "grapes or crushed grapes"?


Charles Avery Dunning: We then would have to
consider the possibility of difficulty arising as between crushed grapes as a separate item and fruit pulp as a separate item. If the people of whom my hon. friend has been speaking are capable of the acts to which he refers, they would be capable of some little juggling in order to get whatever advantage might accrue at any time as between the two items. If my hon. friend gives consideration to the matter, I think he will see that crushed grapes are fruit pulp. There is in the tariff no other item that can describe them. In the old tariff there is no fruit pulp item save in connection with Australia and New Zealand. Consequently, when these grapes were crushed, as my hon. friend points out, they were dealt with under "fruit, n.o.p." and they came in at, 25 per cent, instead of under the specific tariff which is provided in the grape item, thus bringing about the result which he indicated. From the time the budget came down, the crushed grapes become definitely fruit pulp, because there is in the tariff an item which will apply to them. I want to meet my hon. friend as far as I can, but I think his suggestion would tend to involve further confusion as between crushed grapes on the one hand and fruit pulp on the other. It is clearly understood that crushed grapes go into the fruit pulp item.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


James Dew Chaplin: It may be clearly understood now, but it was not before.


Charles Avery Dunning: Because there was no
fruit pulp item.


James Dew Chaplin: For twenty years there
has been a duty of so much a pound on grapes, and suddenly, in one year, grapes are brought in crushed at a duty of one-half cent per pound as against two cents per pound. How does the minister account for that?


Charles Avery Dunning: Because there was no
provision in the tariff for it. I am making provision for it now.


James Dew Chaplin: There was for grapes. It is suspicious to me that all at once millions of pounds of this commodity should be brought in.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend knows
that I have nothing to do with the administration of the law.


James Dew Chaplin: I quite understand that.
That is why I am taking the trouble to call the minister's attention to the matter.


Charles Avery Dunning: When a difficulty arose
which was called to my attention by importers and fruit growers, I cast around for the best way in which to deal with it and the best way appeared to be to have a fruit pulp item which would apply to all kinds of fruit.


Martin James Maloney: What is meant by fruit pulp?


Charles Avery Dunning: Any kind of fresh fruit
which is crushed and pulped, and imported in that state.


Martin James Maloney: Does that not exclude
the skins?


Charles Avery Dunning: Technically, no.


Martin James Maloney: Then there is more than pulp in it.


James Dew Chaplin: Along with these items
there comes another one which I do not notice in the tariff, but which relates to the same commodity. I refer to grape juice.


Charles Avery Dunning: I think there is a grape-juice item further down the list, if my hon. friend will wait until we reach it.


Grote Stirling: I have not found it.
Hitherto grape juice, I believe, has come in under number 162.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am in error. If my hon. friend from Lincoln wants to discuss grape juice, perhaps this would be the place to do so, in view of the absence of an item dealing with it in the schedule.


James Dew Chaplin: Under what category is
grape juice going to come in and at what rate?


Charles Avery Dunning: Under the existing tariff.


James Dew Chaplin: The minister does not
intend to make any change in that item?


Charles Avery Dunning: Not at present.


James Dew Chaplin: Grape juice is on the basis of 25 cents a gallon, is it not?


Charles Avery Dunning: The general tariff is 22i
per cent at present.


James Dew Chaplin: Does the minister know
what 221 per cent represents on a ton of grapes?


Charles Avery Dunning: This is grape juice.


James Dew Chaplin: I understand, but does
the minister know how many pounds of grapes it takes to make a gallon of grape juice?


Charles Avery Dunning: I am advised that a ton will produce 160 gallons. The equivalent would be about 25 cents a gallon.


James Dew Chaplin: Twenty-five cents a gallon is the value, and 221 per cent on 25 cents is a duty of about 5i cents a gallon, A duty of 5i cents a gallon represents less than the duty .collected last year on crushed grapes. In other words, the wine manufacturers who use crushed grapes, in my opinion illicitly, took out of the treasury of this country on the amount of grapes they brought in last fall, in my opinion illicitly, the sum of $100,000; and now the minister is letting them do the same thing with respect to grape juice. The amount of duty on grape juice is just about equal to the duty that they would have to pay on the crushed grapes. In other words, the farmers in my district think they have a duty of 2 cents a pound on grapes, and the minister is allowing the wineries to bring in grapes from the United States on the basis of one half a cent a pound. That is what it means. This .matter was before the tariff board. The board, as I understand it, had practically promised a certain tariff; the item was in there, and then it was nipped out.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend must
know that the tariff board has no authority to promise a tariff to anybody, and I am quite sure that he is in error in stating that the tariff board ever promised it. There was no public hearing on the question of grape juice. A great many representations have been made to me; my hon. friend himself introduced a deputation on the subject, but I am not satisfied that all the information on this matter has been .publicly developed, and I would like to see it publicly developed. I

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
am prepared to facilitate its development, but I am not prepared to juimp at anything on grape juice just now. Crushed grapes I have attempted to deal with because that case was clearly discussed before the tariff board. When my hon. friend goes further and suggests that at this time we are in a position, from the point of view of information from all those interested, to deal with grape juice, I am sorry that I cannot meet him.


Peter McGibbon: The minister might take his information from this side of the house on that matter as well as on other parts of his budget.


James Dew Chaplin: One part of the day the
minister seems to be anxious to take information from the tariff board. I can tell him that the matter of grapes and crushed grapes was decided upon.


Charles Avery Dunning: I must contradict that.


James Dew Chaplin: That grapes and crushed
grapes were not decided upon?


Charles Avery Dunning: Grapes and crushed
grapes? The decision on that is right here in the tariff, yes.


James Dew Chaplin: The farmers' representatives who came here went home fully satisfied that everything was all right, including grape
juice.


Charles Avery Dunning: From a public hearing of the tariff board?


James Dew Chaplin: Yes.


James Dew Chaplin: The information I have
given the minister about crushed grapes is not fragmentary.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend jumps
from crushed grapes to grape juice, and back again.


James Dew Chaplin: Are they not all in the
same category?


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend is no
serious now.


James Dew Chaplin: Not serious? The trouble is that the minister has made so many changes that he does not want to make another. As I said before, the grape juice matter was fixed, and then somebody comes along and it is changed again.


Charles Avery Dunning: I must contradict my
hon. friend. Grape juice was never included in the budget.


James Dew Chaplin: I never said that. I said that it was considered by the tariff board, and that the farmers went home from the hearing feeling that everything was all right. Then they were called back. It may be, as the minister says, that in view of the concentrated grape juice factor he wants to examine the whole question again. If that is so, I have no more to say.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is the position. I
think my hon. friend knows that.


James Dew Chaplin: I know it now.


Charles Avery Dunning: Then I have no more to
say.


James Dew Chaplin: They were notified two
or three days before the budget came down that things were not all right, and they came down here again, and a few days afterwards I spoke to the minister about it.


Charles Avery Dunning: As to concentrated grape
juice-


James Dew Chaplin: I am not speaking of
concentrated grape juice.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend knows
very well that that is the factor which has recently come into the situation. It is a new factor, and was brought to my attention by Sir Henry Drayton only a short time before the budget came down. As represented by the growers to me since, it is the most important factor in the situation from their point of view-that is a new and more concentrated form of grape juice. I want to know where we are going before we move. I do not intend to be rushed in these matters on the basis of fragmentary information.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend knew the difficulties in connection with the matter when he brought the delegation to see me, because they were then discussed. He also knows the new difficulty which arose only a very few days before the budget was delivered. Information oame to us regarding the concentrated grape juice factor, or rather a concentrate of grape juice. He knows himself how recent that is.


James Dew Chaplin: It is so recent that there has been none imported. That is how recent it is.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is how recent it is.


James Dew Chaplin: In other words, there has been no difficulty in connection with it. That is more of an academic difficulty than anything else.


Charles Avery Dunning: The delegation that my hon. friend brought to see me did not represent it as academic.


James Dew Chaplin: They knew nothing about it from experience. .

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Mr. RYCKMAN:: I wish to take issue with the minister, and I have the dictionary to support me. Crushed grapes could in no sense be considered to be fruit pulp, because if my hon. friend will look at the definition of pulp, it is the soft succulent part of fruit. That would certainly not include the skins and stones. If the minister really wishes to take care of the situation in regard to which an hon. member of this house says that he thinks this country has been bled of $100,000 in revenue, he can very easily put in the term "crushed grapes." That is all that is necessary. Suppose that instead of $100,000 the country has lost only a quarter of that; the insertion of just a word there will clear the matter up. Crushed grapes, with the dictionary behind me, I submit are not fruit pulp.


Charles Avery Dunning: Undoubtedly the intention was to include it in fruit pulp, and I believe the customs department indicated that if there was a fruit pulp item, which would be the item previously in the tariff, crushed grapes and everything of that kind would be ruled as coming within it. I am inclined to try, if possible, to please my hon. friend from Lincoln. I know it is rather a difficult task. It is pointed out to me, as I stated before, that by including crushed with the fresh grapes we have the possibility of crushed grapes being included in fruit pulp or in this item at the discretion of the customs board. While I should like to please my hon. friend from Lincoln and those whom he represents in the matter, I desire to avoid any possibility of difficulty.


Henry Herbert Stevens: If the item is specifically mentioned it would not go into another item that is general in its terms.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend would desire crushed grapes to be in the fresh grapes item?


James Dew Chaplin: I certainly would. I
think it is the only sensible way of doing it. It leaves it beyond peradventure.


Charles Avery Dunning: In order to get a little
advice from the national revenue department in regard to the matter, would it be satisfactory to let item 94 stand?


James Dew Chaplin: Certainly. I would very much prefer to see it there, but if there is good reason why it should be put somewhere else I do not think it will make a great deal of difference.
Item 94 stands.

Customs tariff-95. Cantaloups and musk-melons, the -weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Provided	that	when	imported	under	the
general tariff rate, the duty shall be not less than one and one-half cents per pound.


Charles Avery Dunning: I desire to amend this item by substituting the following:
Cantaloups and muskmelons, the weight of the packages to be included in the weight for duty.
Provided	that	when	imported	under	the
general tariff rate, from Julv 20 to October 31, inclusive, the duty shall be not less than one and one-lialf cents per pound: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-95(a). Melons, n.o.p., each: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 2J cents; general tariff, 3 cents.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-96. Fruits, fresh, in their natural state, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: There -will be the following changes in the rates to conform with the other changes:
British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.


Robert James Manion: What have been the imports under this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: About $1,700,000.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-97.	Plantains, pineapples,
pomegranates, guavas and mangoes:	British
preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
Charles Avery Dunning: No change.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-98. Bananas, when imported from the place of growth by ship, direct to a Canadian port, per stem or bunch: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 50 cents; general tariff, 50 cents.
Charles Avery Dunning: No change.


Robert James Manion: Through what ports do we get our bananas at the present time?


Charles Avery Dunning: The only change here is to provide for the re-numbering. Following the inauguration of the direct steamship service with the West Indies at the beginning of the fiscal year 1929-30, the old item 90b was can-

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
celled on May 2, 1929, after which date bananas entered Canada under two items, 90c and 90d, Imports under the old item 90b during the fiscal year 1928-29 were valued at $5,246,000, of which $5,207,000 came from the United States, and $39,000 from Jamaica. That was before the new arrangement went into effect. It has not been possible to obtain an advance publication of statistics of imports during the year just closed. I know we have brought in a tremendous quantity from the West Indies.


Robert James Manion: Through Canadian ports?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Robert Edwy Ryerson: I think we should have figures of the quantity imported under the new arrangement.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Speaking from memory, I think Sir Henry Thornton said that about a million bunches came by Halifax.


Robert James Manion: What were the proportions by Canadian ports and from the United States?
Mr. DUNNING': The information is not available. In a general way I can say the arrangement is developing very fast indeed via our own Canadian National steamship service.


Henry Herbert Stevens: According to Sir Henry Thornton, about a million bunches came in by St. John and a million bunches by Halifax.


Thomas Cantley: I think it will be found that practically all the bananas coming into Canada to-day enter through Canadian ports. The United Fruit Company formerly brought in bananas through Boston. With the change of duty last year they brought in the great bulk through St. John. The West Indies steamers brought them in through both Halifax and St. John, and in the summer months through Montreal. So practically all our bananas now come in through Canadian ports.


Robert Edwy Ryerson: I beg to disagree with that statement. Very few bananas from Jamaica go west of Port Arthur; those reaching points further west come the other way from the Pacific coast.


Charles Avery Dunning: I have some proof sheets of figures from the statistical department, which I have every reason to believe are correct. The total imports from the United States for the fiscal year 1930 were, 1,188,000 bunches, and from Jamaica 2,729,000 bunches. The trade completely turned over in the fiscal year 1930 as compared with the previous year.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-9Sa. Bananas, n.o.p., per stem or bunch: British preferential tariff, 50 cents; intermediate tariff, 50 cents; general tariff, 50 cents.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-99. Bananas, dried or evaporated, per pound: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, J cent; general tariff, i cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-99a. Dates and figs, dried; plums and prunes, dried, unpitted; per pound: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, | cent; general tariff, | cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-99b. Fruits, dried, desiccated, evaporated or dehydrated, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 22| per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-100. Grapefruit, when imported from the place of growth by ship, direct to a Canadian port, per pound: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, J cent; general tariff, 1 cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-100a. Grapefruit, n.o.p., per pound: British preferential tariff, J cent; intermediate tariff, 1 cent; general tariff, 1 cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-'102. Limes: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 15 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-105. Fruit pulp, with sugar or not, n.o.p., and fruits, frozen, per pound: British preferential tariff, li cents; intermediate tariff, 2J cents; general tariff, 3 cents.
Charles Avery Dunning: In view of the fact that we are allowing the item of grapes to stand I think it would be just as well to let stand the item concerning fruit pulp until we have made the necessary inquiries in regard to crushed grapes.
Item stands.
Customs tariff-105a. Lemon and orange rinds and citron in brine: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-105b. Olives and cherries in brine, not bottled: British preferential tariff, 10 per cent; intermediate tariff, 17J per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
James Houston Spence: I would like to ask the amount of imports of cherries from France and Italy.



Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Charles Avery Dunning: This extends the former item No. 89. The new item will include cherries, whereas the old item did not. It seemed to the department that cherries in brine should be placed with olives in brine. Previously cherries were not included. Olives were imported to the value of $75,000, of which $43,000 worth came from the United States and $26,000 worth came from Greece. The new wording will also include olives in bulk for the manufacture of pickles, which in 1929 entered to the value of $269,000, of which total sum $224,000 worth came from Spain and $34,000 worth came from the United States. As far as cherries in brine are concerned they were formerly included as pickles under item 88, but the value was not traceable. We cannot tell how much came in because they were mixed with pickles in general.


James Houston Spence: This is a very important fact, and represents one of the worst features with which the fruit trade of this country has had to contend since the French treaty was passed. At the present time there is no demand whatever for cherries in Canada. The extract people and the people who used them are importing their cherries from Italy and France by the barrel and by the carload while Canadian cherries are not used. It was found that the Richmond cherry was not satisfactory, and the growers developed the Montmorency cherry which was satisfactory for the Canadian trade. When the French treaty was signed the extract people, who are the chief importers, brought cherries from France and Italy, and the result is that there is no sale for Canadian cherries no matter how good they may be. Sweet cherries are sold in considerable quantities, however. A few years ago the growers planted thousands of trees to accommodate the trade, and as a result of the transfer of trade they have had to tear them out. The French treaty was agreed to in 1923 and from that date forward the sale of cherries has dwindled. You now propose a further reduction of about 10 per cent in the duty. In my opinion, instead of reducing the tariff 10 per cent it should be increased a like amount. The cherry interests which at one time represented one of the greatest fruit industries are now almost completely wiped out. There must have been hundreds of thousands of tons imported.


Charles Avery Dunning: Cherries in brine came in as pickles, and under the French treaty they would have been carrying a duty of 32J per cent.


James Houston Spence: It is wonderful how this government has succeeded in killing the cherry industry in Canada,


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-105c. Fruits and nuts, pickled or preserved in salt, brine, oil or any other matter, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 20 per cent; intermediate tariff, 32J per cent; general tariff, 35 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-105d. Jellies, jams, marmalades, preserves, fruit pastes, fruit butters and condensed mince meats, per pound:	British
preferential tariff, 2f cents; intermediate tariff, 3f cents; general tariff, 3f cents.
James Dew Chaplin: What relation have jams, jellies and marmalades to condensed mince meats? Why should the condensed mince meats be included in this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: There are certain common characteristics, one of which is the sugar element. I do not know where condensed mince meats could be placed if they were not included along with jams, jellies and preserves. They have always been included in this ite-m.


James Dew Chaplin: I had noticed that they were in the item, and I intended to inquire the reason.


Charles Avery Dunning: Will my hon. friend suggest where mince meats could be placed if they were not included in this item?


Robert James Manion: I suggest that they be included in a good pie.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-105(e). Fruits and peels, crystallized, glace, candied or drained; cherries and other fruits of creme de menthe, maraschino or other flavour: British preferential tariff, 22J per cent; intermediate tariff, 35 per cent; general tariff, 35 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-106. Fruits, prepared, in air-tight cans or other air-tight containers, the weight of the container to be included in the weight for duty:
(a)	Apricots, peaches and pears, per pound:
British preferential tariff, If cents:	intermediate tariff, 2% cents; general tariff, 2f cents.
(b)	Pineapples, per pound: British preferential tariff, i cent; intermediate tariff, 2J cents; general tariff, 2f cents.
(c)	N.o.p., per pound: British preferential tariff, If cents; intermediate tariff, 2| cents; general tariff, 2f cents.
Robert James Manion: What are the total imports under item 106?

Private Bills


Charles Avery Dunning: The total imports of
peaches, under section (a) are valued at $787,000.


Robert James Manion: The total figures will be sufficient.


Charles Avery Dunning: Of that total $712,000
worth came from the United States and $75,000 worth came from Australia. Of canned pears, of a total value of $108,000, $100,000 worth came from the United States and $8,000 worth from Australia. In the same year we exported, principally to the United Kingdom, canned pears to the value of $283,000.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing
order.
Wednesday, May 21, 1930.