1930-05-12

OFFICIAL REPORT


[Stage Direction]
House of Commons debates
[Stage Direction]
Monday, May 12, 1930.

[Stage Direction]
Fourth report of the select standing committee on railways, canals, and telegraph lines-Mr. Cahill.

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

Mr. MacLAREN:: 1.	Do the Canadian National steamships running between Canadian and Australian ports call at foreign ports, either on the outgoing or incoming voyages?
2.	Have ss. "Canadian Transporter," "Canadian Leader," "Canadian Commander," "Canadian Conqueror," "Canadian Highlander," "Canadian Scottish," and "Canadian Victor," on homecoming voyages from Australia, discharged cargoes at Boston, Massachusetts, during the months of January, February and March, 1930?
3.	If so, is this a settled arrangement?


Mr. CRERAR:: 1.	Never on southbound voyages. Calls are made at foreign ports on northbound voyages if cargo offers and the ships cannot be filled for Canadian ports.
2.	Yes.
3.	No.


LIGHTKEEPER AT RIVIERE A MARIE
Mr. MARCIL:: 1.	What is the name of the lightkeeper at Riviere a Marte?
2.	What is his salary?
3.	Under what circumstances was he appointed?
4.	To what pension is he entitled?


Mr. CARDIN:: 1.	Joseph Litalien.
2.	$2,040 per annum, out of which salary he is required to provide for the services of an assistant. He receives also $50 a year as signal agent.
3.	The appointment was made by order in council, dated 16th March, 1912, P.C. 21/609, following the dismissal of previous incumbent.
4.	If Mr. Litalien retired now on the ground of ill health, he would be entitled to an annual superannuation allowance of approximately $670. If he resigned or was dismissed he would not be entitled to any allowance.


SCALLOP FISHING-ALBERTON, P.E.I.
Mr. MacDONALD (Kings):: 1.	Did the government buy a boat in connection with the scallop fishing at Alberton, Prince Edward Island?
2.	If so, who was the owner of this boat?
3.	If not, was a boat rented from any person in Alberton?
4.	What rent or hire was paid for the boat, and to whom?
5.	How many of a crew were on this boat?
6.	What are the names, addresses and salaries of the crew?
7.	How many scallop beds were found or located?
8.	Where are the beds located?
9.	Where is the boat which the government bought or rented, at the present time?


Mr. CARDIN:: 1 and 2 No.
S. Yes.
4.	A boat was chartered from Howard Clark of Alberton, at rate of $14 per day, charterer to furnish engineer. Payment was not made for Sundays or legal holidays on which boat was not in use.
5.	Two in addition to engineer who was employed by charterer.
6.	Seymour Young, Alberton, captain and observer, $7.50 per day, he to find his own board. Morris Perry, Alberton, deckhand, $100 per month, he to find his own board. Engineer employed by charterer and name unknown.
7 and 8. Nine scallop producing areas were located off coast of Prince Edward Island as follows:
1.	Off the north end of P.E.I. on the east side between Cape Kildare and North Point.
2.	Off the north end of P.E.I. on the west side between south of Cape Gage and North Point.
3.	Off the north coast of P.E.I. between Cape Kildare and Cape Tyron.
4.	On the north coast of P.E.I. at the entrance to Malpeque harbour.
5.	Charlottetown harbour.
6.	Off the south coast of P.EJ. across the entrance to Hillsborough bay.

Questions

7.	Off the south coast of P.E.I. from north west of Bell Point to south west of South Point.
8.	Off the south coast of P.E.I. between Little Sands and White Sands.
9.	Off the east coast of P.E.I. from south of Cape Bear to south of Rollo Bay.
9. Not known.
OSTREA i


Mr. ERNST:: 1.	Has the Lunenburg Foundry Ltd. been
awarded the contract for the construction of a scallop	dragger	or oyster	dredge	named
"Ostrea I"?
2.	If so, what is the contract price?
3.	Who is constructing the hull of said boat?
4.	What motive power is being supplied?
5.	What	portion	of the	contract	pricerelates to	the hull	and what	portion	to the
cost of motive power and installation hereof?


Pierre-Joseph-Arthur Cardin: Questions 1 to 4 covered in answers to question by Mr.	Ernst at	page 1401 of
Hansard No. 34.
5.	No information. Contract price included, cost of engine installed.


UNOPPOSED MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. ERNST:: For a copy of all letters, correspondence, telegrams and other documents of whatsoever kind, relating to the appointment of Henry C. Lewis, as supervisor of fisheries, district number 3, province of Nova Scotia.


DREDGE OSTREA II
William Gordon Ernst: For a copy of all reports made by one, Captain McLeod, and/or any person or persons, respecting the oyster dredge Ostrea II.


EXPORT DUTY ON PULPWOOD
Mr. GRIMMER (for Mr. Arthurs):: For a copy of all letters, or other communications or recommendations regarding any pro-'posal for an export duty on pulpwood or for the prohibition of such export.


PRIVATE BILLS
[Stage Direction]
Mr. R. H. JENKINS (Queens, for Mr. Jacobs) moved that the house go into committee to consider Bill No. 50, respecting a certain patent application of Thomas Bernard Bourke and George Percival Setter.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Johnston in the chair.
Section 1 agreed to.

On the preamble:
Mr. BENNETT:: Has this bill been dealt
with by the commissioner of patents, and has he been satisfied that no vested interests are affected?


The CHAIRMAN:: It has been before the select standing committee.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The question is whether
or not the commissioner of patents has gone over the bill carefully and made a report as to the effect upon existing rights of patentees. That always is the important question in these cases, and usually the minister makes a statement in that regard.


John Frederick Johnston: Perhaps the bill had
better stand.
Bill stands.


CONSIDERED IN COMMITTEE-THIRD READINGS
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Bill No. 54, to incorporate Pine Hill Divinity Hall.-Mr. Black (Halifax).
Bill No. 73, for the relief of Herbert Vaughan. -Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 77, for the relief of Walter Joseph David Penly.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 97, for the relief of Margaret Piton. -Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 107, for the relief of Harry Jackson Carr.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 109, for the relief of Margaret Malvina Cole.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 110, for the relief of Quartus Bliss Henderson.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 114, for the relief of Mildred Alma McCallum-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 116, for the relief of Mabel Monk. -Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 117, for the relief of Harry Edward Elvidge.-Mr. Tummon.
Bill No. 119, for the relief of Emily Anderson.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 120, for the relief of Helen Marie Ferguson.-Mr. Hubbs.

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on Bill No. 121, respecting the St. Clair Transit company-Mr. Gray-Mr. Johnston in the chair.
Sections 1 to 4 inclusive agreed to.
On section 5-Commission to be created in the United States before transfer, et cetera.
Mr. ADSHEAD:: It is impossible to hear
what is being said; what section of this bill are we considering?


John Frederick Johnston: Section 5 of Bill No.
121.

Importation of Fruits


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Section 4 refers to order in council No. 1206 of June 7, 1922, and I would like to ask the sponsor if he would not consent to this bill being amended in order to include the terms of Bill No. 49 recently passed through the house.


Mr. GRAY:: As I understand it, Bill No.
49 has not yet become law. I have no objection to the amendment suggested but I am instructed by the Solicitor General (Mr. Cannon), that this bill should pass and the change could be made when Bill No. 49 becomes law.


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

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 61, for the relief of Herbert Chick. -Mr. Black (Yukon).
Bill No. 62, for the relief of Albert Edward Saunders.-Mr. Young (Toronto Northeast).
Bill No. 63, for the relief of Marjorie Gladys Bicken.-Mr. Garland (Carleton).
Bill No. 65, for the relief of Raymond Garbutt Little.-Mr. Garland (Carleton).
Bill No. 67, for the relief of Florence Isabel Naughton.-Mr. Stinson.
Bill No. 68, for the relief of Lucy Beryl Marshall.-Mr. Black (Yukon).
Bill No. 76, for the relief of Kathleen Mary Davies.-Mr. Thorson.
On division.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Gordon Ernst: I should like to direct the attention of the government to the fact that forest fires have been raging through the southern part of Nova Scotia, not only in the county of Yarmouth and Shelburne represented by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston), but even in worse form in the county of Queens and now, I believe, in the county of Lunenburg. In Queens about 150 people have been rendered homeless and desolate. Relief associations have been formed and the provincial government has made contributions. The city of Halifax and some of the towns and municipalities throughout the province have also made substantial contributions. I should like to ask the government to take under consideration the question of affording substantial relief in connection with this situation. There is a precedent for assistance being given because some years ago it was done in the case of Jamaica.


Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice):: Unfortunately the Prime Minister is not yet in his seat, but I will call his attention to the matter.


IMPORTATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. A. HEAPS (North Winnipeg):: I have a question I should like to put to the Minister of Finance, but as he is not in his seat I shall content myself with asking the question of the Minister of National Revenue. I have had several complaints from Winnipeg with reference to the new duties on fruits and vegetables. According to reports I have received, the increases average from 29 per cent to 386 per cent. I should like to know whether these increases which have been put into effect by the Department of National Revenue, are exactly in accordance with the new tariff schedules?


Hon. W. D. EULER (Minister of National Revenue):: My attention has also been drawn to an item which appeared, I think, in the Winnipeg Tribune, stating that the department is collecting both specific and ad valorem duties on fruits and vegetables. I would like to say for the information of the house that that is absolutely incorrect. As the house knows, the duties collected are either specific or ad valorem, and that is being carried out now. As regards other statements, we are making investigations, but I think I may assure the house that whatever duty is being collected is being collected under the new schedules.


CIVIL SERVICE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Herbert Bealey Adshead: I have a telegram from the Amalgamated Civil Servants, Calgary. I should like to ask the government whether they intend this year to put into effect the S100 minimum for civil servants?


Ernest Lapointe: I will bring the matter to the attention of the leader of the government.


NEW ZEALAND TREATY-CORRESPONDENCE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Richard Bedford Bennett: It has been customary to table the correspondence dealing with tariff items and in the particular instance to which I direct attention, namely, the New Zealand treaty which, according to the statement made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), is to be abrogated on October 12 next, we should have before us the correspondence. It will expedite the discussions in committee if the
1972	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Stewart (Edmonton)
correspondence and the order in council upon which the notice of abrogation are based are laid upon the table at the earliest possible moment. I did not have communication with the Minister of Finance, but I asked my secretary to get in touch with his and the latter said that the matter would have to be dealt with through the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is not in his seat, but I now ask that notice be taken of the request and that the correspondence be brought down at the earliest possible moment.


Ernest Lapointe: Certainly.


THE BUDGET
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, May 8, consideration of the motion of Hon. Charles
A.	Dunning that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, the amendment thereto of Mr. Bennett, and the amendment to the amendment thereto of Mr. Fansher (Last Mountain).	.
Hon. CHARLES STEWART (Minister of the Interior):: Mr. Speaker, this, I think, is
the ninth budget in succession that has been brought down in parliament by ministers of finance acting on behalf of the Liberal party. On nearly every occasion of the introduction of the budget, particularly in the earlier days of the advent of the Liberal party in power in parliament, very severe criticism was directed at the budget proposals of the Minister of Finance. Those introduced by the late Hon. Mr. Fielding covered a period in Canadian history that from an economic standpoint was, to say the least, very difficult, but the budgeting on those occasions brought about the results that were anticipated, and while in the beginning some slight increases in taxation were necessary, despite all the criticism that was offered and the amendments that were moved, the budgeting brought to this country a period of prosperity such as it has seldom witnessed. Mr. Fielding was followed by Mr. Robb and again the same criticism was levelled at Mr. Robb, but I am bound to say, having been a colleague of both, the situation was not as difficult as in the earlier days when this government took office. We all well remember the success of the work of the Hon. Mr. Robb in budgeting for the Canadian people. Despite the strenuous criticism that was offered and the resolutions moved from the opposite side of the house in condemnation of

his proposals, no one will deny that Mr. Robb has a record that ministers of finance in any country might well be proud of. He has undoubtedly left a record that it will be difficult for his successors to emulate. Perhaps it may be said with some truth that Mr. Robb was particularly fortunate. I know that our hon. friends opposite will say that he budgeted in days of prosperity and did not have to meet so serious a situation as his predecessors. However that may be, we who were supporters of Mr. Robb and we who supported Mr. Fielding, claim that their budgets were the result of careful thought applied to the tariffs of the country for the very purpose of bringing about that prosperity which resulted. May I say that in no period of Canadian history perhaps did we pass through such difficult times as in 1922? I am not going to deny for a moment that the conditions of those times were largely the result of the great war which had cost us so much in men and in treasure. Nevertheless, that was the situation, and a remedy had to be found. What remedy was applied? As I said before, both Mr. Fielding and Mr. Robb, as many hon. gentlemen who were present when Mr. Robb delivered his budget speech upon that occasion will remember, stated that this country could not go on piling up additions to the capital debt of the country, and so they proposed slight increases in some taxation then existent, and the addition of some new taxation to meet the situation. Year after year, reductions of taxation were made to assist the basic industries of the country, agriculture, mining, lumbering and fishing, until 1926. I do not need to say very much about 1926 because in the forty minutes allowed to me I can only touch the high spots and cannot devote much time to details. In 1926 we found that our policies had brought about, or to say the least had assisted in bringing about, a period of prosperity. The policies that we had adopted in connection with the Canadian National Railways, for instance, were designed to bring about that result, and from that moment on Mr. Robb was able during the next two or three years not to add to the capital debt of the country, but to reduce it by no less a sum than $82,000,000.
I come now to the present budget. With respect to the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), I think we will all agree that he is a worthy successor of the two finance ministers who preceded him, and I think we may well expect that his record will be quite as brilliant as that of his predecessors, and that his administration will bring about the same happy results as were obtained under

The Budget-Mr. Stewart (Edmonton)
their administrations. The people of Canada believed that the government, through its Minister of Finance, would make provision in this budget for meeting many of the difficulties that it was recognized the country was encountering, because we are passing through a period of world-wide economic deflation.
There is another feature in connection with this budget that I wish to mention. There has been up until lately continued violent opposition to our Prime Minister. It has been stated that the Liberal party lacked the initiative or were too friendly, and some even, went to the length of saying too cowardly, to bring down legislation to meet the ever-increasing customs duties imposed by the United States against Canada. But we do not hear that statement made to-day.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Charles A. Stewart: I have not any doubt, Mr. Speaker, that they will continue to talk that way if they feel that there is some party advantage to be gained thereby, but they will not be in a position to prove it, as they thought, so emphatically. Why?


An hon. MEMBER:: The death knell of
protection.


Charles A. Stewart: No longer
can the cry be raised that our Prime Minister gives more to the United States than he is willing to give to the mother country. That has been one of the statements of the opposition to which I have continually taken exception and to which I take exception to-day, and I am going to have a word or two to say to my hon. friends opposite in connection with their attitude towards the British preference. Let me say in the first place that this budget is a complete answer to every statement which they have made in that connection. It is more than that. It is no mere lip loyalty on our part. It is not the mere expression of a sentiment. This budget is action, bold and forward action on our part in connection with the British preference. So I say, Mr. Speaker, that our hon. friends opposite can never expect the country to believe their statement that this government headed by the Prime Minister has been more friendly in its attitude in any particular towards the United States than we have always been ready and willing to be towards the mother country.
This budget places on the free list a large and important list of goods that we import from Great Britain. Here again we are following the well-established practice of this government of extending from time to time
the British preference. By so doing we hope to increase our trade with the mother country. That, briefly, is what the budget means, Mr. Speaker. It means that we hope to transfer a large volume of trade in goods that we must use in Canada from countries that are unwilling to trade with us to those that are willing and anxious to trade with us. That is the position in a nutshell. It is for the benefit of those countries that have shown their willingness to trade with us by buying the goods that we have to export from this country.


Mr. BLACK (Yukon):: You took the duty off hay.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: What about wheat?


Charles A. Stewart: My	hon.
friends are very clever. The finance minister made it abundantly clear that he had wiped the duties off a great number of articles, almost one hundred in number-


Mr. SHORT:: Hay and cider.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes,	hay.
Why should he not wipe off the duty?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Who put those duties
there?


Charles A. Stewart: I am not
able to answer that question nor am I concerned about it. The thing was a perfect absurdity and it was fully explained to hon. gentlemen opposite.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Charles A. Stewart: He laughs
best who laughs last. The duties on these articles, as on a large number of other items, are wiped out for the simple reason that there is no excuse in having them cumber up the tariff schedules. They never were intended to have any relation to imports, and it was so stated, but hon. gentlemen opposite will persist in making that statement, and I know that no statement of mine will ever stop them. It shows exactly the absurdity of their contention. But there are, and always will be, critics who will say, "There is a joker in this tariff. Of course there is." They will perhaps imagine that they can see the outline of the Ethiopian in the woodpile. My hon. friend from Lincoln (Mr. Chaplin) always sees one in the woodpile. They will say that the predicted imports from Great Britain will not come in, and that the real effect of the change in the tariff on iron and steel products will be a substantial increase in the cost of machinery used in primary production. Of course they will. We are emphatic in saying-and again I
1974	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Stewart (Edmonton)
point to the record of Mr. Fielding and Mr. Robb, and perhaps we will point a year or two later to the record of Mr. Dunning-I repeat, we are emphatic in saying that an increased exchange of goods will take place, and the net result will be a lessening of the cost to the consumer. The budget meets the very general desire of the Canadian people that the volume of our business with Great Britain should be enlarged. Hitherto this feeling has been largely sentimental. Quite true. That is the complaint I have had against my friends across the way; they are always strong in sentiment but lacking in action. But now plainly the value to us of the opening of the British market is being appreciated-these are some of the points I want to get across to my hon. friends opposite-the value to us of the opening of the British market, I say, is being appreciated by the Canadian people as never before. But there having been a partial loss of market, there is apprehension that further losses may be suffered. The desirability of strengthening our position in the British market by offsetting our sales with purchase is now pretty evident to Canadians, and Mr. Dunning's effort to facilitate this exchange of commodities will be strongly supported by public opinion.


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


Charles A. Stewart: I am reading from a few notes I set down that I thought would be intensely interesting to our good friends across the way. Ours is not a lip loyalty, nor is it a mere expression of sentiment; it is a straightforward and direct offer to Great Britain without any strings upon it; it is a direct offer to Great Britain to transfer a large volume of our imports from other countries to our kith and kin.


Mr. QUINN:: Do you call that flag-flapping?


Charles A. Stewart: I am afraid the hon. gentleman will not be able to wave the Union Jack this time and talk about loyalty. That had always been the recourse of a few hon. gentlemen across the floor of the house, and I think it is time it was stopped. There has never been any attempt on our part to preach sentiment, to talk about loyalty; this government on every occasion have given evidence by their works of what they believe. It makes me tired to hear gentlemen across the way talking of wrapping the flag about themselves. I have been in politics for forty years, and that is one of the things in my experience that has frequently been resorted to by hon. gentlemen across the floor. Not only that, but they have decried the loyalty of the

leader of this government and are still seeking to arouse prejudice against him. I say it is time that that sort of thing came to an end. This budget, so far as this government are concerned, is a complete answer as to where we stand in this connection with respect to the British preference.
The basic principle running throughout the changes in the budget is the transference of a large volume of imports now coming in from the United States to Great Britain, thereby short circuiting our exchange adjustments, which in the past have had to be transferred from Great Britain and the continent to the United States to pay for our excess imports from that country. Our next thought was the consumer. We sought to avoid increasing costs to him by an extension of the British preference.
I now propose to deal with some of the statements made by the hon. leader of the opposition. His first statement was that we had increased taxation and thereby added to the burdens of the Canadian people. That, to say the least, is very misleading.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is true.


Charles A. Stewart: He set out the amounts of taxation from 1923 to 1930 and stated we had increased t'he burden of taxation which we derived from the business tax, amounting in 1923 to $335,000,000 and in 1929 to $378,000,000. May I simply say, in passing, that I do not intend to go into details to prove my contention to hon. gentlemen opposite. But if we have a larger volume of business on which we raise our general taxation, surely no one is going to be hurt because the amount collected has increased. Individually it does not mean any greater burden. But may I say to the hon. gentleman that he does not take into consideration that not only did we collect more money, but we collected it in the face of reduced taxation, and the general business of the country was so buoyant that even after the reduction of the income tax and general taxation we derived more revenue.


James Dew Chaplin: What about the sales
tax?


Charles A. Stewart: I am going to speak about that in a moment. I hope to satisfy my hon. friend on the sales tax. I am going to repeat to-day what I have said on former occasions with respect to the sales tax. I have no quarrel with his statement that the $147,000,000 which he sets out in some detail in his speech the other day should be added-and is added-to the general revenues of the country. He states-and I want to

The Budget-Mr. Stewart (Edmonton)
make it clear that it is his statement-that we are not entitled to all the credit that we are seeking to take for the reduction of the public debt by $257,000,000. I say to the hon. gentleman-and I think he says so himself-that there is nothing new about the $147,000,000 that he referred to. It has always been the same, there is no increase in it, it was the same in 1923 as it is in 19(29; therefore it cannot be very well taken into account except that it swells the general sum of taxation. Let me be clear about this. The general taxation, or the turnover tax on business, although it was reduced, produced more money. How? By the increased volume of business. But it did more. It reduced the general taxation per capita. That is what happened, and that is what my hon. friend did not make clear to the Canadian people when he was making that statement. It is not an increase of taxation upon the individual, but rather the reverse. That is the real situation with respect to the statement of my hon. friend that this government increased the general taxation.
Let me deal for a moment with the sales tax. My hon. friend pointed out that in 1923 this government found the sales tax at 3 per cent. But how did we find it applied? It was applied upon the general sales throughout the country. Every hon. member will recall the agitation that was in effect throughout the country with respect to the collection of this tax. Every retailer had to make a return. It was a most exasperating tax. Not only that, but may I tell my hon. friend from Lincoln-who no doubt will remember this-that that tax was pyramided, sometimes as much as 8 per cent, upon commodities purchased by the consumers of this country.


Mr. McGIBBON:: So was the 6 per cent pyramided.


Charles A. Stewart: I have no recollection that the 6 per cent tax was pyramided. The 6 per cent tax was collected, and was designed to be collected, either at the entry of the goods or when they were manufactured. Some complaint was made that the tax was passed on to the consumers on the various sales.


Peter McGibbon: Pyramided as it went.


Charles A. Stewart: Only to the extent of the first tax. If my hon. friend means that they were pyramided because there were subsequent sales made plus taxes, yes; I certainly agree as to that; but^ that is not pyramiding. That is not collecting a tax every time a sale takes place. Take a suit of clothes, for example.


An hon. MEMBER:: Somebody else collected a tax every time a sale took place.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon. friends can make nothing of that. There is no comparison whatever with the pyramiding of taxes of which I am complaining. The tax was one collected on every transaction. The turnover was derived on every transaction from the date of the entry of the cloth that went to make a suit of clothes, through the wholesalers to the tailors and passed on to the customer; in every one of those transactions a tax was collected. That is what we were complaining about, and that is what I hope my hon. friends will take the precaution to understand when they state that we materially increased the sales tax when we made it 6 per cent. I hope I have made that matter clear, and that we shall not again hear the statement boldly made that we increased the sales tax and that we are not to be credited because of the fact that we increased it from 3 per cent to 6 per cent.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Did you not increase it to 6 per cent?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes.


James Dew Chaplin: What are the amounts collected each year for sales tax?


Charles A. Stewart: If my hon. friend will consult Hansard he will find a statement made by my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett).


Richard Bedford Bennett: As long as my hon. friend admits it was increased to 6 per cent I am satisfied.


Charles A. Stewart: I shall now direct my remarks to a few items in the tariff. There is one statement to which I shall refer before I deal with particular items, that is a statement made by my hon. friend the leader of the opposition. I forget the name of the person to whom my hon. friend attributed the statement but he is reported to have stated that so far as the empire is concerned a factory in Canada was as good as a factory in England. I think that statement is correct.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is the sense of the statement which I made. To be more accurate, I quoted the statement that a woollen factory in Canada is as valuable an asset to the empire as a woollen factory in Yorkshire.


Charles A. Stewart: With that statement I have no particular quarrel. I believe that a free interchange of commodities or as near as possible a free interchange within
1976	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Stewart (Edmonton)
the empire would be very desirable. I know there are people who do not believe in such a policy. I do not believe that my hon. friends opposite believe in it, because my hon. friend the leader of the opposition made the statement a short time ago in this house that we would have to exercise due care and that we would have to see whether or not our business interests were going to be affected. So far as I am aware we have not bargained to any extent in that particular respect, but I wish to reiterate that as far as our preference to Great Britain is concerned there is no bargaining in connection with it. We have offered it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The preference is not limited to Great Britain.


Charles A. Stewart: It is limited to Great Britain and her colonies.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, it is the British Empire to which it is limited.


Charles A. Stewart: Oh, yes, I
beg your pardon; it is the British Empire. I do not expect that the budget has pleased my hon. friend in that respect, and I did not think for one minute that it would please him. The reduction in the British preferential tariff number 270 as against 11 increases and as a result of this budget 589 items in a total of 1,188 are entirely free under the British preferential tariff. Let me say in passing: Wipe off the hay and straw and the hundred items to which my hon. friend has so often referred; throw them into the discard.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, that is where they belong.


Charles A. Stewart: I wish to
make it clear that nobody is making the claim that these items were intended to be misleading in any respect.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why were they put in?


Charles A. Stewart: The Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) made it clear to my hon. friend, if he had cared to listen. He said they were placed on the schedule for the purpose of wiping them off altogether. So that I say if you consider the hundred items complained of by my hon. friend you still have a very respectable list remaining. The extensions in the preference made this year alone affect commodities which Canada imported last year to the value of $200,000,000. The matter of iron and steel has constituted a very important subject for discussion in this country. Such tariff increases as are
[Mr. C. A. StewartJ
made are, in almost all instances, on those primary forms which are used in manufacturing and they will be absorbed almost entirely by the manufacturers who process the primary forms into secondary products. Thus these increases will benefit the iron and steel industry without laying any burden upon the ultimate consumer.
A great deal has been made of the fact and references have frequently been made to the increases in the iron and steel schedules. It has been stated that such increased prices would in the end increase the price to the consumer. In this connection I shall deal with item 377b:
Ingots, cogged ingots, blooms, slabs, billets, n.o.p., of iron or steel, valued at not less than 3 cents per pound, when imported by manufacturers of steels for use exclusively in the manufacture of steels, in their own factories, under regulations prescribed by the minister.
And the item before that:
Blooms, cogged ingots, slabs, billets, n.o.p., sheet bars, of iron or steel, by whatever process made, n.o.p.
The British preferential rate is $2.50 whereas it was formerly $150. May I say that the whole idea is to bring materials to Canada, to produce in Canada the primary products necessary for the manufacture of iron and steel. I wish to point out that this will not mean an increase to the ultimate consumer. Why is that so? Bars and rods are the product of the billets, and the schedule says:
Bars or rods, of iron or steel, including bilets weighing less than 60 pounds per lineal yard, hot rolled, as hereunder defined, under regulations prescribed by the minister.
This item was given at $4.25 per ton, and there is no change. So that the rolling mills will have the benefit of importing their iron in the same manner as they have imported it in the past, at the same price, and at the same tariff schedule. There is no increase in this commodity; any increase which may have been placed upon the primary manufacturer is absorbed in the secondary, and it is not passed on to the consumer. A great deal has been said by my hon. friends in connection with the fact that there have been no reductions which would affect the agricultural classes. May I say that I can see a large list of items which have been placed on the free list. For one thing I notice the necessary steel for the manufacture of horseshoe nails and chains. Surely to goodness chains-and logging chains in particular-are used very largely by agriculturists.


James Dew Chaplin: There are no logging
chains there.

The Budget-Mr. Stewart (Edmonton)


Charles A. Stewart: Yes there
are.


James Dew Chaplin: They are not the size of logging chains.


Charles A. Stewart: I have not
the number of the item before me, but I make the statement that the chains in question can be used for agricultural purposes.


James Dew Chaplin: They could not be used
for logging chains; they are not logging chains, because they are too small to be used for that purpose.


Charles A. Stewart: Indeed, in
spite of increases in duty on these more primary forms there are scores of reductions on the finished products in iron and steel. Reductions in rates under iron and steel are numerous and important. Some of these which will affect the consumer directly or indirectly are:	Decrease on structural steel in weights
not made in Canada but in which Great Britain can compete; free listing of steel plates in sizes and weights in which Great Britain can compete; reduction under all tariffs on galvanized corrugated sheets used for granaries, culverts, siding, and so on. I suppose my hon. friends will say the farmers do not get any advantage from these reductions. Then there has been an extension of the British preference on wire, springs and saw steels. Will my hon. friends say the farmers get no benefit there?


James Dew Chaplin: I absolutely deny that
they will get any benefit.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend will have a chance to explain his attitude when the proper time comes. I am making the statement now, and my hon. friend can refute it when he makes his speech. That extension of the British preference on wire, springs and saw steels will mean much to the people of this country. There are reductions under all tariffs on tractors and parts which were formerly dutiable. Surely that will mean something to the farmers of this country. My hon. friends do not like this story, and I do not blame them very much. There has been also a free listing under the British preference of all agricultural machinery, including milking machines, pasteurizers, dairy equipment and so on. I am taking the list the leader of the opposition read the other day in some detail, and in connection with which he stated that under some items there were some importations, while under others nothing was imported. I have left out those items under which he said there had been no importations, and this list includes, in addition to what I have mentioned, spraying and other horticultural equipment, potato diggers and planters, incubators and brooders, scythes, sickles, rakes and forks, separators and electric power generators. Material reductions have been made under all tariffs on machinery and equipment for use in printing, and the entire list is made free under the British preferential tariff. Surely that will mean something to the newspaper men of this country and it should mean something to the newspaper readers of Canada also; with our cheaper newsprint and with cheaper machinery for manufacturing newspapers perhaps they will not cost so much in the future
Then we have reductions under all tariffs on a very wide range of construction machinery such as is used by municipalities and individuals for draining, ditching, road building, excavating and so on. Under the British preference such machinery, formely dutiable, is now free, and this list includes: Concrete and asphalt road machines, cranes; shovels; back fillers; steam and air driven pile hammers and turntables. As I said before, Mr. Speaker, I have taken these articles from the list furnished by my hon. friend the leader of the opposition the other day, and I am giving them as proof that this budget does mean something and indeed means a great deal to all classes of people in this country who in future will be consumers of the articles mentioned in these schedules.
Reductions have been made under all tariffs on machinery for carbonizing lignite coal. This will be very important to the western provinces, and to the eastern provinces as well; in the future this should have a great effect on the development of this industry in Canada. Reductions have been made under all tariffs on machinery for making clay products, which industry now is being developed in western Canada. This will be of great importance to the brick and tile industry; no one will deny that. In addition, reductions under all tariffs and free listing under the British preference have been effected on all unspecified machinery, the importations of which amount to millions of dollars. Some of the machinery affected includes air compressing machinery, cranes and derricks, icing and refrigerating machinery, metal working machinery, pulp and paper mill machinery, power pumps and parts, steam and other shovels, steam boilers, internal combustion engines, steam engines, switches and switch boards, spark plugs and magnetos, rheostats, controllers and motors, fuses and fuse plugs and so on. We have also free listing from Great Britain and reductions under all tariffs on electrical apparatus of a class not made in Canada, including electric light fixtures, electric light bulbs, lamp shades,
1978	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Stewart (Edmonton)
gas meters, flashlights, headlights, enamelled hollow ware, plain hollow ware and tinware for shipping milk or cream. I am not going to say very much about tea; there will be no argument about that, but I might mention that there have been reductions under all tariffs on hand or power washing machines, sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, floor polishers and domestic refrigerators. There have been reductions also in the British preference rate on enamelled kitchenware, enamelled bath tubs, lavatory equipment and so on, which Great Britain is equipped to produce. All parts of Canada will benefit by this reduction. Reductions ranging from 7 to 15 cents per pound have been made effective on tea already.


Harry Bernard Short: Where do you get the 15
cents?


Charles A. Stewart: The large
companies advertised in the press that all retailers had received instructions to cut prices immediately, and this reduction became instantly effective throughout Canada. All householders should benefit by the free entry from Great Britain and her colonies of tableware, china and porcelain. This trade runs to about $4,000,000 annually, and the greatly increased spread should divert it almost entirely to Great Britain. Surely this will mean something to the Canadian consumer, and it will mean also an increase in our trade with the mother country.
Western Canada in particular has gone in for the wide development of rural hospitals. The budget puts on the free list, under all tariffs, an extremely wide range of hospital supplies and equipment, much of which formerly entered Canada from the United States at rates ranging from 17J per cent to 35 per cent. This reduction directly affects the ordinary citizens in every province.
This budget, Mr. Speaker, is not a free trade budget, nor can it be construed to be a protectionist budget.


An hon. MEMBER:: What is it?


Charles A. Stewart: I know my hon. friends will take a lot of time pointing out what they consider to be weaknesses in the budget, but they will have a hard task ahead of them. Neither can this budget be said to set up a revenue tariff. What we are endeavouring to do is to transfer our trade to Great Britain and countries which are willing to trade with us, but realizing the situation as it exists to-day the government, after a most complete investigation by the tariff board, have endeavoured so to adjust the tariff as to give the maximum possible scope to international 
trade, upon which we know the prosperity of every country rests. It is not designed in the spirit of irrational, extreme, economic nationalism which is rampant to-day throughout the world and with which Canada shows some signs of being affected.


John Frederick Johnston: The hon. gentleman's time is up. '


Charles A. Stewart: Just one
further word and I am through. I think the Minister of Finance has shown remarkable skill in producing a tariff which comes so near to pleasing all kinds of divergent opinions, which does not seek to exact any substantial sacrifice from any considerable section of the Canadian people and which will be fully appreciated only when the full effects of the changes become apparent.


James Dew Chaplin: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to follow the remarks of the minister closely; having only forty minutes I have something to say in addition to what he has said already, but I do want to say that I do not understand how we can get a reduction of 15 cents on tea when the duty was only 7 cents and 10 cents. One of the largest tea dealers in Canada advertises reductions of 10 cents and 7 cents per pound, but there is no mention of a reduction of 15 cents. I would like to know how a duty of 7 cents can be magnified into one of 15 cents.


An hon. MEMBER:: It is a mystery.


James Dew Chaplin: Oh, yes, it is a mystery.
I denied the statement of the hon. minister that -this budget would bring any trade to Great Britain. He referred especially to saw steel, and he told us that no one could deny that that item being in the British preference would bring trade to Great Britain. I know something about that business. Twenty years or more ago we purchased from Great Britain every pound of saw steel used in this country. For the last twenty years we have not followed that course. Why? In the first place, there are three or four American saw companies who have branch factories in Canada. The steel is manufactured by them in the United States and shipped to these factories. Does it seem reasonable that any one of those companies will buy British steel to manufacture saws in Canada, no matter what the duty may be.


An hon. MEMBER:: It would come in at a cheaper rate.


James Dew Chaplin: Why did we stop purchasing from Great Britain, especially when the duty was lower on goods imported from

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin
Great Britain than those imported from the United States? Did we do that because of a love for the United States? No, it was because of the necessity to continue in business-the steel had to be purchased at the cheapest price. British preference on saw steel is not going to bring any British steel into Canada. There are other things to be considered besides that of price. There is the closeness to the market which permits the carrying of small stocks. The purchasing of material in the old country necessitates buying twice a year, during the spring and the fall.


Mr. BROWN:: Is not the hon. gentleman afraid he is proving too much?


James Dew Chaplin: No," I am not. I am telling the facts and the truth about the matter, that is what counts.


John Livingstone Brown: And at the same time the hon. member is changing his tune.


James Dew Chaplin: I am not changing my tune at all. The hon. minister who just spoke (Mr. Stewart) has changed his tune. That was the same gentleman who a few years ago sounded the death knell of protection. It was the same gentleman who was burying protection; he has resurrected it, he has breathed new life into it and it lives again. The hon. members on the other 9ide of the house are following him. They have turned protectionist. I do not say that they have stolen our policy, what I say is that they have paid us the greatest compliment by following in our footsteps and accepting our advice. If they stole anything they would not know what to do with it when they got it.


An hon. MEMBER:: Perhaps the hon. member knows that better himself.


James Dew Chaplin: When I first looked over the schedules attached to this budget by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) the first thing that came to my mind was the French treaty presented to us by the hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). That gentleman returned from France with a treaty which he inflicted upon this country. There was a list of over 250 articles contained in schedule B, but with the exception of two or three items, none of those articles has been manufactured in this country.


Ernest Lapointe: My hon. friend should be careful; he was lost once in the bronze powder.


James Dew Chaplin: There was only one item in the lot which the hon. gentleman could find to ibe incorrect. This treaty contained a list of over 200 articles which we were permitted to export to France under special trade conditions, and I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that out of that list there were not half a dozen which we manufactured, and only two or three which we have exported. Out of those two or three articles exported, only one or two have been exported to France. Is it any wonder that I suspect the Minister of Justice of having had something to do with this proposition of the British preference. The schedule contains dozens of articles which Great Britain will never send to us. Why have they been put there? I asked the hon. minister who has just spoken, and he said: what else could we do? The easiest thing would have been to strike them out of the tariff, but they did not do that. They wanted to swell and pad up the budget.


Charles A. Stewart: Is my hon. friend suggesting that they should be taken out of the tariff?


James Dew Chaplin: There is no reason in the world why that should not have been done.


Charles A. Stewart: Hay, for instance?


James Dew Chaplin: From England?


Charles A. Stewart: But the tariff covers all countries.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Not the preferential
tariff.


John Livingstone Brown: They have been asking for an increase for the last two or three years.


James Dew Chaplin: I would like to put on record some of the items included in the French treaty. I want to serve notice upon the government and upon the people of Canada that if this party ever comes into power that treaty will be abrogated.


An hon, MEMBER:: That may be a long time.


James Dew Chaplin: It may be a long time, but I venture this prediction: whether or not we are in power, this government will abandon that treaty because it is no good and never was any good. It is a detriment to the trade of this country. If the Minister of Finance did not receive the assistance of the Minister of Justice in preparing these schedules, he must have thought that it would be a good scheme to try.
Beginning with item 04 of the French treaty, and continuing down that page to item 073, and from item 074 down to item 0247, and then on the following page from item 0248 down to item 0379, one is able to see the variety of items included in this treaty. This list includes a number of names made up of a
The Budget-Mr. Chaplin

number of letters, many of which are unpronounceable. I intend to spell out some of them, but I will not attempt to pronounce them, and I do not think the Minister of Justice could pronounce them. Item 0246 is d-i-e-t-h-y-s-u-l-p-h-o-n-a-d-i-m-e-t-h-y-l-m-e-t-h-a-n-e. I am told that that article is really a sleeping powder. I heard it said the other day that because chloroform was allowed to enter this country free of duty, probably the government has used some of it upon certain of the outside members in order to prevent them from doing anything in regard to this particular tariff. If they do not find the chloroform effective, I would suggest they use this, because it can be brought in by the carload and the Minister of Justice can get it for them.


Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):: Spell another one


James Dew Chaplin: I shall be glad to do so.
This is one: m-o-n-o-m-e-t-h-y-l-p-a-r-a-m-i-d-o-c-r-e-s-o-1. This is a really good one: t-e-t-r-a-m-e-t-h-y-l-d-i-a-m-i-d-e b-e-n-z-o-p-h-e-u-o-n-e.


Ernest Lapointe: I wish my hon. friend
would try to pronounce that.


James Dew Chaplin: My hon. friend might give me some help in that regard.


Ernest Lapointe: I would.


James Dew Chaplin: I wish he would pronounce the one that I give him now.


Ernest Lapointe: Let the hon. member
try it first.


James Dew Chaplin: T-e-t-r-a-c-h-l-o-r-o-p-ht-h-a-l-i-c. I am satisfied for my hon. friend to have a try at pronouncing that. I could give another one that might be easier with only about fifteen letters if the minister thinks he could try to pronounce it.
As I said, there are more than 200 items padded into this list, and as regards not more than one or two did we ship 400 pounds. Just imagine that, and yet we have used more paper in printing this treaty and the customs books with these extra pages than the whole thing is worth!
A protective tariff, if properly and faithfully applied, would have the same effect if administered by a Liberal or a Conservative government. I am willing to admit that. I do not care about anything but the principle;
I am not disturbed by the government taking over protection. As I said a moment ago, the very highest compliment is paid to us by their adopting something to which they have been diametrically opposed for ten years. What is worrying me is this: will they give 
it a fair trial? Are they taking it to seek to destroy it? Is it a game to fool the people? I say a game, because the government have tried more than once to do that kind of fooling. On the other hand, do they now actually believe the tariff on the items referred to will accomplish any good purpose? If it is true that it will accomplish a good purpose, why did they delay ten years to put it into, effect? Will the people believe that the government has had a change of heart? Will they believe that the government has a heart at all, or is this nothing but a change to catch a few votes? Will the people believe that those who have opposed an increase in duty on butter, eggs, fruits and vegetables have now sincerely changed their minds? I think it can be demonstrated without a shadow of doubt that almost the entire cabinet and most of the members on that side of the house have, during the past few sessions, gone on record against any increase in tariff on these articles. A few weeks ago the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) argued in this way: Well, if you do put a 'duty on butter and eggs it will not do any good, because in a little while production will overtake consumption and you will be back where you were before. Why does he not apply that to his furniture? Instead of that he brings the other minister to his relief and gets him to raise the duty on furniture.


William Daum Euler: Nothing of the sort.


James Dew Chaplin: The government did not raise the duty on furniture?


William Daum Euler: I am contradicting the
statement made by the hon. gentleman that the Minister of Trade and Commerce induced the Minister of National Revenue to do this.


James Dew Chaplin: I am willing to accept
that statement by the minister. I am sorry to have made that remark. The fact remains that the one gentleman is the furniture man and the other is the Minister of National Revenue. The Minister of National Revenue raises the tariff upon furniture. I do not know at whose behest this was done, but he raises the duty so that more duty is collected on furniture. What for? Because it is being, so they say, dumped. I ask the minister this question: Is he going to apply the same principle to other businesses in this country?


William Daum Euler: If conditions are the same.


James Dew Chaplin: Conditions are the same,
but none of us happens to be in the bedstead business. Some of us are in other businesses.

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin
Recently during this very session members of parliament have gone on record that a duty on eggs and butter is of no use; that it would not do any good. Some since the introduction of the budget have somewhat regretted it. I think the minister might get a little more chloroform and hand it to those fellows because they are not in line with the others. Of course that chloroform has been used further. The Minister of National Revenue himself once or twice has been chloroformed too.


William Daum Euler: The hon. member is referring to my thumb, I hope.


James Dew Chaplin: No, I am referring to the liquor business.


William Daum Euler: The anaesthetic was, I
should judge, pretty. generally administered to everybody on the other side.


James Dew Chaplin: My friends on this side
never came out so boldly as the minister himself and told us what was going to happen, and nobody knew more about it than he did. I will admit he knew, but he did not stick to his guns as I have seen somebody else do.


An hon. MEMBER:: He did not hide
behind the curtain.


James Dew Chaplin: One thing sure is that
I did not vote for the bill-I wanted to vote against it-because on principle I will not vote to give anything to the United States.


William Daum Euler: Why did my hon. friend
not vote against it?
Mr. VE.NIOT:	The hon. member is in
deep water now.


James Dew Chaplin: I am in no deep water
at all and do not find the subject embarrassing in the least. I had my own reasons, and as I heard one hon. gentleman say, it is none of your business. I certainly would not vote for it anyway.
We now have the spectacle of a discredited party ready to go before the country with a policy that is diametrically opposed to what is generally supposed to have been their policy, judging by their actions in the past several sessions. They are now ready to abandon their own principles knowing that the tide of feeling in the country is running against them. They pretend to want to take action against the United States, to put up the tariff against the United States and reduce
the British preference, so that trade may be diverted from the United States to Great Britain. I wish to refer briefly to some of these items.
On the first page of the budget proposals of the Minister of Finance, I find such articles as animals, live hogs, meats, canned meats and other meats, tallow, beeswax, eggs. Let me just say this, that that is a bunk sheet so far as the British preference is concerned.


Mr. YOUNG (Saskatoon):: What is the
meaning of bunk?


James Dew Chaplin: It is pure, unadulterated
bunk, and if you dont know what that means you had better get the dictionary. Let me take these items in turn. There were four head of cattle imported into this country under the duty. There were no live hogs imported. And yet Great Britain is being offered the sale of this stuff to us! On canned meats the British preference is reduced by 2J per cent. In other meats Great Britain might have done some business with us, but the government took good care not to reduce the British preference on that item. It remains at two cents a pound as it was before. Why? Because the government has had the experience of reducing the duty on Australian meats and butter, and their friends did not support the government too long on that, and the government had to abandon it.
The next item is tallow. There have been no importations of tallow into this country for years from Great Britain, but we do get a lot from the United States. Of beeswax we import none from the United Kingdom. Of eggs in the shell a few dozen came from Great Britain. But on the second egg item, broken eggs, here is what happened. This is a line of goods in which the British send us nearly 1,000.000 pounds of eggs, $120,000 worth. What did the government do with respect to that business? They raised the tariff. They did not want Great Britain to continue in that line of trade. They were scared. But on the very next item of eggs, in which the trade was not very heavy, only $4,000 of importations, the government reduced the tariff, making the British preferential rate 10 per cent instead of 15. That is exactly why I call these proposals bunk.
Take butter. But what is the use? Does Britain sell us butter? A few pounds came in, but who knows where it came from? Great Britain is a world trader, trading everywhere. What is more, we do not want butter from England any more than we want it from Australia or New Zealand.
The Budget-Mr. Chaplin

I come to the item, compressed yeast. The government is going to force that business over to England, I suppose. At present all the imports come from the United States. The Americans have yeast offices all over this country.
Take buckwheat, and beans. Beans are made free from England. There is a duty under the general and intermediate tariffs, and it is free under the British preference. Why? So that our people can buy beans grown all over the empire to bring in against the beans grown by our own people. That is not the kind of protection that I would like to see. We allow buckwheat and barley and corn-meal to come in free. That is on the second page of the resolutions, another bunk page, and the hon. gentleman need not ask me what bunk means either.
Now I come to oatmeal. We bought from Great Britain in 1929, 438 pounds of oatmeal. Of rye in the last four years our total importations from Great Britain have mounted to 106 bushels. Of rye flour we imported none from Great Britain and these are made free of duty.
The government is also allowing wheat to come in free from Great Britain. That is another bunk proposition. Here is the situation about wheat and wheat flour. We got
75.000	barrels of flour from the United States in 1929, and from Great Britain 134 barrels. The funny thing about it is that that flour came in free from Great Britain. Just imagine, Mr. Speaker, we put this on the free list! It was free before so far as Great Britain is concerned, and under a free tariff Great Britain sent us only 134 barrels against
75.000	barrels from the United States who are paying a fifty-cent tariff. If the Minister of Finance really wanted to cut off the trade from the United States and hand it over to Great Britain, he did not go the right way about it.
Let me summarize. There are 387 items in the old tariff printed in the Minister's proposals, 387 items in which no change is made in the American tariff. There is not one cent of change in them; they stand the same. There are 70 items upon which the tariff against the United States is increased, and 105 items on which the tariff against the United States is decreased. Now what is the way to get imports from a country? It is to decrease the tariff. That will bring imports. Now there are 105 items in the Minister's proposals, coming from the United States, on which there has been a decrease of tariff. My figures do not exactly agree with the minister's; I cannot make them gibe, but when we examine the items in detail we shall find out who is nearest correct.
	.


Mr. BEAUBIEN:: It is a low tariff budget then?


James Dew Chaplin: No, I am not saying that at all. The claim is made by the Minister of Finance that we are putting the Americans out of business in this country, that we are sending the trade that formerly went to the United States over to England. The way to bring that about, as I said before, was to have increased the tariff against American importations, to make it sure that the trade would go to England. I know perfectly well that so far as the articles I deal in are concerned-and it is enough for a person to be acquainted with his own line of business- the minister is wrong. I know he has been wrongly informed on many of the articles. I know it from experience, I do not need anyone to tell me. And I know we will con-tiue to trade with the United States in pretty much the same proportion as we are doing now.
Let us examine this thing a little further. If that proves to be true-and there are protected articles here, there is no doubt about that-if those articles are really protected, then Britain cannot sell them to us, so how is Britain going to increase her trade with us? If our steel mills are now well looked after so far as construction steel, ingots, and other things are concerned, how can the English mills come in here and get that trade? If these things are well protected here very few of them will be imported from Great Britain. That is what I said in the first place, that this government did not know the difference between a protective tariff and revenue tariff. I do not apply that remark to every member of the government, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Euler) knows the difference, and so does the other minister (Mr. Malcolm) who is in the manufacturing business:	but evidently they have been
chloroformed, they are not in the running in respect to this tariff.
Now Mr. Speaker, I have not yet begun to get through the list of what I call, and which are, " bunk " items covered by the British preference in this tariff. There is just as much bunk in these items as there was in the French treaty that I quoted. But let me continue with these items. After wheat and wheat flour comes rice-bran. Well, we got S62 worth in 1929, and in the nine months of the present fiscal year not a dollar. Macaroni and vermicelli have been made free; they enjoyed a 75 per hundred weight tariff before. Now, what is the object of putting these articles on the free list? We are making macaroni in this country-there are three macaroni plants in my district. Does the

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin
minister want to put these people out of business? Do the government intend to continue strafing the industries of Canada? Do they want to see a few more men out of jobs? Hay and straw comprise the next item; there is no use saying a word about it. Natural flowers; these are made free coming from Great Britain. Well now, should that item have been inserted? Are any natural flowers imported from the old country?


Mr. MANION:: They will be imported for the funeral of the government.


An hon. MEMBER:: You can bring them in by aeroplane.


James Dew Chaplin: I suppose you get lots
of them out in Winnipeg. Potatoes have been made free all round, but we have got the countervailing duty. In other words, Mr. Speaker, heretofore we have had a duty of this kind, but we always made the tariff ourselves, the rate of duty always appeared in our own tariff book. Now, the duty is not inserted at all. We have a government that is soared to put any duty in the tariff; it is going to let somebody else do that. When the commodity comes from the United States the United States authorities will make the tariff; if the goods come from some other place, their entry through the customs cannot be made until we know what the tariff of the other country is. Apparently we have not got enough nerve ourselves to legislate for our own people, we let somebody else make our tariff. I have no hesitation, Mr. Speaker, in saying that so far as potatoes or any other vegetables are concerned which we produce ourselves, I do not care where they come from, if they interfere with the products raised by our own people, while those native products are available in abundance, I say we should have a tariff to stop the importation of similar vegetables. If high-priced fruits and vegetables are imported out of season, there is all the more reason why there should be a duty on them because only the wealthy people can buy them, and they should pay for the privilege. The same remark applies to imported strawberries and other high-priced stuff. Onions are free from England or British colonies or British possessions. The tariff is 30 per cent on the general tariff which is the same old tariff; but the minister has done something more, he has put on a specific duty, which he says shall not be less than three quarters of a cent a pound.
That puts me in mind of one other matter that probably I can deal with before my time expires. The Minister of Finance says that he has made an orderly tariff. I wonder where we have heard that word before? I think it
has come from the west. I have heard the word out there. I have no doubt that when the minister made these proposals in the first place he had an idea that he could turn a certain amount of trade away from the United States to Great Britain. Let me quote his words about an orderly tariff. He said first:
When this revision is completed the Canadian customs tariff will consist of 1,188 items of which 589 will be free under the British preference.
It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, he paid more attention to the number of items than he did to the quality of the items, or what the items amounted to. That is one reason why I propose to show the falsity of many of the items. It would take me three hours to go through the full list, but if I had the time I could show on every page a bunch of stuff that is nothing more than junk. It has no right to be in the tariff so far as bringing any business to Great Britain is concerned. He says further:
The importance of this enlargement of the preference is indicated by the fact that Canada imported last year over two hundred million dollars worth of the commodities on which we are now increasing the British preference.
I do not deny that at all. But the minister is very careful not to say. "I predict that as a result of this extension of the British preference so many million dollars worth of goods will come from England." He could have done that had he put a proper tariff on American goods that would have ensured the import of similar goods from Great Britain. But he did not want to do it. Even the reductions that have been made have just been moderate, and the increases are about the same. As I pointed out a few minutes ago, there are 387 items that are not touched at all. Do you mean to say that the people who have been favoured with that business heretofore are going to lose it? Not on your life. I have met some steel people from the United States since this budget has been brought down, and they are not worrying. There may be two or three items that they cannot touch, but the minister knows that if he had increased the tariff on the articles that I am speaking about the goods would be made in this country, and it would only be necessary to see that the people favoured by the tariff did not exploit the domestic consumer.


Mr. JEAN FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to
speak after the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Chaplin). I have listened with rapt attention to the speech of the hon. gentleman and I must say that it was delivered with the energy
The Budget-Mr. Pouliot

of flaming youth. In his opening remarks he said that the government was falling into the footsteps of the Tory party. He was mistaken in that respect and also in the advice which he gave to the government. If such advice were followed the cost of living would be greatly increased.
I think this would be a proper occasion upon which to mention the eloquent speech delivered on Saturday by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett). I read the report of his speech as it appears in the press. His remarks are not new by any means and they are as follows:
*'Countervailing tariff meant" he proceeded, "that the Canadian tariff would be made at Washington." _ "So," Mr. Bennett went on, "You have this beautiful condition that when the President of the United States at Washington signs a tariff ruling, that will be the tariff in Canada."
I wish to make reference to a statement which appeared in the Montreal Star of May 3:
Most of lumber items put back on United States free list. Washington house members on tariff rate-slashing rampage.
The point is that most of the statements made by the leader of the opposition are reversible, and it would be nearer the truth to say that the American tariff was made in Ottawa rather than to say that the Canadian tariff was made in Washington. In answer to the statement of my hon. friend from Lincoln as to the policy of this government and as to the policy of the Tory party, it might be fitting to quote the definition of Liberalism which was given by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) at the meeting held on March 19, of the Twentieth Century Liberal Association of Canada: Freedom and Equality
Liberalism is above all else identified with freedom and equality. It seeks to destroy the strength of privilege and the restraints which privilege, for its own ends imposes on those who are not permitted to share its rights and enjoyments. You can see that the moment freedom begins to assert itself through its advocates in any given sphere or at any given time, immediately there will arise those who will seek to conserve for themselves, and for those who share their privileged position, the privileges and rights which are already theirs. They, in their turn, come to be known as Conservatives.
The Liberal attitude, in contrast to the Conservative, is based upon a belief in the general interest as being superior to any special interest, the supremacy of general interests over particular interests. It is based upon a belief in the subordination of class interests to the interests of the community. It implies that the good pf all is the good of each; that in our organized social life we are members one of another.
EMr. Poulint.l


Felix Patrick Quinn: Liberalism is dead, and it
is waiting for the undertaker.


Jean-François Pouliot: 
Felix Patrick Quinn: The hon. gentleman had
better go down and take a look at the bottom of the sea.


Jean-François Pouliot: I can see from my hon.
friend's remarks that there are good and bad Irishmen. When my hon. friends get old they can migrate from Nova Scotia to the west and enjoy the benefits of that act. However, I do not think they will have to go to that trouble; soon a Liberal government will be in power in Nova Scotia and will come under the provisions of that measure. The minister is responsible for several orders in council regarding contract 2419-126
labour and the forty-four hour week for Dominion government employees. This year he brought in bill No. 49, which I have advocated several times, with respect to fair wages and the eight-hour day for labour employed, by contract or otherwise, on Dominion public works. During the minister's tenure of office there have been approximately 160 disputes, any one of which might have been disastrous to the country; in all those disputes in which this department has been asked to assist, settlements have been made without loss of time, and the minister has intervened personally in many cases in order to prevent strikes.
2.	Then let us consider how industry is represented. Senator Dandurand, Minister of State, leader of the government in the Senate and a former president of the League of Nations, is a banker; he is president of the Montreal City and District Savings Bank and of several other important business concerns. The Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. King), is president of the King Lumber Mills Limited, of Cranbrook, British Columbia. Last year the amount of pensions paid to victims of the great war amounted to about 839,000,000, or $6,000,000 more than when he took charge of this department. This year he will bring in new legislation regarding pensions, based upon the unanimous recommendations of a parliamentary committee which has been working under the very able chairmanship of the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power). The very efficient Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Euler), has a most ungrateful task; he must collect the money. When he was appointed the total revenue from his department amounted to $361,891,072 -37; he reorganized his department into three branches, customs, excise and income tax, and last year he collected $400,091,784-40, or roughly $38,200,000 more than was collected four years ago. The minister is well known as a first class business man, and certainly deserves hearty congratulations.
Then we have the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm), a young manufacturer, who has done much for the expansion of Canadian trade in many ways. He has been very much interested in research and is responsible for the extent to which the National Research Council has continued and expanded its scholarships, assisted research programs and organized and developed new activities of the greatest importance. He has furthered the post graduate training of research workers, the coordination of research work, the organization of cooperative investigation, the prosecution of research work through assisted re-

19S6
The Budget-Mr. Pouliot

search grants and the establishment of national research laboratories. He has increased the efficiency of the commercial intelligence service; during the past eight years the number of offices has been increased by 50 per cent and the personnel by over 100 per cent. Due to the efficiency of this department, which was reorganized last year, our exports have become 28 times what they were in the year of confederation.
3.	Let us now consider how agriculture is represented. We have the genial Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell), who is a practical farmer and who was formerly Minister of Agriculture in Saskatchewan. He is very congenial and popular. The most important achievements of his department since he took office have been the winning of the fight against wheat rust on the prairies; the discovery of Garnet and Reward wheat, bred and developed jby Mr. Newman, Dominion Cerealist, which varieties of wheat mature from a week to ten days earlier than marquis wheat and which have extended the seed belt of this country one hundred miles to the north, opening up vast areas hitherto supposed to be useless for that kind of agriculture; the eradication of bovine tuberculosis and the inprove-ment in the Canadian hog. Canadian bacon has improved so very much in quality that Canada is eating very much more of it, and it compares favourably with the Danish article, which is supposed to be the best that reaches the market.
We also have the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart), a farmer and a former premier of Alberta who, as the Minister of the Interior, returned the natural resources of the western provinces and who, as acting Minister of Immigration, out out the assisted passage of immigrants, which step had been advocated for a long time throughout this country. The Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Crerar) was born and raised on a farm and was Minister of Agriculture in the Union government, resigning the year after the war. He was the leader of the Progressive party in the House of Commons until November, 1922, and has been president of the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association since 1907. Upon the appointment of the present Minister of Finance the Prime Minister called him to take over the portfolio of Railways and Canals. He is working on the consolidation of the debt of the Canadian National Railways; he is concerning himself with the Montreal terminal; this year he will inaugurate the Welland canal, which is a marvel of civil engineering, and the Hudson Bay railway. He is a fair-minded man and a hard worker,

although apparently he does his work in a very easy way.
The present Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) was vice-president of the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Asosciation and the organizer and general manager of the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevators. He is a practical business man. The Minister of Finance was born in England in 1885, and is not yet forty-five years old. This young immigrant, who came to Canada in 1902, was appointed provincial treasurer of Saskatchewan when only thirty-one years of age and became premier two years later. He resigned the premiership to come to Ottawa in the dark days of 1926, since when his varied experience, sound judgment and practical views have proved to be of invaluable assistance to the Liberal party, especially with regard to the building of the Hudson Bay railway and the Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver terminals, and the complete reorganization of the Canadian National Railways. Several times the minister has been offered positions in the business world at salaries ranging from $25,000 to $50,000 yearly, but with praiseworthy self denial he has refused these offers. Upon the death of the late Mr. Robb he was chosen Minister of Finance, and his first budget speech has proved the wisdom of that choice. It is the most fair to all, although the most technical budget, since confederation, thanks to the intelligent work of the tariff board, the wise recommendations of different members of the cabinet and many private members, and the clear vision of the new minister, who continues the splendid work of his predecessor in reducing' the debt of this country as well as the taxes.
I have mentioned the ministers who particularly represent industry, agriculture and labour in the cabinet which, however, includes also several other men of great ability. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe! attended the conference in London last fall on the operation of Dominion legislation and merchant shipping legislation, with regard to the disallowance of existing statutory provisions requiring reservation of Dominion legislation for the assent of His Majesty; the present position as to the competence of Dominion parliaments to give their legislation extraterritorial operation and also the repeal of the Colonial Laws Validity Act. No one, I am sure, can forget his able leadership as acting premier in the first months of the hectic session of 1926.
The Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Cardin) is a very modest man who always chooses to remain in the background, although he is one of the most eloquent plat-

The Budget-Mr. Pouliot
form speakers and parliamentary debaters. As Minister of Marine, he had a survey made of the Hudson bay and strait, sufficient to determine what aids and improvements were necessary to enable shipping to navigate the route with safety; hydrographic charts were made and wireless direction finding stations established; a new and powerful icebreaker is now nearing completion in Halifax for service in these waters. Increased activity in the deepening and widening of the river St. Lawrence ship channel between Montreal and the sea is forecast in the proposal for a very much enlarged appropriation now before parliament. Dams have been devised and are now under construction at the head of lake St. Peter with a view to retarding the flow of waters from above. Experiments are being made all the time with a view to keeping these waters free of ice for as long as possible in the spring and fall and to this end an additional icebreaking steamer was placed in commission last fall which helped materially in keeping the channel open. New harbour commissions have been established at various points, where rapid advancement is being made to provide adequate facilities. Efforts are being made towards the production of hydrographic charts of all navigable waters in Canada within as short a time as possible. A complete survey is also being made, as rapidly as possible, of all coastal waters for the determination of ocean currents as they may affect navigation. Persistent effort in recent years has resulted in a material modification of the differential in marine insurance against Canadian ports as compared with United States ports. The meteorological service and radio beacons newly established have proved to be a great help to navigation. In addition to these 161 principal lights, 58 gas and signal buoys and 12 fog alarms have been established within the past four years at various points throughout the country, all with a view to the betterment of navigation.
As Minister of Fisheries, he has done the very best to increase the fisheries production and went personally last year to the maritime provinces in that connection. The marketing value of the fisheries had increased considerably during recent years. I am sorry that the time at my disposal does not permit the opportunity to give more details in this respect but this branch has grown up to such an extent that the government has decided to establish a separate ministry of fisheries.
The Minister of Public Works (Mr. Elliott) comes from an old Liberal family of Ontario. As Minister of Public Works, he is the guardian and has to look after the building, 2419-126s
maintenance and upkeep of the houses of parliament and of all the Dominion public buildings throughout this country. He is a very active man. The growth and progress of the country and the following expansion and development of several departments necessitated the erection of the new Confederation buildings, of which he is justly proud.
The Postmaster General (Mr. Yeniot), formerly collector of customs and afterwards premier of New Brunswick, inaugurated the penny postage in this country and extended the same to the British Empire, reduced postage rates between Canada and France and also South America. When he took office, the postage on a parcel of 11 pounds from Canada to South America was $2.75, the same rate as a 20 pound parcel from the United States to South America. Due to his efforts the rates are now the same, which means a great advantage to trade by providing facilities to Canadian merchants to send samples to South American customers at cheaper rates. He is the father of the air mail service in this country.
The Solicitor General (Mr. Cannon) is a barrister of note. In England the Solicitor General receives a salary of about $20,000, besides his fees in each case, twice as much as that of the Canadian Solicitor General. In Canada, the Solicitor General receives no fees when he argues a case on behalf of the government and I am glad to say that the Solicitor General has been successful in most of the important cases which he has argued before the Supreme Court of Canada and the Privy Council. The last case that he has won before the supreme court was that of the Sun Life, in which case the decision of the superintendent of insurance, Mr. Finlay-son, was supported by the exchequer and supreme courts. I wish to pay that tribute to that honest civil servant who was not impressed by dealing with a big company.
The Secretary of State (Mr. Rinfret), a journalist and a former member of the press gallery settled last year a long pending question-the war claims. He was well fitted for such a settlement because he is such a kind, amiable and peaceful citizen. He is presenting legislation to amend the company law in order to fit it to modern exigencies. He increased, in 1927, the salaries of the civil service by $3,000,000, and now he is considering the Beatty report on technicians. Before he reaches a decision I would humbly suggest to him to give a flat increase of $10 per month to everyone in the civil service and to
The Budget-Mr. Pouliot

fix a minimum salary of S100 per month for civil servants, who work exclusively for the Dominion government.
The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) went to France on February 10, 1917, and served continuously until the armistice in 1918. He is one of the best debaters in the House of Commons. During his tenure of office, Canada, by actual administration and development, has made a greater and more varied use of aviation than any country in the world. The air services have been reorganized. The station at Camp Borden provides training for officers and airmen. In the prairie provinces where forest fire protection patrols are operated, the stations are all linked up by wireless, so that communication between aircraft and ground stations is maintained during flight. In addition eight photographic detachments operate in various parts of the country taking air photographs for mapping purposes. The work of the civil government air operations also includes exploration and surveys, transportation of men and supplies for survey parties, Indian treaty flights, crop and forest dusting, fishery patrols, airmail investigation, et cetera. This branch, in conjunction with the Department of Marine and Fisheries, was responsibile for carrying out the survey and observation on ice conditions in the Hudson strait. Besides that, there is the excellent work done by the civil aviation branch and the aeronautical engineering branch. With regard to empire communication, the R-100 is about completed and expected to make an initial flight to Canada shortly and, to use the minister's own words: "We hope that the experiment in closer communication between our British brothers and ourselves will be crowned with success." The minister proved to be a very distinguished representative of Canada at the last naval parley on the limitation of armaments at St. James palace and the fact that our Minister of National Defence advocates peace is a great credit to the government.
As Secretary of State for External Affairs, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has attended several imperial conferences in London where his advice was often sought. He also signed in Paris last year the Kellogg pact for peace.
These are the men who have assisted the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) in the careful preparation of the budget which has been presented this year, and, to paraphrase the words of Sir Herbert Holt, they aave formulated and executed effective meastMr. Pouliot.]
ures for the maintenance of that equilibrium which will ensure state prosperity.
I am not in favour of high protection, nor am I in favour of free trade; I think a moderate protective policy is the wisest, and that is what this government advocates. The present budget essentially is a technical one, and that is the reason why some of the hon. members on the other side of the house do not understand it. On June 12 of last year the hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) said that the tariff board was "a glorified commission to enable the minister to escape responsibility." When he made that statement he did not know the kind of budget which would be presented this year. At that time the government were working on the preparation of this budget, but it would have been impossible to draw up such a budget without the assistance of everyone who was in a position to obtain reliable and complete information from the people, who are the ones interested in this matter. Tribute is due to the tariff board for the amount of information they have supplied to the government. The present budget is not one which gives benefit to certain sections of the country; it is a budget for the whole of Canada and everyone will receive benefits. Even those hon. members who speak against it because they do not understand it will receive benefits as well as all other citizens of this country. Last year we had hon. gentlemen speaking of a "wait and see" policy. We have waited and now we can all see. I believe the result is satisfactory. I am frank enough to say that I do not approve all the appointments that are made by the government ; sometimes I think they could have been better, but we must consider the general policy of the government which is very satisfactory. I trust the present leaders of the Liberal party in this house, because it is the real Liberal party. The leaders that we have here are sound and able.


Peter McGibbon: What about Quebec?


Jean-François Pouliot: In Quebec they might call themselves Liberals, but my hon. friend will remember that last year when I asked hon. gentlemen oposite who was the greatest man in the Tory party, he himself said: "Tasch-ereau." So my hon. friend has the same views as I have with regard to his qualifications. I am glad to support the general policy of this government, although it is not perfect. No one can expect to find anything perfect in this world, but the government is the nearest approach to perfection.

The Budget-Mr. McGibbon


Peter McGibbon: Mr. Speaker, in rising to continue
the debate on the budget I should like first to offer my congratulations to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) on his restoration to health. I am sure most of us who knew of the very serious illness he had last summer were more than glad to see him take his place in the House of Commons this session. Coupled with that I feel it is my duty as a member of parliament to voice my protest at the minister's continued absence from the house. Since coming into parliament in 1917 one thing that has impressed me has been the continued attention ministers of finance have paid to all suggestions coming from any quarter of the house. I remember Sir Thomas White, the Hon. A. K. Maclean, later on Mr. Fielding and Mr. Robb, who were practically always in the house when their budgets were being discussed, trying to get what information they could and gave it that courteous attention which suggestions from any part of the house should receive.
Speaking as a Conservative, I think the Conservative party have had paid to them in this budget one of the greatest compliments that has ever been paid to any party in any legislative hall in the world. For fifty years we have been advocating a policy of adequate protection for industry, the farmers, the labouring men and the consumers. During all that time we have been met with policies that have varied almost with the seasons and that have been discarded almost as often as the birds discard their nests. We had hon. gentlemen advocate unrestricted reciprocity under the treaty of 1911, free trade as they had it in England and, last but not least, the platform of 1919. AH of these were more or less of one nature; that is, they bordered upon free trade. It is true that during the election of 1921 the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) disregarded his platform and said that he had a "chart." I suppose we have the fruits of that navigation to-day when in this budget the Prime Minister has practically discarded all the past and has come out for a policy of protection. We are told in history that prophets have been stoned by their lineal descendants. While it may be true that the present Minister of Finance has not stoned all the ministers of finance and lieutenants of the party of the past, he certainly has built their sepulchres and has cremated their policies into ashes.
But you cannot steal other people's brains successfully, and this budget has failed because hon. gentlemen opposite have not the skill, the experience, the ability and the courage to enforce it properly.	We who
have been forced to make our living by practising surgery have at times been compelled to ask our clients to undergo severe operations.	When we see the stage of
dissolution appearing, when we see their strength fading, we sometimes have to ask them to give us greater liberty to take some risk of their lives. Sometimes it is necessary to cut deep into the vital organs to remove some dangerous growth. At other times we have to transfuse into their arteries lifegiving fluid in order to prolong their lives. In this budget it seems to me that the Minister of Finance has been attempting to transfuse into the old sclerotic arteries of the Liberal party some of the life-giving fluid of the protectionist doctrine which this party has advocated for many years gone by. But he has failed because he lacks the skill, the technique and-and this is the greatest cause of all-because he lacks the courage to do the thing properly.
On one occasion Disraeli, criticising the government of the day, stated that there were three courses open to it: the course they had left, the course they had pursued, and the course they ought to have pursued. I want for a moment or two to view the actions of the government somewhat in that fashion. I will not say much about the course which they have left except that what they have done is a confession that for thirty or forty years they have been preaching false doctrines to the people of Canada and at last they have been converted. It may be a deathbed conversion, as we think it is; and in that case I should like to remind them' that sacred history records only one successful deathbed repentance, that of the thief on the cross. So much for what they have left.
Forgetting for the moment the intermediate course, I want to ask them what they should have done. The answer has been given in the language of my leader when in his speech in the house the other day he said that it was their duty to vacate their seats and give place to Canadians who would produce a Canadian policy for the Canadian people. That is what I conceive was their duty. In place of that we have, as has been pointed out this afternoon and in days gone by, a policy that has its genesis in the city of Washington and that is written by the president of the United States. Sir, we object to that. We think that the policy of this country should be written by Canadians. As far as that limited part of the budget is concerned, all that the finance minister

The Budget-Mr.'McGibbon
has succeeded in doing has been to move the American eagle from Washington to the 49th parallel of latitude, and there he flaps his wings, stretching from the frozen sea of the Arctic to the torrid gulf of Mexico. We on this side of the house object to policies of that kind. We believe in a policy that will start the wheels of industry in this country rolling, that will give the farmer greater remuneration for his toil, that will bring to the home of the labouring man greater comforts and a better standard of living.
If I had to discuss this budget from only one or two standpoints, I would say first that it is a budget of hypocrisy. Second it is a budget of camouflage. It is a budget of hypocrisy because we have in it the great recantation not only of the government but of the whole Liberal party in the house. I must say that the Minister of Finance has a lot of courage when he asks the whole Liberal party to turn their backs on the past and put their heads upon the executioner's block, for that is what it means for many of that party at the next election. When I look back over their history and recall many of their expressions in this house and their protestations throughout the country, as well as their past policies, I am not altogether surprised. Those of us who have been in this house for some years have seen them steadily year after year steal from the Conservative party those principles which we by an educational process have made popular in this country. We have seen them steal the credit for the national railways, although you, Mr. Speaker, will remember that we had to sit nearly all night in the old museum and almost hold a pistol at the heads of hon. gentlemen opposite in order to carry the legislation through making what are now the national railways the property of the people of Canada. Some hon. gentlemen will remember that this country very nearly lost the national railways. There was a plan, and a deep laid plan at that, to retain for the shareholders the Grand Trunk Pacific proper, which was the paying part of the road, and leave upon the hands of the people those white elephants which were fast bringing this country-I was almost going to say into bankruptcy, but at all events were heaping up great deficits. I was told at the time by one of the ablest lawyers in the house that that plan would have come very near to succeeding had they not forgotten one thing, and that was the War Measures Act had not been repealed. It was still in existence, and I was told at the time that it was stretched to the

very limit in order that the country might get possession of the national railways. Now, that the national railways have become successful and are more or less paying the interest on the debt to the public at large, we see that they are taken like a foundling to the bosom of the government who now claim the system as their own child.
We have also seen the government in the Duncan report incorporate a large part of the policies upon which we went to the country in 1925, and we do not hear anybody giving the Conservative party credit for those policies. It is to the Conservative party that credit is due. And now in this budget we have an attempt to steal some part of the Conservatives' protectionist policy. It is true that they have not done it successfully, because, as I said a moment ago, one party cannot steal another party's brains, and the genuine article will always outshine the counterfeit.
I want for a moment to recall some of the statements that have been made in this house by members of the government and of the party opposite. In Hansard of February 24, 1927, I find the present Minister of Finance uttering the following:
That is the fault I have to find, and that is the distinction I draw between our attitude on this side of the house and the attitude of hon. gentlemen opposite. Why, we had a plea for the onion growers. There are three hundred of them in Canada, and my hon. friends opposite want to tax all the people of the Dominion for the benefit of those three hundred onion growers.
And yet, sir, what do we find in this budget? We find this same minister who uttered these words bringing down a budget putting a duty of 45 cents a bushel on onions. Was there ever a greater exhibition of hypocrisy than that? Further on in the same speech, the present Minister of Finance said:
Had the Conservative party been in power to-day and honestly carried out what they led the people of Canada to believe is their policy, we would have a tariff as high as the tariff now existing in the United States.
" Brick for brick." He was ridiculing such a policy in 1927, and in 1930 he puts that policy which he ridicules upon the statute books of this country. Further, in the same address he said:
We are between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Mr. Manion:	Which is the devil?
Mr. Dunning:	Well, if I have to define the
term, I am afraid I shall have to say that the Tories are.
I was reading the other day in the Winnipeg Free Press something that possibly ex-

The Budget-Mr. McGibbon
plains that attitude. The Winnipeg Free Press says:
In some of his western speeches Mr. King is reported to have said that the Progressives were "in the nature of outlaws in parliament," and that they "are simply helping to make the west ridiculous."
I suppose, sir, that that is the reason why the Minister of Finance has turned from the deep sea to the devil of the Tory party,
I have also here some of the statements that have been made in the past by the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart), who, this afternoon, in a sort of jocular way, amused the house by his address. We all remember his famous statement about the " death knell of protection." He was quite willing to be its executioner. I see my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) in his seat. Looking through Hansard I find him designating protection as " bunk." Possibly he might translate that classic word for the benefit of his followers who were so anxious to get at its meaning this afternoon.
Let me also quote some words uttered by the deputy speaker. He used this classical language in the days when we were in the old museum:
I believe that the trouble that exists to-day can be directly traced to the protective tariff that obtains at the present time.
Then, sir, listen to this expression of opinion. The hon. gentleman was then opposing a sales tax of 3 per cent; he afterwards supported one of 6 per cent. On May 18, 1921, he said:
You cannot expect to have the perfume of roses while you have a polecat under the table.
As I say, we had at that time a sales tax of 3 per cent. I wonder how many polecats are under the table to-day.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who said that?


Peter McGibbon: The deputy speaker. Let me complete the quotation:
Neither can you expect to have fair methods of taxation imposed by a government whose policy is dictated by and wholly in the interests of the big interests of the country.
Then, sir, I have one more quotation which is of some significance considering that we have behind the ministery a fair number of so-called Liberal Progressives. I do not know whether they are Progressives or not, but the only thing that to my mind qualified them as Liberals in the past was that they seemed to be willing to give away their country and their policy and everything else to retain office. The then member for Last Mountain (Mr. Johnston) had this to say:
I may say that in 1916, shortly after this policy-
That is, the farmers' platform.
[DOT]-had been adopted by the Canadian Council of Agriculture, every candidate in the federal field in Saskatchewan was circularized by the secretary of the grain growers' association there and asked whether, if elected, he would be prepared to support the policy as laid down by the Canadian Council of Agriculture.
That, Mr. Speaker, was practically a policy of free trade. To remove any doubts on the point, let me quote the platform, which, I take it, in the past was supported by all those hon. members sitting to your right, sir, who now are supporting this protectionist budget. This farmers' platform was drafted and issued by the Canadian Council of Agriculture at Winnipeg on November 29, 1918:
A.	-By an immediate and substantial allaround reduction in the customs tariff.
I wonder if our friends opposite are getting it in this budget.
B.	-By reducing the customs duty on goods imported from Great Britain to one-half the rates charged under the general tariff, and that further gradual, uniform reductions be made in the remaining tariff on British imports that will ensure complete free trade between Great Britain and Canada in five years.
I wonder, sir, if they are still supporting that plank.
C.	-By endeavouring to secure unrestricted reciprocal trade in natural products with the United States along the lines of the reciprocity agreement of 1911.
I wonder if there are any men in the west to-day who, even if they got the chance, would accept that policy and submit the farmers of this country to the tender mercies of the great trusts of Chicago and other centres in the United States. I venture to say that if a vote was taken not one of them would stand up in favour of it. Here is another plank of the farmers' program:
D.	-By placing all foodstuffs on its free list.
Here is another plank:
E.	-That agricultural implements, farm and household machinery, vehicles, fertilizers, coal, lumber, cement, gasoline, illuminating fuel and lubricating oil be placed on the free list and that all raw materials and machinery used in their manufacture also be placed on the free list.
Now, sir, if we placed everything from Great Britain on the free list and were getting everything from the United States that was to have been given to us in 1911, we would have the pure free trade policy, that, I take it, everyone of these so-called Liberal Progressives pledged themselves to support in the past. In view of this, is not the Minister of Finance putting a severe strain on their free trade faith when he asks them to come out and support his protectionist budget? It

The Budget-Mr. McGibbon
will be interesting to watch the member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown), the member for Wey-burn (Mr. Young) and other hon. gentlemen opposite, whose voices were raised heavenward in the past for free trade, and see how they will take this budget. We will watch their course of action with considerable interest. Then there is my good friend the Minister of Railways (Mr. Crerar) whom I must not forget. I must say that I think he has a very pleasant personality. I supported him once-I hope I may never do it again. I feel like apologizing for that one vote I cast to keep the hon. member in power. We watched him come into office and followed his career there.
I should like to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, as I did at the beginning of this address, to the absolute indifference of the members of this government to getting their budget throught the house. It makes me think that they really do not want it accepted, that it is simply a budget of distress. Well, we shall see before the debate ends. On the government side at the present moment we have the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell), the member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Millar) and three other private members, while on this side we have a pretty fair representation of members who still have the interests of the country at heart and want to do something for Canada.
Now, sir, in order t-o make my record complete I desire to place on Hansard the letter to Sir Robert Borden containing the resignation of the hon. Minister of Railways. It was read to the house the other day by my leader, but I desire again to quote it. The letter was dated June 4, 1919:
The government, in its consideration of the budget to be placed before parliament tomorrow, has reached, I take it, definite and final conclusions as to the form it will take. As you are aware, I am not in accord -with it and therefore cannot support it, either in the house or in the country. Having reached this decision, there is only one course for me to follow, and I therefore tender you herewith my resignation as a member of the government. The reason for my decision shall be given more fully when the subject is under discussion in the house.
That, as I say, was written on the 4th day of June. On the following day the budget was introduced. The Minister of Agriculture admits that he knew it was to be a protectionist budget. There is a significance there, sir, that I shall draw to the attention of this house and of the country before I con-eiude. May I call it six o'clock?
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Peter McGibbon: Before the house rose
at six o'clock I was pointing out the inconsistencies of the actions and policies of government members. I had brought to the attention of the house the fact that they had recanted on everything which they had advocated in the past and that they had purloined at least in part the policy of the Conservative party. Before the recess I had put on Hansard some statements made by different ministers of the crown and by Mr. Deputy Speaker. I had pointed out that in the past these hon. gentlemen had expressed opinions contrary to the policy outlined in the budget which is now before the house. Directly before the adjournment I was dealing with statements made by the present Minister of Railways (Mr. Crerar). I had read his objection to the budget of Sir Thomas White in 1919, and the objection of the hon. gentleman at that time was that it was a protectionist budget. At this time I wish to put on Hansard a few more statements made by the Minister of Railways as they are reported in Hansard of 1919, page 3329:
When I joined the government I made it perfectly clear that I had not surrendered or given up any of the principles that I believed in and as to which I had endeavoured, in my small way, to educate this country prior to that event.
I shall also put on Hansard a record of what those principles were. For the edification of this house and of the country I have read the platform of the Canadian Council of Agriculture. I would like to call to the attention of the house the action of the present Speaker of the house when in 1918 he asked the present Minister of Railways what he thought of that platform. At that time he rose in his place and said that he thought it was a good platform when it was adopted and that it was still good. If the hon. gentleman were in his place to-night I would ask him if he still held that view and if so what right he has to sit in tjie present government after the introduction of the present budget. On page 927 of Hansard, 1919, (second session) the present Minister of Railways is quoted as follows:
To me as a westerner and as a man who believed profoundly in reciprocity with the United States, and believes in it yet, the discussion has been decidedly interesting.
At page 2909 of Hansard of 1920 we have this statement from the present Minister of Railways:
If my hon. friends want a moderate tariff for revenue only, and if the government desire
/Mr McGibbon.]

The Budget-Mr. McGibbon
to wipe out special privilege ,in this direction, why did they not start on the tariff schedule in respect to cotton goods when arranging their budget? On the contrary, these cotton duties are maintained. And the same condition applies not only to the textile industry, but to many other industries as well.
If his objections were well founded at that time they are equally well founded to-day, because the same duties on textiles are maintained. At a later time when cross questioned by the then Minister of the Interior, Mr. Meighen, he said:
I -want to know what are the views of my hon. friend opposite on this question. I would like the Minister of the Interior, in his next speech, or the Minister of Immigration and Colonization, to state his views as to what duties should prevail on, say, agricultural implements, on textiles, and on iron and coal.
At that time the hon. minister was deriding the duties upon iron, coal, cottons and woollens; yet to-day he joins the government in bringing in a tariff which is doubling the duty on iron and coal. At a later time the hon. gentleman makes this statement:
I make the statement in all seriousness that the protective tariff has been the greatest agency for exploiting our people that was ever devised.
I wonder if he holds to-night the same opinion about the protective tariff; if he does I wonder what right he has to sit in this government. Then, again, on March 14, 1922, at page 55 of Hansard he expressed himself thus:
There are some changes forecast in the customs tariff .... I hope it forecasts a revision of duties downwards. I cannot conceive for a moment that the government would think of revising the tariff upwards. I hope that will not be done.
These are only a few of the many statements of the hon. gentlemen opposite wherein they expressed themselves in opposition to the principle of the tariff and budget which they have brought down this session and have asked parliament to adopt. Then in Hansard of March 4, 1920, we find the following at page 148:
What is the purpose of a tariff? It is designed to benefit a particular section of the people, it operates in no other -way, and consequently the operation of this protective system in our fiscal policy, which has obtained largely for the last forty years, has conferred upon a special class a privilege that in my judgment is not compatible with a true democracy. And I would point out to my hon. friend from Brantford and to other hon. gentlemen also who believe in a protective tariff, that protection is nothing more or less than a type of state socialism.
These are the opinions of the present Minister of Railways. I could multiply the quotations if time permitted, but I must hurry on.
For a minute or two I wish to deal with statements made by the Acting Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Crerar) who has held himself out to be the friend of the farmers in this country. I find that the hon. gentleman was sworn in on October 12, 1917, as Minister of Agriculture, and his very first act as a minister of the crown was to pass an order in council permitting -the manufacture of oleomargarine. Some hon. gentlemen opposite were anxious the other night to find out something about this, and I wonder why they did not direct their attention to the present Minister of Railways. He was the man who put that into force in this country. Not only that but his next act on behalf of the farmers was to buy all the screenings from the elevators at the head of the lakes. These screenings had been sold at an average price of $8 for some six years previously; the hon. gentleman bought them and sold them to the farmers at $35 a ton. There was a loss to the government of Canada of something like $96,000; that is an instance of the manner in which he looked after the interests of the farmers of Canada. Let us go a little further. He also permitted them, by an order in council which cancelled certain regulations, to mix with the foodstuffs of this country certain seeds from the west. The analyses of these seeds, which have been placed upon the records of this house, show a large percentage -of poisonous seeds which were detrimental to the health of the live stock of Canada.
What else do we find? In 1918, I believe it was, he confiscated all the butter in this country except that which was held by those who were manufacturing oleomargarine. Of course he could not touch the vested interests, but he could confiscate all the butter belonging to the farmers of Canada, while he protected his pets whom he had allowed to make oleomargarine with which the}- mixed the butter of the farmers so that it lost its identity.
Then there is another point to which I should like to direct attention. Before six o'clock I mentioned the fact that the hon. gentleman resigned the day before the budget was delivered, and by that budget the duty on agricultural implements was lowered in several instances. At that time the minister's company was in the implement business, and before the commission investigating the high cost of living his secretary. Rice Jones, stated that the company had not lost a dollar because their goods were in bond in Winnipeg. I should like to know where they got that

The Budget-Mr. McGibbon
information as to what took place in the cabinet council, information supposed to be kept secret?
Now, sir, I must hurry on because I have only a few minutes left. I should like to touch on the connection of the hon. gentleman with the Home bank, of which the minister was a director from about 1908 or 1910 until after he joined the government in 1918. From information which came to him as a director of that bank he knew as early as 1916 that the capital and the reserves of the bank had been wiped out, and that since 1916 they had not been earning their dividends. From 1916 to 1923 that bank did not earn its dividends; the capital and the reserves were gone; the stock was worthless, yet the minister sat around the council board of that institution and not only voted himself dividends but paid those dividends out of the money of the depositors, of whom I have 1,800 in my constituency. I claim that their savings were taken illegally to pay the interest on the stock, and the minister was one of the directors. It is true that be brought the matter to the attention of the then Minister of Finance, but, sir, I believe that if he had done as he should he would have used his position as director to force one of the other banking institutions to take over that company at that time. Had that been done at least the depositors would not have lost their money because, as you know, there is a double . liability provision and since then the auditors have told us that the amount raised in that way would have covered the amount of the deposits. That was not done. His company had S100.000 in the stock of that bank; he had some $6,000 or $7,000 worth of that stock and other members of his company had invested $4,000 or $5,000. Had he forced action not only would they have lost the money they put in; they would have had to go down into their pockets and pay out as much more money to protect the depositors. What did they do? They just sat around the council board and voted themselves money, which the depositors lost.


John Frederick Johnston: Order; the hon. gentleman's time is up.


Peter McGibbon: One further word and
I am through. Not only that, but they sold their stock at one hundred cents on the dollar when, according to the report of the auditors, it was not worth anything. That is the position I feel bound to bring before parliament, because in my constituency I have 1,800 people who have been robbed in this way.


Mr. F. W. PERRAS (Wright):: Mr. Speaker, I am decidedly happy to have the opportunity of expressing to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) my heartiest congratulations on the budget which he has presented to the house and which reflects in an accurate manner the progress of Canada on both economic and national lines. This, his first budget, gives to the Canadian people further reasons why they should be confident in the future of this great country.
May I associate myself with those who have spoken of the matter previously in saying how deeply the people of this country regret the passing of the former Minister of Finance, but I must say that we are very fortunate in having to succeed him a man with the ability of the present Minister of Finance. For many years Canada has been particularly fortunate in having as ministers of finance men of outstanding ability, and now that the voice of the people is to 'be heard shortly it is a source of gratification to those who sit to the right of you, Mr. Speaker, to know that the administration of Canada's finances is in the hands of such a worthy successor to Fielding and Robb.
From the reports which are pouring in from the four corners of Canada and from the expressions of opinion heard on all sides the present budget has been received with the greatest of pleasure and satisfaction by the vast majority of the Canadian people, and only those few whose unfortunate duty it is always to criticize will endeavour, against their own convictions, to argue to the contrary. Indeed, Canada has reason to be proud of the administration of its national affairs at the hands of the present government. Every budget since 1921 has revealed an increasing state of prosperity within our borders, a yearly reduction of the national debt, a decrease in direct taxation and an improvement in the affairs of our national railways. Every budget has shown the possibility of redeeming outstanding obligations to the extent of millions of dollars with reduced taxation, and every year we have seen increases in surpluses. Every budget has shown that Canada has emerged from the great crisis which followed the war with renewed vigour and in a better position to continue its triumphant march towards progress. There has been a reduction of over $258,000,000 in the national debt in the last four years, with a reduction of over $120,000,000 in the income tax, yet the surpluses have shown increases amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Truly the administration of Canada's finances is in the hands of men worthy of the confidence of the Canadian nation.

The Budget-Mr. Perras
During those four years Canada's national status has grown along much broader lines; Canada has at last really found its place amongst the nations of the world and is that leading star in what it pleased Sir Wilfrid Lau-rier to call the British Empire, a galaxy of nations. The establishment of legations in the United States, in France and in Japan and the establishment of legations by those countries in Canada, constitute a tangible and concrete evidence of Canada's unparalleled development.
Canada's stand at the league of nations; Canada's representation at the latest world's conference in London, so ably headed by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston), is another tangible proof that Canada's word is heard and listened to in the council of the great nations. Canadians may well feel proud that under the able administration of the present government Canada's interests have been well advanced.
In the four great basic industries of Canadian national existence, marked progress has also been felt. The mining industry has developed in proportions beyond expectation; in the last year we find the exports from that industry to be $30,000,000 ahead of those of the preceding year. Only an infinitesimal portion of our great mining resources has been tapped, and as time goes on, and so long as the mining industry is looked after with the care and attention which it has received at the hands of the present government, Canadians may feel sure that in the production of ore, precious minerals and minerals of all kinds, Canada will continue to make progress.
The development of our fisheries has, under the present administration, received such an impetus that it is now found desirable and necessary to place the fisheries under the care of a separate minister, and the government is to be congratulated upon having decided upon that policy so that that industry on our Pacific coast so flourishing and the Atlantic seaboard, known to the world, shall receive the care and attention to which they are so well entitled.
The products of our vast forests have increased by leaps and bounds; our lumber is marketed the world over, and the production of pulp and of pulpwood has in the last few years increased to over $300,000,000. But especially in agriculture has the progress been marked, and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) is to be congratulated for the wonderful success which that branch of our natural resources has attained. Speaking for the county which it is my privilege to represent, the county of Wright, I feel that what
has been done in this connection has been well done, and that the great basic industry of agriculture has been well taken care of.
The legislation for which the present administration has been responsible was conceived for the purpose of assuring to that most important portion of our population the safeguard which it so well deserves. It is an indisputable fact that the majority of the working population, the one that produces the most effective results, is that which comprises the agricultural classes, and it is only proper that their interests should be adequately looked after.
It is a source of gratification to a vast proportion of the Canadian people that this year's budget benefits to a considerable extent those who most need such measures. Amongst the many improvements which it contains the foremost one affects one of the primary commodities of everyday life; I refer to the abolition of the tax on tea produced in British dominions. Already, in this city and the neighbouring districts tea has decreased in price by some ten or fifteen cents per pound. The housewives the Dominion over and those whose duty and obligation it is to look after the welfare of the family will now feel that because of the wisdom of this administration a considerable burden of taxation has been removed.
Those who for years have paid income tax will find additional relief to that provided by last year's budget in that further exemptions have been granted with respect to dependents. This administration is to be congratulated upon having extended the exemption to parents and grandparents whose existence is dependent upon the head of the household.
I wish further to say that the Canadian people will be benefited because the finance minister has been able to reduce taxation and at the same time reduce by one half the sales tax. It only goes to show how much can be accomplished in the way of tax reduction by an administration that knows equally well how to administer in a business like manner the national affairs. I wish to lay stress upon the manner in which the Minister of Finance has been able to deal with the British preference. It was the doctrine of that great Canadian statesman, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, that England should have a preference in tariff matters in so far as Canadian trade is concerned-that is, that England should be allowed to dispose in Canada of its goods under a lesser tariff than that applicable to foreign nations-and that it was only proper that the mother country should deal with its grown-up children in the same way.
The Budget-^Mr. Penas

I am confident that the whole of the Canadian nation is proud of the fact that greater facilities are now being afforded, not only to Great Britain but to all portions of the empire, to deal with Canada by way of imports in a manner which will be conducive not only to the better interests of Canada but at the same time to greater facility of trade on Canada^ part with the other portions of the empire.
I have learned with satisfaction that it is the intention of the present adininistration to acquire in my county a large tract of land for a national park. I have said it before, and I know that I am upon solid ground when I state that there is no portion of Canada which in natural beauty and picturesqueness can compare with that part of the Gatineau valley which is the county of Wright and which it is my privilege to represent in this house. I understand that it is the intention to set out in the southern or northern portion of that county a large tract of land for the preservation of game, fish and birds, without in any way interfering with the rights of the holders of the land. That is a project which is well worthy of the forethought of this administration and its desire to promote the conservation of wild life.
There are many other matters, Mr. Speaker, that might be spoken of at this moment; there are many other things that might be said to emphasize the fact that the present administration has had at heart the welfare of the Canadian individual without at the same time losing sight of its desire to foster in every possible manner the development of the national domain. Many other subjects could be touched upon which would reflect upon the wisdom of this administration, but in the near future the great popular voice of the Canadian electorate will be asked to show its appreciation of what this government has accomplished in the last four years, and I am sure that the Canadiafi nation, desiring to march continuously onward in the path of that wonderful progress which has marked its advancement during that time, will on that occasion express in an unmistakable way its appreciation of and its entire confidence in the present administration.


Mr. H. J. BARBER (Fraser Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I cannot follow the last speaker (Mr. Perras) and take up the several arguments that he has advanced in an attempt to show why the present government should be retained in office. He has spoken of the general prosperity of Canada and I think I am quite safe in saying that no matter what government we have in power we cannot keep this country

back, but under a government with a fiscal policy more in the interest of Canada our country would have made greater advances than it has done during the last five years.
As regards the budget, let me say in the words of the amendment that I welcome and approve of every measure that will afford to Canadian agriculture, industry and labour an equal opportunity and fair competition in the development of the rich and varied natural resources of the Dominion. I do not intend to-night to deal with the financial portion of the budget. That has been very ably dealt with by my leader. Others have discussed the British preference and still another hon. member on this side has very thoroughly dealt with the budget from the standpoint of industry. My intention to-night is to touch upon a few matters concerning one industry that the last speaker mentioned, namely, that of agriculture and, in particular, those branches of it in which the people in my constituency in British Columbia are particularly interested.
This budget contains certain measures designed to relieve the agricultural industry. For years certain branches of it have pleaded for protection and session after session the party to your left, Mr. Speaker, have demanded protection. Now at the eleventh hour, on the very eve of a general election, the government have right-about-faced and tendered certain relief. Speaking as one interested in the small fruit industry, I lam bound to say that in these measures of relief there lurks a great danger. The fruit and vegetable branch have for years sought relief from the dumping of foreign produce on the Canadian market in competition with our own good Canadian product. The remedy given in the budget is an increase in the general tariff to apply for the twelve months of the year. This application is the very opposite of what was requested by the producer. Under the new law the highest duty will be collected at that season of the year when we have no product to market and the lowest duty will be collected when our own product is available. I want it thoroughly understood that it is not the wish of the fruit and vegetable growers to penalize the consumer by high duties when their product is not ready for the market, but they want the Canadian consumer to buy their Canadian product when it is available instead of the dumped foreign article.
I should like to spend a few minutes in referring to the record of the present government in regard to this industry. In 1926 the Conservative government came to the relief of these growers by the imposition of a dump-

The Bridget-Mr. Barber
ing duty which remained in force for the season of 1927. Under this law the producers benefited and the consumers suffered no hardship. It was working out very satisfactorily when early in 1928 the government removed this protection by order in council. The question is: Why did they remove it? Simply because strong pressure was brought to bear from the free trade section of the Liberal party headed by the so-called consumers' league. I feel sure this particular body has not changed its views in regard to protection; at least we know it had not changed when the application of this industry was before the tariff board, because it opposed that application very strenuously. Nevertheless, the consumers' league has not raised a voice in protest during the present debate. What has happened? Has some kind of truce been declared or agreement entered into between this government and this group? Is it possible that the consumers' league has agreed to permit the government to grant these increases in tariff with the understanding that after the election they will be reconsidered and possibly removed? If this be the case, all I have to say is that the consumers' league is taking big chances, because I do not think the present government will ever have an opportunity again to remove the protection from this industry. The growers will do their part to see that there is returned a government which they can trust.
Relief to the poultry industry has not been given by the raising of the Canadian tariff on eggs in the shell. This tariff still remains the same: British preference, two cents; intermediate, two and a half cents and general tariff, three cents, but provision is made for what is termed a countervailing duty. That is:
Provided that, if any country imposes upon eggs in the shell produced in, and imported from, Canada rates of duty higher than are enumerated in this item, equivalent rates of duty shall be imposed upon such commodities entering Canada from such country.
This means that the tariff of a foreign country applies.
I might also mention another product to which this provision has been applied, and that is potatoes. Prior to the present budget the general tariff on potatoes was thirty-five cents per hundred pounds. That has been removed and potatoes appear on the Canadian tariff as free under the three rates, but the same countervailing duties have been applied. As I said, this is a tariff set by a foreign nation, or, as we might as well admit, the United States. It is a Washington-made and controlled tariff. I say "controlled" because it must be borne in mind that power is vested
in the president of the United States to raise any tariff by 50 per cent, or to lower any tariff by 50 per cent at any time. This power was exercised a year ago. On May 14 of last year the president of the United States exercised this right and raised the tariff 50 per cent on milk and cream. What the poultrymen of this country want is a Canadian-made and a Canadian-controlled tariff.
During the last four or five years we have hammered this into the government from this side of the house and demanded for this industry a protection of at least eight cents per dozen. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that this matter was brought forcibly to the attention of the house on March 17 last when under a motion to adjourn moved from this side of the house protection was urged for this industry. The opposition came from the Liberal ranks. On that occasion I drew to the attention of the government the unsatisfactory condition of the poultry industry. I pointed out that in 1928 fifty per cent of the total importations for that year were dumped on the Canadian market in one month, and that in 1929 seventy-five per cent of the total importations were dumped on the Canadian market in one month, that of March.
What has been the action of this government in the matter of this dumping? All hon. members of this house will remember that in January, 1927, a dumping duty was imposed on imported eggs. This was successful in checking the wholesale importation of eggs at low prices but allowed eggs to come in freely when the price rose above 45 cents a dozen, thus giving relief to the producer and working no hardship on the consumer. The operation of this dumping duty was withdrawn by this government by order in council on March 29, 1928, and we all know that prices at that time did not justify such action on the part of the government. The Conservative party have continually urged for better protection for this industry. On May 14, 1928, an hon. member from this side of the house introduced a resolution urging the restoration of the dumping duty, and a division was taken upon that motion on March 16. I would ask hon. members to turn to page 3081 of Hansard for that year, where they will find recorded the vote on that division, and they will see that every Liberal member of this house voted against the restoration of protection for this industry.
But on the eve of a general election this government brings down protection in the form of countervailing duties. I say to the poultrymen of this country:	Consider the
record of this government in dealing with the problems of your industry. Are you going to
199S
The Budget-Mr. Barber

trust them in the future, or are you going to look to the party that believes the Canadian market must be preserved for the Canadian producer?
This budget also provides relief for another branch of agriculture, the dairy industry. The government have told us that they have notified New Zealand that the treaty arrangement with that country will be cancelled on October 12th next. The tariff has been increased, but the harm did not come from the general tariff. It was the New Zealand treaty entered into five years ago that was responsible for the sad condition in which the dairy industry finds itself to-day. With the lowering of the duty on butter to one cent a pound in 1925, butter importations into this country have rapidly increased. In 1925 we imported about 7,000,000 pounds of butter, and for the twelve months ending March of this year these importations have increased to
42,000,000 pounds valued at $15,000,000. Just to show you how rapidly this importation has grown, may I point out that it increased by $5,000,000 in one year as compared with 1928. Bear in mind what the importation of this quantity of butter means. Forty-two million pounds of butter is the product of 10,000 ten-cow farms, or 100,000 high-grade milch cows. Those who have opposed relief for this industry have continually quoted the price of whole milk, but any one familiar with the industry knows that the whole product cannot be disposed of in that form. It is necessary that the farmer should have a profit on the products of milk, such as butter and cheese. Conditions in the industry are such to-day that it does not pay to make butter or cheese, and the farmer is consequently losing the by-products of butter making. Dairy herds have in consequence decreased and our farms are losing their fertility. It affects the production of poultry on the farm. It has greatly affected our pork exports, which were very large a few years ago, but which have been gradually disappearing, falling from $27,000,000 in 1925 to $10,000,000 in 1928. The tariff tinkering and the treaty making of this government are responsible for this condition and the Canadian farmer is the victim.
Strong appeals were made from this side of the house during every session since 1926 down to the present to have the government cancel or amend this treaty. There were also protests in the form of resolutions and delegations from the dairy organizations throughout the country urging the abrogation of the treaty, but to all these representations the government turned a deaf ear. To-day, on the eve of the general election, the government

comes through with a statement that the present arrangement will terminate on October 12th next. I fear that it is too late. The dairymen of Canada have suffered for five years under the policy of this government and they are not going to be hoodwinked into supporting them by offers of relief at the eleventh hour. They will look to the Conservative party, I believe, whose policy is the Canadian market for the Canadian producer.
Protection must be given to the three industries I have mentioned, namely, the fruit and vegetable industry, the poultry industry and the dairy industry-protection sufficient that these industries may enjoy to the fullest extent our own Canadian market. For this purpose we have in Canada to-day three tariffs-the British preferential, the intermediate and the general tariff. In addition we have a provision in the statute for the imposition of a dumping duty. But we find that in this budget provision is made for a fourth tariff, applying exclusively to a list of articles coming from the United States. This is uncalled for. The Canadian people are not aiming to hit the United States or any other country. They are concerned solely to benefit this Dominion and to promote closer trade relations with the empire as a whole. We have no particular grudge against the United States, but we do believe that Canada through its own tariff should control its own home market just as the United States controls its own home market. The countervailing duties are not in the best interests of Canada.
There is another matter that is of vital importance to those in my particular district who are engaged in farming. It is a matter to which I have directed the attention of the house on several occasions, and one which I believe has been before this government for the last six or seven years. I refer to the question of freight rates. As I mentioned before, a large section of the province of British Columbia is engaged in the dairy industry; another large section is engaged in the poultry industry, and we require all kinds of feed. The farmers of the prairie provinces have that feed for sale, but when we want a carload or two of feed grain in our district we have to pay over double the freight rate that is charged on export grain. The rate on domestic grain from the prairie provinces to Vancouver to-day is 41| cents per one hundred pounds, while the export rate is 20 cents. This we claim is a great injustice to the farmers in our province and demands a remedy. When we approach this government on the matter they say: it is in the courts. True, the province

The Budget-Mr. Barber
of British Columbia have had from 1922 up to 1928 a legal man looking after their interests at Ottawa, and I understand that between S100.000 and S200,000 have been paid in the way of legal expenses in order to fight for the rights of our province. But up to the present time nothing has been done, and it is now up to the government-in fact, action is long overdue-to step in and correct this inequality of freight rates.
We have heard a great -deal about the British preference. As Canadians we should and we must give preference to trade within the empire; but, as my leader has said, only up to the point where such preference does not interfere with our own Canadian industry. Further, this preference should be reciprocal.
I have in mind an industry of this country that is suffering to-day because of the unfair British preference as well as the general tariff.
I refer to the hop-growing industry, which owing to climatic conditions is confined to one part of Canada, the lower Fraser valley of British Columbia. The production of hops in this area under favourable conditions is about 2,000,000 pounds a year and gives employment to a large number of people. The Canadian tariff on hops is the lowest in the world, being 4 cents under the British preferential and 7 cents under the general tariff; while the British tariff against Canadian hops is 17i cents, the American tariff is 24 cents and the Australian and New Zealand tariffs are also 24 cents a pound. I should like hon. members to bear in mind the fact that our British preferential tariff is only 4 cents while the British tariff against us is 17i cents. Up to the time when the British tariff was imposed we enjoyed a considerable export business to the British isles. Since that time this industry has had to look to Canada as the market for its entire crop. The total consumption of hops in Canada is about
3,000,000 pounds a year, and if this industry was given a fair deal it could supply a large percentage of the Canadian requirements. No hop-growing country is able to grow hops in competition with all the other hop-growing countries of the world, because in most years one or more countries have large exportable surpluses, which are dumped upon such countries as do not adequately protect their hop growing industry.
This industry appealed to the Minister of Finance in 1925 for relief, but as the Liberal party at that time was a party of "low tariff," relief in the way of protection could not be given. A conference was arranged and an agreement entered into between the buyers and producers of this product whereby the former agreed to take the Canadian crop at a certain price during the years 1926-27-28.
The growers were unable to renew the arrangement and quite naturally again appealed to this government. I was in hopes, since our friends opposite had changed their policy from that of low tariff to one of protection, that this industry would have received some consideration. The condition of this industry to-day is very serious. One of the growers writing to me states:
The position in regard to hops is becoming daily worse; there are enormous hop surpluses now in every hop growing country, and I do not see where the next British Columbia hop crop can be marketed, even at a loss.
Another branch of the agricultural industry that should have received consideration at the hands of this government is the tobacco growing industry. This industry has spent considerable money in presenting its case to the tariff board, and it went to great trouble to place the whole matter before the government. According to our trade returns we imported from the United States last year about
18,000,000 pounds of unmanufactured tobacco, free of duty. Tobacco growing has become a very important industry in this country and should be encouraged. The acreage in my own district has more than doubled in one year. These growers have' a great problem in marketing their product and are certainly entitled to relief either through the tariff or through the excise tax.
There is one resolution of the budget that will receive my support, namely, the one providing for "exemption from income taxes of cooperative associations." This is a matter that has been before the courts during the last few months, and I think in almost every case decisions have been rendered in favour of these associations, with perhaps one exception, the Fraser Valley Milk Producers' Association. I may say this is a bona fide cooperative association with a membership of 3,000 dairymen, selling milk and its products for its members and returning the proceeds after deduction of its actual expenses. It is a non-profit-making organization. The adoption of this resolution will clear the air and I trust provision will be made for the withdrawal of the demand by the Department of National Revenue on this particular association for this tax dating back to 1923.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I must say that I am convinced, knowing well the policy of the Liberal party, that these matters of relief provided for in this budget are dictated by expediency rather than by conviction. Coming as they do on the eve of a general election, it must be quite apparent to the people of this country that the budget is purely and simply an election budget designed for the sole purpose of getting votes and securing another lease of power.
The Budget-Mr. Bradette


Mr. J. A. BRADETTE (North Temis-kaming):: Mr. Speaker, at the outset let me say that I am unhesitatingly and wholeheartedly in favour of the budget. It is an outstanding budget that will go down in our political history as "the 1930 budget," and it will be an epochal one, the same as the 1903 budget was. It is typical of the budgets that the Canadian people have become used to during the last nine or ten years. The Robb budgets made a strong appeal to the people, and I believe the principles that he applied so effectively have also been applied by his successor, the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), and I feel certain that the Canadian electorate will remember this as the Dunning budget. It has been enthusiastically received in every section of the country, both by the press and the people.
There are a few salient features in this budget that are as clear as crystal. First of all, there is a reduction of the national debt; second, a decrease in taxation; third, there is an enlargement of the British preference, and fourth, an expression of our willingness to deal with nations that are willing to deal with us on even terms. I believe that these four points alone are sufficient to commend this outstanding budget to the people of Canada.
We see in the budget-and the opposition has seen fit to criticize it-some of the wonderful work done by the tariff advisory board. It is a comprehensive study of the economic and industrial situation. The tariff board, wielding no power it self, but patiently sifting facts, becomes a highly successful institution. In this connection may I quote from the issue of Saturday Night of the 10th instant:
The tariff board is comparatively young and in this budget for the first time has been able to show the fruit of its labour. Its chairman, Mr. W. H. Moore is credited with having given great aid to the Minister of Finance in preparing the new schedule, and in connection with the steel industry alone has shown great ability in straightening out a complex tangle of opinion.
On that score alone we can readily understand that some of the Conservative papers are more fair minded than are the official opposition in the house in discussing the budget items. There are so many items in the budget that it is impossible to deal with them in detail. No doubt they will be fully discussed in committee and before the country.
We have heard a lot of talk in this house of free trade and high tariff parties. I for one, after listening to a good many budget 
debates, am firmly convinced that there is no such person as a free trader to be found throughout the length and breadth of Canada, and I am also positive that there are no high protectionists in this country. Not later than last fall the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) said that the Conservative party was not a high protectionist party. We all know that free trade is absolutely a theory, impossible of practical application in this country. If there were any free traders they would come from the part of northern Ontario that I have the honour to represent, for the very simple reason that what we produce must find an outlet in the markets of the world, and all the commodities that we need we must buy in the large industrial centres, such as Winnipeg, Montreal and Toronto, etc. But we are logical enough to realize that as long as the government needs a certain amount of funds for administration purposes it must get some of those funds from indirect taxation, and some from direct taxation. There is no conflict between protection and free trade. There is no free trade party in Canada. It is a question simply as to what tariff protection is necessary for Canadian development. There are people who want a tariff for revenue only, and there are people who want a tariff for robbery only; a very few want no tariff at all. However, between and apart from these schools stand the mass of Canadians who want a development tariff. They are not interested in protection for protection's sake; they are not interested in protection for a few manufacturers' sake, but they are interested in it and believe in it solely for Canada's sake. They want it because they want work for Canadian workmen, purchasing power for Canadian people, home and outside markets for Canadian farmers, traffic for Canadian railways and development for Canada as a whole. However, belief in a fiscal policy is not sufficient. Canada now realizes that this government will apply fiscal policies consistently and fairly, when and where they are needed, regardless of expediency or votes. Protection ought not to be subject to the whims of men who are the champions of tariffs which might have been applicable for 1878, 1896 or 1921, but certainly not for 1930. This is the situation as Canadians throughout the length and breadth of this country understand it.
Following this thought I wish to quote a comment as it appeared in the Saturday Night:
Undoubtedly Hon. Charles Dunning, after a little more than six months' experience as Minister of Finance, has scored a coup in

The Budget-Mr. Bradette
framing a budget which in its main principles undoubtedly reflects the sentiments of Canadians as a whole. It is impossible for a budget to satisfy everyone; it has never been done and never will be done.
I wish to read the following citation from the Globe of May 6, 1930;
It is humanly impossible to frame a tariff to please every one. What is one firm's finished product is the raw material of another. It is a nice problem to decide when the country benefits more by conserving home payrolls and paying, possibly, a slightly higher price for the commodity than by sacrificing the workman and giving the ultimate consumer the advantage. One guiding point the government has is the established fact that, given volume business, Canadian manufacturers have the ability to meet competitive prices; then it becomes a question of encouraging methods to get the volume. Another guide is the knowledge that trade creates wealth. Hence, rvith reciprocal trade arrangements between empire countries as the great objective, and increased general prosperity the inevitable result, it becomes a matter of encouraging volume in each country, that purchasing power and trade may be enlarged. Apparently the government has had all this in mind in ' dealing with the complex situation.	.
One of the impressive features observable m connection with the budget announcements is that little criticism had been heard at home and nothing but praise has come from Great Britain. Even Mr. J. L. Garvin, in the weekly Observer, who a few weeks ago commended the Liberalism of Mr. Lloyd George to the British people, declares that "the Canadian budget is one of those rare strokes of policy which illuminate the realities of empire." If only all political parties throughout the British Empire would drop their preconceived and traditional fiscal theories long enough to examine the significance of this Canadian gesture in the light of empire realities, the dawn of a new era would be at hand. And this applies to the Canadian opposition as well as to governments and opposition parties elsewhere. Mr. Bennett's declaration that he is "in favour of every proposal that will make for the advancement of Canada as an independent economic unit" is as short-sighted at this time as the other extreme which sees no good in an empire country and applauds all and sundry to the limits of Siberia and Timbuctoo.
As to countervailing duties, the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) said that it was a retaliation of the "brick for brick" policy as enunciated by the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen. Just a few days afterwards, speaking on the same subject, one of his first lieutenants, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens), said that it was a mere gesture of retaliation, and that it was not strong enough. Those utterances, coming from the opposition and showing conflict within their ranks, clearly signify that the opposition fully realizes that the government is dealing in a national way with the situation in hand.
I am going to read an article from the Toronto Globe under the heading " More Political Humbug."
The political ways of a newspaper organ are tortuous and confusing when it tries to keep step with the expediency movements ot the masses, but it must be exceedingly difficult for a Montreal-owned Toronto-printed publication to adjust itself rapidly enough to meet all emergencies. The strain on the^ Mail and Empire, indeed, must be terrific, if one may judge by the number of somersaults it seems obliged to take.
Yesterday the chief St. James street organ in Ontario exhibited a feeling of tender regard for the people of the United States by publishing a leading editorial under the heading^ "Crude and Rude Is the Countervailing Duty, remarking that "our neighbours have reasonable ground for complaint against the Dunning tariff for the discrimination it makes against their country in wliat is called the 'countervailing duty.' " No fault could be found with an expression of friendliness for a neighbouring country; Canadians have no other attitude. But can such an expression be considered sincere when it conies from a source which less than a year ago was howling loudly against the American tariff proposals, calling for retaliation. and demanding that parliament show that it would not stand for such treatment without prompt reprisals?
This is the tragedy of it-here to-day and there to-morrow. What a humbug on its readers, and, in this case, on the people of the United States if any of them pay attention to
During last year's session and afterward the Mail and Empire published editorials almost daily severely criticizing the King government for being too considerate of the United States. On June 21, 1929, it even called inferentially for countervailing duties when condemning the speech of Hon. Mr. Lapointe at Grand Bend. "So," it remarked ironically, "there are to be no countervailing duties against Uncle Sams tariff increases on products of this country. He is to have the same wide-open door into our market." On May 6. 1930, it says: "He (Mr. Dunning) ought to be able to manage better than to leave the impression on the neighbouring country that Canada lias a special grudge against it," although Mr. Dunning's speech made no reference to the United States or any other country. Again; "Its countervailing duty is simply a piece of clumsiness, which seems the more unaccountable because of the government's frequent declaration that its tariff policy will not be one of reprisals against the United States."
Apparently the Mail and Empire was not worrying like this when it published the following on July 26 last:
How ridiculous it would be for the United States, or for any of that country's apologists in Canada, to say that any policy pursued here as the result of the reactions of Washington's tariff revision would be a consequence of rancorous Canadian feeling. As the United States finds it advisable to adapt its tariff to conditions in its own and other countries, so must Canada be free to.do likewise when one of the paramount conditions to be met is of the L'nited States' creating.

The Budget-Mr. Bradette

On July 12 it wanted to know, "Why is the King government giving silent consent to the United States boycotting of Canada's farmers? Four days later it said:
The most direct way of grappling with the problem would be to make reasonable endeavours to avert the ill consequences that are staring our farmers in the face. But the King administration has made known to the people of Canada, and to the world at large, that, however it may govern itself accordingly, it will not do anything by way of retaliation. . . . Canada must have a government that will be its champion, and not the servile instrument of the United States.
And as the countervailing duties designed particularly to protect the farmers of Canada are now called "crude and rude," on June 25 last year the Mail and Empire gibed at the government because it would not adopt "anything so rude as retaliation." On that occasion its comment was:
What a jumble of confessed cowardice, of hypocritical empire sentiment, of pretended moral feeling against anything so rude as retaliation, of servility to the United States, and of sincere zeal for free trade, is the government's advertised stand in regard to the situation the Washington tariff-makers have created.
In view of these criticisms and more like them, before the Dunning budget was framed, it is impossible to find any sincerity in the present criticism which declares "our neighbors have reasonable ground for complaint for the discrimination it makes against their country."
I know some hon. members, who last year were concerned in a certain movement looking to an increase in their indemnity, who would not have been sorry had the government adopted the principle suggested by the leader of the opposition, that we should sit here until the United States established their new tariff. Certainly that would have brought us a certain amount of extra money last year, which would have been welcome to many of us. Every one knows that congress has been working on the tariff revision for almost two years, and practically nothing has been done as yet. The leader of the opposition seems to think that the application of the countervailing duties would give too much latitude to the government on account of the rapidity with which certain items might be changed in the United States tariff schedule. We do not need to entertain any fear on that score, for the good reason that both houses at Washington have been working overtime for nearly two years, and so far practically nothing has been accomplished.
I have already said that this budget is very popular. In the Toronto Saturday Night of May 10, there is an article by Mr. P. M. Richards, which ends as follows:
Excepting for the fact that the new budget involves many more reductions in the tariff than increases, which in broad principle, is inimical to the best interest of the Canadian industrial fabric, in a general way Mr. 
Dunning s budget will no doubt be well received, and is outstanding in its wide departure from many of the more or less conventional budgets or the preceding years.
We have had the spectacle, during the discussion of the budget, of hon. gentlemen opposite calling this a high tariff budget and the opposition in the southeast corner calling it a low tariff budget. We know the people call it just a national, good Liberal budget, and they are satisfied with that. The following comment appeared in the Toronto Globe on Thursday, May 8:
It is unfortunate indeed that the great Conservative party has to be hampered with leadership which condemns another party for attempting to improve its policy while itself adhering to a circumscribed rule-of-thumb idea which is palpably ineffective as well as narrow-visioned. Mr. Bennett, of course, will have to explain on many an occasion %vhat he conceives the British Empire to be "next to Canada," why he does not regard Canada as part of the empire. And he will also have to explain how Canada can shut herself up in a shell and exist, where the farmers of the prairies are going to market their wheat, and what the manufacturers are going to do with their $4,000,000,000 worth of products.
Why should it be called a high tariff budget, when we have increases on only 100 items while we have decreases on 414 items, giving as a ratio of decreases to increases of over four to one? Really no one who knows anything about figures will try to make this out to be a high tariff budget. It is a low tariff and a national budget.
I listened with a great deal of interest to the financial critic of the group in the southeast corner, the hon. member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Irvine). Before I came to this house I was told that the hon. member was a wonderful orator, and I was not disappointed when I heard him speak. He has very complete mastery of the English language and is a born orator, but at the same time I have to ask myself whether the hon. member really believes all the theories which he advances. This evening I was reading an editorial commenting on the speech delivered by the hon. member, which stated that it was too bad that the rules of the house would not allow such a man as the hon. member for Westaskiwin to speak for more than forty minutes upon such important matters. During the course of my hon. friend's remarks he said he could see no leaders who could put into effect his ideas on the government side; he intimated that there was no leader on the Conservative side, so naturally we were to infer that the hon. member for Wetaskiwin was to be the man who would lead the Canadian nation into realms of great happiness and an arcadian period.

The Budget-Mr. Bradette


Mr. IRVINE:: Hear, hear.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I hear my bon. friend
applauding. I remember this year, during the discussion in connection with the construction of a trans-Canada highway, hearing the hon. member for Wetaskiwin state that if the government did not have enough money to build this road, the war debt might be cancelled. I can see what a wonderful thing it would be if we had a minister of finance like him. We, would have no taxation; we would not worry over debt; this would be the best part of the world in which to live. He would forget all about the war debt and the national debt; he would do away with taxation of all kinds. These are some of the theories to which we have to listen, and I must say if I attempted to advocate these theories I would be well defeated, and rightly so, in my own constituency. I hope the Ottawa Journal, which contained the editorial to which I referred, will get the hon. gentleman to tell this government how to wipe out all these debts, which certainly would be a wonderful thing for Canada, but I doubt whether it will know how it could.be done after listening for one hour to the absolutely impracticable theories of the hon. member.
Both the amendment and the sUbamendment are negative in themselves. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I think if hon. members of this house could vote according to their own ideas the budget would be adopted without very many adverse votes. An hon. member of this house once said that if hon. members could do as they wished, without the whips assisting them, the results of some votes in the house would be very different, and I am sure if we had no whips the members of the opposition would gladly vote for this budget. We have been told that this is a high tariff budget, but we heard the same story in previous years; last year the Conservatives said we brought in a high tariff budget because we had collected in customs duties nearly $300,000,000. This is not a new story at all. I well remember the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie), the financial critic of the opposition, criticizing_ the elimination of the tax on Pullman tickets, stating that Pullman travel was a luxury. It is not a luxury at all for those of us who have to travel great distances across this country.
The leader of the opposition ridiculed the idea of removing the duty on tea. Certainly tea is not a luxury. Perhaps if it were consumed in Ontario only a reduction in price might mean a loss of revenue to the liquor commission here, but tea is used all over the 2419-127J
country. I know that throughout Canada the housewives are absolutely satisfied with the situation. This afternoon it was stated that the decrease in the price of tea was only 10 cents and not 15 cents. The day after the budget was delivered advertisements appeared in several papers stating that the prices of certain lines of tea would be lowered by 15 cents, and certainly that is a benefit to Canada as a whole.
As the budget affects northern Ontario I must say it is very popular. We are especially gratified with the readjustment of the scale of taxation on the sale of shares, which will materially affect the transfer of shares of no par value. The mining industry is satisfied with the present situation. Last year during the budget discussion I was amazed to hear it suggested by hon. members opposite that we should have a high tariff against mining machinery brought in from other countries, and I was further amazed at a resolution passed last year by the Canadian Manufacturers Association at their annual convention held in Nova Scotia, to the effect that the government should increase the tariff on mining machinery until Canadian industry could supply the demand. It would be a fine thing to have the development of our mining interests in the Porcupine district, the Sudbury district or the newer mining areas in Manitoba and Saskatchewan wait until the machinery could be supplied by Canadian industry. We cannot wait; we must have that machinery when new mining areas are to be developed. We are coming more and more to the point where our mining machinery can be supplied in Canada, and eventually our Canadian companies will be able to supply that demand, but we should not be expected to hold up the development of these areas until that time arrives. In the meantime we must go ahead with the development of our mines.
One item in the budget which makes a very strong appeal to the people of northern Ontario is the enlargement of the British preference. They were amazed by the remarks of the hon. leader of the opposition in this regard. We will be able to attend the imperial conference with something more definite to offer to the British commonwealth of nations. The hon. leader of the opposition has offered an amendment which is absolutely negative, which really shows that his party is in favour of this budget. The Canadian people are well aware of the present situation.
Another thing which amazes me is the blue ruin talk which we hear from the members of the opposition. The leader of the opposition was on the sam* platform the other day

The Budget-Mr. Bradette
with the Premier of Ontario, the Hon. Mr. Ferguson. He spoke of the blue ruin which was facing Canada, and yet five minutes later the premier stood up and said that Ontario was prosperous. We know that that province is well administered, and it is hard to understand the leader of the opposition on the one hand saying that the country is faced with blue ruin while the premier of the province, on the other hand, states that that province is absolutely prosperous. Ontario is a part of Canada, and should be considered as such; and in this matter we are more inclined to listen to Premier Ferguson than to the leader of the opposition. When a new hotel was planned to be built in Toronto, a member from that city said that it was not necessary because foreigners were going to use it exclusively to sell their wares to Canadian people and that in turn would force our people to leave the country. However, when we visit Toronto to-day we patronize that new hotel and find it well filled and really we of northern Ontario cannot be called foreigners even in Toronto.
The hon. leader of the opposition referred to the steel industry, and stated that if an increase in duty were allowed on these products certain plants would increase their capacity. The steel plant at Sault Ste. Marie is erecting new buildings, but the hon. leader of the opposition is fully aware that that has been under consideration for some time. Those buildings are not being erected because of an increase in the steel tariff, but because this company is fully aware of the modern situation and it has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in increasing its plant capacity. New industries are being born, not only every year but every week. The reports issued by the presidents of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian National Railways show that not only dozens but hundreds of new industries have been bom during the last twenty-five years.
It is impossible to have a tariff which will please everyone. The hon. member for Last Mountain (Mr. Fansher) offered a subamendment asking that the British preferential be increased on textiles, while, on the other hand, the Conservative opposition are asking for more protection on this commodity. Some people claim that the woollen industry is not prosperous. The following is a despatch from Arnprior which appeared in the Ottawa Journal of October 2, 1929:
Kenwood mills, one of Arnprior's principal 'ndustries, is being considerably enlarged to lake care of the increasing business which the iompany is doing and there is keen satisfaction

amongst the townspeople at this indication of the growing importance of Arnprior as an industrial centre.
An additional structure 150 feet in length and 60 feet wide is now being built to the main plant, brick and steel being utilized in the creation of a modern factory building. The cost of the work will be between $40,000 and $50,000 and it is being done by men in the employ of the woollen company.
Several residential buildings are also being constructed by the same company, work on five dwellings now being in hand. They will be for the accommodation of the plant superintendent and other officials.
Plans for the factory addition and the houses were drawn by Cecil Burgess, architect, Ottawa.
That would seem to show that some branches of the woollen industry are in a prosperous condition. I visited Arnprior last summer and I was surprised at being told that not a single pound of Canadian wool is used in that plant. The superintendent told me that every pound of wool used in that plant comes from Australia or New Zealand. That would go to show how hard it is to apply duties in order to satisfy everyone. That plant is absolutely prosperous and is increasing its manufacturing capacity.


Mr. EVANS:: Will the bon. gentleman
permit a question?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Certainly.


John Evans: Why do not our manufacturers buy Canadian wool?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Not being an expert
in that line, it is impossible for me to give an authorative answer to the hon. gentleman.
I understand, however, that that company do not utilize one pound of Canadian wool because they cannot get in Canada the quality required for the manufacture of their goods. If the hon. gentleman asking for more protection for the woollen industry desire to see an industry which is so prosperous that it is forced to increase its capacity, they should go to Arnprior and see the Kenwood mills.
This tariff must be considered in the same way as we would consider a forest. It may be possible to find one tree in the forest which is defective, but the forest as a whole is good. The same with the budget; one item may not give satisfaction but it should be considered as a whole.
I do not think anyone can quarrel with the Minister of Finance in the concluding paragraph of his budget speech. The opposition accuse the government of insincerity, but I believe that the worst enemies of members of parliament are the members themselves. They hurl accusations at one another and in
nr r

The Budget-Mr. Bradelte
lime begin to believe that there is no sincerity. The political history of Canada shows that in both Liberal and Conservative administrations there has been plenty of honesty and sincerity. Here are the closing words of the hon. Minister of Finance:
These tariff favours to those who favour our products are not the result of any bargain with any other country but of an attitude in international relations which We believe to be mutually beneficial and are an expression of the spirit in which Canada will approach the Imperial economic conference in a few months time. In other words we do not intend to meet 'the other countries of the British commonwealth of nations in a spirit of petty bargaining but rather in the broad spirit of willingness to become in ever increasing measure good customers to those who treat us in like manner. This is the spirit in which we desire to meet all nations, but we believe that within the British community of nations lies the greatest measure of opportunity for mutual development of trade because of our common heritage, kindred institutions and a common patriotism.
What have our Conservative friends to offer to the imperial conference? Surely not only that negative amendment presented by the leader of the opposition, because there is nothing constructive in it. There is nothing in it which the British commonwealth of nations could consider or discuss.
The Canadian people are fully aware of the present situation and I am positive that they will be overwhelmingly in favour of the present Liberal administration. I am convinced that the Canadian people will return this Liberal government to power because of its past records. It has inspired general confidence because of its ability to solve the almost insurmountable problems which it has had to face. It has the confidence to-day of the labourers, the farmers, the industrialists and the financiers; in a word, the confidence of every section of the population. Using the words of the Prime Minister uttered at W innipeg, it has legislated not for one class but for all classes; not for a favoured few, but for the greatest good. to the greatest number. Whatever the United States or any other country may do in tariff matters, we believe that our country has reached a stage in its development where it will be able to look after itself. Canada will make its own tariff and find its owm markets. An editorial which appeared in the Ottawa Journal of July 25, 1928. is proof that the Prime Minister is worthy of being the representative of Canada at the next imperial conference. The editorial is as follows:
The Prime Minister for Geneva Announcement that Mr. Mackenzie King will go to Geneva personally to represent Canada upon the council of the League of Nations on
the occasion of its meeting in August,_ ought to be received with hearty commendation by all Canadians irrespective of party. For Mr. King will not, we are sure, journey to Geneva and speak and act there as the leader of a party. He will go, we think, as the Prime Minister of Canada, with a consciousness of the dignity and the responsibility of that office, and he will speak, we believe, not as a Liberal partisan, but as the representative of the whole Canadian people.	.
The Journal is not ashamed nor afraid to say that, in its judgment, Mr. King is in every respect well equipped to represent Canada with high honor and ability. This newspaper, in common with hundreds of thousands of other Canadians, has frequently and vigorously and honestly disagreed with Mr. King upon a multiplicity of things, and it has not infrequently said things about him in the heat of partisan conflict which were perhaps more vehement than just.
That, however, does not prohibit our saying now that, in many fields and in most respects, Mr. King, like all of his predecessors, has shown himself mostly weli equipped for the demands of his office. In the field of imperial and foreign affairs, in particular, Mr. King has revealed an informed interest and an outlook that challenge respect. Some among us may think that in some respects he is too greatly influenced by a narrow nationalism that is antagonistic to the ideal, cherished by most Canadians, of earnest and sustained and proud cooperation with the rest of the British Empire. That, however, is but a matter of opinion, and it must be confessed that, in most regards Mr. King, subject to the exigencies of politics, has shown himself to be a good Canadian and a good Imperialist, one who believes with Sir Wilfrid Laurier that Canada answers to a higher destiny than a mere mythical independence or a narrow nationalism.
To Geneva, at all events, he will go with the best wishes and the support of the majority oi his countrymen. In has been this country's good fortune to have been represented abroad, both at London and elsewhere, by men who reflected credit upon the Canadian name. It was so, in the old days, when Sir Wilfrid captured the hearts and the imagination of the British people with his compelling personality and charm. It was so When Sir Robert Borden wrote Imperial history by his contributions in the war cabinet, and later on at Versailles. And it was so when Mr. Meighen, fighting almost single-handed, but with his conspicuous courage and ability, helped abrogate the Anglo-Japanese alliance and paved the way for the Washington disarmament conference.
Mr. King, we feel sure, will worthily uphold this tradition. In the field of Imperial and foreign affairs, Canada, as far as is possible, should try to speak with a united voice. That has been the policy and the strength of Britain for more than two hundred years-the policy of Britain whether a Conservative or a Liberal or a Labourite was at 10 Downing street

and it ought to be the policy of this Dominion. Let all of us, therefore, dispense with partisan considerations in our attitude toward Mr. King so long as he is abroad as the spokesman of this country. The Journal, for its part, sincerely wishes for him a pleasant journey and everything of usefulness and opportunity in the mission which he has undertaken.
The rtudget-Mr. Fraser

That article was rather well written and I believe it was making not only a declaration as to certain activities of the Prime Minister in 1928, but also a kind of prophecy that he would go to the economic conference in 1930 as the representative of Canada.
Under his direction, even during the years affected by war depression, the country knows that he was worthy of the confidence placed in him. And now that our young nation has its face turned towards the future and is basking in the light of peace, prosperity and contentment, nowhere will the sun be shining on a more contented people or on a happier land.


Mr. J. A. FRASER (Cariboo):: Mr. Speaker, I propose for a few minutes to deal with the
statements made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) in regard to the financial condition of the country. We are well aware that in connection with dealing with any financial statements, two classes of liabilities must be taken into consideration: first, our direct liabilities, and, second, our indirect liabilities. The Minister of Finance in dealing with the financial affairs of the country dealt only with our direct financial responsibilities. I wish to put upon record our indirect responsibilities or the amount of money for which we are responsible so far as the Canadian National Railways are concerned. I take the following figures from the financial report of the Canadian National Railways:
Long-term debt. . . Current liabilities. Unadjusted credits

Increase

Total increase

On the other hand we had the following decreases:
Liability to the Dominion of Canada, eliminating the interest which is due
on outstanding borrowings	$1,026,620,838
Deferred liabilities	 ' 11,205,429
Corporate surplus	 5,147,861

Decrease

Total decrease

If we subtract the decreases from the increases, this leaves a net increase in the liabilities of the Canadian National Railways for which we are responsible, and every single dollar of which we have guaranteed, of $342,241,717.


Mr. BOTHWELL:: What is the capital
expenditure in that same length of time on the Canadian National Railways?


John Anderson Fraser: That includes the capital
expenditure and everything else. I am talking about the balance sheet of the Canadian National Railways as presented by the company in the report we have before us.


Charles Edward Bothwell: The hon. member has not the figures to show what the capital expenditure was in the period covered by his figures?


John Anderson Fraser: I am sorry I have not. I
did not take account of capital expenditure. Let us hope they were all capital expenditures and they all increase the standing of the Canadian National Railways in that regard. I am only pointing out the increase in the liabilities of this country so far as the Cana-IMr. Bradette.l
dian National Railways are concerned. In addition to that I wish to give the following figures:
Accumulated interest due the Dominion of
Canada by the Canadian National Railways on moneys advanced to them
1925	1929	Increase

Adding those two amounts together, we find that the increase of debt was $342,241,717, and the increase of interest, $128,226,937, or a 'total increase in the liabilities to the Canadian National, so far as the Dominion is concerned of $470,46S,654.
The total amount which has been claimed by the Minister of Finance as a reduction in debt is $257,800,000 in the past five years, which is the same period for which I am giving the figures in regard to the Canadian National Railways. That means, analyzing these reports in any intelligent way at all, that so far as the Dominion of Canada is concerned her total actual liabilities, direct and indirect, during the last five years have not been reduced by $257,800,000, but have been increased by $213,500,000, roughly speaking.

The Budget-Mr. Fraser
So that instead of this government reducing the debt of this country, they have increased it by the amount of S213,500,000.
Now I turn my attention for a few minutes to a brief review of some balances of trade for which this government must hold itself responsible. For a favourable balance of trade, the government must be given credit; if it is not favourable, the government and its policies must to some extent be held responsible for the balance being on the wrong side of the ledger.
I find that in 1929 -we had a favourable balance of trade of $123,158,329; that was our favourable visible balance of trade. In the fiscal year 1930, just ended, I find that we had an unfavourable trade balance of $103,300,000. This makes a total alteration in the trade of this country in the space of the last twenty-four months of $226,458,329. I submit that any government which is responsible for any change for the worse of that magnitude in that short space of time, surely must be held accountable to some extent for the unfavourable showing.
Analyzing the reasons for this great change in our trade, I find that our total imports in 1929 amounted to $1,265,639,000. In 1930 our total imports amounted to $1,248,239,000, a decrease, it will be noted, of $17,400,000, or 1.4 per cent. Let me point out also that all this decrease occurred during the three months of the present calendar year, or during the last three months of the fiscal year just closed, because at the end of December, 1929, our imports had increased by $76,675,330, or 6.3 per cent, over those of the calendar year 1928.
Turning to our exports, in 1929 we exported goods to the amount of $1,388,798,233, and in 1930, $1,144,938,070, a decrease of $243,860,163, or 17.5 per cent. That is, our imports decreased by 1.4 per cent while our exports in the same period decreased by 17.5 per cent.
Still dealing with the decrease in our export trade, I turn to one particular item of the nine for which our exports and imports are classified, and I wish to make this same comparison as to exports and imports of animals and animal products, which I think is one of the most interesting of our national imports and exports, because after all I am sure that all will agree that this country must be regarded as excellent for the raising of live stock. There is no reason why our production and exports of live stock and all kindred products should not be increasing from year to year. When we do not find that condition, there must be something wrong and there must be some remedy that should be applied.
In 1926 our imports of animals and animal products amounted to $49,185,000. In 1929 they amounted to $71,662,000, an increase in those three years of $22,477,000. or 4-6 per cent. In a country like this Dominion, which is so well adapted to the raising of live stock and animal products of all kinds, that condition of affairs should not exist. We should from year to year be continually decreasing our imports and increasing our exports of animals and animal products. So far as our imports of animals and animal products are concerned, they have increased by 4-6 per cent. Turning to our exports, I find that we exported in 1925, animals and animal products to the value of $190,975,000, and in 1929, $158,757,000 worth, an actual decrease in that period of $32,218,000, or 16-8 per cent. Let me emphasize that: during the period to which I am drawing your attention, Mr. Speaker, we increased our imports of animals and animal products by 4 [DOT] 6 per cent while our exports decreased by 16-8 per cent. Neither one of those conditions, I submit, is in the best interests of the Dominion of Canada.
I wish for a moment to draw attention to the agricultural wealth of the Dominion of Canada and relate thereto the revenue derived from the production of animals and animal products. I find from the Canada Year Book that the agricultural wealth of Canada in 1928 was $8,027,301,000. Live stock and animal products and poultry accounted for $919,615,000 of this amount, or 11 per cent. That is, live stock and animal products and poultry, so far as the agricultural wealth of Canada is concerned, accounted for 11 per cent. The agricultural revenue of Canada on the other hand was $1,730,304,000. These are the figures for 1928. Out of that agricultural revenue received by the people of the Dominion, live stock and animal products accounted for $559,-
633,000,	or 32 per cent. That is, while we had invested 11 per cent of our total agricultural wealth in live stock and animal products and poultry, we were deriving from that investment 32 per cent of the total revenue of the Dominion.
Now, I pointed out a few minutes ago that the imports and exports were both going in the wrong direction so far as animals and animal products were concerned. Let me give some particular reasons why this is occurring. In the Dominion in 1927 we had 9,172,230 head of cattle of all kinds; in 1928 this number had decreased to 8,793,270, or a decrease of 378,966 head. That decrease works out to 4-13 per cent. Let me turn to swine. I find that in 1927 we had 4,694,789 head of swine; in
The Budget-Mr. Fraser

1928, 4,497,367, or a decrease of 197,422 head, or a decrease of 4-2 per cent.
It is interesting to note the relative decreases in those two kinds of animals. We have a decrease of 4-13 per cent in cattle and of 4-2 per cent in swine. We have heard it repeatedly said in this house that on account of conditions which exist in our dairy industry, that is, because our dairymen had been discouraged rather than encouraged by the government, our swine population was also declining. I want the house to notice that there are exactly the same relative decreases in the cases of those two items, the number of swine and the number milking cattle.
In 1927 we had 3.262,760 head of sheep; and in 1928, 3,415,788 or an increase of 153,082, or an increase in 1928 over 1927 of 4-2 per cent. Now, in 1871 we had 3,155,509 head of sheep. I would direct the attention of hon. members to the fact that between 1871 and 1928 the total increase in the number of our sheep has been but 8-2 per cent. That increase I do not think is at all in accordance with the possibilities in this important line of agriculture.
Turning to the trade of Canada as set forth in the monthly reports for the month ending March, 1930, I find that our imports of animals and animal products in 1929 amounted in round figures to $71,661,000, and in 1930 to $69,853,000' or a decrease of $1,808,000 or 2-5 per cent. The exports of our animals and animal products for 1929 amounted in round figures to $159,757,000, and in 1930 to $133,009,000 or a decrease of nearly $26,000,000, or 16-2 per cent. Now, Mr. Speaker, it may satisfy our friendly Minister of Agriculture to say that all is well so long as we are providing for our home consumption, but for many years in the future Canada must be an exporting country of all kinds of agricultural products, and I think it is not to our credit that we are falling down in these exports *where there is so much opportunity for development and expansion in this business.
For a moment or two I might give the house some of the reasons why our export trade is declining and our import trade increasing. I find, for instance, that in 1929 our export trade in animals and animal products decreased by $22,629,000. Our imports of butter-of which we have heard a great deal-increased by $6,777,000; our imports of meats increased by over $2,000,000; our exports of cheese decreased by very nearly $7,000,000; our exports of living animals decreased by $1,039,000; our exports of meats decreased by $4,471,000; our exports of raw hides decreased by $3,562,000; our exports of leather, unmanufactured, decreased
	, I
by $3,615,000. You will note, sir, that at the outset of my remarks I pointed out the alteration in our balance of trade, that the year before we had a credit balance, but that this year we have a debit balance, so far as our export and import trade is concerned, of $226,450,000. Of this adverse balance of trade, our animal and animal products accounted for $54,695,000.
I would point out that this condition prevails all through the live stock industry of the Dominion. I find in the live stock market report for 1929, at page 91, it is stated that the supplies of cattle at the nine public stockyards in 1928 were 875,428 head; in 1929 at the same nine public stockyards the supplies offered were 799,435, or a decrease of about 76,000 head during that year. I find that is less by 159,000 head than were offered at these same stockyards in 1927. We have had a continuous decrease in the offerings of cattle in those nine public stockyards ever since 1926.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Ever since the New Zealand treaty went into effect.


John Anderson Fraser: Ever since the New Zealand treaty went into effect, as my leader reminds me. I think that is one of the factors in regard to this very unsatisfactory condition of affairs. Our total exports of cattle in 1929 were 162,632 head; this is the smallest number we have exported in the last six years and represents practically the life of the New Zealand and Australian treaties. Our exports of cattle to the United States were 160,103 head, which is 6,000 head less than the year 1928 and 44,000 less than 1927. We had no exports of cattle to the British market at all during the last year, although that represented a good outlet for our surplus cattle in the years 1925 and 1926. However, when we come to the years 1928 and 1929 we have nothing to offer to the British market. In addition to that our exports of beef are almost entirely to the United States. The total export was
31.000.	000 pounds, or 16,000,000 pounds less than in 1928. On the other hand, let us see what has happened to the British market. Our exports in 1929 to that market were 6.100 pounds, although in 1925 we had exported
9.000.	000 pounds and in 1926, 8,000,000 pounds. It is quite obvious that so far as the British market is concerned we are not in the market at all. In addition to that I wish to call the attention of the house to the fact that our imports of beef during 1929 to supply our own demands amounted to 5,235,412 pounds. That represents twice the quantity which we had to import in 1927 or 1928, and fourteen times aa

The Budget-Mr. Fraser
much as we had to import in 1926. If that can be considered a satisfactory condition of affairs I must say that I fail to understand the significance of figures of this kind.
I wish to outline the figures in connection with the cattle sales in all stockyards of the Dominion of Canada. On the Toronto market the sales were 12,300 head less, in 1929 than in 1928. On the two Montreal markets the figures show that the sales were 11,000 head less than in 1928, and that condition prevails on all markets in the Dominion of Canada.
I have before me a rather significant statement which appears in the tenth annual report of the Live Stock Market and Meat Trade Review of 1929. I would like hon. members of this house to pay particular attention to this statement in regard to the home market. It is made by a department of this government in a report issued reviewing the trade for 1929, and refers particularly to the Montreal market:
Shipments of dressed meats from other domestic markets, consignments of pork products and canned meats from the United States of America, imports of frozen beef and mutton from Australia and New Zealand for consumption in Montreal amounted to more than total offerings of live animals on the two local markets.
Surely nothing else is necessary to prove conclusively that there is possible a large expansion of the live stock industry in the Dominion of Canada. Government officials have pointed out that in connection with the live stock trade of this country the Montreal market has supplied only one half of the local requirements.
Let us turn to the British market and see what is offering there. In 1929 the British market imported 11,715,746 hundredweight of fresh, chilled and frozen beef. Of that quantity the Argentine supplied 80 per cent, or 9,060,324 hundredweight. Canada supplied none, although in 1927 we supplied 8,000,000 pounds and in 1926 9,000,000 pounds. There is a prospective market which is surely well worth cultivating so that the live stock industry of Canada might be extended. Let us consider the imports of bacon to the British market. In 1920 Great Britain imported bacon to the extent of 5,611,634 hundredweight and in 1929, 8,281,594 hundredweight. In 1920 Canada supplied 26 per cent of the British imports, or 1,493,008 hundredweight, and in 1929 we supplied to the British market 2.5 per cent or 119,446 hundredweight. Hon. members will take notice that in 1920 we supplied 26 per cent whereas in -1929 we supplied only 2.5 per cent, despite the fact that the
British market had increased its imports from 5,611,634 hundredweight to 8,281,594 hundredweight.
In 1925 our exports of bacon and ham were 132,522,900 pounds, and in 1929 they had been reduced to 28,772,700 pounds. The amount exported in 1929 represents only 25 per cent of the amount exported in 1925. Our pork exports were 17,286,000 pounds in 1925 whereas in 1929 they were 10.184,700 pounds. On the other hand our imports of bacon and ham had increased from 1,190,626 pounds in 1925 to 6,855,217 pounds in 1929, or nearly six times as much. Our pork imports decreased from 15,443,276 pounds in 1925 to 13,945.241 pounds in 1929. I would call the attention of hon. members to the fact that in 1929 we imported
20,000,000 pounds of pork products, although in the Dominion of Canada we should be producing for export very large quantities of pork products. After reviewing very carefully the market conditions so far as they obtained in 1929 I make the statement that Canada could have marketed 1,000,000 hogs more than she did in that year without affecting the market price. One million hogs at $25 per hog amounts to $25,000,000; that amount of money could have been brought into this country if particular attention had been directed to this class of business.
I shall now turn to the British imports of mutton and lamb. In 1929 the British imports of these two commodities were 5,653,979 hundredweight. Of that quantity New Zealand supplied 50 per cent. Is there any reason why Canada should not supply to the British market as much mutton as New Zealand supplies? Natural conditions, such as proximity to the market, are more favourable to the Dominion than they are to New Zealand. Of the total quantity of mutton and lamb supplied in 1929 the Argentine supplied 27 per cent and Australia 10 per cent. Canada imported 4,000,000 pounds of mutton, and our imports in this regard are growing continually to supply the demand of our local markets.
I wish to place on Hansard a record of exports and imports as they were given in a return to this house asked for by the late member for Frontenac-Addington, Mr. Edwards, during the session of 1928. To the figures given in this return I have added the imports as they are recorded in the trade returns for the calendar year 1929. The table which follows gives the quantities of pork, bacon and hams, lard, cheese, butter, milk and cream and milk, condensed or evaporated or as milk powder, exported from Oanoda during
The Budget-Mr. Fraser

the fiscal year 1025-26 as compared with the quantities exported during the last fiscal year:
Pork	lbs.
Bacon and hams..lbs.
Lard	lbs.
Cheese	lbs.
Butter	lbs.
Milk and cream..gals. Milk, condensed or evaporated or as milk podwer.. ..lbs.
1925-26	1929
14,989,100 10.184,700 125,376,000 28,772,700 8.394,700	1,775,500
148,333,500 92,946,100 23,303,900	1,400,400
8,718,380	5,627,523
45,622,600 31,982,300
When we consider the imports into Canada of these commodities we find increases in almost every instance, as
Pork	lbs.
Bacon and hams..lbs.
Lard	lbs.
Cheese	lbs.
Butter	lbs.
Milk and cream..gals. Milk, condensed or evaporated or as milk powder.. ..lbs.
follows:
1925-26	1929
15,443.276	14.651.053
1,190,626	6,855,217
4.321.387	976.145
6.678,487	2,103,724
7,029,084 35,928,249		20,035
129,355	178,968
I have been attempting to show that we should encourage the production of animal products because there is a potential market for these commodities in practically unlimited quantities, and we have not supplied that market to anything like the extent which is possible. Our goods are in demand but we are not maintaining the necessary supply; indeed, to a considerable extent we are becoming importers instead of exporters. We are not supplying the British market in beef, pork, mutton, butter, eggs, bacon and ham, cheese or poultry to the extent that is possible or for which there is an insistent demand.
On the other hand, in grains, and particularly in wheat, the condition is exactly the reverse; we are making feverish efforts to increase our production of wheat and other grains beyond the consumptive demand. Contrast the situation in the meat trade to-day with the situation in the grain trade. Our elevators are bulging with an unsold crop which, by the way, was one of the smallest crops we have harvested for a number of years. Our transportation systems remain idle while the grain lies in the elevators awaiting a buyer, and our trade returns show unfavourable balances on account of our unsold grain. The commercial situation is depressed, and indeed almost stagnant; severe unemployment exists because the grain has not moved out and the money rolled in. Foreign countries, which formerly bought large supplies of our grains, have increased their tariff barriers, encouraged home production and left our growers with the grain on their hands. British Empire markets apparently are supplied from other sources, possibly because of the price but more likely 
because in the complex system of barter and exchange the shrewd British buyer finds in other countries willing customers for the manufactured goods he wishes to sell them in exchange.
Just here I might quote from the Financial Post of April 17, where I find some reasons why our wheat does not meet with the favour in the European market that it did at one time:
Too much has been made of the statistical position of wheat and too little to the effect of tariff walls being raised higher and higher by European governments against foreign grain and flour. Britain, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands now stand alone in permitting free entry to wheat and flour. The others appear to be willing to get along with cheaper products of inferior quality in order to increase greater use of the domestic grown and milled wheat.
The following figures show how potent this factor has become, especially when it is considered that all these countries are large potential buyers of Canadian wheat and flour. For instance, Germany imposes a tariff of 61.76 cents per bushel on our wheat, and I believe that tariff has been raised to 78 cents per bushel since this article was written. In France the duty is 53.60 cents per bushel, in Switzerland it is 105.49 cents and in Italy 73.20 cents.


Mr. SPEAKER:: The hon. gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. CHARLES E. FERLAND (Joliette) (Translation): Mr. Speaker, on May 1, the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), committed to our political annals one of the finest pages of the liberal party's history, in connection with the development of this country, perhaps young but already great. By a popular and national budget "clear as crystal" to use the words uttered a few moments ago by the hon. member for Temiscamingue North (Mr. Bradette), by a budget considered "the most important since Confederation," so acknowledged by the conservative press, the hon. Minister of Finance created an atmosphere of enthusiasm and revival of hope in the destinies "of the great century" of Canada. Therefore, the people of the beautiful county of Joliette welcomed with great joy this budget destined to further develop agriculture while sufficiently protecting the other industries.
My constituents, sir, also learned with much satisfaction, of the recent appointment to the bench of the Court of Appeals, Province of Quebec, of the Hon. Antonin Galipeault, exminister of Public Works and Labour in the Quebec Legislature. By the appointment to the highest court of Quebec of this great friend of Joliette, the government has crowned a very

The Budget-Mr. Ferland
fruitful career and honoured an eminent barrister of the Quebec bar, who in his new duties will continue to fulfil with much dignity the traditions of honour, ability, probity and devotion to duty which, at all times, have made the strength and greatness of the Canadian bar. The government has also honoured in this distinguished barrister a man who has played an important part in the administration of affairs in his province, and -what is more personal

one of the most brilliant scholars of my "Alma Mater" the Joliette seminary, where the hon. Mr. Gali-peault completed his classical studies. Needless to say that the old seminary of Joliette is one of the most important institutions of higher studies in the province of Quebec. Instances of this are of daily occurrence. Only a few months ago, the Canadian press announced, with joy and national pride, that the young Roch Pinard, a student of the seminary of Joliette, had just carried off first honours in eloquence in an international competition, at Washington. Always remembering with joy the happy days which I spent in that admirable institution, which has given to religious and civil life numerous and distinguished men, I cannot resist the pleasure of mentioning that I have the privilege of sitting in this house with four worthy and distinguished students of the seminary of Joliette. They are the hon. member for Hochelaga (Mr. St-Pere), for Berthier-Maskinonge (Mr. Gervais), for Champlain (Mr. Desaulniers), and for Saint-Denis (Mr. Denis).
Mr. Speaker, the unpresuming city of Joliette, whose charter of incorporation dates back to 1863, in pre-confederation days, and which had but a population of 4,200 at the census of 1901, has become the rich city of Joliette, prosperous in all its commercial and industrial activities. Its present population of 10,800 is noted for its broad mindedness, courtesy, good manners, high education and excellent character. This provincial town is preeminently a place of bonne entente and intermingling of various nationalities. The English protestant minorities peacefully enjoy in our midst their separate schools and churches while benefiting of all the advantages of Joliette life. I should very much like to see this town, where tolerance, peace and harmony exist among all races, serve as an example to all Canadians, especially at this period preceding an election in which our English protestant opponents belonging to the Tory party will, perhaps, as their press foreshadows, ask the people, as usual to vote against the Liberal party, and against French domination 11 should like to see as much tolerance throughout the
country as there is in the good old town of Joliette which I have the honour to represent in the house.
In this perfect social organization, there is, however, needed a special service, and it behooved the hon. Postmaster General (Mr. Veniot) to fill this need, by granting us, to our great satisfaction, a mail carriers service within the limits of the city of Joliette. I, therefore, wish to again express my gratitude to the Postmaster General on his kind decision to establish this service.
There is a local question, Sir, which is directly connected with the budget we are considering: the management of the National Railways in regard to its repair shops at Joliette.
In 1925, the C.N.R. shops, at Joliette, were destroyed by fire and have not yet been rebuilt. The management of the Canadian National Railways have nevertheless maintained more than 60 men to repair cars. Ever since the fire the citizens of Joliette have unceasingly asked for the construction of these shops. Their request has not yet been granted. The high officials of the C.N.R. maintain that the question is still under consideration, but the people of Joliette have serious doubts with regard to the fate of these shops to which our city owes at least one-third of its expansion.
I understand, sir, that the management of the National Railways has to deal, in all parts of the country, with numerous problems of the same nature as those relating to Joliette.
Indeed, eight years ago, when the Liberal party handed over the management of the National Railways to this well known expert, Sir Henry Thornton-for a long time familiar with transportation problems-the entire system of our railways, known to-day as the State Railways, showed yearly deficits of
875,000,000 and more. It was a very heavy burden for the country, we even heard a member, one day, suggest to turn over the entire business for SI to whomsoever wished to purchase it, and a large number of ratepayers confronted with the ever increasing deficits, were wondering if there were not more truth than irony in the whim of this member. Events have, however, clearly shown that the present management, which changed old deficits to surpluses, was right. To-day, the work accomplished by Sir Henry Thornton gives us an admirable instance of what can be done by a competent and energetic man, when those he serves loyally support his efforts.
A few days ago the President of the National Railways presented us his yearly statement.
The Budget-Mr. Ferland