1931-05-28

REPORT OF COMMITTEE

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

[Stage Direction]
Mr. M. C. SENN (Halddmand) presented the first report of the select standing committee on agriculture and colonization.
Mr. SENN moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


Hon. ROBERT WEIR (Minister of Agriculture) moved:: Whereas the marketing of Canadian farm products of all descriptions is a matter of very major importance.
Therefore, be it ordered by this house that the committee on agriculture and colonization do proceed with an investigation into methods of handling and marketing agricultural products of all kinds and that they be given authority to call such witnesses to this end as may seem to them necessary and report from time to time, and that the committee be granted leave to print 1,000 copies (English) and 300 copies (French) of each proceeding and of the evidence to be taken by it, together with such papers and documents as may be incorporated with such evidence for the use of the committee and for the use of the members of the house and that standing order 64 be suspended in relation thereto.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
[Mr. Bourassa.l


Mr. J. A. DENIS (St. Denis) (Translation):: Alter carefully looking over file No. 205, brought down at the request of the hon. member for l'Assomption-Montcalm (Mr. Seguin), with reference to the superannuation of Mr. J. Arthur Bernier, former district inspector of customs and excise at Montreal, I note that certain documents are missing in connection with the inquiry held by Mr. Lafontaine. I wish to inquire whether the government will complete this return as asked for by the hon. member for 1'Assomption-Montcalm.


Mr. SPEAKER:: If the hon. member has
a statement to make he should make it.


Joseph-Arthur Denis: I am simply asking that the return to order No. 205 be completed.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: The hon. member's
question has reference to the Department of National Revenue.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Will the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Ryckman) take notice that the hon. member complains that a file which he asked for is not complete?



PRISONS AND REFORMATORIES

[Stage Direction]
Hon. HUGH GUTHRIE (Minister of Justice) moved for leave to introduce Bill No.
72	to amend the Prisons and Reformatories Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to make two slight amendments to the act respecting female prisoners of the Roman Catholic faith in the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Requests for these amendments have come from the governments of these provinces and from the ecclesiastical authorities of the Roman Catholic church. They refer to the treatment of prisoners of the Roman Catholic faith under the ages of sixteen and twenty-one years in oases of minor offences, and provide for confinement in certain homes.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. HUGH GUTHRIE (Minister of Justice) moved for leave to introduce Bill No.
73	to amend the Bankruptcy Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the amendment to the Bankruptcy Act proposed by this bill is to meet a situation which has arisen by reason

Questions
of provincial enactments in certain provinces, notably in the province of Ontario, in respect to motor car insurance. The object of this bill is to secure the rights of an injured party in reference to personal injuries or in reference to damaged goods in the event of an accident; to prevent the insurance policy falling into insolvency rather than being used to pay the claim of an injured person. This bill is to preserve the right of an injured person to collect insurance money.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. SO, respecting The Canadian Woodmen of the World.-Mr. Fraser (Northumberland).
Bill No. 54, for the relief of Agnes Sarah Evelyn Ballard McNaught.-Mr. McKenzie (Assiniboda).	.
Bill No. 55, for the relief of Dorothy Helen Marie Debnam Almon.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 56, for the relief of Rosa Maud Thomson Checketts.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 57, for the relief of Mary Ellen Margaret Montague Burrows.-Mr. Lawson.
Bill No. 58, for the relief of Olive Hamley Fraser Mann.-Mr. Willis.
Bill No. 59, for the relief of Eleanor Fritz Lawson.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 61, for the relief of Ellen Jane Easton Graham.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 64, for the relief of Joseph Norman Berger.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 65, for the relief of Carl Vohwinkel. -Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 66, for the relief of Joan Marguerite Loggie.-Mr. Geary.
Bill No. 67, for the relief of Alice Boyne Ostiguy.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 69, for the relief of Eileen Sybil Wolfe.-Mr. Factor.
Bill No. 70, for the relief of Helen Borland Beattie MacNicol.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 71, for the relief of Lillian Freedman Guttman.-Mr. Factor.

[Stage Direction]
On the order:
First reading of Bill No. 68 (from the Senate) for the relief of Ruth Rosenberg.- Mr. MacNicol.
Mr. MaoNICOL: In reference to Bill No. 68, I see someone has used my name as sponsoring it. I do not know anything about it and I did not give my consent to have it on the order paper.
Bill stands.

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

Mr. NEILL:: 1.	Has the question of reducing the domestic freight rates on wheat, etc., shipped from the prairies to British Columbia been appealed to the Privy Council of Canada, or to the government, from the decision of the Board of Railway Commissioners?
2.	If so, when was such appeal received?
3.	When may a decision be expected?


Mr. BENNETT:: This question was answered during the progress of the discussion a few days ago on the motion of the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid). The position is that the defeat of the former government ended the appeal; a new appeal was entered in September and there has been no opportunity so far to hear it. The other day I said that action would be taken as soon as opportunity was offered. I should think under those circumstances the hon. gentleman would perhaps drop the question.
Question dropped.


VANCOUVER HARBOUR BOARD EMPLOYEES
Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: 1.	Have any of the dismissed ex-service men on the strength of the Vancouver harbour board police force been reinstated?
2.	If so, what are their names?
3.	Have any new appointments been made in the place of dismissed ex-service men?
4.	If so, what are their names?
5.	Has one Peter Brennan been taken on by the Vancouver harbour board as watchman?
6.	If so, what are his qualifications, his previous experience, and recommendations on his behalf?


Mr. DURANLEAU:: The following answers have been furnished by the Vancouver harbour commissioners:
1.	Yes, as watchmen.
2.	Francis Waters; James Davidson; Wellington Dixon Cook.
3.	Yes.
4.	A. McCully; Harry G. Smith (ex-service men); Charles A. Ross.
5.	No.
6.	Answered by No. 5.
Questions


BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS
Mr. GOBEIL:: 1.	Did the federal government receive from the government of the province of Quebec a request conforming to a resolution relating to bovine tuberculin adopted by the Quebec legislature on March 21, 1929, and reading as follows: (a) "That tuberculin tests should be regulated and made in such a way so as not to necessitate the useless slaughtering of herds; (b) that the governments of Canada and Quebec should have an understanding for the purpose of granting a reasonable indemnity for any herd of animals necessarily slaughtered following a tuberculin test made or ordered by an officer of either government?"
2.	If so, on what date was above mentioned request received?
3.	Did the federal government receive since March, 1929, other requests or representations from the government of the province of Quebec regarding bovine tuberculosis, and relating to indemnity for slaughtered herds following tuberculin tests?
4.	If so, when and through what minister? Mr. CAHAN:
1.	No.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	No.
4.	Answered by No. 3.


MARIA, QUE., WHARF
Mr. MARCIL:: 1.	Has Mr. Isidore Bernard been appointed caretaker of the freight shed on the wharf at Maria, Quebec, and is he authorized to collect dues?
2.	If so, when was he appointed, on whose recommendation, and what is his remuneration?
3.	What is the rate exacted per 100 pounds?
4.	Has the wharf been transferred to the Marine department, and has a wharfinger been appointed, if so, what is his name, and his remuneration?
5.	Who is the caretaker of the light on that wharf, and what is his remuneration?


Mr. CAHAN:: 1.	No caretaker appointed and no one authorized to collect dues by the Department of Public Works.
2 and 3. Answered by No. 1.
4.	The wharf has not been transferred to the Marine department, and a wharfinger has not been appointed.
5.	Bernard Porlier, $120 per annum.


DE CEW FALLS POWER DEVELOPMENT
Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: 1.	Did the dominion government authorize the diversion of. water in the de Cew falls power development ?
2.	If so, what amount of water was allowed by the original agreement?

3.	What was the original diversion agreed to?
4.	What was the original number of horsepower developed?
5.	What rental was charged for this horsepower ?
6.	Has a new contract been entered into?
7.	What additional horse-power has been agreed to?
8. What are the terms of the new contract?
9. What price is being charged for the additional water?
10. What is the total sum of all payments made, in regard to this project, to the dominion since its inception?


Mr. MANION:: 1.	Yes.
2.	100 c.f.s. (cubic feet per second) by lease dated October 8, 1897.
3.	Answered by No. 2.
4.	Not known definitely, but about 2,200 HP. of electrical energy could be developed from 100 ci.s.
5.	Under the lease of October 8, 1897, the annual rent for the lease flow was $3,000. This lease also contained a clause providing for payment of double rental for the use of surplus water in excess of that leased.
6.	By lease dated December 31, 1902, the surplus water demised was increased to 700 c.f.s. and by supplemental lease dated March 31, 1906, was further increased by 300 e.f.s., making a total of 1,000 c.fs.
7.	Existing lease dated May 28, 1928, cancels and supersedes lease of December 31, 1902, and supplemental lease of March 31, 1906, and demises the right and privilege to 1,000 c.fs., which under head of 264 feet will generate about 22,000 horse power of electrical energy.
8.	The lease of May 28, 1928, is for a term of 21 years from January 1, 1924, renewals for one further term of 21 years to December 31, 1965, with rent adjustable on renewal.
9.	Under the lease of May 28, 1928, the rent for the 1,000 c.f.s. is $150,000 per annum from January 1, 1930, payable semi-annually in advance. This lease also contains a clause providing for payment of double the rental for the use of surplus water in excess of that leased.
10.	$1,336,606.16.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-RIVIERE DU LOUP STATION
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	When did the hon. Minister of Railways leave for Fort Churchill last fall?
2.	When did he return to Ottawa?
3.	In the meantime did he communicate with anyone regarding the proposed building of a new station at Riviere du Loup?

Questions


Mr. MANION:: 1.	Wednesday, October 1, 1930.
2.	Saturday, October 11, 1930.
3.	No.


HOCHELAGA CENSUS APPOINTMENTS
[Stage Direction]
Mr. ST-PERE:
1.	Who was appointed census commissioner for the county of Hochelaga?
2.	What is his salary?
3.	Who recommended him to the department ?
4.	How many census enumerators will be appointed in the county of Hochelaga?
5.	What salary will each one receive?
Mr. STEVENS:: 1.	Mr. Ulric Simard.
2.	An allowance of S175 to cover organization expenses. For viseing of the returns made by the enumerators; checking them and forwarding to Ottawa; verification of enumerators' accounts and the general supervision of the census within the district over which he is appointed as commissioner the following rates are provided: 1 cent for each name on the "population" schedule; 3 cents for each "agricultural" schedule; 1 cent for each entry on the "animal and animal products, not on farm" schedule; 1 cent for each record of blind and deaf persons; 1 cent for each record of merchandising and service establishments.
3.	Appointed iby the Honourable the Minister of Trade and Commerce.
4.	Information not yet available.
5.	5 cents for each person recorded on the population schedule; 5 cents for each absentee family card; 5 cents for each closed house card; 35 cents for farms of 5 acres and over; 25 cents for farms of 1 to less than 5 acres; 35 cents for vacant and abandoned farms; for animals, animal products, fruits, etc., not on farms, 10 cents per family; for merchandising and service establishments, 10 cents each; for blind and deaf persons, 5 cents iper name; in lieu of horse hire and all other expenses at the rate of S5 per 100 names on the population schedule.


VAUDREUIL-SOULAN GES POSTMASTERS
Mr. THAUVETTE:: 1.	To how many postmasters in the county of Vaudreuil-Soulanges were requests of dismissals addressed since August 7, 1930?
2.	What are the names and addresses of
postmasters to whom those requests of dimissal were addressed ?	_
3.	Were inquiries held in each case, and if so, hy whom were they held, and ivhat was the result?
4.	What sum was paid to inquiry commissioners for their services and other fees in each case?
5.	Who asked for those inquiries?
6.	Was a notice sent to the postmasters informing them that said inquiry was going to be held, and what was the length of the notice?
7.	At what places were postmasters dismissed in the county of Vaudreuil-Soulanges since August 7, 1930, and what are the names of said postmasters?


Mr. SAUVE:: 1 and 2. No requests of dismissals were made, although charges of active political partisanship were received against Hector Giraldeau, postmaster, St. Lazare Station.
3.	Yes, Bruno Nantel, Montreal. Postmaster found guilty of active political partisanship.
4.	Commissioner's charges, $47.
5.	Authorized by Postmaster General.
6.	Notice of inquiry sent by commissioner. Department has no information as to length of notice.
7.	Mr. Dolar Menard, postmaster, St. Justine station, dismissed for unsatisfactory management.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-ESTIMATES
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Out of the estimates, totalling between
$8,000,000 and $9,000,000, which were included in the Canadian National Railway estimates and whioh were voted by the House of Commons last year and which were transferred to other purposes:	(a) how many transfers of
more or less than $200,000 went to the government to be dealt with by order in council; (b) how many transfers were sanctioned by the deputy minister after consultation with the Minister of Railways of the day?
2.	Were all of these transfers submitted to the railway board for approval?
3.	If not all. how many such transfers were submitted to the railway board for approval?
4.	In how many cases did the railway board approve such transfers?
5.	How many times did the railway board rescind its previous orders in order to approve such transfers?


Mr. MANION:: May I say in regard to a number of questions standing on the order paper in the name of the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) that I have inquired and find that it will take weeks of work to reply to them. The hon. gentleman has already had very many questions answered in regard to the proposed station at Riviere du Loup, and I would suggest as an act of mercy to the Canadian National Railways that some of these questions be eliminated.


Mr. POULIOT:: I am ready to wait a few weeks.


Robert James Manion: I would suggest that the questions of the hon. member for Temis-
Questions as Orders for Returns

couata be made orders for returns, as they involve a lot of work on the part of the Canadian National Railways, and it will take a long time to gather the information asked for.


Jean-François Pouliot: I have no objection at all so far as the questions relating to the Canadian National Railways are concerned. We had better go back and take up each question, and perhaps the minister would indicate which should be made orders for returns.


Robert James Manion: I will do it to-morrow.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Questions Nos. 18, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, and 55 will stand as orders for returns.


Jean-François Pouliot: What question did you begin with, Mr. Speaker?


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Question No. 18.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	What persons of the county of Temis-couata were recommended, after August 1, 1930, for employment on the ss. Mikula?
2.	Who were employed?
3.	On whose recommendation were they so employed ?
4.	Where do they reside?


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	What total amount was included last year in the Budget of the Canadian National Railways for the building of a new station at Riviere du Loup: (a) for capital expenditure; (b) other expenditure?
2.	Is a similar or any item included this year in their Budget for the same purpose?
3.	If so, for what amount?


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Were the Canadian National Railways informed that the Department of Railways and Canals had refused to sanction the construction of a new station at Riviere du Loup?
2. If so, on what date and by whom?
3.	Upon whose instructions?
4.	If by telegram, at what time of the day?


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	On the estimates accompanying the plans for the construction of a new station at Riviere du Loup, did the Canadian National Railways show on what date the said building was to be completed?
2.	If so, what was the date?


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	On what date were the tenders already received at Moncton, on or about August 26, 1930, for the construction of a new station ,at Riviere du Loup, afterwards submitted to the
[Mr. Manion.J
Department^ of Railways and Canals by the Canadian National Railways?
2.	Why were these tenders so submitted to the department?
3.	What were:	(a) the name and address
of each tenderer; (b) the amount of each tender?
4.	How long were these tenders under consideration?
5.	On what date did the department make a decision in connection with said tenders?
6.	Did some one ask the department to delay its decision?
7.	If so, who, and on what date was this request made to the department?


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	At the meetings held in the office of the Minister of Railways and Canals and later in the office of the Minister of Labour, both meetings having been referred to by the Honourable Minister of Railways and Canals on May 22, 1931 (Hansard, page 2062, first column, lines 31-33), were memoranda of agreements published as Appendix "C" of the report of the Dominion Director of Unemployment Relief, dated March 16, 1931, submitted to both above mentioned ministers?
2.	If not, at what date was it submitted to each of them ?
3.	When did the meetings mentioned in the first paragraph take place?


Jean-François Pouliot: At whose request each of the items amounting to between $8,000,000 and $9,000,000 in the Canadian National Railways budget, 1930-31, was "postponed", as referred to by the Honourable Minister of Railways on May 22, 1931 (Hansard, page 2064, second column, lines 37-38.


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	To what particular items was the switching of between $8,000,000 and $9,000,000 in the Canadian National Railways estimates for 1930-31 applied?
2.	What was the amount of each item,
(a)	before such switch was made; (b) after such switch was made?
3.	Were all those items included in the Canadian National Railways budget for 1930-31?


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Out of the estimates, totalling between $8,000,000 and $9,000,000, which were included in the Canadian National Railway estimates and which were voted by the House of Commons last year and which were transferred to other purposes, (a) how many transfers of more or less than $200,000 w'ent to the Government to be dealt with by order in council;
(b)	how many transfers w'ere sanctioned by the Deputy Minister after consultation with the Minister of Railways of the day?
2.	Were all of these transfers submitted to the Railway Board for approval?
3.	If not all, how many such transfers were submitted to the Railway Board for approval?
4.	In how many cases did the Railway Board approve such transfers?
5.	Howr many times did the Railway Board rescind its previous orders in order to approve such transfers?

City of Ottawa Agreement


Mr. POULIOT:: 
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Were provisions made in the estimates of the Canadian National Railways, 1930-31, for the construction of new stations?
2.	If so, how many stations?
3.	Where were they to be constructed?
4.	What was the total estimate, including capital account expenses or otherwise, prepared by the Canadian National Railways in their estimate, for each station?
5.	Have the Canadian National Railways called for tenders for all the said stations?
6.	If not, for what stations were tenders called ?
7.	How many stations did the Department of Railways and Canals approve the construction of in 1930-1931?
8.	What was the amount of the tender that was accepted in each ease?
9.	Did the Department of Railways and Canals refuse to sanction the construction of stations by the Canadian National Railways in 1930-31?
10.	If so, what stations?
11.	What was the reason of refusal in each case?


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	What was the amount of each section (a), (b),.(e), (d), (e), (f) of the Canadian National Railways supplementary estimates, 1930-31, totalling $11,410,400.85 in vote No. 65 of March, 1931?
2.	When was the total amount of each section approved by the government?
3.	At what date the total amount of each section was entirely spent?


Jean-François Pouliot: Was section (d) of vote No. 65 of the Canadian National Railways supplementary estimates, 1930-31, a continuation of section (d) of Vote 323 of last year?


BOARD OP RAILWAY COMMISSIONERS
Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	How many times did this government make requests to the Board of Railway Commissioners, (a) that were ignored by that board; (b) that were granted by the board?
2.	In what instances?
3.	At what dates?



INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES OF LABOUR

[Stage Direction]
Mr. ST-PERE:.
Who have been the representatives of Canada either as delegates or advisers at the various international conferences of labour since the establishment of the International Bureau of Labour, at Geneva?

Mr. RALSTON:: 1.	What are the names of all employees on the payroll of the Halifax harbour commission during the months of December, 1929, and January, 1930, and what was the salary paid each one either on a weekly or a monthly or a yearly basis?
2.	What are the names of all employees on the payroll of the Halifax harbour commission during the months of December, 1930, and January, 1931, and what was the salary paid each one either on a weekly or a monthly or a yearly basis?
3.	What was the amount of revenue earned on goods using the Halifax harbour commission property during December, 1929, and January, 1930?
4.	What was the amount of revenue earned on goods using the Halifax harbour commission property during December, 1930, and January, 1931?


Richard Bedford Bennett: This question will have to stand as an order for return. In any event it will be observed that it is not within our jurisdiction and the only way in which we can deal with it is to transmit the communication to the commission and receive their reply.



CITY OF OTTAWA AGREEMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. H. A. STEWART (Minister of Public Works) moved that the house go into committee to-morrow to consider the following proposed resolution:
That it is expedient to authorize the Minister of Public Works, on behalf of His Majesty, to enter into an agreement with the corporation of the city of Ottawa to extend the period of the existing agreement with the corporation for one year from 1st June, 1930.
He said:	His Excellency the Governor
General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the favourable consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Richard Bedford Bennett: Before the orders of the day are
proceeded with, I should like to intimate to the house that for two reasons I shall not be able to proceed with the budget until Monday next. On Monday afternoon, with the consent of the house, I propose to proceed with it. Perhaps, strictly speaking, consent is not required, for the motion is that the house resolve itself into committee of ways and means, and not into committee of supply. I
Alberta Coal

propose :to present the budget on Monday afternoon, and I shall leave to my right hon. friend (Mr. Mackenzie King) the determination as to when the debate shall be resumed, whether on the succeeding Thursday or on Tuesday; or whatever other day he may select will be satisfactory under the circumstances. I had previously told this house that I thought we should be able to present the budget before the last day of May. The last day of May falls on Sunday, and I shall not be able to present the budget in May for two reasons, one of which I have already mentioned to the house. There has also been delay in receiving a cable affecting certain matters concerning one of the overseas dominions. The other reason is the physical work of completing certain of the matters that have to be dealt with. I trust, therefore, that the house will not regard the presentation of the budget on Monday as being in any sense a breach of my undertaking to endeavour to present it before the last day of May, That day falling on Sunday, I shall present the budget on Monday.



SECOND NARROWS-RIPPLE ROCK

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. WILFRED HANBURY (Vancouver-Burrard):: I would ask the Minister of Marine (Mr. Duranleau) when the report on the removal of Ripple rock and the report on the second narrows of Burrard inlet at Vancouver will be tabled.


Alfred Duranleau: The report on Ripple rock was tabled a few days ago. I laid five copies of the report on the table, and I think my hon. friend may have one of those for his own use. As to the other report, I think probably it will be tabled on Monday.



ALBERTA COAL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:	.
Mr. E. J. GARLAND (Bow River):: Is
the Minister of Mines yet in a position to give a reply to my question of yesterday regarding the special rate Of $6.75?


Hon. W. A. GORDON (Minister of Immigration) :: The special rate of $6.75 to which the hon. member refers has already been extended until next year. I do not think I can add anything to that.


Edward Joseph Garland: Was it extended by amendment to the order in council
to cover the entire twelve months' period, or was it done by action of the Board of Railway Commissioners?


Wesley Ashton Gordon: My recollection of the
order in council is that it covers the entire twelve months' period. The order in council is published in the Gazette. If it is not available to the hon. member, I shall have a copy of it sent to him.



INDIAN HEAD AND SUTHERLAND FORESTRY STATIONS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Melville):: May I ask the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Murphy) if the reported discontinuance of the forestry farms at Indian Head and Sutherland is correct? Also, whether a request for reconsideration of this matter has been received by the government and decided upon, and if so, what has been the decision?


Hon. T. G. MURPHY (Minister of the Interior):: The question asked by the ex-
Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) deals with the farms at Indian Head and Sutherland which are supplying free nursery stock to the farmers of the west. The first of these stations was established at Indian Head twenty-five years ago, and later one was established at Sutherland. Both are in the province of Saskatchewan, and as I said, the purpose of these stations is to supply free nursery stock to the farmers of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Since their inception they have been administered by the forestry branch of the Department of the Interior.


Mr. BROWN:: Should not the minister
explain that free nursery stock does not mean free fruit trees? He does not mean that.


Thomas Gerow Murphy: Oh no. If my hon. friend will give me a moment I will come to that. The provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta assumed administration of their natural resources on October 1, 1930, and as no provision had been made in the transfer agreement covering the matter, the Department of the Interior, through the forestry branch, has continued to administer those stations. The stations were supplying a service only to the three western provinces, and it might well be argued that if that service did not apply to the other provinces of Canada the stations became a matter of provincial re-

Supply-A gricullure-Dairying
sponsibility when the three western provinces assumed control of their natural resources. But as no provision had been made for the continuance of that work by the provinces, arrangements have been made whereby the Department of Agriculture, of the Dominion government will continue to administer these forestry stations at Indian Head and Sutherland until the end of the present fiscal year.



RAILWAY COMMISSION VACANCY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. E. MUNN (Vancouver North):: I would ask the Minister of Railways and Canals if it is the intention of the government to give representation to British Columbia in the reorganization of the Board of Railway Commissioners.


Robert James Manion: That question will be
given consideration when the appointments are being made.



TOBACCO IMPORTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day.
Mr. E. J. GOTT (South Essex):: With
permission of the hon. member for Temis-couata (Mr. Pouliot) I would like to have some information from the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Ryckman) concerning part of a question standing on the order paper in my name. I refer to page 1234 of Hansard wherein it is stated, in reply to a question, that the answers will be furnished by the Department of National Revenue. The information has not yet been tabled.


Hon. E. B. RYCKMAN (Minister of National Revenue):: When further answers are
available they will be furnished to the hon. member.



TERMINAL POSTAL STATION AT MONTREAL

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. FERNAND RINFRET (St. James) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, will the Postmaster General inform us whether the government has arrived at some conclusion in regard to the construction of a terminal postal station at Montreal, and the location of that station?


Arthur Sauvé: Mr. Speaker, the Post
Office Department is at present considering this question.



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr: Smoke in the chair.
The CHAIRMAN:: The committee will
resume consideration of the following item:
Dairying, including grant of $5,000 to National Dairy Council, $295,000.
And the amendment thereto of Mr. Young.-


Mr. TOTZKE:: Mr. Chairman, before we
continue discussion of the various items in this department, I wish to refer to a matter, which was brought up the other evening, of vital importance to the department and to the officials of the department. The matter to which I refer, which deeply concerns the people of Canada as a whole and particularly of western Canada, has reference to a statement which was read into Hansard by the hon. member for South Battleford (Mr. Vallance). He read from a report which appeared in a newspaper of western Canada. To recall the article to the minds of hon. members I shall read it again.
There has never been a department ' in Ottawa so incompetent, in such a state of inefficiency and disorganization as agriculture when W. R. Motherwell left it. The department was and still is inefficiently manned, permeated with intrigue, jealousies and incompetence. Mr. Motherwell gave no thought to agriculture.
Later on in the article are these words:
It was under these conditions that Mr. Weir took office. He had scarcely a competent official, and many were disloyal to him. He did not tell the whole story last night, but 9n his estimates parliament will receive further information on the decrepit department left by Mr. Motherwell.
Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that article constitutes a reflection on the officials of the Department of Agriculture which should not be allowed to pass without comment. The other night the minister made no comment on the statement. So far as the ex-Minister of Agriculture is concerned we will leave his administration to the judgment of the people of the country, and especially to those of western Canada.


An hon. MEMBER:: You did.


Albert Frederick Totzke: They have always been of the opinion that the Hon. Mr. Motherwell was one of the best Ministers of Agriculture this country ever had. The farmers of western Canada-


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: What did they say on July 28?



Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


Albert Frederick Totzke: I can wait as 'long as my hon. friend. The fanners of western Canada vealize that Mr. Motherwell, the ex-minister [DOT]of Agriculture, did more for agriculture in western Canada and in Canada as a whole than any other person in this country. I am concerned with the statement that the Department of Agriculture is incompetent, and that the officials are inefficient. If that is the case I say we should not vote a single item [DOT] in these estimates for the department until the condition is corrected. I ask the minister to-day if he is in agreement with the statement that the officials in the department are incompetent and inefficient. If so the people of Canada should know; if the statement is not true they should know that the officials are competent and efficient. I think a statement should be made in fairness not only to the people of Canada but to the officials of the department who are resting under this sort of suspicion.


Robert Weir: Mr. Chairman, the other night
when the article referred to was read into Hansard I did not make a statement because I did not think it was worth while. I do not know who the editor of the paper is or who prompted the article. When speaking on the public platform and in the house, since taking the portfolio of Agriculture, I have on every occasion spoken in the kindest terms of my predecessor and will always think of him in the kindest possible way. So far as the officials of the department are concerned I do not think the article requires an answer. I believe my action since taking over the department supplies the best answer possible. Although we have in the neighbourhood of 2,500 officials on the staff I doubt if ever on the occasion of a change in the head of a department, fewer dismissals have taken place than since I became Minister of Agriculture. *With the exception of two or three I know of no dismissals in the department.


Albert Frederick Totzke: The minister has said he has made practically no dismissals. The article to which I have referred has been appearing in newspapers throughout western Canada.


Mr. SHORT:: The minister is not responsible for that.


Albert Frederick Totzke: I think this is a matter which should be properly cleared up. If there are any incompetent or inefficient officials I would say they should be dismissed. They should not be allowed to carry on the important work of a department of government.
[Mr. Hanson.1


An hon. MEMBER:: The hon. member need not worry about that; he is in the opposition.


Albert Frederick Totzke: Of course I am in the opposition, and I would say the same thing if I were on the government side of the house.


Harry Bernard Short: The hon. member would
not have opened his mouth.


Albert Frederick Totzke: Hon. gentlemen opposite
seem to think that because we happen to be on the opposition side we are not concerned with the government of the country. It is the duty of the opposition carefully to watch the expenditures made and the work done on behalf of the Canadian people. This is a very serious matter. I believe some of the articles which appeared in western newspapers were signed by a reporter who is high in the confidence of the Conservative party. Not only the Department of Agriculture but the whole government is under suspicion if the matter is not properly dealt with. I think the Minister of Agriculture should concern himself a little more about this item than he has done. He has simply been telling us that there were no dismissals. Sometimes incompetent and inefficient officials are allowed to stay in the department, perhaps not discovered, and I think the minister should give a little better explanation of this item.


Mr. MULLINS:: Mr. Chairman, I have
listened with some interest to the hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Totzke), but I think he had better start to criticize the hon. member for South Huron (Mr. McMillan), who has been parading around the country running down the Minister of Agriculture before that hon. gentleman has hardly taken his seat. I have before me a newspaper clipping of a statement made by the hon. member, which, I think, is very far-fetched and not at all fair to the -Minister. This is the clipping:
Mr. McMillan criticized the agricultural policy of the Conservative federal government as inadequate and unavailing. The government, he said, had gone "protectionist crazy."


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Henry Alfred Mullins: Well. I can only say that when you gentlemen opposite picked up the Dunning budget I don't know how crazy you were, but I think you were crazier than we were. Let me complete the quotation:
He cited facts to show that dairymen and also fruit and vegetable growers in Canada had suffered through the tariff policy of the Conservatives.

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
The hon. member should know better than that. I always thought he was pretty fair to the cattle industry and to farming in general, but he certainly is not fair in the statements I have quoted, which appeared in the Ottawa Citizen of May 18, 1931.
Now, I wonder if some hon. members on the other side can intelligently discuss this important item before the committee? Do you know it is said throughout the constituency that I have the honour to represent that no commercial traveller will get off at railway stations in ridings represented by some members opposite who just talk wheat, and wheat alone.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Henry Alfred Mullins: No, they will not get
off at those stations to sell goods unless they see cream cans on the platform. I am proud to tell the committee that at every station platform throughout the constituency of Marquette they do get off and are prepared to sell goods; you can see cream cans on every station platform in my constituency. True, I admit prices have gone down. But why? Would any body of men make such a fool treaty as you made with Australia? Would you do it again if you had the chance and provide us the material that we had to go to the country with at the last election? No, I do not think you would; I think you would know a little more about the cow; and you had better get acquainted with her, you had better get to know more about her. She was the first pioneer that came to Canada. She came here with Champlain, and she has stayed with us right along. You are upholding the late Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell). I have nothing to say against him personally. His constituency and mine adjoin each other, and I have known him a great many years. But although I am not going to say anything about him personally, I will say this of his policy:	I venture to
assert that the present Minister of Agriculture will never involve the country in an expense of about $9,500,000 sending professors chasing through the country to find out whether moths' eggs are fertile or unfertile; nor will he have them chasing around the country, as I have seen them in western Canada, to find out whether rye or barley has whiskers. Certainly the present minister will not do that and ignore the cattle business. Was there anything so ridiculous as that iniquitous transaction of the Petersen commission that the former minister was responsible for? And what was the result of it? It cost the country $35,000. What did it get for us? It got us nothing. Any time our friends 22110-130t
opposite touch the cattle business they seem to make a mess of it. They have never had a constructive policy in regard to live stock. What did the hon. member opposite do while he was Minister of Agriculture? He discontinued the policy of distributing pure-bred sires throughout the country. That was the worst course he could have taken at the very time that the Irish government had their representatives here looking over the country to see what we were doing. They at once realized our mistake and on their return to Ireland they adopted our former policy and captured the British market. Look at the position we are in today owing to the lack of attention of our friends opposite to the dairy industry. This item before the committee is a very important one and concerns the dairy industry. Oh, yes, the cow is our friend. As I stated during our campaign, some of you gentlemen opposite don't know where milk comes from; you think it comes from a bottle.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Henry Alfred Mullins: Yes. I wonder if you
know what a cow is? I have a clipping here and I will read it for the benefit of some hon. members opposite:
The cow is a female-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Henry Alfred Mullins: I have been asked foolish questions by some of those professional men on the opposite side, and therefore I want to read this article for their benefit. I asked one hon. gentleman opposite a certain question in reference to a cow, and he looked at me with anmzement and could not answer- he could not tell me which end of her got up first. So I am going to tell you what a cow is. This is an excellent article written by a student in a Minnesota college. I thought it was only right that some members here should know something about the cow so they would not ask such foolish questions about her. Let me proceed.
The cow is a female quadruped with an alto voice and a countenance in which there is no guile. She collaborates with the pump in the production of a liquid called milk, provides the filler for hash, sausages and similar objects, and at last is skinned by those she has benefited, as mortals commonly are.
The young cow is called a calf, and is used in the manufacture of chicken salad, breaded veal and other uses of which no further knowledge is necessary.
The cow's tail-
I want you to know where it is mounted.
The cow's tail is mounted aft and has a universal joint. It is used to disturb maraud-
204S

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
ing flies and the tassel on the end has unique educational value. Persons who come in contact with the tassel have vocabularies of peculiar and impressive force.
The cow has two stomachs.
One of my hon. friends opposite did not know that she had two stomachs.
The one on the ground floor is used as a warehouse and has no other function. When this one is filled,, the cow retires to a quiet spot where her bad manners will occasion no comment. The raw material thus conveyed for the second time to the interior of her face is pulverized and delivered to the auxiliary stomach, where it is converted into cow.
The cow has no upper plate.
Now, get that. I was asked by an hon. gentleman:	"How many teeth has she in her
upper jaw?" I said to him, "Don't you know? Have you ever looked a cow over on the farm?" He said, "No; I looked over the fence at a cow and that is as near as I ever got to seeing her teeth."
The cow has no upper plate. All of her teeth are parked in the lower part of her face. This arrangement was perfected by an efficiency expert to keep her from gumming things up. As a result she bites up and gums down.
If we paid more attention to the cow, the mother of prosperity, Canada would be in a unique position to-day. I may tell you I have spent fifty years of my life among the cattle of western Canada, and I make no apology when I use these words on the floor of the house. I may tell you, sir, for your information that the cow played an important part in the last election; she went a long way to defeat hon. members opposite. Discontinuing the policy of putting out pure-bred sires was suicide to the cattle industry of western Canada. I wonder why hon. gentlemen opposite did a thing like that? When I was putting that to an audience in Angusville, Manitoba, one good cow within hearing bellowed out and seemed to say, "You are absolutely correct."
The question before the committee is one of vital importance to our western country. We want to get back into the dairy industry, and we want to get back to raising good dual purpose calves. We want the right type of calves, and we want no obstruction to items such as the one before the house at the present time. Why do hon. members obstruct an item of this kind? Whenever it has been a question of live stock hon. gentlemen opposite have been obstructionists; they have put the industry in the position in which it is in to-day. We had no business to lose that trade with England. We have Ireland shipping

a million cattle a year, while Canada shipped none during 1926, 1927 and 1928. We lost that trade entirely when we should have been building it up.


Mr. VALLANCE:: Will the hon. member tell us exactly why we were not able to ship cattle during that period, and why Ireland did ship cattle?


Richard Burpee Hanson: Ask me
another.


John Vallance: I will ask you a question in a moment. Will the hon. member for Marquette, who knows a great deal about the cattle industry, tell us why Canada did not ship cattle while Ireland was shipping cattle? At the same time he might answer this question: Can he tell me any great agricultural country that ever followed the policy hon. gentlemen opposite are attempting to put across now?


Henry Alfred Mullins: I cannot hear my hon. friend very plainly, so I cannot answer.


Mr. SPOTTON:: It was not intelligent anyway.


Henry Alfred Mullins: If the section of the
country represented by my hon. friend had taken up the production of breeding live stock it would not be in the position it is to-day. When hon. gentlemen opposite took office we were shipping 220,000,000 pounds of bacon annually to England, while now we are shipping only 20,000,000 pounds and a few straggling cattle. We should be shipping cattle daily by the thousands from Montreal. They would be bringing back real money, and I trust that hon. members will look fairly at these items being brought forward by the minister, and will not throw any barriers in the way of their passing.


William Richard Motherwell: We all like to have a little fun with the hon. member for Marquette, but that will scarcely answer the question asked by the hon. member for Humboldt. I want to assure the house I did not know the hon. member was going to raise that question to-day.


Eccles James Gott: He said you were single.


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friend
might be so good as to keep quiet just now. I did not like to bring up the question when the hon. member for South Battleford (Mr. Vallance) raised it the other night; it looked so horrible and terrible that I hesitated to say anything about it. My hon. friend the minister has given a qualified denial. I

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
wonder if she could speak also on behalf of his chief secretary and say there are no reports coming from that source, because I continually hear, not only in Ottawa but in Regina and other places, every time the minister goes west, a bunch of rumours regarding the terrible condition in which he found the Department of Agriculture.
I know pretty well who wrote this particular article; I do not know whether or not he is in the gallery just now. Having regard to the fact that there is a wonderful similarity between that article and the article which the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young) denied, in which he was included among those making cowardly attacks upon the minister, I assume this article is by the same author, and lest my silence be interpreted as assent with reference to departmental officials, I think it my duty to say a word with regard to the matter.
I am not going to say anything concerning the references to myself; I do not think I have to do that, but I believe I should defend the officials of the department, no matter who is the slanderer. I do not know where in this country you will find a better lot of men. I had the good fortune to have an excellent staff in Regina, a staff largely of my own selection. I accepted the staff which was here at the time I took office, and as far as I can recall only one new branch was established here in the nine years I had charge of the department. Some of the officials have been here for thirty years, under five or six ministers, and for that reason I feel greater freedom to speak on their behalf than perhaps would be the case if I had been given the opportunity of selecting them myself.
The administrative head of any department of government is the deputy minister. We have the deputy minister of agriculture here to-day, and I often wondered during the years I was at the head of that department what I would do to find a substitute if anything should happen to him. I want to say a substitute could not be found in Canada, in my estimation. I have had a good deal of experience in looking for deputy ministers of agriculture in my own province, and this is one of the most difficult positions to fill. You must have not only a theoretical man but a practical man as well; he must be acceptable to the public, and a good administrator. In the present deputy minister of agriculture we have a further, most invaluable qualification; that of being bilingual, which is something almost indispensable in this country. There is not one branch of agriculture I
know of which he is not familiar, and I have never had a word of disagreement with him. There is a hint in this article of some disaffection and all sorts of intrigue; that is absolutely false. I do not care who said it, it is as false as anything possibly could be.
I could go over all the heads of branches and divisions and make almost the same comment regarding them. Let me take the next one who comes to my mind; I refer to Doctor Archibald. Where would you get a better director of experimental farms in all Canada? Two or three years ago the Russian government made a very attractive offer to him to go to that country and put agriculture on its feet, but notwithstanding the size of the offer he was so much taken up with his present work that he remained with us. Then there is George Clark, the seed commissioner. I can scarcely remember when there was a department of agriculture without George Clark, another exceedingly capable man. There was Mr. Arkell, who recently left the department. I have no reason to think he was asked to leave or anything of the kind; I knew he was thinking of going to some commercial cooperative organization where he felt he had a greater opportunity. He was another first class man.
So it is all along the line with these men. There is Doctor Ruddick, who is looked upon as the dean of the dairy industry in Canada. I can scarcely remember when Doctor Ruddick was not dairy commissioner. He had the opportunity of going to New Zealand to put the cheese and butter industry of that country on its feet; he was asked to organize and establish that industry. He has been here as long as I can remember. He is a thoroughly reliable officer, and if my good friend the minister well keep pretty close to these officers and consult with them, he will not go very far wrong. The recommendations, manifestos and policies which have been enunciated by him from time to time have been referred to already. I do not think they would have been issued had my hon. friend consulted with his officers. He has always intimated since he was appointed that he would be willing to receive recommendations from anyone, but apparently I have not been very fortunate in the ones I offered; they were not received very favourably, but we shall not discuss that any further.
I would like to get back to a discussion of the dairying question, but I do not want to shut off discussion on this item. Some of the matters taken up the other night have been left more or less in the air. In reading

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
over Hansard I notice that the hon. member for South Hastings (Mr. Tummon) suggested that the figures with regard to the production of milk had been cooked by the department. I did not catch at the time what he said, as he mumbled something and then hiked into the corridor.


Mr. TUMMON:: I made the Statement
that the figures were changed in the year 1929 just previous to the elections and I am prepared to substantiate that statement.


William Richard Motherwell: I prefer to take
the official figures issued by Doctor Ruddick based upon the figures of the bureau of statistics.


William Ernest Tummon: I can give figures which
are just as accurate as those given 'by the hon. gentleman.


William Richard Motherwell: It may be all right to talk, but we cannot accept the talk of my hon. friend or any other hon. member in preference to the official figures which I recited the other evening. I do not know anything about my hon. friend's veracity, I assume it is all right but he will have some trouble proving what he has said. If it is within my power, I will give him an opportunity to do so.


William Ernest Tummon: Mr. Chairman, since the
question of the production of milk in Canada was raised the other night, and is now before the committee, I think it is no more than right that I should state the position ivhich I took. When the hon. gentleman vas speaking the other evening he made reference to the milk production of Canada. He gave the following round figures:
Year	Pounds
1925		 12,000,000,000
1926		 13.000,000,000
1927		 14,000,000,000
1928		 14,000,000,000
1929		 14,000,000,000
He mentioned that during the last two years there had been a slight reduction in the production. The government reports show the following production in round figures:
Year	Pounds
1924		 12.000,000.000
1925		 12,600,000,000
1926		 13,407,000,000
1927		 13,060,000,000
In other words, there was a reduction as between 1926 and 1927 amounting to 347,000,000 pounds. These figures are taken from the government reports.


William Richard Motherwell: Which ones?


William Ernest Tummon: The monthly bulletin
as issued by the bureau of statistics.


William Richard Motherwell: I would like my
hon. friend to find them for us.


William Ernest Tummon: I can produce them if it is necessary. The reduction in the total production of milk, which is after all the basis of the whole dairying industry, from 1926 to 1927 amounted to 347,000,000 pounds. If that amount of milk, had been converted into butter at the regular ratio it would have amounted to over 14,000,000 pounds, and the strange thing is that we imported that year from the antipodes over 14,000,000 pounds of butter. I have not the figures before me for 1928, but in that year there was another decrease in the ' production of milk. What happened in 1929 just prior to the elections?


Mr. YOUNG:: What elections?


William Ernest Tummon: In 1929, a year before the last federal election a new method of reckoning the production of milk was instituted. It was said that in the three prairie provinces of Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan the cows were producing 211 per cent more milk than they had a few years ago, and an increase of 10 per cent had taken place in the rest of the Dominion. Thus the figures for the production of milk were adjusted on that basis and showed the production for 1928, as given by the hon. gentleman. Not only that, but they went back and adjusted the figures for the years 1927, 1926, and even 1925 when the Australian treaty and the New Zealand order in council were passed.
In 1928 and 1929 there were 100,000 less milch cows in the Dominion of Canada than there had been in the years 1925 and 1926. In figuring on the new basis, it was decided that the total production of milk was over 14,000,000,000 pounds. In 1926 there were 3,332,479 milch cows in Canada-I do not mean dairy cattle, but just milch cows-an increase from 1925 of 167,000. The year 1926 is conceded to be the best we have had in the dairying industry. Two years after the Australian treaty and the New Zealand order in council came into effect there was a decrease in the number of milch cows in Canada amounting to 75,215, and there was a further decrease in 1928. Under this new method of reckoning, it is said that the production of milk in Canada in 1928 was 14,512,897,961 pounds, but the only correct reports which the department has in regard to this production are the reports received annually from the cheese factories, the butter factories, the combined butter and cheese factories and

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
condensed milk factories. Each year a report is received from these factories giving the number of pounds of milk received by them and from how many cows received. According to these reports, we find that in 1928, the product of 2,197,237 cows was being used in these factories. In other words, the product of two-thirds of the producing cows m Canada was being sent to these factories, the total amount of milk received was less than seven billion pounds, leaving one-third of the total of milch cows in the Dominion to supply seven or eight billion pounds in order to make up the figures given by the hon. gentleman. In other words, the cows of which the department has no record-one-third of the total milch cows in Canada- had to produce two and one-half times as much as the cows of which they had a record. That is the position in regard to the matter.


William Richard Motherwell: We would like to know my hon. friend's authority for all this.


William Ernest Tummon: My hon. friend will get the authority if he will go and figure it out, it is all taken from the reports.
The other day it was said that the Conservative party promised the farmers that if they came into power, the farmers would get fifty, sixty or seventy cents a pound for butter. I think I was as active in regard to this question as any hon. member on this side of the house, and I never made any such statement in any speech I made in the house or on any platform during the campaign or before it. What the Conservative party did say was that the dairy farmers of the Dominion of Canada were entitled to their own home market, and that if the Conservatives came into power endeavours would be made to give the dairy farmers their own home market.


Mr. BEAUBIEN:: They do not have it to-day.


William Ernest Tummon: If they do not have it to-day, it is because of what they found on their door-step, left by the previous government.


William Richard Motherwell: I do not wish to discourage my hon. friend, but I have under my hand an authentic statement from the dairy commissioner. Last night I stated that the reason I took his figures instead of those from the bureau of statistics was because the dairy commissioner's figures were more complete. My hon. friend goes on making assertions without any particular foundation regarding certain matters.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friends are putting up a barrage under which to hide from the facts of the case.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunfoury):: We are not worrying about my hon. friend for a minute.


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friends
during the election campaign last year made statements which they cannot substantiate. These figures that have been given to me contradict them completely, and yet they have to blather a lot about things that have nothing to do with the case.


Mr. COTNAM:: If my hon. friend did not like the New Zealand treaty, why did he not cancel it?


William Richard Motherwell: We shall have an opportunity of discussing the New Zealand treaty when my hon. friends bring it down.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Mr. Dunning gave notice of cancellation of it.


William Richard Motherwell: I wonder who is
doing the blocking now. This is the statement from the dairy commissioner:
Agreeably to your telephone request this morning I beg to hand you herewith statement of estimated volume of milk produced in Canada in the years 1922 to 1929.


An hon. MEMBER:: It is only an estimate.


William Richard Motherwell: It is like any other statement of the sort; it is an estimate. The estimates which we have before us are estimates. It is as authentic as can be secured in view of all the circumstances.
Year	Pounds
1922		9,000,000,000
In order to make it fairer to my hon. friends the other night I put it at 10,000,000,000 pounds, to cover any possible mistake, but now I am going to take it as being 9,000,000,000! pounds.
Year	Pounds
1923		11,000,000,000
1924		12,000,000,000
1925		12,000,000.000
1926		13,000,000,000
1927		14,000.000.000
1928		14,000.000,000
1929		14,000,000,000
ou will understand, of	course, that there
is a large element of estimation in these figures.. We know definitely the quantity of milk which is used in manufactured products such as butter, cheese, condensed milk, milk powder, and the quantity which was exported to the United States but for actual quantity of milk and cream consumed or used in the manufacture of dairy butter, we have no actual data. These figures are based on the calculatiohs made by the bureau of statistics.
With regard to dairy butter we get an estimate from the dairy branch.
Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


William Ernest Tummon: There is no way of
finding out.


William Richard Motherwell: This is the best
that can be gathered, either by the bureau of statistics or by the dairy branch.


William Ernest Tummon: These are reports that
come in from cheese factories, butter factories and combined butter and cheese factories.


William Richard Motherwell: I know it is hard for my hon. friends to listen to this. We know they told the people the very opposite and they stand convicted by the figures that I have given. These figures are based on calculations made by the bureau of statistics. I have the bureau of statistics figures in my office, but they are not quite complete. It would be strange if someone had not gone down to the bureau of statistics since the other night in order to find out what figures they have. The figures which I have given are more complete than those of the bureau of statistics.


An hon. MEMBER:: Election figures.


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friends
have not a leg to stand on. Neither the minister nor his deputy will take a different attitude from that which I am taking, because the minister knows the figures I am giving and he gets his from the same source. My hon. friend across the floor concocted something of a fictitious nature in order to try to get out of a difficult situation.


William Ernest Tummon: I object. I said that the figures I read to the house were figures which I could produce from monthly bulletins of the dominion bureau of statistics in regard to agricultural statistics. I am prepared to produce them.


William Richard Motherwell: All this talk about figures! There has always been a certain discrepancy between the two lines of statistics. The reason is that the figures of the bureau of statistics are based upon the decennial census and those of. the Department of Agriculture are based upon the quinquennial census; or it may be the other way about; I have forgotten which. But there was no such condition of affairs as described by my hon. friend, as fixing up any figures to suit the occasion. That is an absolute falsehood, I do not care who says it, and I want that to be understood without any reservation whatever.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: Did the taking of the
census of Saskatchewan increase the volume of milk that was increased per head of cows?
FMr. Motherwell.]


William Richard Motherwell: I am not going to be dragged into a discussion along that line; I am discussing other things just now. Let my hon. friends produce the figures from the bureau of statistics. I could not get from the bureau as complete a report as this. I may be able to produce the statement from the bureau later on.
I have another question in regard to the matter. The other night I asked the minister about the prices of butter at the present time and any other date when the price was as low as it is to-day. The minister might also inform me now if he has any better figures regarding the total production of milk during the years I have mentioned. Do my figures correspond or conflict with his?


Robert Weir: To clear up a
matter, the other night I misinterpreted a question asked by the hon. member for Melville regarding the estimates for 1930-31. The main estimates amounted to $8,751,79524. The supplementary estimates for 1931, that is, those presented during the regular session of 1930, amounted to $320,548.20. The further supplementary estimates for 1930-31, presented at the present session, amounted to $443,000, making a total of $9,515,343.44.
Mr. MOTHERWrELL: That is not at all what I asked for.


Mr. EULER:: I cannot add anything to
the question of the production of mi'lk or butter, but I have some interest in the matter of the importation of butter into this country, and I would ask the minister for some information, if he can give it to me, in regard to importations of butter. We heard a great deal during the election and at the last session before the election about the importation of New Zealand butter, and a great deal of New Zealand butter did come into this country, but no butter came in from Australia. Now the tariff on Australian butter and New Zealand butter was exactly the same, but the reason why no butter came in from Australia was that under the Patterson scheme in Australia the exporters of butter in Australia received a subsidy of 6 cents a pound. They therefore, if Canada would allow the butter to be imported, could export that butter to Canada at a price 6 cents or less below the price they charged for home consumption, with the result that so long as the last administration was in office, so long as I was in the Department of National Revenue, we took such importations as the dumping of Australian butter into Canada, and we applied the dumping clause. The result was that no Australian butter whatsoever was imported into this

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
country. So, after all, the old government, which was not supposed to be protecting the interests of dairy farmers, did at least keep Australian butter out of this country.
From a return that was brought down a few days ago I find that the importation of New Zealand butter has come practically to a standstill, only some seven thousand pounds coming in from New Zealand during the month of Aipril. But I find that nearly half a million pounds came in from Australia, something that never occurred during the last four years prior to the election. I should like to have an explanation of that. The minister explained the other night that an arrangement had been made with the Hon. Mr. Moloney 'of Australia, that no Australian butter would be released for sale in Canada at less than 32 cents a pound. I would ask the minister "whether the price of 32 cents a pound at which Australian butter could be sold in Canada was in any instance a lower price than the price at which Australian butter was being sold in Australia. I would like to know how the price of Australian butter which was sold in Canada compared with the home consumption price, because if Australian butter was sold in Canada at less than the home consumption price in Australia, the dumping duty should have been applied, as we had applied it in the past. I am curious to know whether an order in council was passed by the government or some other note taken of the old G cents a pound subsidy which was granted in Australia until recently, and which perhaps is still granted. I can conceive of only one means by which the Australians could send their butter in here at a lower price than sold in the country of origin, in Australia itself, and that is if they sent the butter in on consignment. As members of the committee may know, goods may be sent into this country on consignment at any price at all. They may be practically dumped into this country. They may be sent into this country at a price less than in the country of origin. But if they are sent in on consignment no duty applies unless the governor in council passes an order in council taking note of the fact that this is being done, that the goods are being sent in here on consignment really for the purpose of evading the dumping duty. I would like to know whether the government took any steps whereby note was taken of the 6 cents a pound subsidy which was granted to exporters of butter in Australia, whereby that amount of 6 cents a pound was no longer taken into account in deciding whether or not the dumping duty should apply. My other question is-perhaps the Minister of National
Revenue has this information-whether that 32 cents a pound, which was the fixed value below which no Australian butter could come into Canada, was ever less than the price at which butter was sold for home consumption in Australia; and if so, why the dump was not applied.


Robert Weir: I think that is more a question for the Minister of National Revenue than it is for myself. Realizing that a change should be made in the Australian treaty, I do not think anyone would feel it advisable to institute against a sister dominion a dumping duty. I think we served the purpose just as well by taking the action we did.


William Daum Euler: I do not wish to criticize my hon. friend but we had the greatest amount of opposition to the importation of butter from new Zealand, which also is a sister dominion.


Mr. NEILL:: I would like to add my voice to the protests against the large quantity of Australian butter allowed in. The question before the house is a reduction in the vote for the National Dairy Council. I feel disposed to vote against the proposed reduction because I have a personal friend on the council, and he tells me that they work well, do not play politics, and on several occasions they have appeared to work in the interests of the dairy industry. For example, they urged the late government to put a duty of 4 cents a pound on New Zealand butter, and they urged the present government not to put a duty of 8 cents a pound on that butter because they said it was too much. They foresaw what has happened, that the result would be that we would be selling butter on an export basis and that prices would be slaughtered. That is just what has happened and which I predicted.
Following up the remarks of the last speaker, I had made a note to ask the Minister of Agriculture concerning what he said when this matter was last up in the house on May 26. What he said then seemed so extraordinary that I thought I must have made a mistake, but on looking at Hansard I see that he made the same statement twice. At page 2005 of Hansard, dealing with the Australian treaty, he said that the government had made an arrangement with Australia whereby no Australian butter would be sold in Canada at less than 32 cents a pound. He went on to say:
They lived up to that agreement in a very commendable way, until the price of butter in Montreal, and also in the west, in Vancouver, was cut by something very much in the nature

Supply-A griculture-Dairying
of a butter warfare between various organizations in the west. We thought butter had reached rock bottom, and it was not fair, after Australia had lived up to the agreement as she did, that we should not allow her to release her butter on this market.
On the next page he practically repeats that statement. He says:	.
1 agreed that the Australians could release their butter at a price less than thirty-two cents a pound.
The situation was that Australian butter was coming in on account apparently, as my hon. friend from North Waterloo says, of the government having ignored the Patterson subsidy of 6 cents a pound and not imposing a dumping duty. That must be the reason why Australian butter was coming in in much greater volume than before, because the dumping duty was not being applied. The government felt that something should be done, and they made a gentleman's agreement with the minister from Australia that Australia was not to send in any more butter at a less price than 32 cents a pound. What was the purpose of that agreement? Was it not to ensure as far as possible that the Canadian dairymen should not have to compete with Australian butter at a less price than 32 cents a pound? That was the object of the agreement. The government claimed credit for it. After the election I held meetings in various parts of my riding and I was frank to give the present government credit for having taken that action, but I shall be more careful of my eulogiums of the action of the present government hereafter. The minister says prices were so low that they were at rock bottom. But what is rock bottom? A good many hon. members thought they had reached rock bottom on the stock market; however they found a new rock bottom, and later on another new one. The situation is however that conditions got worse and worse, the price of butter went down farther and farther, untii in the opinion of the minister, which has since been found to be too optimistic, we had reached rock bottom. He selected that moment and apparently took that as his justification to allow a flood of Australia butter to come into this, already depreciated market. When the price was a.t rock bottom, away below cost, such time was selected by the minister as the psychological moment to say to the Australians that they had played the game so far and he would now let their butter in at any price. Certainly they played the game, because they made the agreement on the understanding that we had power to put on the dumping duty. We supposed that when 
they made an agreement they would keep it. The condition reminds me of the case of the man who in receiving 810,000 stopped counting after he had reached $2,000 with the statement, "It is right so far; I guess the rest will be all right, too." When the price is already depreciated on the home market 7,000,000 pounds is allowed in.


An hon. MEMBER:: No, half a million.


Alan Webster Neill: Yes, half a million pounds came in recently. Half a million, however, is a large quantity of butter to come in in a few months.


William Daum Euler: No, in one month.


Alan Webster Neill: In one month. We ail know the situation which existts in Australia. They were in desperate circumstances and had to sell their produce at any price. Owing to the bonus under the Patterson scheme, they could meet any price in Canada. At the moment when our price is terribly low the minister allows the unloading of half a million pounds of butter which is only the first or second instalment of a large flood of butter from that country pouring into our already depreciated market. I am bringing the matter up to learn if there is any explanation. The explanation given to the hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler) does not suffice and will not satisfy the dairymen of this country. They want to know why Australian butter was allowed in -when the market was, we will say, shot to pieces. The market will become a great deal worse by the importation of large quantities of the Australian product.


Robert Weir: I think hon. members will find I am recorded in Hansard as stating the agreement was that except by mutual agreement, no Australian butter would be released in Canada at a price less than 32 cents per pound.


Alan Webster Neill: Yes, mutual consent.


An hon. MEMBER:: On what date was
that agreement?


Robert Weir: It was at the beginning of January or the end of December when the Hon. Parker Moloney was on his way back from England.


Jean-François Pouliot: It was a Christmas gift
to Australia.


Robert Weir: It was butter we
could not keep out. Such butter could come in on consignment, and the dumping duty could not be applied while it was coming in. Did I understand my hon. friend to say half a million pounds came in in April?

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


William Daum Euler: Yes, nearly half a million
pounds.


Robert Weir: The butter to which I have reference was here in January and February and it was left in storage from that time until we agreed with Australia to release it, when we felt as I said before that the price of butter had reached rock bottom. When we agreed to release it Australia promised that no more Australian butter would come into Canada at least until the winter or pending the ratification of the Australian treaty.


Mr. DUFF:: What was the date of the release of the agreement?
Mr. MdM'ILLiAN (Huron): What date did the government agree to release the butter?


Robert Weir: I cannot give the
exact date; it was about three weeks ago.


Mr. McMILLAN (Huron):: Why?


Robert Weir: Why release it?


Thomas McMillan: Yes.


Robert Weir: Because they had
held it there. They agreed to bring no more in, and we thought it was only fair to them as they had kept their agreement.


Alan Webster Neill: But their agreement was that they were not going to bring any in at less than 32 cents so there was no need to release it below that figure.


William Daum Euler: The minister knows I have
no desire to embarrass him, but to say that the reason Australian butter was allowed to oome into Canada was because Australia is a sister colony is to my mind rather inadequate. We had to bear the brunt-


Mr. LAPOINTE:: She is a sister dominion.


William Daum Euler: Yes, a sister dominion.
The late government for months and months had to bear the brunt of attack because New Zealand butter was coming into Canada. New Zealand, however was just as much a sister dominion as is Australia. That is one point I wish to bring to the attention of the minister. Another point to which I would like to have an answer from the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Ryckman) is whether the present government gave instructions with regard to the importation of Australian butter to the effect that the six cents bonus which was given in Australia on export butter was to be disregarded, so far as applying the dumping duty was concerned. Then, the minister said that the butter came in on consignment and that it is impossible to apply a dump where goods come in in that way. I made a similar statement a few minutes ago, but I added that where the government has reason to believe that it came on consignment in order to avoid the dump, an order in council can be passed which nullifies the effect of sending butter in by consignment. It is still subject to dump as though in the first place it had been sent in as a sale. I would ask the minister to answer whether the six cent bonus was disregarded in the matter of fixing the dump and whether the goods came in on consignment; and if so why an order in council was not passed to prevent the abuse of the consignment method.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Answer.


William Daum Euler: Did I make myself clear?


Mr. MacMILLAN (Saskatoon):: Mr. Chairman-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Frank Roland MacMillan: I have listened for a considerable time-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Frank Roland MacMillan: I have had a good many-


Jean-François Pouliot: Cannot hon. members be polite with the minister and give him a chance to answer.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: I rise
to a point of order. Two very fair questions have been asked of the Minister of Agriculture. While he is considering his reply another hon. member has attempted to speak on an entirely different matter. I submit that to comply with the rules in committee the minister should be allowed to reply to the questions asked him before an hon. member asks another question.


Mr. GUTHRIE:: There is nothing whatever in the point of order raised by my hon. friend. The minister may or may not rise from his seat. Another hon. member has a perfect right to rise if he sees fit.


John Vallance: On the point of order-


Frank Roland MacMillan: My hon. friend-


John Vallance: On the point of order, Mr. Chairman, I wish to say-


Frank Roland MacMillan: I would like to say when the-	.
Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


John Vallance: I am speaking on the point of order.


Jean-François Pouliot: The minister does not rise.


John Vallance: Mr. Chairman, I wish to speak on the point of order. I can recall an occasion in 1028 when a similar condition arose, and I should like to read to the house the speech that was made by the then leader of the opposition when the estimates for the Department of Immigration were before the house.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Read it.


John Vallance: I shall read it to prove to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Guthrie) that his point is not well taken, and that he does not agree with his leader. May I say that hon. members on this side of the house anticipated the action of the minister and to show that we were prepared I shall quote from page 3064 of Hansard of the session of 1928:
IVlr. Bennett:	No one in this house, whether
minister or private member, can charge the hon. member for Kingston with sniping.
Undoubtedly the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Ross) will remember the incident. The extract from Hansard continues:
Such a charge is absolutely devoid of truth. The member for Kingston charged the Minister of 'Immigration with dereliction of duty, and gave particulars. Then the Minister of Finance said the member was sniping. Does he think it is going to advance the business of this house to talk about sniping in connection with a charge that is frankly and openly made and that requires an answer, and to which an answer must be given by the head of the department, not by somebody else on his behalf. This capable minister, whose funeral oration was delivered last evening by the Prime Minister, cannot look to the Minister of Finance to make his own defence, and let him make his own replies with respect to questions that he is asked. He was asked a reasonable question on supply by a member of this house. Every member is entitled to a reasonable answer with respect to supply. That is the sniping that is charged against the member for Kingston. I say it is unworthy of the Minister of Finance to make such a charge in view of what took place. That is not going to carry estimates in this house.
That is what was said by the right hon. gentleman who is now Prime Minister. I am quoting from Hansard of 1928 at page 3054.


Hugh Guthrie: On the point of order,
Mr. Chairman. What I said before I maintain still. I said nothing about whether the minister would or would not answer. I declared it was the right of any hon. member to_ address the committee when no one else had the floor. The point of order raised by [Mr. F. R. MacMillan.}
the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) was that my friend from Saskatoon (Mr. MacMillan), had no right to speak-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh no, no.


Hugh Guthrie: -and that the minister had some preemption or prior right to speak. No member has the right to speak when another member has the floor.


Robert Weir: I wish to repeat
^what I said before, that this butter came from Australia on consignment. Negotiations with Australia with reference to a trade treaty were under discussion and a verbal agreement was made with the Hon. Parker Moloney that butter from Australia would not be released in Canada at less than 32 cents a pound except by mutual agreement. The Australian government lived up to that agreement, and, as I said before, wTe felt when butter had reached what we considered its rock bottom price, we would allow them to release the butter on hand, on condition that no more butter would be shipped in until the winter or pending the conclusion of the negotiations then in progress. That is as full information as I can give in answer to the question.


Mr. DUPUIS:: What was the date of the
verbal agreement?


Robert Weir: The last part of
December or the first part of January.


Vincent Dupuis: Quite right. According to
the records, since the release was given, during the month of April 500,000 pounds of butter came from Australia.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Vincent Dupuis: It is here in Hansard as
information furnished by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) in reply to a question.


Robert Weir: I am quite certain
there was no 500,000 pounds of butter released.
Mr. MicMILLAN (Huron): The figures are there.


Frank Roland MacMillan: Mr. Chairman, I desire to discuss this question. I have been in the merchandise business for a good many years and have sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of butter. I have brought shipments of New Zealand butter right into the centre of the prairies at Saskatoon.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Shame.

Supply-A griculture-Dairying


Frank Roland MacMillan: I may
tell my hon. friends opposite, and particularly those from Saskatchewan, that New Zealand butter imports did depress the price of butter very materially in this country; there is no question about that. But I was very much surprised the other day at the former Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) advising the people of Quebec to establish creameries all over their province. When the hon. member was Minister of Agriculture in the Saskatchewan government he was very active in the establishment of what are known there as cooperative creameries. Later on they were used as a political football; when elections came on they established little creameries here and there all over the province for the purpose of gathering in votes for their party. What is the result to-day of that policy? The result is that twenty-two of those small creameries have not turned a wheel for some time, and the provincial government is faced with a heavy loss in connection with my hon. friend's activities in the creamery business, a loss that will amount to $2,500,000. So I warn my hon. friends from Quebec that it would be a good thing for them not to have the late Minister of Agriculture holding that portfolio when they start cooperative creameries in their province, because I am afraid that if he has anything to do with the venture they will find themselves in years to come faced with a heavy financial loss.
The late minister talks of the wonderful staff he had under him in the Department of Agriculture. Well, I know one member of his staff whose presence was required at the trial of a man in Saskatchewan charged with certain stock activities-selling shares in his babies, the cooperative creameries. I happen to have some of those shares myself and they are not worth the paper they are written on. The accused was convicted and sent to gaol. The then manager of the cooperative creameries, Mr. Wilson, who I presume was appointed by my hon. friend, was gotten out of the country, was sent to Italy, because they were afraid he would have to give evidence that would be detrimental to the provincial government of that day. The trial judge is reported in the Saskatoon Star of April 18, 1922, as follows:
His-Wilson's-absence was deliberate.
What did they do with him? They sent him to Rome. A little later they brought him back to England and made him dairy commissioner and he held that position until this government came into office. That was one of his officials.
Now, the late Minister of Agriculture is talking of the production of milk, and what a great friend he has been to western agriculture. Let me quote a few figures from the report of the Saskatchewan royal commission on immigration and settlement. This report was made in 1930, so it is fairly up to date. When the hon. member became Minister of Agriculture in the Dominion government in 1921 there were in Saskatchewan 1,563,000 cattle; in 1922, 1,602,000; in 1923, 1,535,000; in 1924, 1,528,000;-I ask him to observe the decrease in the number of cattle in Saskatchewan each year that he was minister-in 1925, 1,499,000; in 1926. 1,160,000; in 1927, 1,300,000; in 1928, 1,181,000. The figures are not furnished for 1929, but I am sure they would disclose 500,000 fewer cattle in Saskatchewan that year than when the hon. gentleman became federal Minister of Agriculture in 1921. I think that is a fair illustration of what the hon. gentleman did for that branch of agriculture in Saskatchewan when he was minister.


William Richard Motherwell: Mr. Chairman,
when hon. gentlemen undertake to discuss a question that they know absolutely nothing about they are always sure to get into trouble. In the first place, the Saskatchewan cooperative creameries that my hon. friend from Saskatoon (Mr. MacMillan) refers to were organized in 1906, and were the first of the kind that I know of in Canada. For the next ten or eleven years they were administered by the provincial agricultural department; that is, a vote would be brought down in the estimates to purchase the cream that would be manufactured into butter by these various units called cooperative creameries; then when the butter would be sold by the dairy commissioner the treasury would be recouped. During these ten or eleven years the cooperative creameries never lost one dollar to the government or to anybody else. In 1918 they were operated by the farmers. My hon. friend said they were bandied about as a political football.


Frank Roland MacMillan: Mr. Chairman-


William Richard Motherwell: Just sit down a
moment. Will the hon. gentleman sit down?


Frank Roland MacMillan: I do not know to what ten years the hon. gentleman is referring.


William Richard Motherwell: The last year of the war was 1918, and that fall there was a pretty large profit for the cooperative creameries. It was handed over at that time to a direc-

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
torate of farmers, and they were caught with a considerable amount of butter on hand, as a good many other people were caught with wheat and other products during the deflation which came shortly after that. That 'began their falling behind, but as long as I had charge of it there was no deficit and there was no single dollar due the government or anybody else. I have had to correct that statement on other occasions in this house; some farmers and other people who knew nothing about it have brought up that matter, with the idea that they had something against your humble servant.
My hon. friends like to refer to provincial records. If the minister wants to refer to provincial records, we are quite agreeable, but let us do it all the way around. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I do not object to that at all; I am willing to do the same thing in connection either with the Department of Agriculture or with any other matter. I am sorry I did not hear all my hon. friend said about cooperative creameries, but I heard some of it. This creamery went on the rocks after the war, just as hundreds of other concerns did, but what could anyone expect? How could it have been prevented? They have been struggling along ever since; they joined with the Calder creameries afterwards. It was never a cooperative creamery after that; it was a straight joint stock company after I left it. It was not bought on a pool or cooperative basis; it was not handled as such and is not handled in that way now. So whatever my hon. friend said, if this reply does not cover it, I will ask him just to peep out a little louder and I will try to meet his misrepresentations.


John Vallance: I was rather surprised at the explanation given by the minister as to his permitting the verbal agreement with Australia to lapse. He pointed out that butter had dropped to the lowest ebb, but I think he realizes now-as I 'believe he began to realize when he broke the agreement-that butter is on an export basis, and it did not matter very much. However, the point I want to make is this: We have a government here to-day which is protecting all industries in this country with the exception of agriculture. They apply the dump to everything, but here is the only instance of which I have knowledge where this government failed to protect an industry.
I should like to ask the minister what he received in lieu of the agreement which he cancelled in order to allow Australian butter

to come freely into this country. There are two questions I have to ask. The first is whether any member of the government can recite one other instance in which they broke down the barriers which they themselves set up, in order to allow commodities other than agricultural commodities to come into this country. The second question to the minister is what Canada received in return for cancelling the agreement which he permitted to lapse.


Robert Weir: Regarding the report in Hansard as to butter imported in April, I think there aTe two ways of interpreting the importation of butter. The butter was released from customs when the duty was paid, and entered as an import. I am as sure as I reasonably can be sure of anything that there was not a half million pounds of butter brought into Canada, except butter brought in on consignment and released from storage when the duty was paid.


Vincent Dupuis: We find in Hansard, at
page 984, a question asked by the hon. member for New Westminster and the answer by the Minister of Trade and Commerce as follows:
3.	Has any butter from Australia come into Canada, at any time during the past five months?
4.	If so, how much?
Mr. Stevens:
3 and 4. Canada's imports of butter from Australia during the past five months were:
Butter-	Pounds
November, 1930	 117,600
December, 1930	 308,000
January, 1931	 432,768
February, 1931	 330,568
March, 1931	 862,904
Was that all on consignment? Then the minister will find, at page 1933 of Hansard, an answer given iby the Minister of Trade and Commerce to a question asked by the hon. member for Beauharnois, as follows:
Canada's imports of butter in pounds, during April, 1931. from (a) New Zealand; (b) Australia; (c) other countries, were: (a) New Zealand, 7,100 pounds; (b) Australia, 489,944 pounds ....
That is nearly half a million pounds. If we total all those imports of butter for the last six months, they come to some three million pounds from Australia alone. How can the minister say all this butter has come to Canada on consignment, when we know that during the last campaign hon. gentlemen opposite blamed the Liberal party for having let so much butter come to Canada from New Zealand, providing unfair competition with the Canadian butter, which at that time was sell-

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
img for about 39 cents a pound, and when at this time of the year, and for the past six months, the farmers of Canada have been practically giving away their butter? In spite of that, the government have allowed butter to come into this country from Australia by the millions of pounds. Butter is being almost given away. I noticed in the newspapers that in the eastern .townships some manufacturer of soap found butter so cheap that he bought hundreds of thousands of pounds with which to make soap. I would like to ask the minister how he can justify his action and that of his government, having regard to these conditions.


Robert Weir: I still feel there is some error in the report in Hansard. I will take care to tell the house, when we are next discussing these estimates, whether or not I am right in believing that imports are recorded as such only when they are released from consignment and the duty collected.
Regarding the point that we have not protected the butter interests or the agricultural products of Canada, brought up by the hon. member for South Battleford, perhaps the best answer is to see what our protection amounted to. We made a verbal agreement with Australia not to release butter at less than 32 cents per pound. In November the price of butter on the world market in London was 22.76 cents per pound, and the price for April of this year is 23.38 cents per pound. What would have resulted had we not put on protection? New Zealand would have sold butter in this country at the same price as it was being sold in London, which would have meant that butter would have sold at practically the same price starting in October and continuing through the whole winter, as it is now when we are on an export basis. Canada would have received that lower price for the 95,000,000 pounds of butter produced. The average farmer realizes just what his protection meant to him-he got more for that total production of 95,000,000 pounds. Our task was to keep out Australian butter. Would we have kept it out as well had the dumping clause been applied with butter at 22 cents a pound?


William Daum Euler: It would have been kept out entirely. Power was given at the last session to apply any valuation whatsoever.


Robert Weir: While the previous government was in power and before we were able to keep out New Zealand butter, that country had dumped into this country a sufficient amount of butter to make a total of 40,000,000 pounds in storage when we came
into office. That has had a very detrimental effect on the price of butter throughout this past winter. That butter had to be worked off as best it could be, and even in the spring of 1931 there still remained in storage some New Zealand butter and Canadian butter which had been manufactured in 1929. That was an additional handicap to the increased output of butter.


Mr. VENIOT:: If, in order to help the farmer, it was found necessary to get rid of the 40,000,000 pounds of New Zealand butter in cold storage, why was more Australian butter allowed to come in?


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: There seems to be some doubt as to the exact amount of Australian butter which came into this country. On May 18, 1931, I asked a question, which appears on page 1684 of Hansard, as follows:
How many pounds of butter were imported to Canada from Australia, through the harbour of Vancouver, from August 1, 1930, to date?
The following answer was given by the hon. Secretary of State (Mr. Cahan):
Australian butter landed Vancouver, August 1, 1930, to May 16, 1931, 1,416,352 pounds.
That was not butter delivered on consignment or butter released afterwards, but it was butter landed in Vancouver from August 1, 1930, to May 16, 1931. How do those figures compare with the figures given to the hon. members for Megantic (Mr. Roberge) and Beauharnois (Mr. Raymond)? Is it true that this butter came in under the conditions just mentioned by the hon. minister?


Robert Weir: The imports of butter for 1929-30 amounted to 41,919,372 pounds. Even assuming that the figures in Hansard are correct, and that we imported in the neighbourhood of three million pounds in five months as against forty-one million pounds in the twelve months of 1929-30, do hon. gentleman opposite allege that the farmers of Canada are not intelligent enough to know that three million pounds allowed in in five months is more protection than forty-one million pounds allowed in in a year?


Vincent Dupuis: Even if we admit the fact that 42,000,000 pounds of butter came into Canada during the year before the present government came into office, as compared with 3,000,000 pounds since, how can the hon. minister explain the fact that during the administration of the Liberal party butter was selling at from 35 to 48 cents per pound whereas under this so-called protection it is selling now at only 21 cents-


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: Eighteen cents.

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


Vincent Dupuis: -and sometimes 18 cents per pound? As the hon. minister has said, the people of Canada are intelligent, and we should have some intelligent statement from this house.


Robert Weir: When butter was
selling at the price mentioned by the hon. member, it was selling at a higher price in the United States and in London. When the estimates were prepared one year ago butter was selling in London at 27.08 cents per pound.


Thomas McMillan: What month
was that?


Robert Weir: March.


Thomas McMillan: What year?


Robert Weir: 1930.


Thomas McMillan: That is strange, because a few days ago I obtained figures from the bureau of statistics which show prices of 35.1 and 35.6 cents per pound. While the hon. minister says that in November last butter was selling at 22 cents per pound in London, the figures supplied by the department show that it was selling at from 29.8 to 30.6 cents per pound, seven cents higher than the price given by the hon. minister.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: I did not desire to be driven to my feet, but I can see that a number of hon. members do not understand thoroughly this butter question. However, I am pleased to enter the discussion because of the questions asked by the hon. member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler):	In answer
to his question as to the sale of butter in Australia and in Canada, I would say that there is no information, but I do not believe that butter was sold during that period at a lower price in Canada than it was sold in Australia. The dumping clause could not be applied in the matter of Australian butter so as to exclude its importation.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why?


Edmond Baird Ryckman: For this reason: if you apply the dumping duty, it amounts, as hon. members know, to something in the neighbourhood of six cents, because there is a limitation in the treaty as to the application of the dumping duty in relation to Australia. The result, therefore, is that the difference in the rate of exchange would take up about one-half of the dumping duty. So the position was found to be this, and Australia was prepared to meet the position: they had shipped quite large quantities of butter to Canada; they were in a position to

ship more, and let me tell the committee that they were in a position then, namely, the latter part of last year and the beginning of this year, to swamp the Canadian market with butter, while we could not stop them with every measure that we had available to apply.


William Daum Euler: The minister said that there was no means of stopping it. Could it not have been stopped under the legislation of the short session of last year under which the government took authority to place any valuation whatsoever for that purpose?


Edmond Baird Ryckman: I have not thought to
put that situation before the house, for this reason: as is well known, we are in conference wdth the Australian government to effect, between that country and this, a modus of trade which, I believe, will be of advantage to the people of Canada. That is in process, and as the Minister of Agriculture said, when the situation was before us that Australia, despite anything we could do-*-except under that special legislation, which it is not a pleasant thing to apply and which does not make friends when you do apply it-could swamp this country with butter, we said with respect to Australia:	Do not let that butter
come in. The generous treatment that we received and that was referred to by the Minister of Agriculture was this. Australia said: We .appreciate that situation, and they did not flood us with butter. The situation is very much better than it could have been if Australia had asserted her rights and shipped into the Dominion of Canada all the butter she could against any dumping duty that we could apply.
Those negotiations are still in progress. It is not, however, violating any secret to say that we hope there will be a favourable conclusion, one in the interest of the people of Canada, the dairy interests, those who manufacture butter in this country and those who consume it. I may say that if we do not reach a favourable conclusion, it is the intention of the government to look after the butter industry in this country, as we feel we can do. If we could purchase, as we did purchase, immunity from immense shipments of butter from Australia to Canada, we felt in the negotiations it was only proper, since our friendly dominion had behaved so handsomely, they should be allowed to release that butter which was and had been in storage for a long period. With respect to the reference to April, 1931, I think it will be found, as stated by the Minister of Agriculture, that that is when the butter was ex-warehouse and not when it landed in Canada.

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


Robert Weir: I should like to
make certain of one point. Did the hon. member for South Huron state that he has information from the agricultural branch of the bureau of statistics that the price of butter in London, in November, 1930, was twenty-nine cents and a fraction per pound?


Thomas McMillan: It was 29-8
to 30-6 cents.


Robert Weir: Information received from the dairy and cold storage branch of my department gives the price of butter in London in November, 1930, at 22-76 cents per pound.


Thomas McMillan: I received this two days ago from the bureau of statistics. I may say that I have received the statistics ever since the Australian treaty came into force on the 1st of October, 1925. On that date the prices of butter in London were as follows:
Cents per pound
Australian	47-74
Canadian	 46-87
There was a gradual readjustment until March, 1926, when Canadian butter, that is, No. 1 pasteurized butter, stood 10 cents per pound higher in Montreal than the price in London, England. For the whole year 1926, the average price of No. 1 pasteurized butter stood at an average of 2-46 cents per pound higher in Montreal than its value in London, England. For 1927, the next year, all the prices were given by the department at the hearing held before the tariff advisory board, and in 1927 the average price of butter in Montreal was 4-72J cents per pound higher than its value in London, England. I mean by that, its value when you take into account the cost of shipment from Montreal to London. In 1928 it was an average of 4-17 cents per pound higher in Montreal than its value in London, England, and in 1929 it was an average of 4-79 cents per pound higher in Montreal than its value in London, England.
Coming to 1930, these are the figures I got
the other day:	Montreal	London, England
	Cents	Cents
Month-[DOT]	per pound	per poundJanuary. . .	41-0	38-0 to 38-3February. .	. 39-0	37-5 to 37-9March. . .	. 37-3	35-1 to 35-6April. . . .	. 34-9	30-3 to 30-5May. . . .	. 31-1	28-6 to 29-1June. . . .	. 30-1	29-6 to 29-8July. . . .	. 30-5	31-9 to 32-1
22110-13:
That is the first time since 1925 that the price in London was higher than the price in Montreal.
Month-	Montreal Cents per pound	London, England Cents per poundAugust . .	. . . 31-4	32-0 to 32-4September	. . 33-4	31-9 to 32-7October.	. . 33-2	32-3 to 32-5November.	. . 33-0	29-8 to 30-6December.	. . 33-2	29-5 to 29-8Those are	the figures that	I got this morning from the bureau of statistics.


Robert Weir: Are those figures
the top prices?


Thomas McMillan: I understand that these are the average prices during these months, and I compared them just this morning with figures that I got from the dairy and cold storage branch, Doctor Rud-dick's branch. I have all the figures here, and there is a discrepancy between the two, but in every instance they show the Montreal prices higher than the London prices.


Robert Weir: There must be
something radically wrong, because the figures I have are also figures from the dairy and cold storage branch for the same years. They are the official figures.


Thomas McMillan: Here are the figures for the dairy and cold storage branch for every week right up until April of this year.


William Daum Euler: I do not want to talk about butter until the cows come home, as it were, but I should like to say this in reference to what was said by the Minister of National Revenue. He has advanced what seems to me the only tenable argument regarding the importation of Australian butter, when he says that the government hopes to make an advantageous treaty with Australia and are therefore allowing Australian butter to come into Canada in order to preserve an atmosphere of good will in which to negotiate the treaty.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: ' If I may interrupt, that is not quite the right way to put it. The government admitted this particular lot.


William Daum Euler: I certainly did not intend
to put words into the mouth of my hon. friend that he did not use. I thought that I was representing him quite accurately; I have no intention of doing anything else. I think I could approve to some extent of that motive for the action which the government has taken, but I think also that the same might have been held to apply on previous



Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
occasions in connection with our business with New Zealand. We had a treaty with New Zealand which was particularly advantageous to the business men and manufacturers of Canada, who were able to sell large quantities of goods to New Zealand, but that business is now pretty well destroyed as a result of the government cutting off New Zealand butter exportations to Canada. After all, this point stands out, that it was possible, and still is possible, absolutely to stop the importations of butter from Australia into Canada, even if it be necessary to apply the new law that was passed at the short session last September under which the government took power to make such valuations as they please for the purposes of customs duties. I am not saying that that should be done, but it is possible to do it. The fact is that whereas under the old government practically no importations of Australian butter were permitted, there have been within the last six, seven or eight months importations of some three million pounds of Australian butter.


John Livingstone Brown: During this debate the minister has on a number of occasions asked the question, what would have happened had the duty not been put on? The assumption is that the farmer would have received just that much less for his butter. The situation is not quite so simple as that. That is the trouble with our protectionist friends; they see only one phase of one problem at a time. I have frequently insisted in discussing this dairy question in the house that the dairy industry should be considered as a whole, and not from the standpoint of merely one branch of it. I think the former Minister of Agriculture made a very pertinent remark, which was concurred in by the hon. member for South Hastings, when he said that in considering the standing of the dairy industry we should think of the number of pounds of milk produced. When you are dealing with billions, a few millions here and there is not a matter of such great importance. Millions, of course, are important in themselves, but not so important when dealing with billions. So I am not going to quarrel with the figures submitted by the former Minister of Agriculture and those submitted by the hon. member for Hastings. My point is that we should consider the dairy industry as a whole, and I have tried to insist upon that during the last three or four years when we have been discussing this question.
In reply to the hon. Minister of Agriculture, I am going to present this point of

view. Here are some figures that I got this morning from the bureau of statistics in regard to cheese. In the fiscal year ending March 31, 1630, we exported 92,000,000 odd pounds of cheese, and for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1931, we exported 79,000,000 pounds-a loss in our exports of cheese in one year of over 12,000,000 pounds. Let hon. members who consider that the importation of agricultural products is a tremendous injury to the country ponder these figures. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 1930, we imported 304,307 pounds of cheese, and for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1931, we imported 1,685,045 pounds. That is, we multiplied our imports of cheese by five within the last year under this government.


Mr. SENN:: Where did that cheese come from?


John Livingstone Brown: I am not discussing that question at all.


Mark Cecil Senn: It came from New Zealand.


John Livingstone Brown: I know that these figures are very embarrassing to some of my hon. friends opposite. Here is the point I want to emphasize, that we should consider the dairy industry as a whole. I was very much interested in the report of an address to a dairy convention in the county of Prince Edward during the early part of last winter, by a man named Elliott. I do not know who he was, but he presented what seemed to me an argument well worth considering. His contention was that the imposition of a duty against New Zealand butter, and shutting it out of this country, seriously interfered with our market for cheese, because the New Zealand men were turning their attention from the making of butter to the making of cheese and were shipping cheese in increasing quantities to the British market. That is surely a point of view worth considering. So our interest in dairying is not by any means confined to butter, and I think this point is well worth considering just now when, as I pointed out our exports in cheese have fallen during the last year by 12,000,000 pounds. Admitting the contention of Mr. Elliott at the dairy convention, that the Shutting out of New Zealand butter has interfered with our export of cheese, we do know this, that cheese is at the lowest point it has reached in the last ten years. I got the figures this morning from 1920, when cheese was quoted in Toronto at 32jt cents and in Montreal at 33 cents, down to May, 1931, when cheese was quoted in Toronto at 12 cents. The figures for May for Montreal were not available, 'but

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
undoubtedly cheese is the lowest it has been in the last ten years. I suggest, as a possible explanation of the fact that we are now on an export basis for butter, that our creameries have switched from the making of cheese to the making of butter. To what extent that has been done I do not know, but I think it is well worth looking into. At least there ought to be some explanation of the fact that during the last year we reduced our exports of cheese by 12,000,000 pounds.
I want to emphasize again that matters of tariff are not as simple as some hon. members opposite seem to think. Trade barriers cannot be erected without producing a great many unforeseen and unexpected results.


Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: May I ask the Minister of National Revenue if there has been any change in the policy of the Australian government with respect to the bonusdng of the export of butter, sometimes known as the Patterson scheme.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: I understand it is in effect in Australia.


Charles A. Stewart: There is no change?


Edmond Baird Ryckman: By reason of the cheap price of butter in Australia, and the rate of exchange in their favour, they can manufacture butter and ship it here, and without new legislation we cannot keep it out.


Charles A. Stewart: Was there any change in Australia in the bonusing system known as the Patterson scheme?


Mr. SPENCE:: It is unfortunate that so much time should be lost in blocking an item such as this.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


James Houston Spence: Mr. Chairman-


An hon. MEMBER:: What about last year?


James Houston Spence: This year I have not taken up the time of the house, but it is difficult to sit here and listen to such arguments as are being made in committee to-day.


An hon. MEMBER:: Look what we had to put up with.


James Houston Spence: Hon. members seem to
think only of figures. They are figuring all the time.


Peter John Veniot: Look at what we had to put up with last year.


James Houston Spence: Never mind that.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The shoe is on the other foot.


James Houston Spence: Hon. members opposite sit back and ask ridiculous questions in their attempt to block the item. May I say that their action reflects no credit on the House of Commons. We have seen ex-ministers in the front benches of the opposition attempting to demonstrate to the committee the wide extent of their knowledge. If they had shown as much ability when they were in power they might have still been there. The fact that they did not show such ability accounts for their being at present in opposition. The action of my hon. friends opposite has been nothing but a matter of blocking all the way through. They have done nothing but resort to blocking and obstruction throughout the whole session. Items have been held back, back, back, and hon. members who are asking the questions ought to know the answers as well as the hon. Minister of Agriculture.


Vincent Dupuis: What did my hon. friend do last year when he was in opposition?


James Houston Spence: I am sorry my hon. friend (Mr. Young) introduced an amendment to reduce the item under discussion to practically nothing at all. Sometimes he uses common sense but in this case he did not. The hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Totzke) has said-


An hon. MEMBER:: Did the hon. member say "humbug"?


James Houston Spence: The hon. member for Humboldt has said that this item cannot get through and everything has to be blocked until further information is supplied. He knows very well about the information for which he has asked. He must have something in the back of his mind; I am sure he could answer his questions himself. He has utilized the time of the house to tell of the high qualifications of the late Minister of Agriculture. I am not going to say any unkind words about the ex-minister. Many times I helped him when he was on this side of the house, and when I saw he could not get the support of his own party.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, we got along
very well.


James Houston Spence: I should be willing to do
it again. But when he gets up in the committee and reads an article from some newspaper, probably an irresponsible newspaper; when he takes up an hour's time to tell the present Minister of Agriculture what he should do; when he eulogizes the different officials, beginning with the deputy minister and dealing with all officials of the department-

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


William Richard Motherwell: Was there anything wrong in what I said?


James Houston Spence: It takes too much of the time of the committee. If they were so efficient they do not need any eulogies. The remarks of the ex-minister leave in my mind the thought that he is seeking to defend something. The matters to which he has referred should be left entirely to the hon. member who is now at the head of the Department of Agriculture. I know if I were head of the department I would have people behind me who were absolutely loyal despite the viewpoint of the ex-minister.


William Richard Motherwell: Who is not loyal? Which official is not loyal to the minister?


James Houston Spence: I did not. say any of them were not loyal.


William Richard Motherwell: The hon. member
left that implication.


James Houston Spence: One might think there was some reason for defending the actions of departmental officials, judging from the remarks of the ex-minister. I am not opposed to the dismissal of any official who may prove to be inefficient; all departments of government should be protected in that way. The ministers need loyalty 'behind them.


Vincent Dupuis: May I ask the hon. member a question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


An hon. MEMBER:: You have been talking all day.


James Houston Spence: I shall be pleased to answer if I can understand what my hon. friend says.


Vincent Dupuis: Does the hon. member think the Minister of Agriculture is not able to defend himself?


James Houston Spence: I do not think the minister needs defending. Like other ministers, he may make mistakes.


Vincent Dupuis: I have a sufficiently good
opinion of the Minister of Agriculture to believe that he knows how to defend himself.


James Houston Spence: I am not defending the
Minister of Agriculture. I am referring to the time wasted by hon. members opposite in blocking the business of the house.


An hon. MEMBER:: You are wasting time.


James Houston Spence: Those of us who have to
sit here and take it all and say nothing are tired of it.


An hon. MEMBER:: Dispense.
[Mr. Spence.l


James Houston Spence: If this National Dairy
Council is of any consequence at all, it should be sustained, and sustained with money sufficient to keep it in operation.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Is it not a political organization?


James Houston Spence: If it is not worth while it should be abolished,


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Is it not a political organization?


James Houston Spence: No, we have no political organizations, so far as our-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


James Houston Spence: Our policies are for Canada, not for ourselves. We have no political organizations to keep up particular departments, and never had. I repeat that if the National Dairy Council is worth while it should be sustained. I understand it is composed of men of repute, and Canada needs men of that type, men who can guide the Canadian dairy industry. Hon. members know the present condition of our export trade. I wonder if they can imagine a country the size of Canada practically excluded from export business in beef, bacon, cheese and butter. Those who have been governing this country for the last few years should be ashamed of themselves when they realize our business has been ruined to such an extent. But they have no hesitation in rising and asking, "Why have you not implemented your promises?"


An hon. MEMBER:: Well, why haven't
you?


James Houston Spence: My hon. friends were in power for nine years and did nothing; they had no policy. They governed Canada by committees and commissions; that is all they did. They shirked their responsibilities at all times. I feel that to refer to the matter any further would be wasting time. I conclude by stating that it is a shame the country has to put up with such irresponsible people as hon. members on the opposite side of the house.


Jean-François Pouliot: And the government is
very irresponsible.


James Houston Spence: Hon. members opposite
have practically no respect for the rules of the house. Blocking is their theme and that is all they know. They have blocked everything this session; God knows they are wasting the money of the country.


Peter John Veniot: I suggest that the word "blocked" is unparliamentary.

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


Edward James Young: Would the hon. member
answer a question?


James Houston Spence: Yes.


Edward James Young: Why is it that to-day in western Canada two pounds of butter are required to buy one pound of axle grease?


James Houston Spence: Oh, my hon. friend has
been spending most of his time in the west sitting around the school house studying economics. I would ask him to figure it out for himself; he has as much time as I have.


Robert Weir: In connection with the imports of cheese to which the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) referred, I may say that the figures from 1925 to 1930 show the following:
Year	Pounds exported
1925		 4,544,485
1926		 6,678,757
1927		 1,340,000
1928		 1,669,000
1929		 1,936,196
1930		 2,063,898
That is, it is up about 100,000 pounds, and we have no record to show whether it is at the beginning or the end of the year. I think it is only fair to say that the misunderstanding with respect to the respective figures for butter quoted by the hon. member for South Huron (Mr. McMillan) and myself is accounted for in this way: I was quoting figures from the dairy and cold storage branch, giving the average price of Australian butter sold in London; the hon. member for South Huron was quoting the price of Danish butter in the London market, where we know it sells at a premium.
Another point has been brought up that I feel I should deal with briefly; it has reference to the officials of the Department of Agriculture. I think my best defence of them was that I did not think it worth while the other night to get up and say anything. I do feel this, however, that the hon. member for Melville (Mr. Motherwell), who has spoken so highly of the officials-and I feel they will very much appreciate his kind words- omitted to mention the strongest point in their favour, that they are highly trained technical men. I think they would appreciate his praise very much more had he used his influence when he was minister to see that these officials-who take second place to none in this or any other country with respect to their technical qualifications and efficiency- were paid at the same rate as the officials of other departments of a similar classification. He failed to do so. I think it would have been more acceptable to them if efforts
had been made by my hon. friend to see that their remuneration was commensurate with the work that they carry on, and especially that it should be on such a scale as to bear comparison with the salaries paid officials in other departments without the same training or the same experience.


William Richard Motherwell: If my hon. friend does not know, his deputy will tell him that the Beatty commission awarded all the technical men a very substantial increase.


Robert Weir: Just in the last
two years that has been under consideration,
I believe.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes. Since my
hon. friend is quite in agreement with me as to the quality of the officials, I hope he will start where I left off in trying to get them the increased salaries that they were entitled to long ago. When doing so will he recall the fact that, during all the years I was here, in conjunction with the Minister of Public Works, I never ceased fighting for a home for the Department of Agriculture, and now for the first time since confederation they have a home. All my hon. friend had to do was to walk in and occupy it. I congratulate him now that as head of the department he will be in a position to get a very much' higher percentage of efficiency out of the staff than was possible when they were scattered all over the city in twenty buildings, as I found them when I became minister.
Will my hon. Mend be good enough to say whether the member for South Hastings (Mr. Tummon) is correct? He has repudiated Doctor Ruddick's figures in regard to the 14 billion pounds, but he has given us only his own statement in justification for his repudiation.


William Ernest Tummon: Yes, he has.


William Richard Motherwell: I want to ask the minister for the fourth time-twice last week and twice to-day-is he going to repudiate those figures as the member for Hastings has done, or is he going to confirm them? If he is going to repudiate them, what Is he going to substitute for them? Will he please tell us so the committee will know something of what is being done? If I have to ask the question twenty-four times I am going to do so, because that is the whole crux of the thing, that is the only yardstick-total milk production-by which you can measure the decline or improvement in the dairy industry

Supply-A griculture-Dairying
in any country. Now, will not the minister be good enough to meet my wishes in this respect? If he has something wonderful that he is going to spring, why not spring it now and smash us all to pieces? I wish he would do that.


William Ernest Tummon: Mr. Chairman-


William Richard Motherwell: The same kind of play,-anything but an answer.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


William Richard Motherwell: Mr. Chairman, why cannot I get an answer to my question?


Robert Weir: I did not understand that the hon. member for Hastings was doubting the veracity of the information given by Dr. Ruddick. I understood the difference was due to the different methods by which the respective results were arrived at.


William Richard Motherwell: In the aggregate what do they amount to? Is there any substantial difference?


William Ernest Tummon: The hon. ex-Minister of Agriculture seems to think that I did not substantiate my figures. I hold in my hand the monthly bulletin of agricultural statistics for the Dominion of Canada as issued by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, and this is the source of my information. Let me say to the hon. gentleman, if he is not aware of it, that the dairy and cold storage branch depend on the bureau of statistics for figures of the total production of milk in Canada. I repeat, the figure based on the records of the total production of milk changed in 1929, and if he will go back over the reports he will find that to be the case. I am not blaming him or the department of which he was the head-not at all.
Now, the hon. member for Lisgar mentioned the production of cheese during the past few years. I may say to him that what has been happening recently happened ito a much greater extent under the previous government. I will quote again from this very bulletin. The total number of pounds of cheese produced exclusively in Canada in 1926, for example, was in round figures 172,000,000 pounds; in 1927, 138,000,000-or a reduction of 34,000,000. The production of cheese in Canada has been decreasing practically every year since. It is not, as he said, that the cheese factories are turning to the making of butter-


Mr. BOTHWELL:: Will the hon gentleman give the figures for 1928, 1929 and 1.930?
[Mr. Motherwell.!


William Ernest Tummon: I could if I had the bureau reports, but I am satisfied that what I have said is correot, because I have been in touch with these figures and watching the cheese production each year, it being an important industry in my constituency. The reduction in the production of cheese is not because the cheese factories have turned to the making of butter; it is because the dairy farmers will turn from cheese to butter if they can obtain a better price for their milk.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Is it not so that the farmers will turn from butter and cheese production to cereals when the price of cereals is higher, and that that accounts for the reduced production?


William Ernest Tummon: Perhaps in my hon.
friend's district, but not in the district I come from.


John Livingstone Brown: They will also switch to ice cream and other dairy products.


William Ernest Tummon: You would have a little difficulty in figuring that out. Then my hon. friend from Lisgar mentioned Mr. Elliott. I know Mr. Elliott very well; he is an exceedingly fine gentleman who has taken quite an interest in the cheese industry. But as one who has been connected with the dairy industry all his life, from the milking of cows to the making and marketing of cheese and butter, let me say that the best years we ever had in the cheese industry in Canada were the years when butter was on an export basis. I am speaking now only in regard to cheese. When butter is on an export basis in Canada, invariably the farmer will go to cheese because as a rule there is more money in it.


Henry Alfred Mullins: I cannot understand the interest shown now by hon. gentlemen opposite in the dairy industry. I hold in my hand a pamphlet entitled From Gloom and Depression to Unparalleled Prosperity; Canada's Progress Under Liberal Administration. There is not one mention in that pamphlet of the dairy industry, although every other industry in this country is referred to. Why do hon. gentlemen opposite show so much interest now?


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Is my hon. friend thinking of changing his politics?


Henry Alfred Mullins: I will answer my hon. friend in a moment. If, before July 28, hon. gentlemen opposite had devoted to the dairy industry as much energy as they are displaying this afternoon, they might have made a better impression.

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Perhaps in this book there was a leaf cut off, just like the Mafe-king cut-off.


Henry Alfred Mullins: The Mafeking cut-off is not mentioned, either. Reference is made to everything else but the dairy industry, and on the bottom is the name of the right hon. leader of the opposition, then Prime Minister.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


John Livingstone Brown: Mr. Chairman, I desire to
correct a statement which I made this afternoon in regard to the cheese importations. Sometimes in examining figures of this kind one looks at them a little hastily-I think the Minister of Justice will remember a similar experience. The figures given by me were not correct, while those given by the Minister of Agriculture a little later were.
I desire also to refer to a remark made by the hon. member for South Hastings to the effect that when we are on an export basis for butter it means switching to cheese. I would remind the hon. gentleman that there are a lot of fish up that stream. An attempt to increase artificially the price of butter so as to bring it to an export basis means that we are brought to a position where we are dependent upon the export market and we then have to compete with New Zealand.


Mr. THOMPSON (Lanark):: Mr. Chairman, before recess we were discussing an item including a grant of So .000 to the National Dairy Council. I think we have wandered far away from the item. The National Dairy Council is composed of representatives from the different provincial dairy associations. We have a dairy association in eastern Ontario, one in western Ontario, and there are similar associations in the other provinces. The National Dairy Council has rendered invaluable service to the dairying industry of Canada. For the last twenty-five years I have been the secretary of the dairymen's association of eastern Ontario, and for many years I represented eastern Ontario on the National Dairy Council. This council has appeared on many occasions before the railway board and has secured special rates for dairy products which have saved the farmers and dairymen of this country hundreds of thousands of dollars. They look after what we might call the dominion-wide interests of the dairy business, while the local provincial interests are looked after by the provincial associations. I submit that it is in the interests of the dairymen that this item be permitted to pass.
A remark was made this afternoon by the hon. member for Weyburn, to which I should like to draw attention. He asked why it took two pounds of butter to buy one pound of axle grease. The reason is the treaty with Australia and the agreement with New Zealand made by the government which he supported. They demoralized the daily industry of this Dominion and put it in the condition in which it now is. I was a member of a deputation which waited on the late Mr. Robb, the then Minister of Finance, to ask that this treaty be not put into effect and I stated on that occasion that if New Zealand were permitted to ship her dairy products to Canada, within ten years the dairy industry of this country would be demoralized. But I was but the voice of one crying in the wilderness. We received no sympathy, and we are suffering to-day from the effects of the treaties which were consummated by the late government. Not only did they demoralize the dairy industry of this country, but they have earned' for us the ill will of both New Zealand and Australia. Because of the splendid service rendered to the dairymen of Canada by the National Dairy Council, I submit that this item should pass.


Jean-François Pouliot: Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the hon. member for Lanark upon his very interesting speech, but he will pardon me if I do not share his views in that respect. We have heard a lot about the Australian treaty and the New Zealand convention, but those agreements were passed before the "shadow government" came into power. That government was in power for three months, but the agreements were not cancelled. The hon. member is on the right side of the house to make a complaint to the present Minister of Trade and Commerce, who is always ready to enter into trade relations with Australia and New Zealand. I should like to read an excerpt from the Montreal Gazette of to-day with reference to daily products. This is the latest report available. It reads as follows:
Dairy Markets Ruled Steady
No Changes In Montreal Prices Of Butter, Cheese Or Eggs
Storing Of Butter Now Starting as Receipts Exceed Requirements-April Imports Less
Wholesale prices of butter, cheese and eggs held steady at Montreal yesterday. Potatoes were a little easier. Poultry was unchanged.

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
The butter market continued at 21 cents to 21f cents per pound for No. 1 pasteurized creamery butter, carlots or broken lots. To the retail trade, for small quantities, solids were 23 cents and prints 24 cents per pound. Receipts were on the heavy side, 5,420 boxes; week ago, 430; year ago 109.
Most of the butter now arriving on the Montreal market is full grass butter, and dealers are starting to store some of it. Arrivals are now greater than immediate requirements. Receipts last week just over
20,000	boxes, whereas the weekly requirements of the city run from 10,000 to 12,000 boxes. Montreal exported a little over 3,000 boxes last week, leaving a few thousand boxes available for storage, for use later in the year when production falls off.
This report confirms the statement made by the hon. member for Lisgar. It continues:
The cheese market was unchanged at 10| cents to 11 cents per pound for Ontario cheese, and 10 cents for Quebec cheese. Receipts, 2,395 boxes; week ago, 372; year ago, 843.
I want to put this on record in connection with the present discussion of the results in the dairy industry. Before I conclude, may I ask a question of the minister? He spoke about the rock bottom reached by butter last winter. What was the rock bottom reached by butter when the mutual agreement was released last December?


Robert Weir: Does the hon. gentleman mean what I considered the rock bottom last December when the agreement was made?


Jean-François Pouliot: I want to know When the minister considered the rock bottom reached, and if it was for that reason that the mutual agreement was released?


Robert Weir: The mutual agreement was not released. The butter was released.


John Vallance: But the minister allowed the Australian butter to be released at less than 32 cents a pound.


Robert Weir: By mutual agreement we allowed the butter to be released.


John Livingstone Brown: I think what the hon. member for Temiscouata wants to know is what the minister considered the rock bottom price -when the butter was released.


Robert Weir: I shall be glad to
get the exact information.


Jean-François Pouliot: Has my hon. friend concluded his remarks?


Robert Weir: Yes.


Jean-François Pouliot: I should not like to interrupt him. I paid special attention to his remarks this afternoon, and according to the notes which I took at that time, he said that

when butter reached rock bottom, there was a release of Australian butter that was held on consignment. I wonder what my hon. friend decided was the rock bottom price of butter when that action was taken, or what was the price of butter at that time?


Robert Weir: I shall be glad to
get the exact date of the release of the butter and the exact price in Montreal on that date, but I have not the information under my hand.


Jean-François Pouliot: To-morrow.


Robert Weir: Yes.


Mr. McPHEE:: In connection with the
same question, the Minister of Agriculture said that he permitted the Australian people to sell butter under 32 cents a pound because of a butter warfare between certain organizations in western Canada and price cutting. Will he kindly tell us what those organizations were?


Robert Weir: My information,
which, as I said, I regarded as reliable, was that there was a cutting of butter prices in Vancouver. I was informed confidentially that there was a cutting of prices on the part of different organizations, but I do not think it would be in the public interest to give the names of the organizations as reported to me.


George Washington McPhee: Did the minister investigate the matter?


Robert Weir: No.


John Vallance: Are we to assume now that the minister is giving as an excuse for releasing the butter the fact that he was told something in confidence? I do not think the minister is going quite far enough. It seems to me that when he has used this confidential information as an excuse for doing a certain thing, the house has a right to expect him to answer the question asked by the hon. member for Yorkton and to divulge the names. If the information was given in confidence, I do not think he should have used it unless he is prepared to tell us the names of the organizations that were carrying on the price war.


Robert Weir: The statement that I made was that when butter reached what I considered was rock bottom, I agreed to have the Australian butter released, and that I understood it had reached rock bottom due to a price war. But no matter what it was due to, the point I was making was that the action was taken when the price of butter had reached what I considered rock bottom. I do not see that the other matter which has been referred to has any bearing on the question.

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


George Washington McPhee: Last Tuesday night the minister as reported at page 2005 and 2006 of Hansard referred to the matter. He said that the price of butter-

was cut by something very much in the nature of a butter warfare between various organizations in the west.
Later on he said:
When Canadian organizations commenced cutting the price of butter to a point that we thought was nearly rock bottom, I agreed that the Australians could release their butter at a price less than thirty-two cents a pound.


Mr. McINTOSH:: Was the price cutting the minister mentioned simply in Vancouver, or did it extend beyond Vancouver into the prairie provinces?


Robert Weir: My information was that it was in Vancouver.


Mr. HACKETT:: In vievsr of the interest that this item seems to have created, I am going to put on record a few facts that may be of assistance when this item is under discussion either here or elsewhere. A number of questions asked have elicited answers which it seems to me are misleading if taken apart from the whole subject matter. The Australian treaty became effective in the autumn of 1925. In the year 1925 and in the following years, according to the bureau of statistics, Canada exported these quantities of butter:
	Exports	
Year	pounds	Value1925	. 26,646,535	$9,917,5161926	. 9,814,300	3,352,8291927	. 2.696,000	1,068,6101928	. 1,994,800	805,0551929	. 1,400,490	583,0611930	. 1,180,400	410,447During the five years that that treaty was	in effect we diminished our export of butter	twenty-five times;	that is, we	were exportingtwenty-five times	less butter	at the end offive years than	when the	treaty becameeffective. The imports, according to the bureau	of statistics, for the same years are as follows:	Butter	imports	Year	in pounds	Value1925 	99,748	$ 39,3151926 	9,151,882	3,451,8121927 	11,208,819	3,892,6401928 	16,801,656	5,937,1701929 	35,928,240	12,714,2531930 	38,606,055	12,393,662Twelve months	preceding	Sept. 30, 1930.	47,031,642	15,572,854


Peter John Veniot: Has the hon. member also the figures of the production and consumption in Canada?


John Thomas Hackett: No.


Peter John Veniot: Then his argument falls to the ground. We produced over forty million pounds less than we were able to consume.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Why?


John Thomas Hackett: I would point out to the committee that there was every reason for our production of butter to increase during that period because in those years, by reason of legislation hostile to the export of milk and cream-this is particularly true of the eastern townships, and truer still of the border counties of the eastern townships from which such large quantities of milk and cream were exported to the large centres of New England- exports were greatly curtailed.
I will now give the quantities of milk and cream which in eveT-diminishing volume were exported during the five-year period under review.


Jean-François Pouliot: Before my hon. friend
comes to that, does he contend that the importation of butter has anything to do with the price of butter in this country? If so, how is it that if we are importing less butter now, the price is much lower than it was before?


Harry Bernard Short: What is the price of other commodities now?


Jean-François Pouliot: Speak of fish, you. You know nothing about butter.


John Thomas Hackett: If my hon. friend will bear with me for a feiw moments, I will deal with prices. I am now dealing with quantities. In 1925 we exported from Canada-and I can assure my hon. friend from Temiseouata that most of this export came from the province of Quebec-4,314,193 gallons of milk, of a value of $784,081. The figures are as follows:
Exports of milk in
Year	gallons	Value1925	
4,314,193	$784,0811926	
4,801,705	971,0161927	
3,673,242	729,8231928	
3,959.812	866,9201929	
3,291,819	750,2571930	
1,475,618	309,011
Our exports of cream were as follows:
Exports of cream in
Year	gallons	Value1925	
4,077,487	$7,000,1411926	
4,457,129	7,601,4321927	
4,044,916	7,120,2091928	
3,043,418	5,593,3991929	
2,385,754	4,911,5351930	
1,269,721	2,468,216
To summarize, during this period our exports of butter were reduced from over
Supply-Agriculture-Dairying

26.500.000	to 1,000,000 pounds, and our imports increased from 99,000 to 47,000,000. Our milk subsided in export from 4,314,000 to 1,475,000 gallons, and our cream subsided in export from
4.077.000	to 1,269,000 gallons. That has to do with the quantity. I submit for the moment that when this treaty became effective and butter was brought in from Australia and New Zealand, we ceased to be an exporting country and we ceased to enjoy our own markets-and *this in spite of the fact that we had been denied another market to which we were sending the very commodity from which butter is made.
As pointed out by my hon. friend -from Temiscouata, there is another aspect to the question, and that is price. The price of butter has subsided. Butter has gone down in price until it is now about 21^ cents per pound. All along the border for years butter in the United States, and particularly in the New England states, has sold at a retail price of from ten to twelve cents higher than the price in Canada. That fact is known to everybody in the dairy business in the eastern townships.


Mr. REID:: Not in the state of Washington.


John Thomas Hackett: When I went to school the state of Washington was remote from the states of Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why not quote world's prices?


John Thomas Hackett: Between New England and Montreal there was invariably a difference in price of from ten to twelve cents a pound. To-day butter in these New England centres is selling within the range of one cent of the price at which our own butter is selling in Montreal.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Would the hon. member tell the committee where he got his figures?


John Thomas Hackett: Yes; I can tell the department and the person who supplied the information.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Just the department.


John Thomas Hackett: The bureau of statistics.


Mr. ILSLEY:: Was there not a period of four or five months in the early part of 1930 when the price was higher in Canada than it was in the United States, and if so how does that affect the argument of my hon. friend?

Mr. HACKETT':	In 1930 the price of
butter in the New England states certainly was higher than the price in Canada.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


John Thomas Hackett: Within the past two
decades there never was a time, until very recently, when the price of butter was lower in New England than in Canada.


Charles A. Stewart: I am afraid my hon. friend will have to revise his information, because butter came to Montreal in the early part of 1930.


James Lorimer Ilsley: My information is that the price was higher in Montreal.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is not a question.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Very well, I will ask a question, if my hon. friend will give me a little latitude. My information is that during the first four or five months of 1930 the price of butter was higher in Montreal than in New York. In order to make a fair comparison, would those centres not be representative, and is the statement I have made not true? If my statement is true how does it affect the argument made by my hon. friend?


John Thomas Hackett: It is not true. At least, I shall modify my answer to this extent: in an attempt to be fair I have procured all the figures available from authentic sources and I have not found the situation described by my hon. friend.


Mr. DONNELLY:: I have an average price supplied me by the bureau of statistics.


John Thomas Hackett: Would the hon. member permit me to continue my statement. I do not wash to appear arrogant, but after all if I do not continue I shall not finish to-night. I have before me the average prices at the factories in Canada during the last five years. These prices apply to creamery butter; the prices of dairy butter have to be estimated, for reasons apparent to all.
Year	Cents
1925		 37-17
1926		 34-85
1927		 37-13
1928		 38-51
1929		 38-60
1930		 31-00
Having regard to the reduced prices at which butter is selling it seems to me it

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
would be useful to consider the prices at which fodder and mill feed are selling, commodities which are used for the production of butter. I have before me the prices for bran per ton, including bags, ex-track Montreal:
	Price	
Year	per	ton1926	
$29	581927	
32	251928	
35	201929	
32	581930	
27	84
The price of bran reached a low mark in November of 1930 when it sold for $20.37 per ton. My information ends with the price of $21.25 per ton in January and February of this year. I am informed that bran costs from $2 to $4 more a ton in the townships than it does ex-track by carload lots in Montreal. To the prices I have quoted are to be added transportation costs, plus profits to the middle man and the retailer.
In regard to shorts I wish to place on Hansard the following prices:
	Price
Year	per ton
1926			 $31 51
1927			 34 52
1928			 37 36
1929			 34 01
1930			 29 18
The low price reached in January and February of this year was $21.25. These prices are quoted per ton including bags ex-track Montreal. It will therefore be seen that although the price of butter has fallen the price of feed used in the production of butter has likewise dropped. In the case of bran there is a drop from $37.36, the high price in 1928, to $20.37 in November, 1930, and shorts from $37.36 in 1928 to $21.25 in January and February of this year. As I have said, $2 to $4 per ton should be added to the Montreal prices of bran and shorts to arrive at their prices in the eastern townships.


John Vallance: Does the government
take credit for the lower price of bran?


Mr. SHAVER:: Your government did that.


John Thomas Hackett: I have thought it well
to put these figures on record, because some of them may not meet the views of some hon. members. I do not like to see the price of butter as low as 214 cents, but it seemed to me to be reasonable, inasmuch as such general interest had been taken in that particular commodity, so far as possible to assemble the relevant information so that it might be available to those who wished at a later date to discuss the topic.


Ernest Lapointe: That seems to be a confession of guilt.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: May I congratulate the
hon. member (Mr. Lawson) who is presiding over the proceedings at the moment on attaining the high office which he now occupies. I have not taken much part in this debate; however may I say in passing that I hope you will not rule me out of order too often.
The ex-Minister of Agriculture cited certain figures. I have some figures before me which I hesitate to give because those cited by the ex-minister were contradicted by the hon. member for South Hastings. How do I know that the figures given a moment ago by the hon. member for Stanstead are accurate?


An hon. MEMBER:: They are not.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: The hon. member for
South Hastings claimed he got his figures from the Department of Agriculture. The hon. member for Stanstead stated he got his from the bureau of statistics. The ex-Minister of Agriculture said his figures came from Doctor Ruddick, the dairy commissioner, and my figures-


William Richard Motherwell: I said my figures
were based on information which Dr. Ruddick received from the bureau of statistics.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: My figures are signed
by Doctor Ruddick, the dairy commissioner. It seems to me that the minister should clear the atmosphere and let us know what figures are right and what figures are wrong. I really hesitate to give any figures. I do not know whether the hon. member for Stanstead was correct when he said that in round figures we imported 35,000,000 pounds of butter in 1929. If we did, and we imported subsequently up to the month of April of this year only 3,000,000 pounds odd-


Robert Weir: One year and five months.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Yes. If that is so, how does the hon. member for Stanstead reconcile the difference in price? We have had four sets of figures quoted respectively by the ex-Minister of Agriculture, the member for South Hastings, the member for Stanstead, and myself, and I think we should be advised which is correct. Let me take the prices for butter from the time 'the Australian and New
Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


Mr. PICKEL:: Mr. Chairman-


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: Let the minister answer.


Robert Weir: Mr. Chairman, I
do not think the former Minister of Agriculture feels he has produced an elegy to-day, and I certainly do not feel that I have-


An hon. MEMBER:: It is a churchyard
business.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Perhaps my hon. friend
misunderstood me; I meant praise. Sometimes I do not get the right English word.


Robert Weir: I thought the hon.
member meant something different altogether.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: No, I meant praise.


Robert Weir: I still do not think there is any dispute as to the accuracy of the information given by the officials of the department. I think the dispute is as to the different methods of computation. That is the whole thing.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: What is the right
method?


Robert Weir: If the committee
wish me to take the time to read those figures-


An hon. MEMBER:: We will listen to you gladly.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Mr. Chairman, before
the minister reads out his figures may I give him mine?


Mr. ROWE:: You said they were no good.

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: I am sure the hon.
member for Dufferin-Simcoe could put us right as to the figures, because he certainly went around the country giving figures during the campaign.


William Earl Rowe: I stayed out of your constituency.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Certainly. My constituents will not believe anything so exaggerated as it was by my hon. friend.


William Earl Rowe: It is a wonder you are here,
then.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: It may be, to my hon.
friend. Now, in regard to the denial by the hon. member for South Hastings of the accuracy of these figures as to the production of milk in Canada from 1924 to 1929, it is very important that we should have the question settled. He claimed production of milk was very much less than the figures I gave. Just giving round figures, the total milk production was as follows:
Year	Pounds
1922		 9,000,000,000
1923		 11,000,000,000
1924	 12,000,000,000
1925	 12.000.000,000
1926		 13,000,000,000
1927		 14,000,000,000
1928		 14,000,000,000
1929		 14,000,000,000
The hon. member for South Hastings claimed that these figures were not right; he claimed we never did produce that amount of milk during those years. Let the minister put us right; let us know where we are. He must have the figures there.


Robert Weir: It must be understood that these figures are, in the first place, estimates. The only years for which I have figures here are 1928 and 1929. In 1928 the milk production was 14,512,897,961 pounds, while in 1929 it was 14,349,023,000 pounds.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Now we have it; a responsible minister gives exactly the figures I have here. The hon. member for South Hastings denies these figures, and tries to create the impression in the committee and in the country that the ex-Minister of Agriculture is misrepresenting the facts. The hon. member made the accusation that on the eve of an election, or the year before the election, the figures were cooked in order to try to prove to the people that the production of milk was greater than it really was. The Minister of Agriculture now comes along and gives us the facts. The ex-minister was correct, and I claim he was one of the best ministers of agriculture Canada ever had.


William Richard Motherwell: I would say to the hon. member for Provencher that he should not be too hard on the minister. We have been angling for this information for two days; this is the third sitting during which we have been asking for it. I asked for it four times, and I congratulate the hon. member on getting it at once. There is nothing like staying with the job. If we can get the information for one or two years, why can we not get it for all the years I cited?


Robert Weir: I have not the figures here, but I shall be glad to get them.


William Richard Motherwell: Does not the minister think he should have them with him, when they were asked for several times?


William Earl Rowe: We are taking your figures.


William Richard Motherwell: I am not the minister of agriculture; this is the minister to whom we must look for the figures.


William Earl Rowe: He has your figures.


William Richard Motherwell: Perhaps the hon. member himself might get up and explain these things. We have the admitted facts, with regard to two years. The statement of the Tories on our dairy industry was the rankest piece of campaign falsification of which I ever heard. That is why the minister did not want to admit the facts. Probably he engaged in it himself.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Richard Motherwell: Who is that yelping now? There must be a coyote somewhere. We have them run to ground at least on two years and we are going to keep at them for the other seven years. Is it not a reasonable assumption that if my figures correspond with those given by the minister with regard to two years all my figures will correspond? I obtained them from Doctor Ruddick when I was still minister, and he is not going to cook them in the meantime. Money would not induce Doctor Ruddick to cook these figures. The deputy minister would not do anything of the kind, and that is why I was so sure the minister had them all along, right in his desk. He must have more figures, also. He has come across with one bunch, but he tries to blame us for blocking his estimates. Often I have been blamed for blocking my own estimates, but my hon. friend has beaten me forty ways in the matter of blocking estimates, by refusing to give information.
Now that we have him giving information, by way of priming the pump let me see if I cannot get some more figures. I would ask on behalf of the committee that my hon.
Supply-Agriculture-Dairying

friend get the rest of those figures for the other years. Why should we be wrangling for two or three days about these figures? We knew this was the crux of the situation; hon. gentlemen opposite knew it, and at last they have coughed them up. Let them cough up the rest of them, and get along with this business. I do not want the minister to be cross with me; please do not look crossly at me. I cannot go to Doctor Ruddick now, when this scrap is on, and try to get figures. I could have had them right up to date, but I thought these would be sufficient, so I cannot go to him now; it would only get him in wrong. Here is Doctor Ruddick's letter to me under date of March 20:
I have your letter of the 10th instant inquiring as to prices for butter. I give you the prices for No. 1 pasteurized creamery butter at Montreal on January 2 for the years 1921 to 1931.
Those are the years in which we are interested. During those years the Liberal administration was in power, and we were charged with neglecting the business of the country, especially the dairy business to such an extent, that it was on the toboggan. My hon. friends from Quebec tell me they lost twenty seats in their province because of that campaign carried on by the present government, W'hich was false from top to bottom. It was their only cry. We could have bucked the hard times if we had not had this cry to fight. Then they shot into power.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Richard Motherwell: Will the hon. gentlemen be kind enough to remember that we cannot have half a dozen people speaking at once? Hon. gentlemen opposite shot into power on a bunch of butter and we want to shoot them out of power in the same way, in due time. We do not want them out for a while yet, however; let them wallow in their own mire. Here are the figures as given me by Doctor Ruddick, representing the prices of No. 1 pasteurized creamery butter at Montreal on January 2 of the following years:
Cents
1921	 55
It was quite high in 1921; it had not then receded because of the general deflation. It was high all over Canada; some time previous to that it had gone to $1 a pound in the west. Then the figures continue:
Cents
1923
1925
40
35-50

That is the year the Australian treaty was enacted, but since that treaty was not passed until well on in the year, it could not affect the price for that year. The year 1926 was the first year after the Australian treaty, and the price was 42 cents, or 7 cents higher than the year 'before. I do not say the price increased because of the treaty, but certainly it did not go down. Who was hurt? How many farmers were hurt because they received 7 cents more for their butter in 1926 than in 1925? Where is the farmer who will say that this hurt him?


Mr. McGIBBON:: Will the minister be
good enough to tell me-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Richard Motherwell: I did not hear my hon. friend, but it is not likely it meant anything anyway. We will pass along; the hon. gentleman just wanted to ruffle the atmosphere for a moment and draw attention to himself. The other figures are:
1928
1930
Cents
35-50
38-75
It will be seen that the price was substantially lower in the last year quoted. On January 2 of that year it was nearly 9 cents per pound lower than on January 2 of 1930. At all events they cannot charge that against us. Their whole cry was a bogus and a false campaign from top to bottom. The times reacted in their favour but now they have to face the music and take the facts home with them. The Tories had a rally in Alexandria, down in Glengarry county, but if the speeches are looked up in the Journal it will be seen that it was the tamest, weakest milk-and-water meeting ever held. The correspondents w-hipped it up a little bit and tried to add a little enthusiasm, but the speeches make very tame reading. They claimed the Liberals were the cause of the present trouble in the dairying industry, but that is about the end of it. It will foe found that it took eight speakers to make a meeting; it would take another eight to make a meeting anywhere near worth while. You would think it was a logging bee they were attending.
I have given the price figures from 1921 to 1931; the hon. minister has given us the production figures for two years but unless the hon. member for Provencher desires to press immediately for the figures for the other seven years, we will give the minister a little breathing spell and wait until to-morrow for them. I

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
cannot understand why his deputy has not that information, because he used to get it for me. When was tatter so low in price as it is at the present time?


James Houston Spence: When was everything so low? When was feed so low?


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: That is not what the hon. members promised at the last election.


William Richard Motherwell: The minister might as well make up his mind to give the committee this information, because we are going to get it. Hon. members can holler their heads off but it will not make any difference to me. I can stand it, I have been through this sort of thing for a long time and my hide is tough enough. I have helped to prime the pump, I have given the figures for ten years, will the hon. minister give the committee the price figures back of 1921? Let him take any date in the year, I do not care which, but let him give the committee the figures for the different years. My recollection is that it is at least twenty-five years since the price of butter has been so low. What a war-whoop there would have been if the price had been so low when we were in power. As it was we heard a lot of Comanche war-whioops. Why should I have to give figures and the present minister be allowed to withhold others? He has the same deputy, and-


Frank Roland MacMillan: Will the hon. member permit a question?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Frank Roland MacMillan: You have been explaining to the committee that during the time when you were Minister of Agriculture


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Chair.


Frank Roland MacMillan: The hon. member permitted my asking a question.


An hon. MEMBER:: Ask it of the chair.


Frank Roland MacMillan: Let me ask him this question.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


An hon. MEMBER:: Address the chair.


Frank Roland MacMillan: Mr. Chairman, the ex-Minister of Agriculture says that during the time he was head of the department excellent prices were obtained for butter. If that is So, how does he account for the fact that during his regime the cattle population of Saskatchewan dropped by one-third, or over 500,000?


William Richard Motherwell: The hon. member refers to cattle?


Frank Roland MacMillan: I said
"cattle", and that includes the cows which we heard about this afternoon and about which we are now talking.


William Richard Motherwell: They are better cow's. A system of testing and weeding out was inaugurated by the federal and provincial governments. This afternoon, I understand, a remark was made detrimental to Mr. W. A. Wilson. I do not know what it was, but it was false whatever it was. Mr. Wilson left Canada-
Mr. MacMILLAN	(Saskatoon):	Mr. Chairman-


William Richard Motherwell: Will the hon. member please sit down ?
Mr. MacMILLAN	(Saskatoon):	Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order. When I was speaking this afternoon on this item-


Mr MOTHERWELL:: That is not a point of order.


Frank Roland MacMillan: The hon. member across the way says that I made a statement which was not correct or which was false. All I said was that during the time of the trial-


William Richard Motherwell: What trial?


Frank Roland MacMillan: The trial in Saskatchewan of a certain gentleman.


William Richard Motherwell: The trial of Wiljames Thompson?


Frank Roland MacMillan: When the hon. member was Minister of Agriculture he had a man appointed in the province of Saskatchewan who was head of the cooperative creamery.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: That is not a point of order.


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Lawson):: I shall
have to ask the hon. member to state his point of order.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: There is no point of
order.


Frank Roland MacMillan: My
point of order is this: the gentleman to whom he refers was sent by the ex-minister-


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: That is not a point of order


Frank Roland MacMillan: The statement I made is correct and can be proved by the comment of the judge, who stated that Wilson's absence was deliberate.

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


William Richard Motherwell: There is an item
in the agriculture estimates in connection with Mr. Wilson and if my hon. friend desires to attack his record I shall be quite prepared to defend him. I do not know whether or not he is still in the employ of the government, but the evidence will be available. Someone seems to be always taking the joy out of this thing by wheedling us away from the minister. I want to hang right on to the hon. member, I have given him the butter prices for ten years, and I want him to give us the figures for the other years. We agree that his deputy is a competent man; his salary was raised $4,000 during the Liberal administration and is now as large as the salary of the minister, who would not, I imagine, want it to be any larger. I have given the prices of butter for the years 1921 to 1931 as given by Doctor Ruddick. Would the minister go back from 1921 and find out when the price of butter was lower than it has been this last week, that is, 18J cents per pound basis No. 1 Montreal?


An hon. MEMBER:: What purpose would it serve?


Ira Delbert Cotnam: The price of butter was-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Ira Delbert Cotnam: -fifteen cents per pound.


William Richard Motherwell: What does my hon. friend want?


Ira Delbert Cotnam: The hon. member asked
when the price of butter was lower than eighteen cents per pound, and I tell him that butter was twelve cents per pound during the election campaign.


William Richard Motherwell: I remember when
the cheese business was first started in eastern Canada some fifty-five or sixty years ago and at that time the price of milk was four-fifths of a cent per pound. I do not need any statistics to quote those figures, because I got up at half-past four in the morning to milk the cows. I was the first one on the milk route and the price we received was eighty cents for one hundred pounds, and it takes about lli pounds of milk bo make a pound of cheese. Consequently at that time it cost in milk 9 cents to produce a pound of cheese. If you add one and a half or two cents for the cost of manufacture, that would make the cheese worth about 11 cents at that time, namely, fifty-five years ago. It is lower than that now; it has been as low as 8i, 9, and 10 cents a pound. It has gone up a little. Therefore my hon. friend might as well give me the figures because I am old enough 
to remember them as far back as fifty or sixty years. I should like to have my memory confirmed if he can go back, say, to around 1901. Doctor Ruddick has the figures as far back as 1898 and I think some of the authorities in the city have them nearly as far back as 1890, so we look to my hon. friend to help us out of our difficulty in this respect.


Henry Alfred Mullins: The hon. member for
Melville made the statement that it was an unfair campaign. Our constituencies adjoin each other and there never was a fairer campaign carried on by any candidate.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Henry Alfred Mullins: Let me tell the hon.
gentleman for his information: at the' time I was running that campaign you could buy two pounds of butter in Marquette for a tin of axle grease.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Tell us about the cow.


Henry Alfred Mullins: My hon. friends are costing this country thousands of dollars by blocking this estimate.
Mr. ST-PERE:	The hon. member is
blocking it.


Henry Alfred Mullins: My hon. friends have a purpose. What are they doing it for? They are playing a gallery game for purposes well known to themselves. If the Minister of Agriculture dees not make a better showing and put agriculture on a better footing than the hon. member for Melville did when he was in office, I shall move over to that side of the house.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: Let him stay where he is. We do not want him.


Henry Alfred Mullins: My hon. friends do not want me. It might be better for them if they had on that side a man who knows something about live stock, because the former Minister of Agriculture knows nothing about it or he never would have wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars in breeding cattalo. Do hon. members know what they are? A Wainwright mongreil, part buffalo and part cattle, that no other man would have wasted thousands of dollars of Canada's money to raise.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Will the hon. gentleman give the reasons for the difference? Which part was buffalo and which part was cow?


Henry Alfred Mullins: I have been in western Canada many years; I have run many elections, and I do not know of another that

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
was run as honestly. We used no scandal; we took the real issues and we discussed them on the platform, if that is any information to the hon. gentleman. When he says it was false and unfair, he is stating what is untrue. The statement that he makes is absolutely wrong. I ran an honest election; I referred to no man personally; I referred to the hon. gentleman's administration. He wasted the country's money in appointing hog graders. Did hon. members ever hear of such a thing? It was the most iniquitous system that was ever placed in the stockyards of Winnipeg, Toronto and all the other cities, just for the purpose of making political jobs for political friends. The hon. gentleman bought a number of horses on the western ranges, and I would ask him to tell the house what amount of money was lost? Some 820,000. The hon. gentleman was going in for all these foolish experiments. If the present minister does similar foolish things, I shall move over to the other side.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: We do not want the hon. member.


Henry Alfred Mullins: My hon. friends do not want us because we are standing out for honest government.


Vincent Dupuis: Will the hon. member allow me a question ?


Henry Alfred Mullins: My hearing is not very good and it is difficult for me to hear the hon. member. Let me mention another point.


James Earl Lawson: I would much appreciate it if hon. gentlemen who interrupt would observe the rules of order.


Henry Alfred Mullins: In the transportation of live stock from western Canada, a subject in which I have been vitally interested, expenses were never piled up as much as they were during the regime of the hon. member for Melville.


Vincent Dupuis: I rise to a point of order. The hon. member for Marquette is out of order because he is not dealing with the question before the chair. Live stock is not the question at present before the chair, and I submit that the hon. member should be ruled out of order.


James Earl Lawson: The item before the chair is: "Dairying, including grant of 85,000 to National Dairy Council". Considerable latitude has been allowed to hon. members on both sides to discuss under this item the last political campaign. Would the hon. member for Marquette kindly confine his remarks to the dairy industry?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Talk about the
cow.


Henry Alfred Mullins: I am talking about the
dairy industry, but you, sir, permitted the hon. member for Melville to make the statement that an unfair election was run in Marquette. This was not the case, but the dairy cow played an important part in that constituency. The dairy cow was in evidence on every platform and it was she who defeated him. Moreover, when the four years are up, the dairy cow, with the policies that the hon. gentleman who is now Minister of Agriculture will put into effect, will bring us back into power again.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: When?


Henry Alfred Mullins: At the end of four years when we go to the country. We will use. the dairy cow again in the next election and instead of having a majority of 2,700 I shall have 5,000. The hon. gentleman did everything he could to ruin the cattle industry in western Canada; he never did a thing that I know of. to promote it. The dairy industry has been set back by the policies of the exminister. I have mentioned before the policy with regard to pure bred sires, and how the farmers are now left without any cattle at all on account of that policy.
I should like to mention, Mr. Chairman, that my constituency took first prize for butter at Toronto exhibition and at various other exhibitions. My constituency is largely engaged in the dairy industry as well as in the production of beef cattle, and it was largely through the policies of the former Minister of Agriculture that I received such a large majority in the constituency of Marquette. Let me just state one more fact, and then I shall conclude because I do not want to detain the committee. In the stockyards when beef and dairy cattle would come in, under the policy of the former Minister of Agriculture there was a charge of $2.50 per hundred for barley when it was selling up the country at 25 cents a hundred. When the farmers were exploited in that way, can anyone say it was unfair to bring out those facts on the platform? The former Minister of Agriculture was responsible for that policy, and responsible also for charging the farmers S1.50 a bale for hay. The farmer could have been protected against all that if the former Minister of Agriculture had looked after the interests of agriculture when he had his agricultural bill before the house. I say it is absolutely unfair for hon. gentlemen opposite to block this estimate-



Supply-Agriculture-Dairying


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Who is doing it now?


Henry Alfred Mullins: -and I say they have
some motive for it.


Mr. SPEAKMAN:: In listening to what
has been going on I have been wondering what we are really discussing here to-day. As I understand it, we have before us an item dealing with dairying. A little while ago the hon. member for Marquette said something to the effect that the old cow was a stranger to this house. I am beginning to think that the old cow's husband is a rather familiar object here, and while the old cow herself may be without guile, her husband certainly is not.
There is another thought which came to my mind a moment ago, which bears directly on the subject before us. This committee has been little bilt more than a bull garden for the last two hours; it has been almost a bear garden at times, and I was wondering as I sat here just what some of our farmers would think if they could have listened to us for the last two hours. I am making no references to any particular individual, but may I suggest this? So far as I can see, the dispute this afternoon is not so much over the accuracy of the figures that have been presented as with regard to the deductions which have been drawn and the arguments which have been adduced therefrom. It does seem to me that in discussing the varying amounts of butter production during past years we have overlooked what is propably the greatest factor, and that is not the political but the economic factor. I imagine, and I have been in the dairy business for about forty years, that we can divide the dairymen of this country into two classes: first, those to whom dairying is their chief business, those who are professional dairymen, you' might say, who carry on that business year in and year out as their main farming operation, and secondly, those to whom dairying is but a branch of agriculture to be taken up when it seems to be most profitable, and to be dropped when other branches of farming appeal to them as more profitable and as offering perhaps an easier method of making money.
Speaking a year ago on this subject, I made this statement, which I think is absolutely correct and may bear repetition, that the dairy production of this country-and in that I include milk and all its products-might be likened to an index needle which pointed to the condition of the wheat market. During the years when the raising of wheat can be carried on profitably, the second class of dairymen to whom I have referred, to whom dairying is a side issue, will not milk cows;

they will proceed with grain farming. But when prices go down below cost, as they have done of late, they will turn to anything which will bring in a little ready money, and many of them at this time are turning to dairying. It is not a question now of the price of butter or of butter fat. If that were all, they would not be milking cows. But it has come to the point where they are using every possible means in every direction to make a little extra money. At the moment the price of butter fat, I suppose, is lower than it has been since the nineties. A few days ago I received a letter from an outstanding farmer in my district who said that he had always thought I was exaggerating when I told him that in the nineties we sometimes used butter for axle grease, but that now he believed it because they were actually doing it because of the comparatively low price of butter. It does seem to me that we are not gaining very much 'by discussing hour after hour under whose policies this fluctuating production has taken place, because after all it comes down to the economic feature. Men will milk cows when they cannot make money in any other way, or when it seems to them more profit table than any other branch of agriculture. We see that exemplified to-day. The price of butter is very low, the price of butter fat is still lower, but the price of other things,, comparatively, is lower still. That has led to an increased production. Then we had a very open winter last year, one of the most open and most favourable winters for dairy production that we have seen in western Canada for perhaps thirty years. That, coupled with immense quantities of almost valueless feed that was available, has led thousands of men to milk cows during the last few months who had not done so for years. At the present time, therefore, we can look for a continued increase in production. Most certainly we can look to this country being on an export basis for some time to come. That in turn will mean that we must take the export price, which now is moat lamentably low. So far as I can see, the only assistance which can be given to the dairy farmer at the present time by any government, apart from the application of policies which may lower the cost of things which we must buy, reduce the interest on the money which ,the farmer needs to borrow, and lessen the tremendous burdens of indebtedness which the farmer carries, is first, to see that our standards are such that we can compete favourably on the world's market; and second, to see that we suffer no handicap by way of unfair competition from other countries, so

Sup pi y-A gricullure-Dairying
far as it is possible for the government to prevent it. Production is increasing on account of the economic conditions with which we are faced, and the only thing that will bring the dairy industry and all industries (bade to normal are sound financial and economic policies in the country as a whole. In the meantime, may I, as one member who is intensely interested in the people at home and in the business of this house, ask that we be not compelled to listen to the babble that has prevailed for the last two hours, but rather to an intelligent discussion of the question that is before the house?


John Thomas Hackett: Will the hon. gentleman
say if, in the view he takes of the situation, he considers a tariff on butter helpful to the producer of butter?


Alfred Speakman: I am not a fanatic on the subject. I believe that when we are not on an export basis a tariff may be useful. When we get on an export basis to any large extent, unless one of two ithings happen, either a government board controls the entire ouitput or the farmers so organize that they themselves can control it, the individual will take the export basis for all he sells at home or abroad. WThen it gets to that point on a real export basis we will take the export price.
Mr. PhCKEL: Mr. Chairman, as I am a new member I ask for your special protection. The dairy farmers of Canada are asking for protection and that they be afforded an opportunity to supply the Canadian market. One would naturally expect that the opposition to an item such as the one under discussion would come from hon. members representing urban constituencies. Strange at it may seem, however, the greatest opposition encountered by the dairy farmers of Canada comes from the western wheat growers, members representing another branch of agriculture. I cannot understand their opposition.


John Vallance: Where does my hon. friend get that?


Follin Horace Pickel: We are not doing anything to injure the wheat farmers; we know a duty on butter will help us.


John Vallance: Let me ask my hon. friend a question. Why was it that the minister-


Armand Renaud La Vergne: The hon. gentleman has not resumed his seat. It is necessary that he should do so before another hon. member asks a question.


John Vallance: Would the hon. member permit a question? He has been talking about protection for the dairy farmer. Why was it that when butter reached its lowest price for the year the Minister of Agriculture removed the 32 cents agreement entered into with Australia? What protection did the farmers receive from that action?


Follin Horace Pickel: In answer to that question I can say only that the. Minister of Agriculture told the house that a treaty was being negotiated with Australia and that at the present time we have only one cent per pound against Australia. That condition has arisen because of the Australian treaty for which hon. gentlemen on the opposite side of the house were responsible. I understand that permission has been given for the release of a certain quantity of butter. Concerning the production of milk in this country there seems to be a great discrepancy in the figures obtained from the bureau of statistics. I do not know who manages the bureau, but in the years 1928, 1929 and 1930 I have delved into the reports issued from that source. I learned that the production of butter on an export basis had declined by 26,000,000 pounds in four years, and we became importers of over
50,000,000 pounds. The production of cheese had decreased nearly one-half. Our exportation of milk and cream to the United States was diminishing. At the same time we had an excess quantity of milk, but 100,000 less cows. Those -facts are hard to reconcile. Of course I am not disputing statements issued by the bureau of statistics but certainly I have my doubts as to their accuracy.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Probably there were
better cows.


Follin Horace Pickel: Canada's dairy business was quite extensive and satisfactory until 1925. I have been dairying all my life, and until 1925 we had no oomplaints to make. Our prices remained on a par with -those in the United States until 1914, the year of the beginning of the war, when we received a price from five to seven cents higher than that received across the line. That situation was borne out by -the fact that about three-quarters of the traffic on the north and south roads from the United States leading into Canada carried smuggled American pork and butter. After the close of the war we were going to open our markets to -the world, and we began to reduce our tariff. The rest of the world increased theirs and consequently the dairy industry in Canada suffered. I could take hon. gentlemen opposite through my riding and
20SO

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
show them farm after farm abandoned. I have in mind one particular road where in a stretch of eleven miles there are 37 houses boarded u;p. That condition exists all through the eastern townships, where, I think, I am safe in sayirug that there must be at least 2,500 abandoned farms. After the Australian treaty came into force and had been applied in this country for a few years the Canadian farmers were so hard hit that they shipped their milk and cream across the lines. Under the Hawley-Smoot tariff they have to pay $5.65 to g?t an eight-gallon can of cream across the line. That eight-gallon can of cream made just 39 pounds of butter. The Canadian government admitted the same amount of New Zealand butter for 39 cents, while we paid 85.66 to find a market in a foreign country to equalize the amount of butter fat required to make an equal amount of butter.


Vincent Dupuis: Thirty-nine cents per pound?


Follin Horace Pickel: Yes. They shipped 39
pounds of butter in here at a cent per pound, while we paid S5.66 to get an eight-gallon can of cream into the United States. I would ask the western farmers for a little more cooperation. We are engaged in the same industry, and I do not see what they have to gain by opposing the dairy industry of Canada. Certainly we are hard hit, and I do not know of anything which will help us out unless we restore our own market. The best market we,have is the Canadian market. The American people have preserved their home market for their farmers. So much so is that, true that in September, 1926, New Zealand sent a cargo of butter into New York harbour upon which the duty was 12 cents; the following day it was raised to 18 cents. The result is that no more New Zealand butter has been sent to the United States.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: What is their condition now?


Follin Horace Pickel: It has been coming to Canada ever since. I hope and trust that the government will be able to negotiate a treaty with Australia which will be fair both for manufacturers and dairy farmers, to replace the Australian trade treaty of 1925 which was very unfair from the standpoint of the Canadian dairy farmers. The manufacturers derived a great many advantages from that commonwealth but the Canadian dairy farmers paid the price. May I add that there is a $200,000,000 market for bacon in Britain, but we have none to sell? Why? Because we do not. make butter. If we do not make

butter we do not produce bacon; those two commodities go hand in hand. We have imported 100,000 carcasses of Australian lambs. To my mind, owing to the fact that we have the best sheep growing country on the face of the earth, such an importation is nothing but a crime. I am sure the hon. member for Melfort will agree with me that this is one of the best sheep countries in the world; but we are not protected.
I am not going to detain the committee any longer. I think the passing of these estimates has been held up quite long enough. I would ask hon. gentlemen who are engaged in the farming industry, whether they are raising fruit, wheat, or other products, to cooperate with the dairy farmers and give us protection for our products.


John Livingstone Brown: We are all here trying to do our best for the dairy farmers.


William Richard Motherwell: We have become accustomed to getting lectures from the Prime Minister, but now the duty has been undertaken by some of his supporters. If there is any better way of getting the information that we have received in the last ten minutes why was it not followed sooner? All day long and on into the night we have been trying to get certain information, and with one cast of the net the hon. member for Provencher got the information that my hon. friend the minister did not care to give. Isn't that right?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


William Richard Motherwell: It is right. That was the crux of the whole thing. I took the ground that the production of milk was the proper basis on which to arrive at the condition of the dairy industry, and nobody disputed my statement. It is the basis adopted by every country. That has been conceded, but we have only got the information in the last ten minutes. Then my hon. friend from Red Deer wants to know why we make so much noise. Has he any quicker way of extracting information from the minister? If so, I should be glad to hear of it.


Alfred Speakman: I was not lecturing anyone, I was pointing out that the temper on both sides was not conducive to progress.


William Richard Motherwell: We are talking
about dairying. You don't have your best clothes on when you are milking cows. Anyway, we have got the information now. We have gone our own way about it, but if there be any better way I shall be glad to hear of it. I submit that if the hon. minister had furnished the information two days ago-that is

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
when it was asked for, as Hansard will show-[DOT] we would be just two days ahead. I should also like to get information as to when the price of butter "was as low as it is to-day. I think you will have to go back to 1904, but I am speaking only from memory, and my memory may not be right. Why should we not get that information? The price for export butter in Montreal has been as low as I8i cents recently.


Robert Weir: I do not think that I have the information here, but I shall be glad to get it.


William Richard Motherwell: The minister cannot expect his deputy voluntarily to bring evidence before the court that is going to condemn his minister. The minister's deputy has the information, so has his dairy commissioner; but I submit, Mr. Chairman, the deputy cannot * bring that information here voluntarily; he must be asked to do so, otherwise he would be condemning his minister and the Tory party all along the line. The evidence would be against the minister just as it is against him now. If he says he has not the figures I will let that stand over. But when was the price of butter as low as it is now? You have to go so far back that you would be surprised. When last January wheat dropped to 50 cents every statistician in the country was hunting up the records to see when it was that low before. That was a perfectly proper enterprise. Some authorities said it was 150 years ago. Now, I want to know whether it is 150 or 1,000 years ago. I do not think it is either, I think it is within this century, 1904, but I am speaking from memory. I do not see why we should not have the information. I think the minister has promised now to bring it down, and also information with regard to the 9 years production asked for.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


William Richard Motherwell: No, I did not
mean I was through with the whole item.


Mr. YENIOT:: Hon. gentlemen opposite
are not going to get the item carried by trying to shut off discussion. Let us have the discussion first and carry the item afterwards. When the hon. member for Stanstead was giving certain statistics with regard to the importation and exportation of butter, I asked him if he could furnish figures of butter production in Canada and of domestic consumption. He could not. I interjected that it was a very poor way to make comparisons when he was leaving entirely aside the amount of butter consumed in Canada, as
well as the amount produced here, and confined himself to the amount imported. He also stated that the export of butter had entirely ceased in I92S and 1929, but he referred only to our exports to the United Kingdom.


John Thomas Hackett: No.


Peter John Veniot: The hon. member stated
it had ceased.


John Thomas Hackett: I gave the exact figure.
The total export in 1930 was 1,180,400 pounds.


Peter John Veniot: To what country?


John Thomas Hackett: The total exports to all
countries.


Peter John Veniot: The total exports in 1929
amounted to 1,889,200 pounds to the following countries:	Great Britain, nothing; Newfoundland, Bermuda, Bahamas, British West Indies, British Honduras, British Guiana. The exports to British Guiana and the British West Indies were increasing. Now let me take the production of butter in Canada. The New Zealand treaty came into force late in the fall of 1925. In 1927 we imported from New Zealand or other countries 11,208,809 pounds, according to the hon. member for Stanstead. In that year we produced 143,000,000 pounds. In 1928 we imported nearly 17,000,000 pounds. Notwithstanding that increase in our butter imports we produced
168.000.	000 pounds in round figures, whereas the production in 1927 was 143,000,000. In 1929, notwithstanding the New Zealand treaty, and notwithstanding according to the hon. member for Stanstead, that we imported
35.000.	000 in round figures from New Zealand, Australia, and other countries, we increased our production from 168,000,000 to 172,581,406 pounds, but our consumption was 230,000,000 pounds. In spite of the fact that we were increasing our production year by year we had to import 35,000,000 pounds in 1929 from Australia, we did not have enough butter to meet the demands of the Canadian people. Butter had to come from some place, and as far as the production of butter in the province of Quebec is concerned, it increased in 1928 by a small fraction. Notwithstanding the large quantity of milk and cream they were selling across the border to the states of Vermont and New Hampshire, the butter production increased. Let us go back to 1912, 1913 and 1914 and see what we find. In those three years the production of butter in Canada was so far from meeting the demands of the Canadian people that we im-
Supply-Agriculture-Dairying

ported almost as muc'h butter as we imported in 1928, during which year the importation amounted to nearly 17,000,000 pounds.
If the hon. gentleman had wished to be fair in his argument and in his comparisons he would have told this committee why we had to import this butter. We imported it because the Canadian people were not producing sufficient butter for their own consumption. It may be said, as it was said during the election campaign, that the farmers were not given sufficient protection, and for that reason they were not going into the dairy business. The hon. gentleman, however, in giving the figures having to do with the production of dairy products in this country, forgot to tell the committee of the enormous strides made in the last six or seven years in the dairy industry in addition to the production of butter and cheese. There has been a tremendous increase in the production of solidified cream, if I may use that term, and ice cream. There is a large butter factory in the province of New Brunswick situated within ten miles of one of the best dairying districts in the Dominion of Canada, but the farmers refused to sell their cream to that factory at from 38 to 42 cents. They can make a greater profit by sending their cream to the ice cream manufacturers. I know this to be the fact, because in 1923 when I had the honour of being premier of New Brunswick, the factory at Moncton, which is subsidized to a certain extent by the provincial government, requested the government of that province to guarantee a credit of 850,000 with the Bank of Montreal, to be used as working capital. The reason they asked that guarantee was in order to enable them to hold over the butter they had in storage on August 15, so they might get a better price later in the winter. I looked into the matter, because I wanted to satisfy my-.self that the business was being run properly before arranging for the guarantee of the province, and I discovered that the dairymen of the Salisbury and Petitcodiac districts were refusing to sell their cream to the factory because they were getting a better price from the manufacturers of ice cream. Under those conditions I refused to allow the guarantee of the province to be given; a credit was arranged for, but only to the extent of 835,000. I found later on, when the people could not buy butter, that there were 110,000 pounds in cold storage. The following year I refused the guarantee of the province to anyone who would keep butter in cold storage for that 
period of time in order to get an increased price and make the consumer pay too much for it.
These are conditions which have not been heard of, perhaps, or at least which have not been mentioned in this house. These are the conditions which existed in the dairy industry of the province of New Brunswick, and the lessened production is not the fault of this or any other government. If the dairy farmer could get a greater price for his cream by selling it to the manufacturers of ice cream, he did so. He was not to blame for that; he had a right to place his cream where he would get the better price for it.
Never before has butter been selling at the low price which is being paid to-day, and that is why I asked the minister this afternoon why he consented to let Australian butter loose on the markets of Canada, which came into this country under an agreement that it would not sell for less than 32 cents per pound. The answer given by the minister was that they had shown their good faith by keeping the first agreement; that they had a large quantity of butter in Canada, and he felt it nothing but fair that he should let them dispose of it. He did so; he let them dispose of butter which came into this country to be sold for not less than 32 cents per pound, at a time when the farmers and dairymen of Canada could not get more than 21 cents per pound for their butter, which seems to me very poor judgment indeed.
I just wanted to place these statistics before the committee. As far as I am concerned, I think the item of $5,000 now before the committee for the National Dairy Council of Canada should not pass. The council should not have that money to spend, because I am convinced that the council cannot be said to be entirely clear of politics, and its political shade certainly blends with that of hon. gentlemen apposite.


Mr. BO YES:: The hon. member who has just taken his seat made reference to the National Dairy Council. I wish to make just a few remarks in defence of that council. I was present at the time the National Dairy Council was inaugurated, in the city of Ottawa, some few years ago. The idea of inaugurating this council had nothing to do with politics at all, and I feel sure that they have never taken any action for political reasons. I should like to prove this statement by referring to the manner in which the national dairy council is at present

. * . Suppl y-Agriculture-Dairying
organized. It is composed of members from one end of the Dominion to the other. The following is a list of the membership:-
Head Office:
Journal Building, 233-237 Queen Street Ottawa, Canada President:
F. E. M. Robinson,
Vice-Pres., Richmond Jerseys Inc. . Richmond, Que.
Vice-President:
E. T. Love,
Woodland Dairy Edmonton, Alta.
Secretary and Treasurer:
W. F. Stephen,
Ottawa, Ontario Telephone, Queen 6147
Members of the Council, 1931 British Columbia
British Columbia Dairymen's Association:
R. V. Hurford, Comox Creamery Co., Courtenay.
*J. W. Berry, M.L.A., Langley Prairie. Representing Producers:
A. E. Dumvill, Sardis.
Alberta
Alberta Dairymen's Association:
*E. T. Love, Woodland Dairy, Edmonton. Norman E. Clarke, Didsbury.
'Western Ice Cream Manufacturers:
J. W. Carlyle, United Dairies, Calgary. Western Producers:
J. R. Love, 10531 102nd street, Edmonton. Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan Dairy Association:
Robert Barbour, Crescent Creamery Co., Ltd., Yorkton.
*P. C. Colquhoun, Maple Creek.
Western Butter Manufacturers:
O. W. Andreasen, Saskatchewan Co-operative Creameries, Regina.
Manitoba
Manitoba Dairy Association:
*J. P. Donald. Palm Dairies Ltd., Winnipeg. G. W. Tovell, Winnipeg Milk Producers' Association. McIntyre Block, Winnipeg. Western Milk Distributors:
J. W. Speirs, Crescent Creamery Co., Winnipeg.
Ontario
Dairymen's Association of Western Ontario: A. E. Grace.v, City Dairy, Ltd., Simcoe. Eastern Ontario Dairymen's Association:
J. N. Truelove, Westport, Ont.
Canadian Creamery Association:
R. T. Stillman, Brant Creameries, Ltd., Brantford.
Ontario Milk Distributors' Association:
*W. H. Forster, Pure Milk Co. Ltd., Hamilton.
The Ontario Milk Producers' Association:
*J. P. Griffin, secretary, Ontario Milk Producers' Association, 21 King Street East, Toronto.
Canadian Association of Ice Cream Mfgrs:
Burness Whitmore, Wellington Produce Co., Harriston.
Condensed Milk and Powdered Milk Interests: G. B. Levis, Canadian Milk Products, Ltd., 115 George Street, Toronto.
Quebec
Quebec Dairy Association:
Alexander Dion, Department of Agriculture, Quebec.
J. H. Crepeau, St. Camille de Wolfe. Montreal Milk Producers' Association:
David Black, Lachute.
Montreal Milk Distributors:
*J. J. Joubert, J. J. Joubert Co., Ltd., Montreal.
C. B. Price, Elmhurst Dairy, Ltd., Montreal. Canadian Produce Merchants' Association:
E. H. Hodgson, 745-771 William Street, Montreal.
New Brunswick
New Brunswick Dairymen United:
W. H. Huggard, Norton.
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia Dairymens' Association:
*A. Hector Cutten. Truro.
W. R. Kinsman, Yarmouth Creamery Co., Dayton.
Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island Dairy Association:
W. J. Gibson, Marshfield.
Dairy Cattle Breeders Holstein-Friesian Association:
A. E. Plant, R.R. No. 2, Brantford, Ont. Canadian Ayrshire Breeders' Association: Gilbert McMillan, Huntingdon, R.R. 2. Canadian Jersey Cattle Club:
*F. E. M. Robinson, Richmond, Que.
I feel sure that when hon. members look into this matter they will realize that the members of this council were not elected for any political purpose. I can assure hon. gentlemen opposite that these men are acting in the interests of the dairymen of this country. They were not acting in a political manner when they went up against the late government. They felt sure that the government of that time was proceeding in a manner detrimental to the dairy interests, and I feel sure that they would come up against this government if it attempted to do the same thing or anything similar.


Edward James Young: What did they ask for?


John Yeo: I do not think there is any doubt about what they asked for.


William Richard Motherwell: They did not ask for as much as they got.


An hon. MEMBER:: They did not get
what they asked for.


William Richard Motherwell: They asked for
four cents and they got eight cents.
*Members of Executive.

Supply-A griculture-Dairying
* Mr. BO YES: The National Dairy Council is not a political organization but is acting in the interests of the dairymen of Canada, and I think those in opposition should support this vote.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Mr. Chairman, I am disposed to agree with the last speaker, that we should support the vote. So far as I know the National Dairy Council is not primarily a political organization. Last year I gave some attention to and made some study of the proposal which they made to the tariff advisory board and later to the government, and I thought their request for a four cent duty was a perfectly reasonable one. However, the present government has gone much farther than that and has imposed an eight cent duty. Before I conclude my remarks I intend to ask the Minister of Agriculture to give the committee his frank opinion as to whether he thinks it possible that the imposition of an eight cent duty can do the dairying industry any good for years to come. My opinion is that it is not reasonably possible.
I was much impressed with the remarks of the hon. member for Red Deer, and I agree with him when he says that when Canada is on an export basis in regard to butter it is not possible for a protective duty to do the dairying industry any good. It is possible that under a different system of organization some good might be done, if, for instance, the government could control the entire output, as the hon. member for Red Deer says; but so long as there are hundreds of thousands of producers of butter producing and marketing their product on a competitive basis they cannot possibly be benefited by the imposition of a duty because they are bound to take the export price, as is the case at the present time.
I tried ineffectually a few times to get the floor after the hon. member for Stanstead made his somewhat impressive speech. The hon. member presented figures to the committee showing that the Dominion of Canada had between 1925 and 1930 gradually changed from an export to an import basis on butter, and the inference the committee was expected to draw from the figures-the hon. member will correct me if I am wrong-was that the fiscal policy of the preceding administration was the cause of that trend. Our effective competitor during those years was New Zealand and the duty imposed against butter coming from that country was one cent per pound. Although the hon. gentleman did not put it in so many words, he intimated that because of this low duty we had gradually drifted between the years 1925 and 1930 from being on a heavy exporting basis to an im-

porting basis. That is the inference he expected the committee to draw from the figures he placed on Hansard. There never was a more glaring non sequitur. The effective causes which brought this change between 1925 and 1930 were not duties; it was brought about by entirely different factors. The main factor, of course, was the fact that the wheat growers of the west were prospering at wheat growing. As the hon. member for Red Deer pointed out, and as we all know, whatever part of Canada we live in, men prefer to grow wheat to milking cows if they can make as much out of wheat. Certainly they will grow wheat if they are making more at it than they could make by milking cows. So men by the thousands went out of dairying into wheat growing exclusively. That was not attributable to the fiscal policy of any administration, and it was the greatest single factor in preventing a growth in the production of daily products in Canada.
There were other factors as well. There was the great increase in the tourist traffic into this country from the United States. The United States was enjoying a period of piping prosperity. The tourists came across the border in great numbers and -consumed milk products, perhaps largely ice cream, in great quantities. I think I saw somewhere that the tourist consumption of milk and milk products amounted to about 15,000,000 pounds per annum if converted into butter.


An hon. MEMBER:: In Quebec it was beer.


James Lorimer Ilsley: They may have come for other purposes as well, but the consumption of milk products was incidental to the purposes for which they -came. That was another factor in driving us from -an export to an import basis. There were other factors as well. At one time during the period beef went to a high level and cattle that were on the border line, that might be used for dairying or for beef purposes, were used for beef. We all know that. There were still other factors, though I cannot call them to mind at the moment.


William Duff: General prosperity.


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. This country was in a very prosperous condition and there was -a great increase in consumption. There came a period during the latter part of those five years when we went on an import basis and a protective duty became effective in transferring money from the consumers to the producers of dairy products. That period was relatively brief. The National Dairy Council, the vote for which is under discussion, said it would be advisable, under all the circum-

20S5
Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
stances, for the government to raise the duty against our effective competitor from one cent to four cents a pound, and the government did so. The present government, not content with that, not willing to take the benefit of the long experience of the very able men who were in control of the National Dairy Council, particularly Mr. Robinson, the chairman-as I should say from reading his addresses- doubled the duty and made it eight cents a pound. But never were the benefits of a duty as short-lived; they lasted only two or three months, and now they have all disappeared. Does anybody deny that they have all disappeared? Of course they have. We are back on an export basis, and the very size of the duty helped to drive us back on to an export basis more quickly than otherwise would have been the case. We are back on an export basis now just as the officials of the National Dairy Council feared we would be if too high a duty were imposed, and crash have gone the prices. As hon. gentlemen on both sides of the house must admit, prices are away down, lower than they have been for a quarter of a century.
In conclusion, I should like to ask the minister whether he does not agree with the main facts that I have tried to set out. I want to treat the matter very fairly; I am not fanatical in regard to it. I do not advocate free trade under all conditions and all circumstances, but I say that the government should have been content to stand by the four-cent duty advocated by the National Dairy Council. The eight-cent duty has done more harm than good. I want to put this to the minister: Does he not think we are going to be on an export basis for many years to come? Does he not agree that wdren we are on an export basis, a duty does not help the producer? Does he think his government's edght-cent duty is going to be any real good to the producers for many years to come?


Robert Weir: I felt at the time
the duty of eight cents was imposed-and I feel the same way now-it was advisable to impose it. The farmers of this country had so few farm products to sell that would bring in any money and there was such a quantity of butter in storage in Canada, that the higher the protection we could give them, the better, on account of the urgent condition of the farmers at that time.
There is one point in these figures that I would like to have cleared up. I understand the hon. member for Hants-Kings, who has just sat down, stated that during the first four or five months of 1930 the average price of butter in Montreal or in Canada was higher
than the average price of butter in New York.
I should like to know where the hon. member got that information, as one thing w'e have to do in our department is to obtain the most accurate information possible.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I cannot give that information at the moment. I think what I stated was that I had been so informed. I put my assertion in the form of a question to the hon. member for Stanstead and he thought I was incorrect. I am quite sure I am right, but I shall get the figures between now and tomorrow afternoon.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: The ex-Postmaster General, in concluding his speech, intimated that the National Dairy Council was a partisan organization and therefore he was opposed to voting them this $5,000. I should like to ask the hon. gentleman why the government of which he was a member for years voted the National Dairy Council this $5,000. I was at the organization meeting of the National Dairy Council, and for many years I represented eastern Ontario on it. It has always been at least three-quarters Grit in its composition. The Liberals on it always outweighed the Conservatives by a large number, and to-day the same situation prevails Further, when we had a delegation to interview the late Mr. Robb to remonstrate with him against making this treaty with Australia and allowing New Zealand butter to come in free, the great trouble was to accomplish anything without hurting the administration of that day. I want to say further, as I said this afternoon, that while the National Dairy Council has been composed of more Liberals than Conservatives, they have been men who have had the interests of the dairy industry at heart and have rendered Canada splendid service, and this item should pass.


James J. Donnelly: There has been some discussion about the price of butter in New York and Montreal during the early months of 1930. I understood the hon. member for Stanstead to say that the price of buttter in New York was higher in the early months of 1930 than it was in Montreal.


Mr. HAOKETT:: I made no reference to New York.


James J. Donnelly: I have figures here
supplied by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, giving the average monthly wholesale prices of butter in New York, Montreal and London for the year 1930. In January, butter was 41 cents in Montreal and 36.1 in New York; February, 39 cents in Montreal and 35.5 in New York; March, 37.3 in Montreal and 37.1 in New Ylork. Each of
Supply-Agriculture-Dairying

those months butter was higher in Montreal than it was in New York. But, Mr. Chairman, I do not think it is a fair comparison to take prices in Montreal and New York because New York supplies a large consuming population in the New England states, and the price fluctuates from time to time. The only fair comparison to make is between Montreal and London, which is the world's market, and if we compare our prices with London prices from time to time, we shall get a more accurate picture of what effect the tariff has had on our prices and what it has done to our market for butter.
I take the same months of the same year. In January, 1930, the price in Montreal was 41, and in London 38. In other words, our price was 3 cents higher. In February, the price was 39 in Montreal and 37.5 in London, a difference in our favour of 1.5 cents. In March, the price in Montreal was 37.3 and in London 35.1, a difference in our favour of 2.2 cents.
The minister takes a great deal of credit because this government put a duty on butter when they came into power. At page 2001 of Hansard he says that when the present government came into power the price in Canada was 28 to 28.25 cents, whereas the price in London was 28.64 to 29.08. I have here the July prices from the bureau of statistics, and they show that in the month of July the average price in Canada was
30.5	and in London 31.9, or 1.4 higher in London than in Canada. In August the Montreal price was 31.4, and London 32, or a difference of .6 in favour of London. The minister goes on to say in that same debate that they did away with the New Zealand treaty and the price of butter immediately shot up, thus making $2,000,000 for the farmers of Canada by keeping up the price of butter. Let us look at the prices as they were for the rest of the year. In August the Montreal price was 31.4, and London 32; September, 33.4, Montreal, and 31.9 London, or 1.5 higher in Montreal; October, 33.2 Montreal, and 32.3 London, or .9 higher in Canada; November, 33 Montreal, London 29.8, or 2.2 higher in Canada; December, 33.2 Montreal, and London 29.5. It is the same all down the list, showing a higher price in Canada for all the months varying from
1.5	to 1.9, 2.2, 2.7, 3.2, 4.5, and 5.5. Those are the differences in prices up to the end of April, showing a higher price in favour of Canadian butter in Montreal. The minister takes credit for all this because the government did away with the New Zealand treat}7.
But let us take another year when the New Zealand treaty was in full effect. I go back
TMr. Donnelly.]
to 1929, when we were bringing in great quantities of New Zealand butter. In January, 1929, the average difference in our price at Montreal as compared with London was 2.8 in our favour; in February we were 5.56 cents higher than the London price, and the New Zealand treaty was then in full force. In April the difference in favour of Montreal was 13 cents part of the time, and in March the difference was 8.51 in favour of Montreal. I say that that is the fair comparison to make, between London and Montreal, and the figures I have given show that there was a difference in favour of the Montreal price in 1929 when the New Zealand treaty was in full force of as much as 13 cents, and there never has been as great a difference since. That might have been the case this year, too, if the New Zealand treaty had not been done away with.
The crux of the situation is this. During the last election the Conservative party went up and down this country saying that they were going to increase the price of butter, and they have not done it. In every constituency in western Canada-I guarantee that it was done in the minister's own constituency, although he may not have made the statement himself, but his supporters campaigning for him did

the farmers were told that the price of butter was going to go up if this government came into power, and the farmers believed that. When you told the farmers that the price of butter would go up if this government was returned to power, they believed it. You cannot fool them by saying that you never said such a thing, because the farmers believed in their hearts that if this government came into power the price of butter was going to go up. But to-day the price of butter is lower than it has been in the last thirty-five years. It has never been so low as it is to-day since the time of the old Tory government in 1896. If the minister goes back to 1896, he will find that butter was then as low as it is to-day under a Tory government, but never under a Liberal government.


Mr. SMITH (Victoria-Carleton):: What
about 1904?


James J. Donnelly: The hon. member must have a better memory than I have. I say that it has not been so low since 1896. If the hon. gentleman has the figures, he can give them and make a speech after I sit down.
So far as the last election is concerned the Conservatives came to my constituency talking in the same way about butter. All I needed to do was to tell the people what

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
happened in the neighbouring state of Montana. We are bordering along the state of Montana, and one of our farmer's wives thought she would take some butter across the line and get that big priee. She would have got 20 cents a pound in her own town, and she went across the line into Montana and got the very , same price. The only advantage she got was that over there she was able to buy things a little cheaper than she could have in Canada because of our tariff. That argument about what New Zealand butter was doing did not cut any ice there, because they knew better. They were right up against it and they knew just what it meant. In western Canada to-day it is not the creamery butter, but the dairy butter that counts. Many of our farmers are so far away from the market they are not in a position to have their cream shipped to the creamery. As a result they are concerned only with dairy butter. I have a letter before me dated at Hodgeville, Saskatchewan, on May 24 of this year.
An non. MEMBER:	That is Sunday.


James J. Donnelly: I quote from the
letter:
I will quote you prices for that produce right here in Hodgeville. Butter per pound 12 cents; eggs per dozen 7 cents. I leave to your imagination Doctor Donnelly how any farmer can pay anything on past debts and live under these conditions. It is awful to see poor farmers bringing in their eggs and butter, all they have between them and starvation, and just about giving them away. I was in a local store here on Saturday evening when the proprietor told the farmers he could not buy any more eggs or butter, as the wholesale houses were overstocked and could not handle them. And I hope never to see such looks on human faces again as those poor people had. .
That is the condition which exists out west. Many of those people voted in the belief that if the Conservative party came into power the price of butter would go up as promised.


John Thomas Hackett: I do not wish to traverse the ground over which my hon. friend has gone. I think, however, he would do well to recall the information given to us by the hon. member for Red Deer. It is true that in certain areas men milk cows only when they are forced to. That may be the case in the constituency of Willow Bun-ch. In the eastern townships, however, dairying is the sole source of ready money for the agricultural population. The farmers in the eastern townships are in the dairying industry and do very little else; their herds constitute their sole preoccupation. The revenue they derive from their herds is their sole source of livelihood.
The remarks of the hon. member for Gloucester with regard to butter might be influenced by this information. At one time in the area to which I refer cheese was made by the farmers. Due to changes in the markets the cheese factories which were found at every cross-road disappeared; the farmers went into the manufacture of butter. I will pause at this point for a moment to say that ice cream is considered by the farmers in those counties as a negligible quantity. As a matter of fact ice cream is not entirely made of cream.
I am told it is manufactured of a combination of corn starch and skimmed milk.
An hon. MEMBER; Is there any cream in it?


John Thomas Hackett: Cream enters into its
manufacture to a very limited extent. While I do not wish itp enter the political aspect of this discussion, I may tell the hon. member for Gloucester that his theory that large quantities of cream were diverted from butter to ice scream was propounded with great eloquence by his right hon. leader in the city of Sherbrooke before a vast audience of farmers who foregathered from seven or eight counties to hear his words. When the present leader of the opposition told those farmers that the reason of their difficulty was they had found it more profitable and less laborious to convert their product into ice cream than into butter they were not convinced by his statement. To the hon. member for Willow Bunch (Mr. Donnelly) I will say that if the price of butter has subsided here and has, as he states, been low compared with the price in other markets, one of the reasons is the vast quantities in storage. WTe have had great quantities stored due in part to our vast imports. We have had greater quantities in store than at any previous time. It was knowledge of these vast quantities which had to find a way out through our markets which drove the prices down.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not at all.


John Thomas Hackett: As stated by the hon.
member for Red Deer, when other means of revenue failed the farmers not customarily in the dairy business reverted to the irksome task of milking, and butter production in the several provinces increased rapidly. Quite by accident I happen to have before me a circular letter issued by the butter and cheese exporters of Montreal. May I add that this was not addressed to me personally. I notice that in every province of the Dominion the amount of butter produced each month this year is greater than, sometimes almost double,
208S
Supply-Agriculture-Dairying

the amount produced in the same period last year. That again has had a tendency to lower the price. Although I am not a farmer 1 am for the moment closely associated with them, and I would suggest it would be well for them to remember that at least they have now regained their own market.


James J. Donnelly: What is it worth to
them?


John Thomas Hackett: The duty which has been imposed keeps out the butter produced in New Zealand. I cannot say the same of Australia because the Australian treaty has not yet been abrogated, although its effect is suspended. The result however is that we have been given back our market, and I doubt if we could have got it back had it not been for the imposition of the duty to which I have referred. I hoped that my hon. friend from Red Deer could have made this answer to my question. Possibfy I was expecting too much from him. I think however his opinions coincide with mine, if we may judge from the information he gave the committee. To-day Canada is producing all the butter it requires and gradually is regaining a position in the export market. It is possible to ship to the export market at a lesser price than the price obtaining in the home market. Such a statement may constitute an economic heresy, but I do feel that if our farmers are given the benefit of our own market they will derive an immense benefit from the legislation which was passed last fall.


Mr. MacLEAN:: Will the hon. member
permit a question?


Mr.   RACKET@: Yes.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: Is the township from
which the hon. member comes shipping cream and milk to the United States as previously?


John Thomas Hackett: No, not as previously.
It is shipping only very small quantities.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: That is what I thought.


John Thomas Hackett: Some cities close to the
Canadian border, in spite of the duty, take our milk rather than pay freight from more remote sections of their own country. Generally speaking however that trade has ceased and I have endeavoured to say frankly that the loss of such trade has had a decided effect upon the industry as a whole. I wish also to say that the prices I quoted were average prices. The hon. members for Provencher and Gloucester and the hon. member for Melville referred to prices on a given day in a given year. It is true those prices related to days early in January when they are supposed to be at their highest point.


Peter John Veniot: No, I gave no prices.


John Thomas Hackett: I think if the hon. member will read over his remarks he will find he did deal with prices.
Mr. VENIO^:	I gave no prices.


John Thomas Hackett: I stand corrected, then.
The prices I gave were the average prices for the whole year and were furnished by the bureau of statistics. One further word. We have been debating this item during three sittings of the committee. I know it is difficult to dispose of an item which has given rise to so much political controversy without everybody having something to say about it. But do not the dairy farmers throughout the land feel that this item is one from which they may legitimately hope to receive some help and some benefit? And if that be the case will not hon. members consider the item in that light?


Mr. BERTRAND:: Mr. Chairman, during
the addresses made by a number of hon. members across the floor I was only too pleased to notice their eulogy of the National Dairy Council. I was also very well satisfied to hear the member for Stanstead state that the tariff had given so much help to the farming community of his county. I suppose this was along the lines of the electoral campaign during last summer. The hon. minister stated that quite a few million dollars were given to the Canadian farmers by the protection accorded them. In a letter written by Mr. P. E. M. Robinson, president of the National Dairy Council of Canada, on August 25 last to the editor of The Financial Post, there is a paragraph which illustrated the point that I desire to bring out. He says:
In presenting our case before the tariff board last January we asked a modest duty of 4 cents a pound, or roughly 12 cents ad valorem, believing this to be the point at which the tariff should be fixed to do the industry the most good. A tariff less than 4 cents leaves us open to competition which we cannot meet under our climatic conditions. A tariff of more than this amount would cause milk now being devoted to cheesemaking to be diverted to butter. This together with the direct stimulation of primary butter production would shortly lead to the building up of an all-the-year round exportable surplus, whereupon the benefit of the tariff would be lost to the industry and we would in the meantime have still further weakened our hold on the British cheese market.
Exactly what happened here.
In other words, the dairy industry wants 4 cents per pound protection on butter, and it does not want any more under the present conditions.
It is all very well to speak of the need of the Canadian farmer to-day and to discuss

Supply-A gricult ure-Dairying
protection of the dairy industry; we may all have our various points of view on the tariff, but it will be observed from this paragraph of Mr. Robinson's letter that although wishing for a tariff of 4 cents a pound, he states that if that protection was exceeded it would stimulate the manufacture of other milk products and consequently hurt our trade in those lines. That butter prices have fallen since is bad enough, but what is going to happen to our cheese production at present prices? In view of this I hope the minister will study the question again. I do not think he is quite positive in asserting that this tariff protection of 8 cents a pound is conferring so much benefit on the Canadian agriculturists, particularly the milk producer, especially when it is borne in mind that Mr. Robinson stated in August last exactly what is happening to-day throughout the Dominion.


Robert Weir: I am glad the hon. gentleman has quoted Mr. Robinson as his authority. I also have a letter over his signature in which he claims the 8 cent tariff put into the pockets of the farmers in the neighbourhood of $7,000,000.


William Duff: Read the letter.


Elie-Oscar Bertrand: I have read my authority. In all fairness I ask the minister to do the same.


Robert Weir: This is the letter:
National Dairy Council of Canada Richmond, P.Q.,
May 18, 1931.
Hon. H. H. Stevens,
Minister of Trade and Commerce,
Ottawa, Ont.
Dear Mr. Stevens:
You asked for a memorandum on the dairy situation with particular reference to the present low price of butter, and the benefit which accrued to the producer from the comparatively high price received for butter before the recent drop.
You will recall that the eight cent tariff against New Zealand made effective October, 1930. had the# effect of raising the price level in this country to about 29 cents, because practically all our purchases of butter were from that dominion. Late in the year the special arrangement with Australia was entered into, whereby they were to sell at not less than 32 cents, pending the ratification of a new trade agreement or at least till the close of the winter or butter import season. Some firming of the world price in London brought New Zealand offerings practically in line with, or slightly above, this artificial price which was maintained within narrow limits till April. The produce trade of this country had offers of butter from Australia for delivery January to April at prices around 22 cents per pound, and this would have been the price level in
this country had the special agreement with Australia not been effected.
Into the nature and merit of this agreement I will not enter for you naturally know more about it than I do, but I merely remind you that it was highly artificial and inelastic, and those connected with the industry soon concluded that this price fixing agreement would be highly effective till it broke down and that then the breakdown would be complete.
We thus had our wholesale butter market maintained all winter at a level from seven to ten cents over world parity, and most of the time at the latter figure. During the period in question about 75,000,000 pounds of butter was produced in this country. We have no accurate statistics of monthly production, but this is a composite of many estimates, and is not far from the truth. All of this production received the full benefit of the artificial price level which thus resulted in an extra return to the producers of about $7,000,000. This, of course, came from the consumers pocket direct, and the consumer in addition paid the extra ten cents on the relatively small amount of Australian butter which entered the country during the period in question.
This figure of $7,000,000 applies to butter only, and does not take account of the fact that prices of whole milk, sweet cream, ice cream, etc., could not have been maintained at the level actually paid if butter had been selling for 22 cents instead of 32 cents. The actual benefit received by dairy producers last winter in the form of extra income was therefore greater than the above figure. I could not hazard a guess at the real total, but am very sure that it was over $10,000,000.
This extra income was invaluable in helping to tide over a critical period for very many farmers, and great credit should be claimed by your government for the action which made this possible.
Let me now discuss the very abrupt fall in the price of butter which took place a few weeks ago, resulting in a fall of 10 cents per pound in as many days, and a later drop which finally took the price down to an extreme low of 19 cents per pound. A number of factors conspired to increase our own make of winter, or fodder butter. Some of these were:-
(a)	The very mild winter in the west.
(b)	The very low price of grain acting both by reducing the cost of raw material, and by forcing farmers to exploit every source of income other than grain selling.
(e) The direct encouragement of a relatively high price, and the assurance of protection.
(d) The diversion of milk and cream formerly shipped to the states, and now shut out by the United States tariff, and by over supply, and low prices across the line.
As a usual thing the supplies of domestic butter coming forward are not much in excess of current consumption till May. It must also be remembered that fodder butter cannot be stored as it is not of good keeping quality, and for similar reasons cannot be exported to advantage. At this time also. New Zealand was selling in London at about 23 cents per pound, which would have meant a price of 20 cents, or less, here for our butter if sold for export. During the month of April the storage stocks at Montreal only declined from 37,702 boxes to 25,933, and most of this decline was
Supply-Agriculture-Dairying

iu the first half of the month This showed that at the end of April the current make was sufficient to take care of the consumption. We had then the following picture:-
(1)	The prospect of a very large summer make.
(2)	The fact that buyers realized that the market was far above world parity, and would have to reach that level before export could take place.
(3)	The receipts mounted rapidly at the last, and were in excess of current requirements.
(4)	No buyer was willing to allow 32 cent butter to accumulate on his hands.
When the break started buyers held off in spite of the, or rather because of the, daily declines till a level was reached at which they had confidence. This was around 19-20 cents at which level export would have been possible, even if not desirable because of the doubtful quality.
The stored stocks which as stated above amounted to nearly 26,000 boxes on May 1st suffered a loss in value of 10 cents per pound, or roughly $150,000.
I have written rather fully in the hope that a clear understanding of all the factors may remove the suspicion which exists in some quarters that the price decline was due to manipulation.
Butter is a perishable commodity, and its market will always be a highly sensitive one. The longer such a market is restrained from moving freely the more violent is the reaction.
The probable increase in production for this year is 15 per cent, or more which would make export possible if not necessary.
If the tariff against Australia (the only one now in doubt) be fixed at a high level there will be great incentive to store butter at present levels, especially if enough be sent out of the country to insure a shortage next winter.
Yours very truly,
(Sgd.) F. E. M. Robinson, President,
National Dairy Council of Canada.


Alan Webster Neill: Now may we have the letter which produced this timely treatise?


William Richard Motherwell: May I ask the
minister the date of that letter?


Mr. STEVENS:: The remark of the hon. member for Comox-A'lberni was entirely uncalled for. These facetious interjections by the hon. member are unbecoming.


Alan Webster Neill: The opening words of the letter are "You have asked me for a memorandum."


Henry Herbert Stevens: I have the floor. The gentleman who wrote this letter is a most responsible and respected citizen of this country, and he should be free from such imputations as are contained in the remarks of the hon. member for Comox-Alberni. In his letter he says, "You have asked me for a memorandum." I certainly did so. Had I no right to ask for it?


Alan Webster Neill: And we have a right to hear it.


Henry Herbert Stevens: What right has the hon. member to insinuate that something has been going on behind the scenes?


Alan Webster Neill: I rise to a point of order. I
insinuated nothing.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The hon. member makes me tired with these continual interjections.


William Duff: I suppose the council will get SI0.000 now, instead of S5,000.


Henry Herbert Stevens: At my request Mr. Robinson called upon me to discuss matters having regard to the export trade of this countiy. It is my duty to keep in touch with such matters. In discussing the question he made certain statements and certain observations regarding the general market conditions affecting butter. I asked him if he would be good enough to put his statements in the form of a memorandum which I might have, and he said, "I shall be very glad to do so over my own signature, and you are at liberty to use it." It has been used by the minister in a perfectly proper manner.


William Richard Motherwell: What was the date of that letter?


Robert Weir: May 18.


William Richard Motherwell: While Mr. Robinson was perfectly at liberty to make that statement, in his address to the dairy council in Winnipeg last March he said:
At this point I wish to remind you very definitely that we took the view' that a tariff of 4 cents per pound against the southern dominions, where the imported butter all came from, was about as high a tariff as the industry could obtain any permanent benefit from.
And again:
Many statements have been made and written, blaming the council for asking for any tariff at all, and others blaming us for not having asked for more than 4 cents. . . .
In July the present government took office, and in September we were asked about the butter duties, as they had been amended by the Liberal government before 'going out of office. We told the government that 4 cents was enough, for the reason that it vras all that could be permanently advantageous.
I will not read it all; it is almost eleven o'clock, but Mr. Robinson qualifies that statement however, by saying that during a certain period, about September when butter was being rushed intoCanada even under the Tory government, the 8 cents duty was of benefit. He takes the ground that the 8 cent tariff was a temporary benefit, but he follows that up by saying:

Supply-Agriculture-Dairying
We therefore accepted the situation as it was, but we are on record, both verbally and in writing, with the Prime Minister, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade and Commerce, that the 8 cent tariff will prove to be dangerous and unworkable in the future.
I could quote more, but I think that is almost enough.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Friday, May 29, 1931