1930-04-02

[Stage Direction]
First report of the select standing committee on agriculture and colonization-Mr. Kay.
Mr. KAY moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. C. G. POWER (Quebec South) moved concurrence in the third report of the special committee on pensions and returned soldiers' problems.
Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, since yesterday I
have had an opportunity to discuss the subject matter of this report with the chairman of the committee on returned soldiers' problems and I have ascertained that it is the purpose of the committee, if it has not been done already, to appoint counsel for the committee in addition to counsel for the various organizations to which reference was made. Under these circumstances I have no objection to the report in any way, but while I am on my feet I may say that the heading of an article appearing in one of the local newspapers this morning was hardly a fair statement of the position taken yesterday, as indicated by Hansard. The difficulty was whether some now in remote sections of the countiy, who do not belong to the different organizations, might feel that their cases were not adequately safeguarded before the committee. The appointment ol counsel of eminence to represent the committee as such should, I think, meet that difficulty.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING, (Prime Minister) moved:
That the name of Hon. Mr. Rinfret he substituted for that of Mr. McLean (Melfort) on the select standing committee on banking and commerce, and that the name of Hon. Charles Stewart (Edmonton) be substituted for that of Hon. W. R. Motherwell on the select standing committee on agriculture and colonization.
Motion agreed to.

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

[Stage Direction]
MR. BOUIiGAULT
Mr. MURPHY:: 1.	Was one Mr. Bourgault appointed to the position of inspector of railroad operation under the Board of Railway Commissioners?
2.	If so, how many applications were there for the position?
3.	How many clerks from grade 3 applied for this position?
4.	How many clerks from grade 3 wrote on this examination?
5.	How many practical railway men with over three years' experience applied for this position?
6.	How many practical railway men with over three years' experience wrote on this examination?
7.	Who examined the papers written on this examination, and what is his name and title?


Mr. RINFRET:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Ninety-six.	.
3.	One.
4.	One.
5.	Seventy-five of the applicants were practical railway men with three years' operating experience.
6.	Fifty-eight of the applicants specified in question No. 5, wrote on the examination.
7.	Mr. George Spencer, chief operating officer, Board of Railway Commissioners.


FEDERAL GRANTS-PROVINCE OF QUEBEC
Mr. PREVOST:: 1.	What is the total amount of subsidies granted to the province of Quebec by the Dominion government for agriculture?
2. What is the total amount to this date of grants made to the province of Quebec for technical instruction?
3.	What is the total amount to this date of grants made by the Dominion government to the province of Quebec in pursuance of the Farm Loan Act?


Mr. RINFRET:: 
ALBERTA PENITENTIARY-CUSTODIAN OF RESERVE
Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: 
Mr. LAPOINTE:: 1.	J. J. Cashman.
2.	Twenty-three years and eight months.
3.	Has not yet retired.
4.	Accountant of the Alberta penitentiary and custodian of the reserve.
5.
1906-	07 (8 months)	$	816 161907-	08	
1,200	001908-	09	
1,200	001909-	10	
1,200	001910-	11	
1,200	001911-	12	
1,200	001912-	13	
1,600	001913-	14	
1,600	001914-	15	
1,600	001915-	16	
1,600	001916-	17	
1,600	001917-	18	
1,600	001918-	19	
1,600	001919-	20	
1,920	001920-	21	
2,039	981921-	22	
2,160 001922-	23	
2,280	001923-	24	
2,280	001924-	25	
2,280	001925-	26	
2,280	001926-	27	
2,280	001927-	28	
2,400	001928-	29	
2,400	001929-	30	
2,400	006.	The only increases in salary given this officer have been those authorized by act of parliament and the Civil Service Commission,
and the increases have been the same as those given the accountants of all the other penitentiaries.
7.	No payment of $3,120 was made for the year 1929-30. The estimates provided that amount for the maintenance of the reserve, and the expenditure totalled $2,894.04 which was made up as follows:
Salary	 * 2,400 00
Coal	$	10 50
Wood	 4 00
Cutting and burning of
weeds	
136	63Ploughing of land	
225	00Telephone account	57	00
Insurance premium on
officers' bonds	
6	00Telegraph account	
31	26
To Messrs. Driscoll &
McKnight re blue prints etc. - penitentiary reserve, lot No. 20, Edmonton	 15	00
Map-city of Edmonton.	1 00
Revenue receipt book and
postage	
5	40Sundry items	
2	25
494 04
Expenditure	 2,894 04
Unexpended balance	 225 96
Appropriation	$3,120 00
8.	See answer to No. 7.


CANADIAN DELEGATES TO NAVAL CONFERENCE
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Who are Canada's delegates to the naval
parley at London, England?	,
2.	When did they arrive there and what is their status ^
3.	Were any instructions given as to the part they were to take there, and what were these instructions?
4.	When will they return to Canada?
5.	Have they agreed to any reductions in
Canada's navy or militia votes or to any reductions in armaments?	, .
6.	Is the government yet in a position to inform the house of the said parley and its progress?


Mr. MALCOLM (for Mr. Ralston):: 1.	The Canadian representative is the Hon. J. L. Ralston, Minister of National Defence, who is assisted by Commodore Walter Hose, Chief of Naval Staff, Lieutenant-Colonel G. P. Vanier, Canadian representative on the League of Nations Advisory Commission for Military, Naval and Air questions, and L. B. Pearson, first secretary, Department of External Affairs.
Questions

2.	The Canadian delegation, which has the same status as the delegations representing His Majesty's other governments, arrived in London on January 17, 1930.
3.	The questions coming before the conference were fully discussed before the departure of the Canadian, delegation, who were instructed to cooperate to the fullest possible extent to ensure the limitation of naval armament which was the object of .the conference.
4.	The date of the termination of the conference is not yet known.
5.	No final conclusions have yet been reached as to the action to be taken by any country represented in the conference.
6.	No.


TORONTO SHORE AND BREAKWATER PROTECTION
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	What are the total votes for shore and breakwater protection on the lake side of loronto island between Ward's island to the west coast of Centre island, during the past ten years?
2.	Has the attention of the government been called to the great storm on Monday and Tuesday last which destroyed a portion of the lederal breakwater at this point?
3.	What steps will be taken to repair the same and prevent the further destruction of municipal services which the breakwater has protected?


Mr. ELLIOTT:: 1. 1920-	21	 1921-	22	 1922-	23	 1923-	24	 1924-	25		
1925-26		
1926-27		
1927-28		
1928-29		
1929-30		
2.	Yes.
3.	Matter under consideration.


DAMAGE BY STORM-TORONTO
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Has the attention of the government been called to the great storm which swept over the Eastern beaches of Toronto, at Woodbine avenue and Kew Gardens, on lake Ontario ?
2.	What steps will be taken by the government to afford adequate protection of:	(a)
temporary nature; (b) permanent nature?


Mr. ELLIOTT:: 1.	No.
2.	Enquiry will be made if this is Dominion government property.


WAR REPARATIONS
Mr. LAWSON:: 1.	What is the total amount of money received by Canada in payment of war reparations?
2.	What amount has been paid out of war reparations for claims awarded by the reparations commission of which James Friel, K was chairman ?


Mr. RINFRET:: 1.	$19,151,436.63.
2.	No sum whatever was paid out of the amount received for war reparations. Payments were made under the provisions of the Reparation Payment Act, 1929.


CARIBOO ISLAND MAIL CARRIER
Mr. CANTLEY:: 1.	Who is the mail courier on the route between Cariboo island, Pictou county, Nova Scotia, and Waterside on the mainland?
2.	Was the contract for said route advertised and let by tender?
3.	When did the present courier obtain the contract ?
4.	What is the amount of the tender?
5.	What are the dates of the beginning and ending of such service?
6.	If not obtained by tender, under what form of agreement is the service performed and what is the remuneration received by the courier?


Mr. VENIOT:: 1.	Norman McLean.
2.	No.
3.	January 1, 1919.
4.	Tenders were not invited.
5.	Contract begins on January 1, 1927. Contract expires on December 31, 1930.
6.	Renewal of former contract. $150 per annum.


HALIFAX-IMPORTS OF COAL
Mr. CANTLEY:: 1.	What tonnage of foreign coal was imported into the port of Halifax during the calendar year 1929?
2.	What was the country of origin and port of shipment of such coal and what tonnage from each port?
3.	What was the rate of duty imposed on coal so imported and how much collected per ton:
(a)	from United States; (b) from Great Britain; (c) from Europe and/or Asia?


Mr. EULER:: 1.	Tons
Anthracite coal	 45,461
Bituminous coal and	coal n.o.p... 35,323
80,784

Questions
2.	Tons
Great Britain:
anthracite coal	 31,612
bituminous coal	and	coal	n.o.p...	21,991
United States:
anthracite coal	 8,248
bituminous coal	a*d	coal	n.o.p.	..	13,332
Russia:
anthracite coal	 5,601
80,784
No statistical records are kept of imports from separate foreign ports of shipment.
3.	Anthracite coal, free from all countries; bituminous coal and coal n.o.p., from United States, 50 cents per ton; bituminous coal and coal n.o.p., from Great Britain, 50 cents per ton on 2,735 tons, 35 cents per ton on 19,256 tons.


INCOME TAX RECEIPTS BY PROVINCES
Mr. LADNER:: What is the total amount of income tax received annually (fiscal year) by the government of Canada from each province since the year 1920?


Mr. EULER:: Total Amount of Income Tax Received Annually From Each Province Since the Year 1920
Prince Edward Island
Fiscal year 1920-1921	Fiscal year 1921-1922	Fiscal year 1922-1923	Fiscal year 1923-1924	Fiscal year 1924-1925	Fiscal year 1925-1926	Fiscal year 1926-1927	Fiscal year 1927-1928	Fiscal year 1928-192925,611 29	77,860 51	88,906 70	46,158 80	37,835 78	52,055 99	28,160 04	37,933 12	38,654 01Nova Scotia	1,168,733 82	2,223,986 11	1,585,659 04	1,041,355 17	809,689 36	671,636 76	539,842 92	549,413 11	593,349 53New Brunswick	701,463 53	1,452,209 83	1,023,466 54	619,461 44	754,373 89	709,040 81	524,820 45	655,234 07	553,686 39Quebec	15,657,973 07	24,394,235 16	21,107,599 64	18,942,193 96	19,679,008 30	18,168,909 78	15,587,881 64	19,061,843 30	19,822,208 98Ontario	20,013,824 05	34,504,979 47	24,935,163 09	23,825,428 77	25,531,533 50	26,139,216 30	22,631,659 44	25,614,930 35	28,690,282 58Manitoba	3,962,734 82	6,014,254 39	4,251,614 16	3,731,074 78	3,477,069 32	3,384,430 47	2,393,249 83	3,141,122 79	3,272,605 86Saskatchewan	1,193,536 63	2,437,447 54	1,520,803 18	1,090,395 70	872,028 03	855,371 20	658,257 36	775,074 60	894,493 90
Alberta
2,446,866 38	1,546,320 15	1,369,224 24	1,163,911 16	1,433,242 24	1,170,951 97	1,273,786 20
British Columbia
2,237,711 21	5,095,303 57	3,612,128 28	3,491,553 51	3,855,447 21	4,115,330 08	3,832,151 95	5,440,359 28
Yukon							
21,246 03	37,211 84	39,877 59	47,181 62	67,146 27	42,727 94	19,333 62	21,350 57
Questions


NELSON, B.C.-PUBLIC PROPERTY
Mr. ESLING:: 1.	Does the Department of Public Works occupy rented premises at Nelson, British Columbia?
2.	If so, who is the owner of this property?
3.	What is the annual rental paid?


Mr. ELLIOTT:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Kenneth J. Campbell.
3.	$1440.


S.S. GASPESIA
Mr. MANION:: 1.	How many trips has the steamship Gaspesia made during the months of December, January, February and March?
2.	How many trips was she actually called upon to make according to her schedule?
3.	Is the company owning the steamer paid for the trips actually made or is the company paid for the trips that the steamer is called upon to make?


Mr. MALCOLM:: 1.	Four trips have been completed by the Gaspesia. One trip was made by the substitute steamer North Voyageur, and one trip has yet to be completed, the steamer being delayed by a snow storm.
2.	Eight.
3.	When the subsidy claims are paid consideration will be given to the extraordinarily severe ice conditions in the St. Lawrence during the past winter. The question as to whether an allowance should be made to the company and subsidy paid to them for trips which were missed on account of severe weather conditions has not yet been decided.


GHOST RIVER DAM-PAYMENT TO INDIANS
Mr. ADSHEAD:: 1.	How much money did the Indians on Ghost river receive on account of the building of the Ghost River dam, Alberta?
2.	Who paid the money, the government or the Calgary Power Company?
3.	What was done with the money?


Mr. STEWART:: 1.	$20,337.15 for land flooded; $1,000 for right of way-Total, $21,337.15.
2.	The Calgary Power Company.
3.	$3,140 was paid in cash to Indians, June 1928.
$17,027.89 was spent in the purchase of additional land for the reserve.
$1,169.26 was placed to the credit of the Stony Band trust fund.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. KENNEDY:: 1.	What are the monthly import figures for
mutton in each of the months of the years 1929 and	1930,	from:	(a)	New	Zealand;	(b)
Australia; (c) United States?
2.	What are the monthly import figures for
lamb in each of the months of the years 1929 and	1930	from:	(a)	New	Zealand;	(b)
Australia; (c) United States?
3.	What was the price per pound in each case of all such imports?
4.	What is the percentage of mutton and lamb in each month from: (a) New Zealand;
(b)	Australia; (c) United States?
5.	Is mutton imported from other countries allowed to be sold in open competition with Canadian lamb?
6.	Are there any regulations controlling the distribution of imported mutton in Canada?
7.	If so, what are they, on:	(a) frozen
mutton; (b) other mutton?


QUEBEC BRIDGE APPROACHES AND PARK
[Stage Direction]
Mr. POULIOT;
1.	What is the length and width of the
approaches of the vehicular road on the Quebec bridge:	(a) on the north side; (b) on the
south side?
2.	Were said approaches built by the Department of Public Works or by the Department of Highways of the province of Quebec?
3.	What is the total cost of each of said
approaches:	(a) rental or purchase of land;
(b) material; (c) labour?
4.	Are the said approaches lighted?
5.	If so: (a) in what manner; (b) what is the total cost of installing the lighting fixtures on each of said approaches, and how many of said fixtures are there?
6.	What is the approximate monthly cost of the electric current used to light up each approach: (a) in June; (b) in December?
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	What is the total cost of the park built in the proximity of the approaches of the vehicular road of the Quebec bridge, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence river?
2.	Did the contract of November 15, 1928, between the Dominion and Quebec governments provide for the construction of said park?
3.	Is the cost of said park included in the total cost of the approaches?
4.	Is said park lighted?
5.	If so: (a) in what manner; (b) what was the total cost of installing the lighting fixtures in said park, and how many are there?
6.	What is the approximate monthly cost of the electric current used to light said park: (a) in June; (b) in December?


QUEBEC BRIDGE RAILWAY CROSSING
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	What was the cost of each of the railway crossings on each approach of the vehicular road on the Quebec bridge?

Questions as Orders jor Returns
2.	Notwithstanding the contract of November 15, 1928, between the Dominion and Quebec governments, has the former contributed, (a) to the construction, (b) to the upkeep of said railway crossing?
3.	If so, in what way, and to what amount?
4.	Is the contribution of the Dominion government included in the total cost of said railway crossing?


QUEBEC BRIDGE BUILDINGS
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	What was the cost of each of the buildings constructed, (a) along the approaches of the vehicular road on the Quebec bridge, (b) on the adjacent park?
2.	What use is to be made of each of said buildings?


QUEBEC BRIDGE VEHICULAR ROAD
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	What was the total cost of the vehicular road on the Quebec bridge as to: (a) material;
(b) labour?
2.	What is the monthly cost of the upkeep?
3.	Who provides for it?
4.	How many keepers are employed on the vehicular road of the Quebec bridge?
5.	By whom are they paid?
6.	Does the total cost of said vehicular road, approaches and all improvements, exceed $400,000?
7.	Is the said road lighted?
8.	If so: (a) in what way; (b) what is the total cost of the lighting fixtures on the vehicular road, and how many are there?
9.	What is the approximate monthly cost of the electric current used for lighting purposes: (a) in June; (b) in December?
10.	What is the approximate yearly cost of the upkeep?


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Was the vehicular road on the Quebec bridge, from one end to the other, constructed by the Department of Public Works of the government of Quebec?
2.	Who has cliarge of its upkeep?
3.	When was the vehicular road on the Quebec bridge opened to the public?
4.	Since that date, how many: (a) vehicles; (b) pedestrians, and (c) animals have passed over it?
5.	During this period, what was the total amount paid in tolls: (a) on vehicles and their passengers; (b) by pedestrians; (c) on animals?
6.	Is there a special walk for pedestrians on the Quebec bridge?
7.	Are there persons who have the privilege of free crossing with their vehicles on the Quebec bridge?
8.	If so. how many?
9.	Are those who enjoy that privilege farmers of the neighbouring parishes?


QUEBEC BRIDGE SCALE OF TOLLS
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	What is the complete scale of tolls approved by an order in council of the Quebec government on August 8, 1929: (a) on vehicles; (b) for pedestrians; (c) for animals, passing on said road?
2.	What animals are included in said scale of tolls?
3.	What are the nearest points: (a) to the
east; (b) to the west, where vehicles may cross the St. Lawrence river at all seasons of the year?	.
4.	What distance is each of said crossings from the Quebec bridge?
5.	Will the government base its estimates on the tolls in force over the nearest crossings or only on the cost of the vehicular road and the expected returns, in considering the scale of tolls which were submitted to it by the Quebec government ?


ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE
Mr. BOULANGER:: 1.	Wliat is the total strength of enlisted men at No. 1 depot, Royal Canadian Air Force, the rank of each man. nativity, and the rate of pay per month and allowance given each individual rank, together with a statement showing holidays, statutory and regular?
2.	What is the total strength of civilians employed at above depot, the position or grade of each man, his nativity, rate of pay, day and month, how many are on monthly rate, as compared with hourly rate, and what holidays are allowed each man?
3.	How many civilians are being trained to
replace air force officers loaned to the civil government ?	.
4.	How many inspectors are employed in the inspection or intelligence branch, at No. 1 depot, and what is the nativity of each inspector?
5.	How are promotions made, are they made by recommendation of the officer in charge of depot ?
6.	If examinations are set, who passes on merits of candidates, and what are the names and nativity of examiners?



MUTTON AND LAMB IMPORTS

Mr. STIRLING:: What were the importations, in pounds and value, into Canada, of mutton and lamb, month by month, in the years 1925 to 1929 inclusive, giving the countries of origin and the ports of entry?



CANADIAN ARMY PAY CORPS

Mr. CLARK:: 1.	On what date was Canadian army pay corps organized?
2.	Why was it organized?
3.	What are the duties of said corps?
4.	What was the strength of said corps on July 1, 1914?
5.	What is the strength of said corps to-day?
6.	When was the name of said corps changed to Royal Canadian army pay corps?
7.	Why was the word "royal" added?
8.	How many of the present personnel served in a theatre of war between 1914 and 1918?
9.	Is it the intention of the government to disband said corps?
10.	Has an investigation relating to said corps been held?
11.	Was said investigation conducted by soldiers or civilians?
12.	Is it the intention of the government to replace the Royal *Canadian army pay corps by a civilian organization?
13.	If so, what is the name and nature of the organization?
Unemployment-Mr. Heenan

14.	What disposition will be made of the present members of the Royal Canadian army pay corps as to: (a) employment; (b) pay, and
(c)	pension?
15.	Is the accounts branch of the Department of National Defence now manned by civilians?
16.	Will said accounts branch take over the duties now performed by the Royal Canadian army pay corps?
17.	What is the present number of employees in said accounts branch?
18.	What was the number of employees in said accounts branch on July 1, 1914?
19.	How many of the present staff of the accounts branch served in a theatre of war between 1914 and 1918?
20.	What provision has been made to carry out the pay services in ease of mobilization?
21.	Did General Sir Arthur Currie make recommendations regarding the employment of civilians in the Department of National Defence when he was inspector general? If so, what were they?
22.	Did Major General J. H. MacBrien make recommendations regarding the employment of civilians in the Department of National Defence when he was chief of the general staff? If so, what were they?



AIR MAIL SERVICE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. A. STEWART (Leeds):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire of the Postmaster General (Mr. Veniot) when I may expect the return covering the tenders, correspondence, et cetera, in connection with the air mail contracts which was ordered on March 17, 1930. The house will soon be taking up the estimates of that department and I would like to have this information before me at that time.


Mr. VENIOT:: I was informed yesterday
that this information would not be ready until Monday.



CIVIL SERVICE SUPERANNUATION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. C. HOCKEN (Toronto West Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) whether a committee has been appointed to consider the question of superannuation. If my memory serves me aright, a committee was appointed last session but no report has been made.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: I may be mistaken, but I have no recollection of any such committee having been appointed.


Horatio Clarence Hocken: I understood that a committee of officials had been appointed to consider this question.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not think a governmental committee of any kind has been appointed. A committee may have been appointed by some organization to investigate this matter, but I am afraid I cannot give my hon. friend any information regarding it.



SUPPLY-UNEMPLOYMENT

[Stage Direction]
AMENDMENT OP Mli. HEAPS TO MOTION FOE COMMITTEE
The house resumed from Tuesday, April 1, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mackenzie King for committee of supply, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Heaps.
Hon. PETER HEENAN (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, during the discussion
of last night I took occasion to congratulate the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) for bringing this important question before the house, and also for the sincere manner in which he had carried on his argument on the amendment. I pointed out to the hon. member that the government had contributed to the relief of unemployment by carrying on an extended program of public works construction, which program would be continued. I pointed out that the government had urged the railroad companies to carry on an expansion program in order to help this situation. I mentioned that the government last year spent about $600,000 for the relief of unemployed ex-soldiers, and that by letting a contract in Canada for construction work which could have been carried on in the United Kingdom at about $1,000,000 less, considerable employment was being given to Canadian workmen. I pointed out that this government was contributing towards old age pensions, assisting approximately 40,000 Canadian citizens. Last night I mentioned the figure of 35,000, but my office advises me that it should be 40,000.
There is legislation now before the house which I do not propose to discuss, but I am satisfied that the War Veterans' Allowance Act will contribute to a very large extent towards the relief of unemployment by taking many men out of the industrial field. I directed the attention of the house to the fact that the government was making a further contribution by prohibiting contract labour being brought into Canada.
The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) asked me last night if we had . not already a law of this nature upon the statute books, and I took it for granted that he meant the Alien Labour Act. A reference to Hansard will show that I was discussing

Unemployment-Mr. Heenan
the prohibition of the bringing in of contract labour from European countries, and the Alien Labour Act does not apply to those countries. That prohibition is being applied only to the United States as that is the only country which has a similar act with regard to Canada. The act contains no provision for administration by any department of the government.


Mr. STEVENS:: It is a statute of the
country, is it not?


Peter Heenan: Yes.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Is it not the duty of the
government to enforce it?


Peter Heenan: It is the duty of everyone to enforce it. The act provides that the lieutenant governors or the attorneys general of the provinces have considerable to say in the matter.


Mr. IRVINE:: Will the hon. minister speak a little louder; we cannot hear him in this corner of the house.


Peter Heenan: I have a long way to go
and I want to save my wind.
I would point out to the hon. member for North Winnipeg that the new immigration policy will assist in the solution of this problem as it gives to the provinces a great deal of the responsibility in connection with immigration. I do not think the provinces will ask for as many immigrants as they have in the past. The eight hour day has been applied to the public service, and with the help of my hon. friends opposite I hope that the eight hour day will be made applicable to all employees on public works.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is four years too
late.


Peter Heenan: If that were done it would relieve unemployment, and more so if the provinces and the municipalities will follow this lead. I hope that the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion), who is a good friend of mine, will not endeavour to discover further excuses on behalf of the Ontario government for delay in the commencement of the construction of highways through northern Ontario. I have stated several times outside of the house, and I state again, that the province of Ontario should have gone on last winter with the blasting of rock and the cutting out of the right of way for the construction of the highway from Fort William to the Manitoba boundary. The road has been
promised, it has been started, and there is no reason why they should not have gone on with it.


Mr. MANION:: They are going on with it at the present time. They are still building it.


Peter Heenan: I might say for the benefit of my hon. friend I have a clipping from the Kenora Examiner of December 30, 1921, and I want to read it to him. It reads:
The contracts for clearing the right of way for the highway between Keewatin and the Manitoba boundary have been let, and one of the contractors has already started to work.
The successful tenderers were as follows:
Thomas Nolan, of Rainy River, secured the first and fifth and sixth five miles.
That is, they were let in five-mile stretches.
Adam Blondin, of Kenora, was awarded the second five miles.
Harvey Cottam, of Rainy River, got the third and fourth five miles.
An important condition of the contract is that the work must be completed by April 1, 1922.
One of the contractors is already on the job, and the others start work next week.
Last Friday, after the Enterprise had been printed it was learned that Mr. Peter Heenan, M.P.P., had returned from Toronto, where he had gone in the interest of his constituents, and stated to the Kenora Examiner that the work of clearing the right of way would be completed this winter and that construction of the roadbed would be carried on next summer.


Mr. ARTHURS:: At that time I understand there was a grant from the federal government subsidizing the building of roads in the various provinces.


Peter Heenan: This work was all done
out of the northern development funds.


James Arthurs: The grant existed at that time.


William Irvine: Will the minister explain
what connection work done on some road in 1922 has with the question of unemployment insurance?


Peter Heenan: If my hon. friend will
possess his soul in patience, I may lead to that in a little while.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Rip Van Winkle.


Peter Heenan: I pointed out that the
road which the hon. member for Fort William says the Ontario government should not be expected to bear the whole cost of, was started in 1921, and if they had gone on with it in 1929 there would have been a great body of unemployed men employed on that road. I wonder whether my hon. friend heard that.
Unemployment-Mr. Heenan

As I say, the work was gone on with. The highway was cut out and it gave a great deal of work to unemployed men at that time of the year. The Minister of Lands and Forests of Ontario, speaking in 1924, promised that the highway would be finished, as he said, before the snow fell in 1924. In 1925, during the federal election, he promised that -the road from the Manitoba boundary to Sault Ste. Marie would be finished before the snow fell in 1925. In the 1926 federal election he promised the same thing. In 1926 there was also a provincial election and I have under my hand the appeal of the local member to the electorate. I will read one sentence of that appeal. He said:
If elected I propose to join forces with the members for Rainy River, Fort William and Port Arthur for the rapid completion of the Trans-Canada highway from Fort William west.
That was the appeal made by the local member in 1926, and he was elected. In 1929, he made another appeal to the electorate and I am sure it will be interesting to the house if I read this appeal. He said:
The Kenora district has waited many years for motor highways to link it up with the outside points. Joe Earngey, representing the Ferguson government, has this work well under way, so that with his return as a supporter of the Ferguson government, which will undoubtedly continue in power, this work would be completed in a very short time.
Then he asked:
Can any elector who has the interests of his district at heart risk delay or postponement of the completion of these highways?
That is a very significant question.


Robert James Manion: And the minister helped to defeat the member who put out that appeal.


Peter Heenan: The people in my part of the country do not take such intimidation as that from any hon. member.


Richard Bedford Bennett: We will remember that next election.


Peter Heenan: He said:
Can any elector who has the interests of his district at heart risk delay or postponement of the completion of these highways?
In other words, if you do not vote for the Conservative candidate, you do not get the highway built. There is no question of that, and because of that appeal he lost his election by over 400 votes.


Mr. GEARY:: Supposing he did, why waste the time of the house talking about it?


Mr. SPENCE:: Why spend the time of the house on this?


Peter Heenan: I thought the hon. member for Parkdale would like this.


James Houston Spence: I would like the minister to come up to date.


Peter Heenan: I am coming up to date. The member who made this appeal on this highway, which was supposed to be completed in 1925 before the snow fell, made the appeal in 1929 but he was then defeated. This is his own paper; he owns and edits it and this is what he said. I want my hon. friend from Fort William to note this, because only a few days ago my hon. friend said in the house that the Ontario government should not be expected to bear all the cost of this highway. The member who -made the appeal said in his paper, Kenora and Miner News, February 22, 1930:
Start work on Manitoba road in the spring.
Ontario government will complete all or major portion of balance of road this year.
Construction work on the highway to Manitoba will be commenced by the Ontario government in the spring at as early a date as it is possible to work, thus affording employment to a considerable number of men.
And so on. What I want to ask the hon. member for Fort William to do is to forget politics for the time being.


Mr. FRASER:: Did the minister ever forget politics?


Peter Heenan: I should like him to come over here and join hands with me in helping to get this highway built which the Ontario Conservative government has promised since I was a little boy.


Robert James Manion: The hon. gentleman voted against it the other day and I voted for it.


Peter Heenan: No; the hon. gentleman, when he heard there was likely to be an onslaught on the Ontario government to go ahead and give work to the unemployed people in that part of the country, went down with a delegation to Toronto and after the interview the statement was made that the Ontario government was to go on with this highway if the federal government would pay 59 per cent of the cost.


Robert James Manion: And in the meantime the Ontario government has continued to build it and is building to-day some sixty or seventy miles of -the highway.


Peter Heenan: What highway?


Robert James Manion: The same highway that my hon. friend is speaking about.


Peter Heenan: If they are doing that,
why does the hon. member ask us to bear 50 per cent of the cost?

Unemployment-Mr. Heenan


Robert James Manion: I will explain that when I speak. I do not wish to be unfair to the minister. If the minister wishes me to reply now, I will do so.


Peter Heenan: The hon. member can use his own time. I like to work on my time and I do not think there is any other hon. member who sits more quietly in his seat than I do when members are speaking.


Robert James Manion: The minister asked me a question.


Peter Heenan: I just want him to be a
good fellow and help me to get this highway completed, and no more stalling.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Stop talking nonsense.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He is thinking about his election.


Peter Heenan: We have had a great many elections in that part of the country, and the peculiar thing about my hon. friend from Fort William is that for six months before and after an election he seems to get out of kilter; he is not so friendly somehow or other. A few days ago he took exception to the Minister of Labour leaving Ottawa to take part in a provincial election. I can well recall that in every federal election in which I have taken part we have had a number of provincial ministers out in our part of the country, and the hon. member for Fort William has never criticised them for taking part in federal elections. He was glad to accept their assistance in every way-to accept all their promises of provincial highways and by-ways and bridges and everything else. I do not know that it was not proper for me to go up there, but if it was improper for me to speak in a provincial election, certainly it is improper for provincial ministers to take part in a federal election.


Robert James Manion: I did not accuse the minister of any impropriety, but said that, while he did not have time to look after the unemployed, he had time to. go to western Ontario and speak in a provincial election.


Peter Heenan: I might point out that 400 more workers believed me in that part of the country than believed my hon. friend.


Robert James Manion: In four or five other ridings that the minister visited, the people did not believe what he said.


Peter Heenan: I am not sure that in
Fort William they did not take notice of what I said. I remember that in the election before last, the provincial member had 3,700 of a majority, and in the last election, even with
the help of the organization from Port Arthur, where there was an acclamation, which allowed the two organizations to work together, the provincial member had only sixteen hundred of a majority.


Robert James Manion: Just sixteen hundred;
that was all.


Peter Heenan: So my hon. friend's influence apparently is on the wane, and by the time the next election comes around he may have enough to do to look after his own constituency.


Mr. SHORT:: What has that to do with
the resolution?


Mr. ERNST:: He is keeping himself from
being unemployed.


Peter Heenan: I wished to tell my hon.
friend that he and his friends on the other side are using their influence with the Ontario government not to go on with work for the relief of the unemployed, but it seems that no matter what I say, no matter what appeal I make to them-


Robert James Manion: That is the utmost nonsense. The provincial government is helping the unemployed.


Peter Heenan: I regret that it has been
necessary for me, because of the attitude of my Conservative friends, to expose their inconsistencies and their insincerity in dealing with unemployment. It has always been the same. They blame the tariff, they blame the immigration policy, and I do not know what else. It brings to my mind that there was some unemployment in this country in 1913, 1914 and 1915.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Let us go back a little
further.


Peter Heenan: There was a Conservative government in power at Ottawa in 1914, and a Conservative government in power in Ontario, and there was so much unemployment prevailing all through the country at that time that the Ontario government appointed a commission to investigate the causes of unemployment in the province, and to make recommendations for remedying the situation. I think it would not be at all amiss for me to quote from that commission's report.


Mr. HANSON:: Why not go back to 1887?


Mr. RYCKMAN:: What did Gladstone say in 1872?
Unemployment-Mr. Heenmn


Mr HEENAN:: We had a Conservative
government in power at Ottawa and a Conservative government in power in Ontario in
1914,	and this is what that commission recommended.


Henry Herbert Stevens: What date is that?


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order. Although everyone seems to be in very good humour I must remind hon. members that it is not fair to a speaker to be continually interrupting him.


Peter Heenan: It does not matter, Mr. Speaker. I know that the public take notioe of the fact that my hon. friends opposite always laugh at the distress of the unemployed in this country. This is not the first time. The commission in one of their findings say:
The result of inquiries has impressed on your commissioners most forcibly the fact that the depression, which occurred in 1914 and
1915,	was but a phase of the movement alternating between inflation and depression, which is a characteristic feature of modern industry. A false sense of security should not blind the public world, in times of thriving trade, to the fact that widespread unemployment is likely to recur in future.


Henry Herbert Stevens: What date is that?


Peter Heenan: This is the commission's
report of 1915.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There was a war on in
that year.


Peter Heenan: Further on in their findings, after comparing depression in the older countries and in the younger and faster-growing countries, the commission say:
The fact that the growth of the younger countries is so rapid in times of prosperity makes them subject to depressions more violent than those of older countries.
Under the heading of Idle Workers and Plant, the commission say:
The returns of employment received from Ontario manufacturers show that, during 1914, the decrease in the volume of employment was equal to the full working time of, at least, thirty thousand persons. The figures for unskilled labour and the building trades are not available, but these would increase the already formidable total of those out of employment for long periods of time.
It is common knowledge that our industrial plant in many lines has outgrown normal requirements and that but for war orders many Canadian factories would be closed down or running at a small percentage of their capacity. This situation is not peculiar to Canada.
Further on they point out:
It would appear to show that in proportion to output, Canada had in 1911 an industrial plant 200 million dollars in excess of productive requirements.
[Mr. Ryckman.l
The commission also make this significant statement, that between 1900 and 1910 the capital invested in Canadian manufactures increased 179 per cent.


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: May I suggest that it would be more correct to say that the production was $200,000,000 behind the consumptive powers of the people than that there was $200,000,000 of over-production?


Peter Heenan: It is the same thing.


Edward Joseph Garland: Not quite.


Peter Heenan: Yes, except that my hon. friend says it in the English way and I say it in the Irish way. In other words, the significance of the commission's statement is this: In ten years of Liberal rule, there was so much development in Ontario and in Canada generally that the capital invested in Canadian manufactures had increased 179 per cent, and there was $200,000,000 more invested in productive plant than was necessary for the country's requirements.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What about 1930?


Peter Heenan: Further on the commission recommend the organizing and securing of outside markets for Canadian products. I am not so sure that we are getting very much help from hon. friends opposite in that regard.


Robert James Manion: A Canadian market for outside products?


Peter Heenan: So we have the Conservative party in 1914-15 not suggesting any tariff revision to provide for unemployment, as my hon. friend the leader of the opposition is doing throughout the country to-day.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The Third Internationale was not sitting then; there was a great world war on at the time.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is news to him.


Peter Heenan: Is that news to my hon. friend, that there was a war on at that time.


An hon. MEMBER:: It is news to you. You were quoting 1913.


Peter Heenan: I am going to suggest at the end of my address that the hon. leader of the opposition did not know there was a war on at that time. Well, there was no war being waged in 1921.


Mr. MACDOUGALL:: There is no war on at the present time. What about unemployment now?


Peter Heenan: There was unemployment in 1921.
APRIL 2. 1930	H93


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: That was just after the war.


Peter Heenan: Last night I promised an hon. member that I would quote from Hansard to-day, giving the page, to show what the Conservatives regarded as the cause of unemployment, and what cure they advocated for it in 1921. I am going to read from page 1379 of Hansard of 1921. It is part of a speech delivered by an hon. member who was supporting the government of the day. He said in effect that the main reason why there was so much unemployment in the country during the last few months was because of the impossibility of getting men to do a fair day's work, thus causing industries to become insolvent. In his speech you will find what he advocated as a cure for that unemployment.
Mr, MACDOUGALL: Who?


Peter Heenan: I would prefer that my
hon. friend looked up Hansard himself. I do not wish to give the name across the floor. These are his words:
I have it from other sources,-


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Who was it?


An hon. MEMBER:: Who made the speech?


Peter Heenan: One of the leaders of
the Conservative party.


An hon. MEMBER:: Be specific. Who was it?


Peter Heenan: You will find it at page 1379 of the 1921 Hansard.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Who prepared the speech for you?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Your secretary should
have put that name in.


Peter Heenan: It was a very prominent Conservative from Toronto.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who was it?


Peter Heenan: It was Mr. Hocken. These are his words:
I have it from other sources, sir, and quite reliable sources, that in some of the trades the men during the last year or two, particularly during the last year, refused to give their employers the efficiency of which they were capable. That has to be corrected, and I think the only way it can be corrected is by such a period of depression as we are going through at the present time.
I wonder if that is up to date enough for my hon. friend.


Harry Bernard Short: No, that is 1921. Give us this year.
2419-76	b '
Unemployment-Mr. Heenan


Peter Heenan: He stated that the working men would not give a fair day's work, and consequently that had caused unemployment. The cure he proposed was that they should be starved into submission.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is what you are doing to-day.


Peter Heenan: That is the Conservative policy.	[DOT]


An hon. MEMBER:: That won't feed the bread line to-day.


Peter Heenan: This commission goes on to recommend that after the war the federal government, the provincial governments, the municipalities, the railways and all large employers of labour should get together and finance a large scheme of immigration. That was recommended by a Tory commission.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: What are you recommending now?


Peter Heenan: I recommend that my hon. friend possess his soul in peace for another few minutes.


An hon. MEMBER:: What have you been drinking?


Peter Heenan: What I have been drinking and what my hon. friend has been drinking are two different things.


Henry Herbert Stevens: We have water. We do not know what you have.


Peter Heenan: What does my hon. friend say now about immigration?


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: What do you say now about unemployment?


Peter Heenan: I see my hon. friend from Vancouver North (Mr. McRae) is in his seat. He was advocating the other day the same principle as was recommended by a Tory commission in 1915.


Mr. McRAE:: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order. I promise the hon. minister that I would do better than the previous minister did last year. The net loss in population last year was nine and the expenditure $3,600,000 I would do better than that.


An hon. MEMBER:: There is no point of order in that.


Peter Heenan: Oh, yes; anything is a point of order with some hon. members.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Peter Heenan: The people of Canada are not laughing at my hon. friends advocating on the floor of this house that we should bring in 250,000 or 300,000 farmers with their

Unemployment-Mr. Heenan

families and so double the population of western Canada. That was their policy a year ago. This year they are going all over the country saying that the federal government has been bringing in too many immigrants and are responsible for unemployment. Our people will not put up with that kind of inconsistency, and I am confident they are not going to be fooled when the time comes to make a decision. I feel sure everyone regrets the short crop the western farmers had last year, and their inability to secure adequate prices for that crop. But I know the Canadian people will not tolerate any body of politicians going through the country and preaching blue ruin because we have a little more unemployment than usual as a result of conditions in western Canada.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Will the minister
permit me? How many employed have we in Canada to-day?	.


Peter Heenan: I am not prepared to answer my hon. friend; he does not ask his question in a gentlemanly way.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Mr. Speaker,-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Mr. Speaker,-


Hewitt Bostock: Order. The hon. gentleman may interrupt only with the permission of the member who has the floor. I am protecting the hon. minister now just as I would protect the hon. member himself if he had the floor.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: I rise to a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker.


Hewitt Bostock: Very well.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: The hon. minister
said that I did not ask my question in a gentlemanly way.


An hon. MEMBER:: You never asked his permission.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: I did ask his permission, and then I asked him a question that he could not answer, or would not. As an excuse for not answering he says I did not ask him in a gentlemanly way. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that he should withdraw that remark.


Peter Heenan: If it will satisfy the hon. member I will withdraw the remark and say he is a real gentleman. But when he asked

that question he knew very well that neither I nor any other man in Canada could answer it.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: Why not? You are head of the Department of Labour.


Peter Heenan: Because no method has yet been devised to secure registration of the unemployed in Canada.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Will the minister permit a question?


Peter Heenan: No.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It does not pay to treat the minister as a gentleman, apparently.


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


Peter Heenan: While we are on that question-	*


An hon. MEMBER:: What question?


Peter Heenan: -I should like to read something that has just been clipped for me from the Nation of April 2, 1930. My hon. friends very often advise us to copy the United States, so I will read this article to show what high tariffs do to a country. This paper is published in New York, and I hope it is up to date enough for my hon. friends opposite. It says:
The unemployment situation is grave. Frances Perkins, industrial commissioner for New York, and John B. Andrews, secretary of the American Association for Labor Legislation, testifying before the senate committee on commerce, declare that conditions in New York city are the worst that they have been since 1914, and that they have been growing rapidly worse since October, when distress first appeared. Professor Benjamin M. Squires, of the University of Chicago, director of the Illinois state employment agency, testifies similarly that suffering from unemployment in Chicago is the most acute that it has been in ten years, and that Chicago is just like other industrial centres. The Family Welfare Association of America, a federation of 234 charity and welfare associations in more than 60 cities, reports an increase of 100 per cent in their expenditures for relief in January, 1930, as compared with those of January, 1929, and an increase of 200 per cent in the number of families in distress because of lack of work. Bread lines are crowded in the leading cities. The National Urban League estimates that there are at the least 330,000 Negroes with no wrork. The American Federation of Labour, on the basis of figures from twenty-four cities, announces 22 per cent of reporting members unemployed in February, against 20 per cent in January.
I may say at this point that our figures from trade unions show about 10 per cent unemployed, as against 22 per cent in the United States.

Unemployment-Mr. Heenan


Mr. CHAPLIN:: Those were broadcast to
you, I suppose.


Peter Heenan: I quote further:
The employment figures of the New York state Department of Labor, probably the best series in the country, in January stood at the lowest point in their fifteen-year history, except for three months in 1921, and February showed a further drop of nearly one-half of 1 per cent, although February ordinarily brings a gain of more than 1 per cent.
That report comes from a tariff country.
For the information of the member for Winnipeg North Centre and to explain the remarks I made last night to the effect that it required some education to get the public to adopt an unemployment insurance scheme, I want to read from the Montreal Gazette, the leading Conservative paper. I quote from an editorial in the issue of April 2, 1930:
The rather vague announcement of the Minister of Labour that the government may, in cooperation with the provinces, give effect to employment insurance affords cause for apprehension. The thing itself is not so startling as are the implications under the political conditions which obtain. Whither are we drifting in this matter of socialistic paternalism? Now is the time, rather than lateri to think seriously and soundly about the outlook. As has from time to time been pointed out in these columns, we embarked rather impulsively on a broad scheme of old age pensions, and to follow that up with so radical a measure as employment insurance would be to open the door wide for every other fad which the aggressive socialists are advocating. When we had gone to that length, the dole would be in sight; in fact, it would be inevitable. We had better pause and take our reckonings; for experience has amply demonstrated that it is an easy thing to set in motion a process of that nature and a very difficult thing to control it. That process would seem to have been begun, and, if we are to avoid grave perils, we should begin at once to look ahead in a sober and calculating spirit.^
Human nature is a fairly constant factor in the social scheme. If there is poverty, unemployment at times, want in old age, and so on, it would be infinitely better to attack the problem at its roots than to seek mere palliatives. To the extent that the cause is to be identified in the indolence, the improvidence, the intemperance, the lack of foresight of individuals, it is quite evident that conditions would be aggravated by a premeditated plan of notifying such people that they need have no fear of the consequences of their folly. While human nature remains as it is, and as it has been through the centuries, it is sheer madness to tell idle and shiftless men and women that the state will step in and save them from the penalties of their violation of fixed social laws. That there are many cases quite outside of that category does not in the slightest degree mitigate the unwisdom of extreme and needless paternalism. The end is pauperism; and in a young country like this, with unrivalled opportunities for the industrious and ambitious, the last thing we ought to do is deliberately to lay the foundations for precisely that sort of thing. _
We have already done an unwise thing in adopting a system of indiscriminate old age pen-2419-761
sions. Every alert observer must have seen that politics had more to do with the matter than genuine need. It was an act of stultification in a period of abounding prosperity and national expansion. It was a frank announcement to the improvident that they need not look ahead to the inevitable years of disability; and few things could be fraught with greater menace to society than that. _ It was at the same time an equally candid notice to the thrifty and hard-working that their savings would'be drawn upon to provide for the wasters; for that is what it means. The state may have the legal power to commit such an act of injustice; but we should all calmly see that it is the sure road to endless trouble. For that reason it is to be hoped that not another step will be taken until time has been given for the people at large to think the problem out in all its bearings and grave implications.
That is a notification to Conservatives throughout the country that they must not in any sense be a party to unemployment insurance. So that I want to point out to my hon. friends in the labour group that it requires a considerable amount of public education before we can get a contributory unemployment insurance scheme, a thing which I consider to be very necessary to cope with the unemployment situation in Canada,
In conclusion I would like to say-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Peter Heenan: I thought the hon. members over there were just beginning to like me. I would like to ask any member of parliament, whether he be a member of a provincial legislature or a member of the House of Commons, who desires to see a permanent scheme to deal with the unemployment situation, to use his influence throughout the country to educate the public as to the necessity for such a scheme, and not "pass the buck" from the legislature to the House of Commons.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Hear, hear.


Peter Heenan: Under our laws we have no jurisdiction. My hon. friend the leader of the opposition has said "hear, hear". I noticed, however, when the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre moved an amendment last session to the report of the industrial and international relations committee, asking that the provincial governments be requested to pass legislation to give up their rights in this matter, my hon. friend voted against it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Because they cannot give it up.


Peter Heenan: I admit they cannot give
it up; consequently I am asking members of this house not to try to urge something on the federal government which cannot be done, and which they admit cannot be done. In the
Unemployment-Mr. Manion

meantime I would suggest that this is a young country; there is a great deal of development and construction to be done here, and I would ask that eveiy hon. member use his influence to assist in every possible way to get that construction carried on, not only through this Dominion parliament, but through the provincial legislatures as well, so that the work will help to a very large extent in eliminating unemployment.


Robert James Manion: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member who introduced this resolution that it is the most important problem facing our country to-day. I do not think anyone in this great land of promise can realize that in the cold northern winters of Canada there are times-and this applies particularly to the present-when men and women and innocent little children are suffering from lack of the food which is necessary to keep their bodies and souls together, without feeling a very deep and abiding sympathy for the cause which has been advocated by the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps).
I listened with respect and attention to the theories for a permanent solution of this problem proposed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) as well as by the hon. member for North Winnipeg, but while I agree that some day a permanent solution must be found, I would point out that at the moment the fact is that we have a very' severe unemployment, and temporary measures of some kind should have been brought forward long ago by this government in order properly to deal with this problem.
Before the Minister of Labour (Mr. Heenan) made his three-hour speech, if I might use that term in regard to his remarks, we had been discussing for nearly two full days this question of unemployment, and it was almost unprecedented to see this government sitting quietly by and having to be almost kicked into the debate before they made anything in the shape of a suggestion. Now that we have listened to the Minister of Labour, I do not know that any suggestion has been made as yet. Without a doubt, the government were hoping for some idea to come from someone else, not having any ideas of their own; they were trusting in Providence, as they usually do, waiting like Micawber for something to turn up, and at last, after two days of debate, the Minister of Labour rises and talks for practically three hours-an hour and three-quarters last evening, and over an hour to-day-and we have listened to the veriest drivel and a most 
infantile sort of attempt to deal with this problem. I do not wish to be extreme, although this may sound a little that way; but in the whole course of his three-hour speech I was able to recognize no atom of thought which he had given to this problem; I was able to recognize in his remarks no hint of a remedy. In fact, sir, as far as I could see, he not only has no idea of a remedy for this problem but he has no idea that there is a problem at all in this country at the present time. He is the representative of labour in this house; he is the hon. gentleman who speaks on labour problems for this government, so no doubt he was speaking for the government last night and to-day. If that speech is any criterion of what the government thinks, then it is a veritable policy of futility, hopelessness and despair. When we consider our great country, this land of promise with its wide open spaces, it is appalling to think that the government has no policy on -this question, any more than it has on any other question, except the policy of hanging on to power.
The Minister of Labour, who has just taken his seat, did what most of the other ministers -including the Minister of Interior the other evening, the Prime Minister and various other ministers at different times during this session-have done; he claimed a prosperous condition in this country and referred to "blue ruin talkers" when speaking of those who pointed out that things were not as prosperous as they tried to make out. I fear that the trouble with the Minister of Labour is that he is so prosperous himself; that he has reached realms of prosperity beyond his fondest dreams in days gone by, and he mistakes his own personal prosperity for the prosperity of this country.


Mr. YOUNG (Saskatoon):: The hon. gentleman should not forget that he is sitting in millionaire row at the present time.


Robert James Manion: But I must remind my
hon. friend that I am not one of the millionaires, I am sorry to say. I wish to point out that in the three hours which the last speaker took, he devoted about half an hour to pointing out the difference between his viewpoint on unemployment insurance and that of the Prime Minister, and he took another half hour in an attempt to prove that neither one had meant what he said. Then he took another half hour to read statements made by provincial premiers at the opening of legislatures-when premiers are naturally taking the most optimistic outlook that they can -apparently in order to try to prove by these statements that there is no twemployment at

Unemployment-Mr. Mamon
all. Then he took the better part of an hour last evening and more time to-day to criticize myself, misquoting statements which I have made at various times.
I must confess that I felt a little sorry to be forced to interrupt so often, but I have had a great deal of experience with the hon. gentleman, and if one does not correct his statements at the time they are made, his methods in northern Ontario are something like this: He would go back with this statement which he made, if it were not corrected immediately, and on the back concessions he would say, "I said this to Doctor Man-ion's face, and he did not have the courage to contradict me." The hon. gentleman has a method of his own, a method which is cunning, if one cares to stoop to it during election time. He has a habit of misquoting statements and misstating facts, and after he has done that for a week-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Robert James Manion: He spends a week doing
that sort of thing during election time, and then on Sunday he goes to church and prays that the good Lord will not allow anybody to come around to tell the truth during the next week.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Robert James Manion: He also conjured up in his brain-if I may use that term after listening to his three-hour speech-a sort of idiotic delusion that in some way I had endeavoured to stop the building of the trans-Canada highway.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Hewitt Bostock: The hon. gentleman is a very old and wise parliamentarian, and I have the highest regard for his ability. Surely he knows that "idiotic" is not a parliamentary expression.


Robert James Manion: Well, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the expression, but I wish to point out that I did not say the minister was idiotic, but that the delusion was idiotic. However, I will withdraw the word. At any rate, the minister conjured1 up in his mind the delusion that in some way I was endeavouring to block the building of the trans-Canada highway. I wish to state, Mr. Speaker, that I advocated the building of such a highway not only here the other day in a speech on that very question, but elsewhere on the hustings, and whenever the question has come up I have taken the same attitude.
The hon. gentleman took some time to deal with the attitude of the province of Ontario. I also wish to deal with that question for a moment, although I have only forty minutes in which to speak, and, not three hours as was the case with my hon. friend,-However, the province of Ontario has taken the attitude that there are certain sections of that highway, particularly the section between Sault Ste. Marie and Fort William, the construction of which will not aid agriculture or any other interest, but will be of advantage only in uniting the east and the west. Having taken that attitude, which is a logical and straightforward position' to take, they suggest that for the purpose of uniting the east and west by a transcontinental highway they should not be asked to build a stretch of road some hundreds of miles in length, across that more or less barren section of northern Ontario, and they suggest that in the interests of Canadian national unity this government should cooperate with them in the construction of that highway. With that attitude I entirely agree, and in addition I should like to point out that if this government had cooperated with the Ontario government in that work during last fall, they would have helped the unemployment situation to a very great extent. Let me point out in passing that the Ontario government to-day is building in my section of the country some sixty or seventy miles of road which will be part of the trans-Canada highway, despite the higher winter cost. That construction is being carried on largely because of the demands for unemployment relief which have been made in that section of the country. I was a member of that deputation which visited Mr. Ferguson and the rest of the government, which deputation made a statement upon its return that the Ontario government was going to help relieve this situation.
The hon. minister consumed some time in reading from an order in council passed during 1921 by the government of which I was a member, in which the preliminary statement was to the effect that unemployment was primarily a municipal matter, and secondly a provincial matter. He stopped reading at that point, with the intention of course,_ of leaving it at that, but the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) insisted that he read the whole order in council. I have a copy of that order in council before me and it shows that the government had spent $600,000 during the previous nine months in assisting unemployment; that they had offered to the municipalities of this country one-third of the extra cost entailed by the construction of municipal works during the winter months; and where that did not succeed in relieving the situation the government offered food and shelter to the unemployed who remained. If
119S
Unemployment-Mr. Manion

the present government had taken that same attitude-'they had this order in council before them, as was demonstrated, by the minister's quoting from it-no great criticism could have been offered. Instead of that we have had nothing from this government in regard to this matter except words; such verbosity as we heard last evening and again this afternoon from the Minister of Labour.
Perhaps it should be mentioned that one thing has been done by this government during the last few years to relieve unemployment in Canada. Had this government not driven out of the country 111,000 Canadians annually for the five years of 1921-26 when they were in power, the number of unemployed would be much larger. Through that lack of initiative and lack of Canadianism they have perhaps helped this problem.
After listening to the lengthy speech of the hon. minister I have come to the conclusion that his labour friends, if he has any left, will decide that the sooner the Minister of Labour and his confreres, including the Prime Minister, join the ranks of the unemployed the better it will be for the country.
I am interested in this problem because the conditions in my own city of Fort William have been worse during the past year than for many years previously. Parades of unemployed have been held', and a deputation from that city joined with the deputations from the prairie provinces to interview the Prime Minister. I will admit that for various reasons the grain blockade has had a certain effect in increasing unemployment, but I submit that the policy which this government has carried on since 1921 has resulted in the closing of industrial plants throughout the country, including a number of plants at the head of the lakes. Those plants were running when this government came into power.


Edward Joseph Garland: What plants is the hon. member referring to?


Robert James Manion: The Canada Starch Company's plant employed over 300 workers in 1921, and because they were refused the infinitesimal protection which they asked on starch and glucose they were forced to close their plant in 1922. I have not the time to go into this phase of the question in detail, but I would mention another plant, the Canada Iron Corporation. That plant is at present running half time because of the Belgian competition in iron products. Labour is paid about SI 20 per day in Belgium, and the duty placed upon iron products coming into this country is so small that it permits Belgian iron to be brought into Canada through the Panama canal, Vancouver, Calgary, the home

of my hon. leader, to be sold at prices lower than the Canadian products. I have named two plants to illustrate my point, but there are others in the city of Fort William which were running up to 1921.
Conditions in Fort William have been relieved to a certain extent by the action of Hon. G. Howard Ferguson's government. Considerable assistance has been given by work on roads which are being built despite the fact that it is very costly to carry on this construction during the winter period. The provincial government is constructing a portion of the trans-Canada highway, about which the hon. minister seems to have so much doubt. The provincial government has also assisted in helping to reopen a pulp mill in Fort William, which mill is now running and employing about 300 men. Deputations who attended upon the government from the province of Manitoba and other western provinces pointed out that those provinces also assisted, but this matter can be dealt with more fully by my western friends. I need only say that those deputations received no assistance from this government.
This unemployment problem is nothing new, although the Minister of Labour spoke as though he had not realized there was such a thing. I hold in my hand an article which appeared in the Toronto Globe of August 8, 1929, eight months ago, which is headed and which reads as follows:
Sleeping Under Stars, Starving Immigrants Vainly Seek Positions
Men Still Crowd Into Employment Offices, Many in State of Destitution-Professional Branch Official Supports Mayor Smaller Harvest Is Complication Last Friday the seriousness of the problem was stressed in a report in The Globe based on the words of Superintendent Dobbs of the government employment office, Front street, who, when interviewed on the subject, definitely stated that there were as many people out of work in the city of Toronto as there were during the winter months.
And the article continues:
"It is hard," said this well set-up fellow,
Referring to one of the men:
"to be an optimist on a stomach crying out for food."
And again:
The exact number of men unemployed in Toronto is not known; but so far as unemployment is concerned, officials state that this summer is the worst experienced for many years, and all are agreed that something requires to be done immediately to ease the situation in Toronto.
There would appear to be nothing new about this matter. There is one member of this

Unemployment-Mr. Manion
house who should have realized the seriousness of this matter more than any other member, and that is the Minister of Labour. His own town of Kenora has been talking about this question for many months, and I hold in my hand a resolution passed by the council of that town. Kenora is probably one of the most important towns in that section of the country.


Peter Heenan: The most important town in Canada.


Robert James Manion: I will admit that if it will please the minister. This resolution was dated December 27, and reads as follows:
The council of the town of Kenora view with alarm the problem of unemployment prevailing at present due to conditions over which this body has no control, and for the relief of which it would be utterly impossible for local authorities to assume the whole responsibility on account of the financial aspect.
Therefore this body hereby instructs the mayor and clerk to petition the Dominion and provincial governments to send representatives to a conference to discuss the situation with a view to such governments assuming a portion of the cost of relief -work started by the town, and to undertake such provincial and Dominion government work or works already commenced and in prospect by the different departments as will seem justly possible to do.
Mid that copies of this motion be sent to Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King, Prime Minister, Hon. Peter Heenan, Minister of Labour, Hon. G. Howard Ferguson, Premier of Ontario, Hon. Dr. Forbes Godfrey, Minister of Labour for the province of Ontario, Hon. AVilliam Finlay-son. Minister of Lands and Forests.
And that January 7 be suggested as the date of the said conference.
Unemployment was not a new thing to the Minister of Labour, or it should not have been if he had been paying any attention to his own home town; for I find another article published many weeks earlier, which I will read for the minister's edification. The minister himself quoted from the Kenora Miner and News, and I would like to read an article which appeared on November 4. It is as follows:
The Hon. Peter Heenan, Minister of Labour in the Dominion government, was in this riding during almost the whole of the provincial election campaign and had been here a great portion of the time since July travelling up and down in a splendidly equipped private car. We doubt if he was observant enough to notice that each night the station waiting room floors on the Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway lines were almost covered with sleeping men, who were beating their way east during the day time on freight and passenger trains. Strong, fine looking men, unable to obtain work in the west, were risking their lives to reach the east. He had no message of hopefulness or cheer for these men, broke and buffeted about as they were.
The same Hon. Peter Heenan, Minister of Labour, voted against a proposal at the last
session of the Dominion house to make a grant of $10,000,000 to the provinces for the purpose of assisting in building the trans-Canada highway. This amount would have materially assisted in providing work for the army of men who have daily for many weeks been beating their way east on the railways at the risk of their lives.
The town of Kenora has been drawing this matter to the attention of the minister. The hon. minister has been boasting in the house of the fact that he helped the present provincial member for Kenora in a successful contest for that seat.


Peter Heenan: The article the hon. member has just read was written by the defeated candidate just after the election.


Robert James Manion: So was the article the minister read written by the defeated candidate. It was written by the same man in the same paper. It apparently all depends on which foot the boot is on. This is from the Ottawa Citizen and the action happened on February 20, the very day that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) put into the mouth of His Excellency the statement that the country was enjoying the utmost prosperity. The Labour member in the legislature at Toronto made the following speech:
The only Labour member in the house, in resuming the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, said that unemployment in Kenora was very serious, and he believed the government should render immediate aid, either through providing work on highways or by grants of money to the municipalities.
That was the very day the Prime Minister put into the mouth of His Excellency the statement that conditions in the Dominion of Canada were so prosperous. The minister had this matter drawn to his attention early in the year, and in fact late last year by various labour organizations in .this country, asking for a conference, and he gave out a statement which is published and which I hold in my hand. This is the heading in the Evening Citizen of the 17th December last:
Labour minister thinks no need for conference. Proposal to call meeting in respect to unemployment not favoured by Hon. Peter Heenan and government.
Then it goes on:
The federal government does not consider that any necessity exists for calling a conference with respect to unemployment, according to Hon. Peter Heenan, Minister of Labour, who issued a statement to this effect following a conference he had yesterday with the executive of the Employment Service Council of Canada. Among the considerations which impelled the

Unemployment-Mr. Manion
government not to convene such a conference were the fact that employment in Canada at the moment stands at the highest peak reached at this period of the year since 1920, and that further to this the great transportation companies and the government have embarked or are embarking on programs of work aggregating many millions of dollars.
Moreover, the minister does not think that a conference of the character that was recently held in the United States by President Hoover would accomplish any good in Canada.
That is the attitude of the Minister of Labour. In other words, he took the stand that there was no unemployment; that statistics showed that unemployment was practically at its normal position in this country. That was the attitude he took according to that statement which was published with that interpretation throughout the whole Dominion of Canada.
I well remember some years ago reading about the period of the French revolution. Louis XVI had a minister named Foulon- and possibly emphasis should be placed on the first section of the name-who, when he was asked on one occasion when conditions were bad in France, what the unemployed people were going to do, said: " Let them eat grass." This government does not even offer grass to the employed of this country; all it offers them is statistics of employment, statistics showing that they are employed. It tries to convince them by reiterating the statement by various ministers that the people are employed, have plenty of money in their pockets and plenty of food in their stomachs, in spite of the fact that they foolishly think they have not. While I was listening to the minister yesterday I was struck with the date on which the minister was making his speech. It was certainly an April Fool's speech so far as the workingmen of this country were concerned.
The President of the United States, in that vast and rich country thought it necessary, because he had it drawn to his attention that unemployment was rampant there, to call a conference, and a couple of Sundays ago I had the pleasure of listening to a speech over the radio given by Mr. Lawrence, speaking for the president. He said:
Speaking for Mr. Hoover, he said that while there was unemployment in the United States very great improvement had been shown in this since December first.
That was about the time of the conference.
He stated that in sixty days the whole condition should be relieved.
[Mr. Manion.J
He went on to say:
Only twelve states have unemployment trouble and no requests have come from them for help from the national government as their unemployment troubles are being looked after locally.
I took down these notes as I listened to the gentleman speaking, so the statements made from the other side that conditions are so severe in the United States are not correct.
The Minister of Labour and the Prime Minister have taken the stand that the government is not called upon to help this situation; that it is, first, a municipal and, second, a provincial problem, but a different attitude was taken by Mr. Brownlee, Premier of Alberta, and the Canadian Council of Agriculture whose resolution I have under my hand, who consider that this government is responsible ; and we took the same attitude under the order in council in 1921 that the Dominion was responsible along with the provinces, and the municipalities. I repeat what I said in Winnipeg, that when it becomes so serious in our country it is a joint matter, federal, provincial and municipal.
As regards these deputations that came from the great lakes to the Pacific ocean to see the Prime Minister and his government-and the Minister of Labour was present at the interview-the Toronto Globe says that the Prime Minister took this attitude, and this is the day after the deputation waited upon him. Quoting the Prime Minister, it says:
"I can't understand why you gentlemen are stirring up and exaggerating this unemployment situation"-
He was speaking to the delegation.
-said the Prime Minister, after listening to complaints for two hours. "If the situation is as deplorable as you try to picture, why is not eastern Canada represented? The answer is that, generally speaking, the employment situation in Canada is not abnormal. I have a telegram from the government of the province of Quebec that conditions there are quite satisfactory. You advertise that there is unemployment, and the relief is to be sought from the Dominion government, and immediately there is a rush to the cities.
"Why turn to Ottawa?" he asks, "and why is it that when municipal and provincial problems arise the local authorities always turn to the federal government for aid? You say your public works are costing more and you want us to bear a portion of the extra cost. Well, our public works are costing more, and are you willing to help us pay for the extra cost?"
That is the attitude the Prime Minister took according to the Toronto Globe of the day following the visit of the deputation. I have

Unemployment-Mr. Manion
also a clipping from the Collingwood Messenger to the following effect:
Young men, clean limbed and able workers, arrive each day, penniless and hungry at the Orillia jail, with a plea for a night out of the cold and a breakfast in the morning.
All the papers in Canada were taking a similar attitude. In regard to unemployment insurance there was quite a discussion yesterday between the Prime Minister and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth). The Prime Minister heatedly defended the attitude he had taken with regard to unemployment insurance. The headings in the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Journal show that the Prime Minister's statements are sometimes misinterpreted. This is the heading in the Ottawa Citizen:
Canada to have insurance plan for unemployed.
Mr. King, replying to deputation seeking federal aid to municipalities and provinces, makes forecast of insurance.
Hopes to be able to work out plan soon.
All would be compelled to contribute during periods of employment.
The heading in the Ottawa Journal is very much the same.
Premier hopes relief scheme prepared soon. Tells deputation insurance plan only permanent solution.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Why does my hon. friend not read the article instead of the headings somebody else puts on them?


Robert James Manion: I will read the articles. One can draw almost any conclusion from statements made by the Prime Minister. I do not wish to impute motives, but I think that is the purpose of the statements put out so that they will be misunderstood here and misunderstood there, and so that men will draw their own conclusions and perhaps vote for the government. The first paragraph sums up the situation and it is identical in the two papers. It is as follows:
Eventually Canada will have a system of unemployment insurance, Premier Mackenzie King predicted to-day in replying to a deputation seeking federal aid to municipalities and provinces on unemployment relief. This, he said, was the only constructive way to deal with the unemployment situation and he hoped it would soon be possible to work out an insurance plan.
People believed the Prime Minister meant what he said; they trusted him; they took his attitude as meaning that. Then the Prime Minister was asked a day or two later by the same gentleman, the hon. member for Winnipeg
North Centre, what he meant by that statement. I have'the question here, but have not the time to read it. I have also the statement of the
Prime Minister in which he says, in effect, that it is a matter for the provinces to deal with, that so far as the Dominion government is concerned, if the provinces want to talk about it, the government will deal with them, but the provinces have no hope of getting help from this government. I think that is a fair summing up of the attitude of the Prime Minister. He now states that as far as he is concerned, this is not a Dominion matter at all. A few weeks later the Minister of Labour goes to London and makes a speech, which is summed up in a newspaper heading, as follows:
Government prepared to assist fund for unemployed. Would aid provinces to establish insurance scheme on contributory basis, says Hon. Peter Heenan.
I will read the first paragraph of the despatch:
London, Ontario, March 14.-The Dominion government is ready to assist the provinces in establishing unemployment insurance for Canada on a contributory basis, announced the Hon. Peter Heenan, Minister of Labour, in an address here to-night. In making this announcement Mr. Heenan said:
"As far as I am concerned I will utilize my every effort and the Premier will back me up to see that the labouring man who is out of work for any period of the year will have a right to expect and to receive a share of the profits he helped make."
In other words, it is simply a matter of blowing hot and blowing cold on this question, with the hope that different sections of the country will draw any conclusions they wish, and probably go on supporting the government.
So far as the Prime Minister is concerned, and I think this applies particularly to him when making public pronouncements, he reminds me of the saying of the brilliant Frenchman, that language was given us to hide our thoughts. If I applied that to the Minister of Labour, I am afraid that I would have to say that language was given us to hide our lack of thoughts. I am afraid that the Minister of Labour forgets or never knew that there is supposed to be ministerial solidarity under constitutional government. Ministers are expected to take on matters of policy the same attitude. You cannot have one minister taking one attitude in one section of the country, and another minister taking a different attitude on the same question in another part of the country, because each minister speaks for the government. He cannot speak on his own behalf; he speaks for the government. I suppose the Minister of Labour forgot that. He was apparently not speaking in London in a ministerial sense at all, but in a Pickwickian sense. I submit to the Prime Minister that

Unemployment-Mr. Manion
the people of this country are anxious for frank and candid statements from the government at the present time on all matters of public policy. They are tired of political humbug; they are weary of political shell games, played with the idea of catching votes in various parts of the country. They want public pronouncements made in such a way that they cannot be read in any way the reader chooses to take. The Prime Minister gives out statements continually, both to this house and outside, that may be read in any sense; for instance, his statement on unemployment insurance. Let me give three instances which have happened recently. There was his statement with respect to unemployment insurance with which I have been dealing, and which everybody understood to mean that this government was going to bring into force unemployment insurance. Now the Prime Minister contradicts that. The Minister of Labour takes the other attitude, and no one knows just where the government stands on this question.
The Prime Minister not long ago gave out a statement in this house on the liquor export question, in which he said that the only question was that if we did- not straighten this difficulty out, it meant danger of war between the two countries. His statement was interpreted in that way by the papers of Canada and of the United States which referred to his speech. When the matter was brought to his attention, by my hon. leader a day or so afterwards, the Prime Minister took the attitude that he did not mean that at all. Well, Mr. Speaker, if his statement did not mean that, it did not mean anything. That is all I can say.
So far as the tariff is concerned, we have the Prime Minister taking various attitudes in various parts of the country. His ministers take contradictory attitudes in different parts of the country. The Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Euler), for instance, at Brantford came out flatly as an out-and-out protectionist. Ten days afterwards-I notice that an interval of a few days is always allowed to elapse between these ministerial utterances so that people can forget, I suppose, the statement just previously made in another section of the country by another minister-the Minister of Finance at Regina said that he was a low tariff man, and he emphasized that very strongly. The Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) takes the death-knell attitude on protection. The Minister of Labour and the Minister of National Health (Mr. King), well the Lord only knows what attitude they take. They are probably drifting around waiting for some life preserver to float within their reach that will be to the advantage of the

government. Undoubtedly, in the whole realm of politics in this country, in the United States, and in England, there is no question upon which political parties differ more fundamentally than upon the tariff, and yet, and to my mind this is the most severe criticism that anybody can make of this government, within three or four weeks of the budget being introduced, there is not a man or woman in this house or outside of it who has the slightest idea whether the government in its budget will raise or lower the tariff.


Mr. HOWARD:: Wait and see.


Robert James Manion: That is the policy of the government on everything.


Mr. McLEAN (Melfort):: Is not that
always the case with the budget in every country?


Robert James Manion: No, it is not true of any
other country where the government takes pride in pronouncing its attitude upon any public question. But this government takes the wait-and-see attitude, and nobody knows its attitude to-day on any question that is before us.


Malcolm McLean: May I ask one
other question?


Robert James Manion: I have only five minutes
left. I do not mean to be discourteous, but I am pressed for time.


Malcolm McLean: Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Great Britain tell beforehand what he is going to do in his budget?


Robert James Manion: Yes, he does. Within the last two weeks he said that he was going to wipe out absolutely any vestige of protection that remained in the Safeguarding of Industries Act.


Mr. McINTOSH:: The Chancellor's statement was very general; there was nothing very definite about it.


Robert James Manion: It is absolutely definite.
They are a free trade government, and they are taking the free trade attitude. We believe in protecting our industries at all times, and we take a protectionist attitude. But this government takes no attitude on anything.
I wish to point out to the Prime Minister this: He is going to be defeated at the next election because of two main reasons. One is because of this political humbug that this government is putting over on the people of this country at all times. The people have awakened to it; they are wise to the fact that this government cannot be depended on

Unemployment-Mr. Garland (Bow River)
in any statement it makes on any public question before the people of this country. P. T. Barnum said that you could not fool all the people all the time-I do not take time to quote his saying in full-but I want to say that this government has fooled the people so often that it cannot fool them any more.
There is a second reason why .this government is going to be defeated, and I might as well hand it to the Prime Minister now, and that is because of his continued subservience to the United States. Perhaps I should put it in his own words, and say his don't provoke Washington policy. I admit frankly that he has not provoked Washington, but he has provoked hundreds of thousands of red-blooded Canadian people who look on Canada as a proud young nation, and not as the hinterland of the United States. The people are awake to all this political humbug and this subservience to Washington, and are waiting for a chance to express themselves on these two matters.
My time is almost up. Let me say in closing what the government should have done in regard to unemployment. In the first place, they should have called the conference which was asked for by the labour unions of this country from one end to the other. Secondly, they should have cooperated with Ontario and the other provinces, and supported the members sitting to your left in this house who urged upon the government a policy of highway construction, which would have relieved unemployment to a large extent. Thirdly, they should have taken the attitude that was outlined by the Minister of Labour in 1921, and which they had before them, under which we gave help in various ways to the provinces to .relieve unemployment.. Fourthly, and this is the most important of all, for a permanent cure-not a complete cure for unemployment, but it would lead to a substantial reduction of it-they should bring in a policy-I know they will not, but we will shortly-they should bring in a policy to stop our importing hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of goods from the United States which we could produce at home, and large importations from other countries as well as the United States of fruits and vegetables, butter and eggs that we could produce here. They should bring in a policy to hold the home market for the Canadian people. They should remember our importations of iron and steel products amounted to $340,000,000 a year, products that we could manufacture in this country, and sixty to seventy-five per cent of the value of which would represent work and wages for the people of Canada. They should remember that every ton of iron ore used in the blast furnaces of the Dominion are imported from the United States. Premier Ferguson put legislation through the Ontario house this year granting a bounty to encourage the development of our own iron ore when he could not get cooperation from Ottawa. Let the government look at the conditions in France and Britain. In France, under a protectionist policy, there is no unemployment and she has been able to absorb tens of thousands of workmen from other countries. But in Great Britain, just across the channel, there are a million and a half unemployed at the present time. Sir, it is time we had a government with some policy, with some courage, with some leadership in this country, if we are to solve not only this problem but the other pressing problems that confront the Dominion.


Edward Joseph Garland: Mr. Speaker, I wish I had the vocabulary and speed of the last speaker (Mr. Manion). I congratulate him on the tremendous amount of material that he got into a comparatively short space of time. I congratulate also the Minister of Labour (Mr. Heenan)-


An hon. MEMBER:: On what?


Edward Joseph Garland: On his extreme courtesy and patience throughout his entire speech. He showed a good deal of tolerance and forbearance. I am sorry I cannot congratulate him on the aggressive, constructive attitude that I had hoped for from him as representing the government. It is only fair to say, Mr. Speaker, that the minister has to some slight extent begun to meet the aspirations of labour. The introduction of the eight-hour day in the civil service, the regulations improving the fair wage clauses, are all to the good; but of course they do not touch the real problem of unemployment. It is that to which I wish to direct my remarks in the short time at my disposal. I think it was Thomas Carlyle who said that a man willing to work and unable to find work is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under the sun. And yet Carlyle had not the opportunity in those days of seeing what we have seen in the west-magistrates and judges saying to the unfortunates who had been taken off the street by policemen, "There is no use my giving you thirty days, you will be back here again; there is no employment for you; the best I can do for you and the country is to put you in for three months." That state of affairs has existed during the past winter and throughout previous winters. That there is
1204	COMMONS
Unemployment-Mr. Garland (Bow River)
serious unemployment in Canada no one can deny unless he be mad or blind or shuts his eyes to the actual facts that confront him. That there is actual unemployment in every country of the world to-day, almost without exception, so far as I know, is also true. So it is no use for the last speaker (Mr. Manion) to offer protection as a solution or to blame free trade as the cause of the trouble. As a matter of fact the problem of unemployment is due neither to protection nor to free trade. Al though, if there could be a general application of the latter principle I think you would find possibly there would be less unemployment than we have to-day under protection. But even that remains to be proven. One fact does stand out, that protection as such does not either raise wages or increase employment. In that connection let me give the house one brief quotation in support of my statement. It is from an article by one of the greatest of the European economists, Henri Lambert of Belgium. He says:
It is untrue that protectionism, preventing importation and making for a self sustained people, is a source of higher wages and a factor of a higher standard of living; on the contrary protectionism tends to lower both and it is free exchange only which can have such favourable results.
He now gives his reason:	.
AH imported things are paid for by equal values of exported things. Therefore to begin with importation does not and cannot reduce home production, demand of labour and wages.
I think hon. members who have studied the question at all realize that the old slogan used by protectionists, "protection protects the worker," is all tommyrot. Let me give Mr. Lambert's view in that connection, that protection protects the worker to the same degree and for the same reason that the farmer protects the cow. These are his words:
"I protect my cows," says the farmer, "I know why I do this, but the cows do not." So is it explainable that with the consent of the workmen and the gradual auto-suggestion of the farmers, protection has become for most peoples an economic credo-which indeed in the future will be considered as tlm most mischievous and widest spread superstition known in the history of men.
I question that latter statement myself. I think the widest spread superstition known in the history of men is the fetish of the gold standard. However, that in passing.
I wish to support my previous statement that unemployment is not confined to Canada or to the United States. It is a world-wide problem. The problem cannot be laid at the door either of the present administration or of my friends of the opposi-(Mr. E. J. Garland.]
tion. It would not matter which government was in power at the moment, we would still have unemployment and will continue to suffer from it unless it is tackled in some fundamental way. I quote from the Christian Science Monitor of May 10, 1927:
M alter R. Layton, the British economist, estimates the total number of persons whose breadwinners were unemployed in Europe at 10,000,000.
I quote also from Leland Olds of the Federated Press:
In the United States 4,000,000 unemployed.
This is for 1928, and conditions are even worse this year.
United. States	 4,000,000
Germany	 1,548,000
England	 1,178,700
Russia	 1,127,000
Italy	 414,000
Austria	 224,000
Holland	 220,000
Poland	 117,000
Denmark	 86.000
Canada	 75,000
A large increase this year must be admitted.
Czechoslovakia	 50,000'
Portugal	 50,000
Other European	 97,287
9,186,987
Or a grand total of almost 10,000,000 in 1928. There is no doubt also that in addition to the normal unemployment-if it can be called normal-you have exaggerated unemployment in this country at the moment as a result of several causes. We had a small crop, with reduced purchasing power on the part of the farmers, resulting in a smaller volume of wheat moving one wray and goods the other, followed1 by a great decrease in. the employment of railway workers. Then you have a slowing up of orders, resulting in a slackening of the output of the factories of eastern Canada, and the laying off of men in almost every industry in the country. One of the main factors undoubtedly, is the smaller crop, about half the volume that western Canada produced in 1928. On top of that you had the stock market crash. Now, although the stock market collapse it is alleged, wiped out mostly paper profits, there is no doubt it did also wipe out a tremendous amount of savings of small investors, stenographers, clerks, managers of stores, heads of departments, and so on. They all put their savings in the stock market, and those savings were wiped out when the crash came. The result is there has been a considerable reduction in the purchasing power of the masses. One of the greatest truths discovered in the last four or five years on the

Unemployment-Mr. Garland (Bow River)
American continent is-and it is a wonder it was not discovered long ago-that one millionaire cannot consume ten thousand pairs of boots and shoes in a year, but give ten thousand people the purchasing power and they will consume them. That truth is just beginning to make itself apparent to industrialists, financiers and employers of labour. The root cause of unemployment as we have it to-day is just that lack of purchasing power. There is not a sufficient volume of money or buying capacity given back to the producers of the world to buy the goods that they produce or are capable of producing. I do not think anybody can challenge that statement. I will attempt to show you in a moment that the problem has increased enormously because of the tremendous productivity of men to-day as the result of labour saving devices. In Canada we have some exceptional conditions, some of which are permanent, and must lead to a greater proportion of unemployment in this country than in the older countries. One is embodied in the reference quoted by my hon. friend the Minister of Labour from the report of the Ontario commission, which pointed out that because the country was new and its development more rapid than that of older countries, periods of depression were likely to be more extreme, leading to longer periods of temporary unemployment. On top of that we have the climatic factor recently referred to in some newspaper despatches as the most formidable question which arises in regard to unemployment and which makes some such protection as insurance for the unemployed seem most desirable. We admit Canada is prosperous; we admit its prosperity and its productivity. We grant you at once that the revenue of the various provinces during the last year has been very great, that the resources and the man power are there, but we. deny definitely and conclusively that prosperity has descended to the common people of this country. The purchasing power of prosperity has not been spread out in a fair and equitable manner. A recent newspaper article goes so far as to say:
So prosperous a country as Canada could almost afford to disregard the whole subject of unemployment, were it not for her climate, but because of that one factor, if you excepted all the others, there are so many people out of work each winter that prosperous or not we must be prepared to treat unemployment as a permanent problem. We must do so for the reason that climate becomes the most conspicuous difficulty in the face of Canadian unemployment insurance.
Just in order to refresh the Prime Minister's mind on this point, I have some things I would like to say. He suggested recently that
all the provinces were particularly satisfied with the situation. I wish to refer him to the report of the meeting of the Calgary council appearing in the morning Albertan of November 26:
With every member of the council agreeing that the situation is one of the most serious which has faced the city in many years, discussion of unemployment featured proceedings at the city council meeting Monday night.
I have also in my hand many telegrams from various sections of Alberta. The one I intend to read will illustrate the situation and is illustrative of the general condition: Drumheller, January 9, 1930.
E. J. Garland, M.P.,
Rowley, Alberta.
Have sent the following wire to Walter Smitten, Hon. Peter Heenan, Ottawa, and Premier Brownlee, Edmonton. "Many returned men and families absolutely destitute Drumheller and Wayne valleys owing to unemployment. Situation desperate. We demand immediate steps be taken to relieve this situation.
C. G. Durham,
President and Executive Canadian Legion.
Let me jump from Alberta to Nova Scotia. Some hon. member referred to the very prosperous condition of affairs in Nova Scotia. The Dominion Bureau of Statistics has published some factory figures covering that province. While they relate particularly to it, they reflect the continent-wide trend of affairs. These figures show that in the year 1890 there were 34,944 men employed in the factories of Nova Scotia; by the year 1927 the number had shrunk to 17,840, which represents just half of the first number. During the same period, however, the output of the factories had increased from $30,000,000 a year to more than $74,000,000 a year. Briefly, that means that in twenty-seven years the output per worker had increased more than five times.


Malcolm McLean: In dollars, but not in quantity.


Edward Joseph Garland: I shall touch upon the question of dollars in a minute John Jacob Raskob, who is well known to this house by reputation at least, a leading financier and business man of the United States who can be quoted with some authority, now recognizes that industry can produce more than it can sell. He states frankly that it can produce more in five days than it can find an outlet for in seven. The only solution he can see for such a situation is to shut down two days a week instead of one as is the custom at present. That is not the way to approach such a problem, of course, for it would but make the position of the worker
worse.
1206	COMMONS
Unemployment-Mr. Garland (Bow River)
I was very sorry that the last speaker did not definitely place himself on record as favouring some action on the part of the government in regard to unemployment insurance. I recognize that the inauguration of unemployment insurance alone is not a solution for the problem; it would only be a temporary relief of it, but will alleviate extreme suffering. I wish to refer to a very respectable publication, popularly known as The Thunderer-the Times of London, England-on this subject. In discusing unemployment insurance, whilst approving its use, they admit that it would not solve the problem permanently, but would tend to remove utter destitution. We in this section of the house, and doubtless other hon. members of the house must seek to remove the misery, suffering and loss to the community caused by utter destitution of our working people as the result of unemployment.
I now come to that phase in my discussion touching the effect of labour saving devices on the productivity of man. James L. Davis, Secretary of Labour for the United States of America, says that the United States can make in seventeen days all the boots and shoes that are required by that country for a _ period of one year. Is that not an imposing illustration of the strides that have been made in labour saving devices in recent years? The United States coal mines can produce in six months all the coal that is required for the United States for one year. It is our distribution system that is at fault, not our system of production. We have almost entirely solved the problem of production, but have not even commenced to touch the problem of distribution. Governments are not even making an intelligent contribution to research in the solution of this problem. To my mind it represents one of the greatest problems facing us to-day, if it is not the greatest.
When we consider what we call our present economic system, I am reminded of the story of the homesteader who hired a sailor and gave him a team of oxen and a plough. I do not suppose the sailor had ever before seen a plough or a team of oxen, except in the picture papers. The sailor went out to work in the forenoon, and returned to the farmer with the following complaint: The starboard ox is on the larboard side, the larboard ox is on the starboard side; the rudder is bust, the steering gear bent and the whole doggone works has gone to the dickens. The present economic and financial system tends to introduce a condition of affairs quite like that. Everything is topsy-turvy; production runs on almost unguided, excepting b'' the profits

which are made. As yet the people have failed to realize that profits depend almost entirely upon consumption, and consumption depends upon purchasing power. If the people cannot buy the goods they produce we must inevitably come, some day or other, either to a crash as illustrating the experience of the sailor, or to a solution of the problem.
I referred to the boot and shoe industry. It is not many years ago since the man who made boots and shoes by hand turned them out at the rate of two pairs a week, or roughly 100 pairs a year. To-day, with improved machinery, one man can produce 1,800 pairs of shoes a year, or rather not in a whole year but in 260 days. Then take the Buick branch of the General Motors business. In the year 1923 that plant increased its production from 625 cars to 1,000 cars, with a reduction of 5,000 men during that year.


Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):: Was there any
corresponding reduction in the price of the cars?


Edward Joseph Garland: I will let
my hon. friend answer that, he is an authority on that question. In the steel industry, to which reference was made by the hon. member who preceded me, seven men now do the work of sixty in the casting of pig iron and two men do the work of 125 in its loading. One man replaces forty-two men in the open hearth furnace. In the machine and repair shops of the railways you will find the following condition:	One man replaces 25 men, using
five to ten semi-automatic machines; four men in five to seven hours can do what it took eight men three weeks to do in the repairing of locomotives. This latter change is due almost entirely to the introduction of the acetylene torch. In 1914, which is the basic year with which most of these comparisons are made, it took from fifteen to thirty hours to turn one pair of locomotive tires. To-day, in eight hours the same man power can turn six pairs of locomotive tires. Why, Mr. Speaker, I could go on almost inimitably illustrating the extraordinary change in production capacity which machines have made in our modern human life. One more illustration: A single machine in the city of Chicago produces 40,000 bricks an hour. Formerly it took one man eight hours to produce 450 bricks.


Mr. ADSHEAD:: Can the hon. member tell us anything about the man power the combine has saved in the west?


Edward Joseph Garland: Some four years ago I think western Canada had three or

Unemployment-Mr. Garland (Bow River)
four combines; we were just beginning to be interested in them. I think last year it was estimated-I am not certain of these figures, but they are approximately accurate-that there were between 5,000 and 6,000 combines. Each machine is estimated to displace from five to ten men, depending upon its size.


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: More than that.


Edward Joseph Garland: Very well,
we will say ten men to the combine on the average. In other words, we need 60,000 harvesters less each year, or a number equivalent almost to the entire harvester excursions which formerly moved from east to west. That alone is a significant fact in connection with this whole discussion.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I turn for one moment to Great Britain. I find that one of the greatest authorities there, Mr. Arthur Kitson, who is a manufacturer, an authority on financial questions and also president of the British Banking Reform League, says:
It is quite certain that the need for labour must become less and less with the growth of inventions and the increase in industrial efficiency. Indeed the real problem we have to solve is not so much that of finding constant employment for our people as our supplying them with life's necessities and comforts out of the abundance of goods created. Even to-day the labour of less than 10 per cent of the population will readily suffice to maintain the entire inhabitants of this country in a high state of comfort. Suppose discoveries and inventions during the next half century result in the displacement of all manual labour by machinery, must the bulk of the 'world's inhabitants then perish?
Is work to be the sole basis of living, Mr. Speaker? We will have to answer that question sooner or later. Sir Charles Sykes, a Yorkshire manufacturer, says:
The problem of unemployment or its cause is not due to a defective system of production, but to a defective system of distribution.
As I said, I could continue almost endlessly with illustrations of how jobs are vanishing from under the hands and eyes of the workers of the world. We find a striking illustration reported by the United States department of labour, whose report, referring to the copper refining industry, says:
The figures show that during this period of nine years,-
That is, from 1918 to 1927.
-the number of men employed was reduced from 578 to 233, with a coincident increase of about 10 per cent in total output.
Then you find another in the automobile business as a whole; you find since 1922, that 1,400 per cent more cars are produced with
only ten per cent more men employed. It would be unfair for me to conclude this part of my discussion without reference to a newspaper which has done much to educate the public with regard to this question. I refer to the Ottawa Citizen. In an editorial appearing some time ago it dealt with this situation, and hon. members might compare this editorial with the statement of Sir Charles Sykes, the Yorkshire manufacturer, with that of Mr. Arthur Ivitson, or with any other authority dealing with the question, and a striking similarity in their conclusions will be found. The editorial states:
If every able-bodied adult in Canada were set to -work eight hours a day at productive labour, there would result such a surplus of production that the factories would be closed clown in a very short time, even if the goods were given away, simply because the power to produce is greater than the- power-but not the capacity-to consume.
That the increase of purchasing power among the masses of the people is a necessary first step towards industrial prosperity is recognized by students of up to date economics. So far as unemployment is concerned, it seems logical that the one solution is to find some way of diminishing the hours of labour without reducing the purchasing power of the individual.
That is only a part.
Whether the present industrial system can be reorganized on this basis is a question for discussion and solution. The fact remains, however, that only along this line does improvement seem possible. It is not debatable that improvement should be made, if possible, by orderly rather than violent means.
At this stage perhaps I should draw just one more comparison. Not long ago I picked up a United States publication called Labour, coming from Washington, under date of December 14, 1929. In that publication I find the following editorial:
Fewer Workers, Less Pay-And More Work
Some figures in the last report of the Interstate Commerce Commission are very important if not wholly pleasant reading for railroad workers.
The average number of rail employees in the United States during 1928 was 1,656,411, and their total pay was $2,826,590,000.
This is a drop, in round numbers, of 79,000 employees and of $84,000,000 in compensation as compared to the year 1927.
At the same time, the reduced force of workers in 1928 handled 4,073,000,000 more ton-miles of revenue freight than the larger force handled the previous year.
Hon. gentlemen may reply, "But that is the United States, we do not have that terrible situation existing in this country." In order to give a comparison in this country I will quote Senator Robertson, the former Minister of Labour in the Meighen cabinet. That gentleman points out that the Canadian railways
1208	COMMONS
Unemployment-Mr. Garland (Bow River)
employed 9,000 fewer men in 1927 than they did in 1920, and paid them 123,000,000 less in wages. This in spite of the fact that there was an increase of 1,500 miles of railways operated during that period and an increase of about 30 per cent in the volume of traffic handled.
I think these facts speak eloquently for themselves. I wish I had the striking delivery and verbiage of some of our older statemen. No finer picture could be drawn of what is actually taking place at this moment, and of what has existed for the past twelve years, than the picture drawn by Disraeli himself of similar conditions which existed in his day. Over eighty years ago these words were uttered by Disraeli:
A spirit of rapacious covetousness desecrating all the humanities of life ... is our besetting sin.
The words used by Disraeli were "England's besetting sin." The quotation continues:
The altar of mammon has blazed with triple worship. To acquire, to accumulate, to plunder each other by virtue of philosophic phrases, to propose a Utopia to consist only of wealth and toil, this has been our breathless business for the last twelve years, until we are startled from our voracious strife by the wail of intolerable serfage.
The hon. member for North Winnipeg and his colleague represent the wail of intolerable serfage; the rest of you may place yourselves where you will.
Perhaps sufficient has been said regarding immigration and its effect on unemployment in Canada, but I wish simply to point out one fact which may be of interest. During the last two years there is no doubt that unemployment has existed, and that it has been known to the Minister of Labour and to the Minister of Immigration. During that period 331,775 immigrants were brought into Canada. The unemployment condition was such, particularly in the west, that protests were registered. Western cities sent delegations to Ottawa, and correspondence took place between the premiers and the Minister of Labour. But has there been a cessation? Have the gates been closed until unfortunate Canadians have found jobs? Not a bit of it. During the one month of January, 1930, 290 immigrants were admitted to Canada, destined for the province of Alberta alone. This has been done in the face of protests which have been lodged with the federal government. Is there one industry in Canada in which there is at the present time any shortage of labour? If there is not, then for heaven's sake let us close the gates at least a little while until employment can be given to the men already here.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: What about the 8,000 who are coming in?


Edward Joseph Garland: Let us hope that we may be able to stop them.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: They are coming.


Edward Joseph Garland: That then is most unfortunate. Mr. Stuart Chase has treated this subject most eloquently. He asks the question, "Have you ever hunted a job, and if so, have you ever hunted a job when you were over forty years of age? If you have not done that, you do not know the tragedy of unemployment and you have no conception of what it does to the heart and soul of a human being, of what it does to his family." Have you ever heard a wife say, "Well, Jim is lucky if he can hold his job," or "John does not know when he will be out of work, perhaps to-morrow or maybe the day after." There is no permanency or no continuity offered to our workers under the present economic system. Without saying that it is the deliberate voracious rapacity to which Disraeli referred, it is evident that there is something wrong with a system which denies to the labouring man a permanency of employment. He does not know from day to day or from week to week whether or not the job upon which his family depends is going to continue. Such conditions are a disgrace to any civilized country. The whole thing is wrong, and Professor Soddy sums it up as follows:
_ On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays science invents new methods of abolishing labour, and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays new labours to relieve the consequent unemployment. This farce should cease.
Until he is placed in employment again he must remain a stranger to the buying market. In the meantime the community must care for him and his family in much the same way as though he were a steady permanent worker. But the unemployed are not cared for in any permanent way. They sometimes receive miserable charity, a thing which degrades and demoralizes their morals and reduces them to the miserable condition of almost industrial serfage. Public confidence is shaken and I say to the Prime Minister that his own government even is feeling the 'tremors of uncertainty caused by this unemployed situation.
There follows upon it immediately a curtailment of credit which deprives further numbers of employment, resulting in a greater decline of buying power which leads to a further reduction of credit and so on. The whole thing is a most extraordinary, uncontrolled, vicious system, governed only by the profits which those who control credit can make, and this is

Unemployment-Mr. Garland (Bow River)
the fundamental factor which governs the system under which we are to-day operating. I say to the Prime Minister that until he and his colleagues appoint a body to make a survey of economic and social conditions, a commission capable of intelligently analyzing this situation, he has not taken any step in the direction of a real solution of this problem. Unemployment and under-employment are two of the most destructive diseases which can visit any community, national or international. They render a human being physically unfit; they weaken his moral as well as his physical fibre so that when work does offer the man is unable to compete with those who have been in steady employment. One wretched condition leads to another. If this thing is permitted to go on it will sap the whole vitality and vigour of all nations; for this thing is not confined alone to our country. Children brought up under such conditions must inevitably be less virile, less conscious of their possible powers, than those brought up under privileged circumstances. Can the child in a home where they do not know from day to day where tomorrow's bread is coming from; can the child in a home dependent upon some form of charity, have the same self-respect as have your own children? The words are not at my command to bring home as I would like to this House of Commons and to the country the misery of this appalling cancer of unemployment and its effect upon the country.
I do not think it would be unfitting to state that I have no desire to make any political capital out of this matter, but perhaps it would not be out of place if we had a little cynical amusement at the expense of the Minister of Labour. I hope hon. members have recognized that I have made this an absolutely non-partisan question. It is a nonpartisan question and must remain so. It is a problem the solution of which will require the massed intelligence of the people, the best brains we can procure. It is going to be worth while trying to find a solution. But here let me glance back to 1925 and read the following words:
I am sure there is no need for me to argue that unemployment prevails on a very large scale. We have had delegations to the government at Ottawa, and we have recently had a delegation to this government at Toronto. Up to date, there does not seem to have been very much done to relieve the situation, other than one body "passing the buck" to another party.
These, Mr. Speaker, are the words of the Hon. Peter Heenan, M.P.P.,speaking before the members of the provincial legislature of Ontario. At that time he deplored any attitude of 2419-77
"passing the buck." He referred to it in terms of contempt. I ask him frankly, as one member of the community to another, as one who is anxious to cooperate with him:	Does he not
think he to-day is "passing the buck"? And to the Prime Minister I say:	Would it not
be rather the part of courage and statesmanship to start out now and say definitely: We will accept the responsibility for initiating a scheme of unemployment insurance? I will give the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour all my support in any program they wish to outline that will offer some relief- and that is all it would be at the moment-to this wretched unemployment problem.
But I continue. The Minister of Labour in the same address made a most eloquent appeal. He referred to the vast power of the country to produce, to its great resources, to its great plant capable of producing 20 per cent more than it was producing. He referred to the financial conditions, the amount of money there was in the country, and he almost wept tears because we were unable to solve the problem of unemployment. But he comes down to this towards the close of his speech:
Men are out of work here because of irregular and uneven demand for labour. Some definite step ought to be taken now. Any government, which fails or refuses to help its people to procure the necessities of life, cannot hope to retain the loyalty of its people.
I am afraid the minister's statement at that time was but prophecy. Any government which neglects this appalling problem and fails to make some constructive contribution towards its solution, will undoubtedly lose the loyalty of the people of this country. The hon. member concluded with the following:
I have dwelt at considerable length in connection with this question, because to my mind it is the most important question we have to contend with, and T sincerely hope that the time I have consumed will not be in vain and that some definite and systematic policy will be laid down by the governments of this country to meet this economic problem.
Not the Ontario government nor the Alberta government, nor any provincial government did he refer to specifically; he said:	"The
governments of this country." If we are to wait until provincial governments take the initiative, I am afraid we shall have to wait for a long time. At this particular point let me say this:	I cannot strain or stress too
vigorously the thought that this problem is a state problem and that the federal government as a major element in the state cannot reject its responsibility.
The Russell Sage Foundation, which by the way is an organization that was formed in

1210	COMMONS
Unemployment-Mr. Garland (Bow River)
order to make an inquiry into the social and economic conditions of the United States and Canada, has this to say:
The study touched seventy cities and thirty-one states and Canada:
Widespread unemployment is now a constant phenomenon with far-reaching economic social, psychological and moral bearings. It found that from one to six millions each year were out of work for weeks and sometimes months at a time. In Great Britain unemployment had become so general for several years before the war that the government had been compelled to inaugurate an unemployment insurance policy in order to relieve the suffering caused by the so-called captains of industry being unable to manage the industry of a nation in the interest of the whole.
Now I turn to one who might be regarded as an even greater authority than the Russell Sage Foundation. This authority says:
The sacredness of human personality is more important than all other considerations. Without infinite regard for individual life, however obscure or deformed, impressions of social values are meaningless. Estimates of national power, pride in industrial growth, forecasts_ of world expansion-any and all of these which reckon material gains apart from human losses they involve, mistake for life itself the course texture of but a part of the garment of life.
The same authority goes on, and this is particularly relevant:
When idleness is the fault of the social order rather than of the individual concerned, it places the onus on the state to safeguard its own assets, namely, human beings.
That authority is the Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada. He himself placed the responsibility on the state and he cannot now relinquish his share of the responsibility. If this problem is not tackled we admit that the law of the jungle prevails.
I might refer to other authorities who have made much the same statements. We have Brandeis, Couzens; we have the Minister of Labour in the United States and dozens of others who are steadily recognizing the state's responsibility to its own citizens.
But I must conclude. In this section of the house we are, so far as I know at the moment, unanimous to this degree; we ask that the government immediately initiate some sort of unemployment insurance which can be applied to all the provinces and which will depend upon concurrent legislation by them, involving, if you will, contributions by employer and employee. That is just one phase of the question. I now formally ask the Prime Minister to institute this year a survey into the whole economic and social structure of the country, a survey by Canadian economists-he will not have to go outside of Canada to find suitable men-in order that they may advise him as to a permanent solu-
tion of the problem. It is an honour to second the resolution of the hon. member for North Winnipeg.
Mr. ADSH'EAD:	Does my hon. friend not
think that the statement made by the Minister of Labour in London bound the cabinet and the government to something?


Edward Joseph Garland: I have not read the statement, I say frankly, and so I cannot tell.


Mr. THOMAS CANTLEY (Pictou):: Mr. Speaker, I take it that it is not necessary to enter into any argument to prove that there is a very large amount of unemployment in this country. I wish to thank the hon.. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) for having brought this matter to the attention of the house. With a great deal of what he has said I am in complete accord. With some of his statements, however, I cannot agree. For instance, he made this statement:
It is claimed by economists that during the past twenty years production has approximately doubled, but wages, that is, real wages, have remained almost stationary. That means that the position of the workingman has become relatively worse instead of better. When production becomes greater and greater, when we are able to produce more of the things of life, the position of the workingman should be better, but we find that it is exactly the reverse.
Speaking broadly, I think it will be admitted that the position of the working man and his family as regards not only the necessities of life but also its comforts and its sources of enjoyment is better to-day than it was, say ten, twenty or thirty years ago. As to that I do not think there can be any argument. I have lived all my life among a working people, coal miners, steel workers, artisans of various kinds. I know their scale of living is better and their opportunities for recreation are greater now, I am glad to say, than they were thirty years ago.
Again, the hon. gentleman stated:
It requires to-day a smaller number of men to produce a given quantity of commodities and that is why less labour is required and why therefore the amount of unemployment should become greater and greater.
To overcome that difficulty of growing and increasing unemployment, he suggests that what is required is a decreased working day and an increased purchasing power on the part of the masses. I fully agree that a shorter-working day would give the workmen of this country more time for social enjoyment and self-improvement, and I believe that the great majority of our workmen would take advantage of such opportunities and would benefit very greatly thereby.

Unemployment-Mr. Cantley
With his statement that this question is not provincial, but national in character, I am also in complete accord, as well as with his statement that we cannot expect provincial governments to deal with this vitally important matter, which is really a matter of trade and commerce, and should therefore come within the purview of the federal government, not the provincial authorities.
The Minister of Labour is reported as making the following statement in his recent address in the city of London:
I believe during the time of depression the workers have some claim to the portion of profits made by their labour during favourable years.
I would like here to ask the Minister of Labour this question: How can the labourer obtain, or how can the minister obtain for the workers of Canada, a portion of the profits that they have made by their labour during past years-during say, 1929, or 1928, or during any past year? Does the Minister of Labour propose confiscation? If not, how does he suggest that the labourer can get his share of the fruits of his past labour? There is not much use in the Minister of Labour putting before the working people of this country suggestions of a kind which are absolutely impossible of being carried out.
.So far as seasonal unemployment is concerned, we in Canada, due to climatic conditions, are bound always to have that problem with us to a greater or lesser extent. Such is preeminently the case in the mining centres of Nova Scotia, also elsewhere in Canada, in regard to some other occupations. But the question is much wider than simply one of climatic conditions; it is infinitely more serious than that.
In the matter of the coal output of the Dominion of Canada, I find that for February last, the output was 26 per cent below that of the previous month-January-and 11 per cent below the monthly average of the last five years. On the other hand, I find that our import of coal during February, 1930, was 1,043,041 tons-a substantial increase over the corresponding month of last year, and this notwithstanding the well known slackening up of trade and present unemployment.
While our domestic coal production during February last was 11 per cent below that of the monthly average of the five year preceding period-and many of our coal miners are on short time-the imports of Soviet coal, which began in 1928, increased during 1929, and it is said that they will be still further greatly increased during the coming season. For it is claimed by the coal dealers that a quarter of a million tons of this fuel will be by them 2419-77J
imported into Canada during the coming season. What does that mean? It means that we are asking our miners in the east in particular-it does not apply so much to the west-to compete with Soviet labour. I shall not go into any lengthy disquisition as to what that means, because every man of intelligence in this house knows exactly what it means and what it involves. Should our miners in Nova Scotia be asked, and they are being asked, to compete with Soviet labour under all the degrading conditions that prevail in regard to that particular class of labour in Russia? That Soviet coal is admitted into Canada into Montreal, and to-day lies on the docks of Halifax without paying a cent of duty. It has been coming in, in very considerable quantities and will continue to come in larger quantities unless this government takes action to restrain it of which frankly I have very little hope in view of their past indifference.
Out of this question of unemployment, Mr. Speaker, arises one of the saddest tragedies of life that I know of. That has already been referred to much more ably than I can depict it by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland), who has just taken his seat. I know of no experience that is sadder than to see men, the fathers of families with small children at home, men who are able and willing and anxious to work and daily going out to seek it, being unable to find employment; while they and their families are suffering, in consequence, privation and want and distress. Unfortunately, such conditions do prevail in Canada to-day, and men in this condition are to be seen in scores in every considerable town and in all centres of population throughout Canada-from Sydney in the east to Vancouver in the west. I doubt if there was any time during the last fifteen or twenty years when unemployment was greater in Canada than it is to-day, speaking generally with respect to the whole country, and I do not think that the unemployment is confined exclusively to the industrial towns and cities.
One of the most depressing experiences that I have had in recent years is the meeting of a constant stream of men, both heads of families and young men, who besiege my door almost every day while I am home, pleading with me to find employment for them or to intercede on their behalf with the heads of local industrial establishments; and to see, as I have seen day after day for months past, scores of men of the army of the unemployed standing in groups outside the gates of our collieries, steel works, and ear-building plants, looking for employment which is not to be

Unemployment-Mr. Cantley
had. I suppose the same conditions can be seen in other industrial centres in Canada, though I cannot speak of my own knowledge as to that.
Again, consider the scores of young men who, after years of study, graduate from our universities each year, not one-fifth of whom, if indeed, one-tenth, can or do find suitable or congenial employment within the country of their birth, and must perforce go to the United States in search of employment which is denied them in their own country.
Unemployment insurance would probably help a little those who are temporarily unemployed, but at best it is only a palliative. It is no cure. It may help temporarily, I admit, but it is not the cure for unemployment in Canada. Unemployment in Canada is both agricultural and industrial and it is largely due to our vicious fiscal system. Inasmuch as the fiscal policy of the country is under the control of the federal government, who alone can determine the terms on which foreign agricultural and manufactured products may compete with our agriculturists and artisans, the prior obligation as to matters of relief during times of unemployment lies with the federal government, not with the provincial authorities. In my judgment the only effective cure for unemployment as also for the matter of immigration is the inauguration and vigorous application of a national policy which will protect the Canadian producer on the farm and in the mine, and the workers in our manufacturing establishments by damming back the flood of products coming in from other lands where the workers are not enjoying the standard of living which we should like to see generally adopted, and which to a large extent to-day prevails in this country.
Mr. Speaker, I ask the house to consider for a moment the fact that we are importing iron and steel products from the United States alone to the value of over $1,000,000 a day. Now, I state, and I think with some reasonable basis of authority, that seventy-five per cent of those products could be and ought to be produced in Canada, and would be so produced had we reasonable protection. Did such conditions now prevail, it would mean that an army of 200,000 men would find employment during every working day in the year at wages as high as $2,000 per annum. Those facts should be faced, taken into account and definitely dealt with. Why do we send over $1,000,000 a day to our well-to-do steel producing friends across the line, while Canadian furnaces are standing cold and our workers are idle? Why create such a balance of trade against ourselves? 
There is but one reason why we do not make the great bulk of that material in Canada, and that is that our fiscal policy is absolutely and stupidly wrong. Again I would point out that responsibility for unemployment rests primarily upon the federal government. My hon. friends opposite may treat this matter lightly, but I want to tell them that they have entirely failed to remedy the situation. For years they have refused to take any effective action. This is not the first time this matter has been brought to their notice, it is not the first time that I and others have called attention to this situation. The government has done nothing. This matter of the iron and steel duties, we have been told, has been before the tariff board for more than three years. We have protested at the lack of definite action, but nothing has been done. What the government now propose to do I do not know; they will not tell us until after the recess and when the matter is dealt with it will, I fear, be in a way that will fail to produce satisfactory results, or the results which I am confident the people as a whole greatly desire. For that reason, and others to which I have referred, I confidently believe that just so soon as the electorate of Canada are given an opportunity to express their views in regard to the continuance of this government in office, they will express themselves in terms which will be unmistakable and which will result in others being called upon to take up the work in which this government has so signally failed.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, in the policy of Canada for Canadians, and that the most effective cure for unemployment is by the introduction and maintenance of such a fiscal policy as will ensure the production in Canada of the largest proportion of our consumptive wants which under a reasonable protective tariff policy our own people can supply, and which will thereby contribute to the greatest good to the greatest number of the people of this Dominion.
Mr. CAMERON R. McINTOSH (North Battleford): Mr. Speaker, since it is within a few minutes of six o'clock, may I move the adjournment of the debate?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No, no.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: All right. May I say
I have listened to the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Cantley) with considerable interest. I was expecting that he would give us a solution of the unemployment problem. I also expected that the hon. member

Unemployment-Mr. McIntosh
for Bow River (Mr. Garland) would offer a solution. I regret that neither of these hon. gentlemen put forward any solution.


Harry Bernard Short: What solution did the Minister of Labour give?


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I will come to that a little later if the hon. member will be patient. The hon. member for Pictou spoke about the results of the coming election and intimated that when the electorate gets an opportunity to express itself upon the issues of the day the party which he supports will be in the majority.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear..


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I am glad to hear some hon. members thumping their desks. ,1 realize that that appeals to them. But perhaps they may not be so demonstrative after I have explained the situation from this side. I believe when the electors get an opportunity to express themselves on the issues of the day the result will not be as predicted this afternoon by hon. members opposite. I am confident that after the issues of the day have been discussed from coast to coast and the people have had an opportunity of studying them they will return the present government with a still greater majority than it has at the present time.


Harry Bernard Short: You are only fooling yourself, you don't think anything of the kind.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: You will be the one who will be fooled when the ballots are counted.


Harry Bernard Short: Don't make any mistake.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: You have predicted the defeat of the government now so often that you have made yourself believe what you would like to see happen.


Mr. PODLIOT:: The Tory party will be short of supporters.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: This afternoon my hon. friend drew the attention of the house to what he termed the sad plight Canada is in because of unemployment. We all admit there is a certain amount of unemployment in Canada to-day. But there was a certain amount of it in 1929, there has been a certain amount of unemployment for the last five years, and for the last ten years, and for the last twenty-five years, and for the last half century, and even for the last century, and there will be unemployment in the days to come. Historically speaking there has been unemployment down through history. I do not
think it is getting us very far towards a solution of the problem simply to make the bald statement that we have unemployment. We must clear away a lot of superficial discussion and see if we as parliamentarians cannot by our united efforts help to solve this problem in the interests not only of the workers but of the whole nation.
My hon. friend who preceded me stated that there was a certain amount of agricultural unemployment. That may be the case, but we know the exact cause of it It was mentioned this afternoon by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland), and dealt with very clearly and definitely. We know that any person who is capable of working on the land, and who wants that kind of employment can always find it if he will adjust himself to the scale of wages in existence. Of course, if a man asks a wage beyond that which a farmer can pay, it simply means that he will not be given a job. He does not want to work, and consequently he is added to the long list of unemployed.
My hon. friend also mentioned that this was a federal and not a provincial matter. It seems to me every speaker who has discussed this question in the house has said that it is a national problem. Even my hon. friend from Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) makes that statement, after sitting in a committee for two sessions and discussing this unemployment problem in a very full and able manner, working hard on it and afterward sending in a report to be endorsed by the house.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: Did I not take that same stand last year in the debate which followed the presentation of the report?


Cameron Ross McIntosh: The hon. member did
take that stand, to a certain extent. He realized, however, in taking it, that it would have been impossible to have arrived at an harmonious and conclusive report if he had adhered to it, and he therefore did not adhere to it. He took his part, however, in manufacturing the report, and in having it adopted two years ago by the house. Instead of standing foursquare with it, he fights it and rejects the proposal which it makes for the solution of this whole unemployment problem. I differ from him. The hon. member was a hard worker on the committee; he did splendid service, and I am surprised to find him standing in this chamber and holding up before the electors of Canada a position directly opposite to the one he took when he was helping to frame the report.
Questions


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think it
would be desirable to conclude or continue this debate to-morrow. For that purpose, Mr. Speaker, by permission of the house I move the following, seconded by Mr. Crerar:
That standing order No. 28 be suspended on Thursday, April 3rd instant, and that motion be then made that the Speaker leave the chair for the house to go into committee of supply.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
At six o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Thursday, April 3, 1930