1931-05-05

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Prime Minister) :: Mr. Speaker, I beg to give notice of
the following motion:
That on Wednesday, the 6th of May next, and every Wednesday thereafter to the end of the session, government notices of motions and government orders shall have precedence over all business except questions by members and notices of motions for production of papers.



SUMMERSIDE RAILWAY WHARF

[Stage Direction]
Hon. II. A. STEWART (Minister of Public Works):	Mr. Speaker, I desire to lay on the
table copies of all correspondence relating to the contract for rebuilding the railway wharf at Summerside for which several members of the opposition have asked.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, as usual there have
been some changes of names in the standing committees. Therefore I beg to move, seconded by Mr. Guthrie:
That the name of Mr. Stinson be substituted for that of Mr. Bowman on the select standing committee on miscellaneous private bills;
That the name of Mr. Bury be substituted for that of Mr. Anderson (Halton) on the select standing committee on standing orders;
That the name of Mr. MeLure be substituted for that of Mr. Stewart (Lethbridge) on the select standing committee on printing;
That the name of Mr. Gagnon be substituted for that of Mr. Senn on the select standing committee on public accounts;
That the name of Air. Bowman be substituted^ for that of Mr. Stinson on the select standing committee on mines, forests and waters;
That the name of Mr. Turnbull be substituted for that of Air. Bury on the select standing committee on industrial and international relations;
That the name of Mr. Esling be substituted for that of Air. Harris on the select standing committee on debates;
That the name of Air. Buckley be substituted for that of Air. Gershaw on the select standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines;
That the name of Air. Neill be substituted for that of Air. Thauvette on the select standing committee on marine and fisheries;
That the name of Air. Thauvette be substituted for that of Air. Neill on the select standing committee on the restaurant.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Richard Bedford Bennett: That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint their Honours that this house has substituted the name of Mr. MeLure for that of Air. Stewart (Lethbridge), to act on the part of the House of Commons as a member of the joint committee of both houses on printing.
And^ that the Clerk of the House do carry the said message to the Senate.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT ' (Prime Minister) moved:
That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint their Honours that this house has substituted the name of Air. Thauvette for that of Air. Neill, to act on the part of the House of Commons as a member of the joint committee of both houses on the restaurant.
And that the Clerk of the House do carry the said message to the Senate.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Prime Minister); Before submitting the motion to the house I should like to have it definitely determined who is going to act on the comhnported Vegetables
[Stage Direction]
mittee in order that I may make the appropriate motion. I understood that the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) and the mover of the motion, Mr. Bourassa, and one gentleman to his right, as well as myself, were to form the committee..
I thought it might possibly be more convenient if the right hon. leader of the opposition and myself were not on that committee. I would suggest that my friend to my. left, the member for Argenteuil (Sir George Perley), who had to do with the rules when they were revised, and a gentleman to act for my right hon. friend, if he so desires, and the member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler) who moved the subamendment, and Mr. Bourassa, and one other form the committee.
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, as far as I am personally concerned, I shall be only too happy to have one of the hon. members on this side act in my place on the committee, and I shall be very glad if the member for North Waterloo (Mr. Euler) would take that place.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Then I will make the motion to-morrow.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, I
do not wish to embarrass my right hon. friend by pressing him unduly in regard to questions, but I believe it would facilitate the progress of work in the house if the Prime Minister would indicate approximately the time at which he hopes it may be possible to bring down the budget, and also if he would indicate what other legislation, if any, is to be brought down at the present session.


Richard Bedford Bennett: For reasons that I fancy the right
hon. gentleman can well understand, in view of the disturbed character of the session thus far, I cannot answer the last question at the moment. So far as the budget is concerned, I cannot fix a date now, but I might emulate the example of my last predecessors and say, "It will be at a not distant date." I will try in the next few days to get on the order paper probably all the legislation there is to be.



IMPORTED VEGETABLES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. W. D. EULER (North AVaterloo):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the acting Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Cahan) whether he is authorized to fix prices on imported vegetables for customs purposes by a general order in council, or whether in the case of each commodity a separate order is passed?


Hop. C. H. CAHAN (Acting Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I think,
speaking from memory, that in several cases a number of items were included in one order in council, and that in other cases special orders have been passed with regard to separate items. I can obtain the information in detail, if necessary, but an order of the house is outstanding on the motion of an hon. gentleman opposite, I think the hon. member for West Edmonton (Mr. Stewart), for the bringing down of all orders in council which have been passed to date.


William Daum Euler: May I ask also Mr. Speaker, whether when the order is passed the price is actually inserted in the order or whether the minister is merely given authority to fix the price, and it is left to his discretion as to what the price shall be. Further, I should like to ask whether the minister takes advice from the Department of Agriculture, we will say, with regard to the necessity for such an order, as has been done in the past?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Answering the last question first, I will say that, as far as my memory goes, the advice of the Minister of Agriculture has been taken in each case. As to the first question, I think the orders in council will speak for themselves when they are brought down.



DUMPING DUTY ON POTATOES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. E. MacLEAN (Prince):: Continuing along the same line, perhaps the acting Minister of National Revenue will permit me to ask whether the dumping duty has been rescinded as far as potatoes are concerned?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I understand that
potatoes are now imported from the United States under the general tariff.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: The countervailing duty7

Canadian Pacific Railway


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Mr. R. W. GRAY (West Lambton):: Under the subject of potatoes, may I ask the Acting Minister of National Revenue from whom the protests came as a result of which the order was cancelled? Was that done as a result of protests which were received from red-blooded potato growers in- the United States or from whom did the protests come?



ROYAL GRAIN COMMISSION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JOHN VALLANCE (South Battle-ford) :: May I ask the Prime Minister when
we may expect the report of the Stamp commission to be tabled?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Before the report is tabled it will be necessary for the proof to be read by Sir Josiah Stamp, but I am inclined to think that before that date. I may make a statement with respect to the findings which will cover perhaps half a column in Hansard. That would mean probably ten days would elapse before the report could be tabled.



CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. T. LUCAS (Camrose):: I desire to direct a question to the Minister of Railways based on very strong protests I have received from boards of trade and other bodies along the line of the Canadian Pacific railway from Hardisty to Camrose. The protest is in regard to the action of that company in arbitrarily cutting off the Hardisty local, so-called, which has served that district for over twenty-five years. I should like to ask the minister if there is anything he can do in this matter, either through his position as Minister of Railways or through the board of railway commissioners.


Hon. R. J. MANION (Minister of Railways and Canals):: The hon. gentleman himself protested to me in this regard a few days ago, and I have had as well a number of protests such as he has had. I should like to point out that the Canadian Pacific Railway, like the Canadian National Railways, is making a good many restrictions in its service for economic reasons, because of the business depression. Both railways are making these restrictions for that reason, and I am receiving protests
from all over the country particularly with regard to the Canadian National Railways, but occasionally with regard to the Canadian Pacific Railway, as in this case.
I may as well make this statement now: The only redress the people have is to appeal to the Board of Railway Commissioners. I have no control at all over either the Canadian National Railways or the Canadian Pacific Railway in regard to these restrictions of service. 1 made special inquiries of the Board of Railway Commissioners in regard to the matter, and they tell me that generally there is a notice posted by the railway company giving ten days notice as to the changes which are to be made. Then if the people wish to protest, as in the present case, if they take it up with the Board of Railway Commissioners the board immediately goes into the question and, if they think it is worth further consideration, they request the railway to hold up the change pending final determination.
They can do that at any time they choose, and if, following that investigation, they find that, in the interests of the public, the change should not be made, they can refuse to permit it.
I am sorry I cannot do anything in the matter. My hon. friend should direct the protests, as I have already directed them, to the Board of Railway Commissioners. The decision is entirely in their hands.



INQUIRY FOR RETURNS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. W. NEILL (Comox-Alberni):: May I ask whichever member of the cabinet represents the Minister of Fisheries if he would be kind enough to expedite the bringing down of a couple of returns which I asked for and which were ordered some weeks ago? The matters are simple; the information is in the department; they are nonpolitical and non-contentious, and there is no reason why they should not be brought down.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I desire to say that no acting Minister of Fisheries has been appointed, because the minister expected that his health would permit him to be back almost every day, but his physician has told him that he must leave town for a few days for the change, and we will ask someone to act as Minister of Fisheries and deal with these matters. These matters have not been dealt with because the minister expected to be able to return almost any day.
m

World Wheat Conference



NATIONAL RAILWAYS AND SHIPPING

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Daum Euler: 1 would like to ask the Minister of Railways when we may expect the appointment of the parliamentary committee having to do with national railways and shipping.


Robert James Manion: I think that will be done in
the very near future. I have been considering it; it is rather a complicated committee to appoint, but I think the appointment will be made shortly.



PRIVILEGE-MR. BEAUBIEN

[Stage Direction]
On orders of the day:
Mr. A. L. BEAUBIEN (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege. In the Montreal Daily Star pf Saturday, May 2, an article appears attributing words to me which 1 never uttered. I intend to read it; it is very short:
Liberal Rebukes Others For Making Big Fuss
A. L. Beaubien (Liberal, Provencher): That doesn't make it right, Doctor Manion, but don't take such a holy attitude on your side. I think there is a whole lot of fuss being made about a teacup full of water; there is nothing to it at all. The contract is being done at what was the lowest tendered price. The government is losing nothing and the people of Canada are losing nothing. The only thing is that my hon. friend from Prince (Mr. MacLean)-I do not blame him for fighting for his friends-is a bit sore that his friend did not get it.
I never used that language. The only words I said in this connection, as appears at page 1211 of Hansard, were:
That does not make it right.
I just interjected that remark while the Minister of Railways was speaking. I am afraid the press correspondent for this journal still thinks Doctor Manion is a Liberal.



WORLD WHEAT CONFERENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. ROBERT GARDINER (Acadia):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the importance of the forthcoming wheat conference to be held in London on the 18th of this month, I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether Canada's representatives have been appointed and, if so, whether he can give the information to the house.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Canada's representative is the High

Commissioner for Canada, and he has advisers in the person of Mr. Smith, who went to Rome, and Mr. Darby, who represents the non-pool wheat trade.


Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Quebec East):: In that connection, might I ask my right hon. friend if invitations to other countries to attend this conference are being issued or have been issued by Canada?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The parties attending the conference at Rome determined that they would have the meeting at London on May 18. One country was not represented at Rome, and to that country an invitation was sent. That country has concluded to send a representative to London. I refer to the United States of America.


William Daum Euler: An invitation from whom?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The invitation was sent
by this Dominion, and an invitation was also extended by the High Commissioner to the American ambassador at London, after the High Commissioned cabled the Minister of External Affairs.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. A. BRADETTE (North Timiskam-ing):: I should like to ask the Minister of
Railways and Canals if he will not tell the house the intended policy of his department in regard to the taxation of the Canadian National railway property in northern Ontario which, as he is well aware, is the only section of the system where such taxation does not exist.


Robert James Manion: The last part of the hon. gentleman's question is not correct; it is not the only part of the system which is not so taxed. There are some parts of the system pretty much all over Canada which are in the same position. Plowever, the matter will have to be dealt with on the estimates, because naturally, in reply to a question raised on the orders of the day, we could not state a policy.



SUPPLY-AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS CONTINUATION OF DEBATE ON MOTION OF MINISTER OF FINANCE AND AMENDMENT OF MR. BROWN.

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, April 28, consideeration of the motion of Mr. Bennett for committee of supply, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Brown.

Agricultural Conditions
["Order. It is now nine o'clock, and the house will revert to the motion under consideration at six o'clock."]
Mr. L. E. PARENT (Terrebonne) (Translation) :: Mr. Speaker, in resuming my remarks on the motion of the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown), with reference to agricultural conditions throughout the country, may I point out that previous speakers have almost all laid stress on the conditions prevailing in western Canada. At the outset of my remarks, the other day, I stated that agricultural industry is an important factor in certain sections of Canada, namely Ontario and Quebec, and that it calls for the consideration of this government which seems, on the contrary, to look upon farming as a trifling matter. My statement is based on the silence of hon. members on your right, Sir, and their refusal to state to the house the policy which the government intend to follow as regards agriculture and which, we on this side of the house, are entitled to expect and know so as to carry on this debate with an adequate knowledge of the facts.
The opposition and the Canadian people, however, have in vain tried to get the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) to make that statement. We have therefore, sir, a perfect right to surmise and form an opinion based on the speeches delivered in public by certain cabinet ministers, since they have assumed office. It further give us the right and the opportunity to criticize the present government's attitude, in the hope that they will break silence and make a clear-cut statement which is anxiously awaited by the Canadian people.
In support of my contentions, I have already pointed out to this house the fact that certain hon. cabinet ministers, representing agricultural ri dings, never mentioned in their speeches, a single measure bearing on the welfare of the farming community. I shall add that this aloofness towards the farming class seems to be reflected in a speech delivered by the hon. Postmaster General (Mr. Sauve) who represents the agricultural riding of Laval-Two Mountains. Let me quote extracts from that speech in support of my contention. The newspaper "La Presse" on march 24, 1931, reports that the hon. Postmaster, after having according to custom, highly complimented the ladies, after having commented at length on the part which women play in society, home education of youth and the sound motherly advices which make for happiness and wisdom; after dealing with certain economical questions of ours and explained- his opposition to women suffrage when he was leader of the opposition in Quebec, after having narrated historical facts; after having expressed the wish of speaking of the seventeenth century, of Madame de Sevigne and Madame de
Maintenon, quoted the works of Rivarol and Voltaire; the speaker broached the political situation of this country. The hon. Postmaster advised economy at home, he stated that the cost of living must be reduced so as to produce cheaper, and he then proved his trust in the Conservative government.
An evidence of trust. Already the economic benefits of the numerous measures enacted have made themselves felt, not only in the return of general confidence and the resuming of work by the unemployed, but also in the growing stability of industries.
This is shown by statistics. Out of 441 companies operating public utilities or industries, 44 only have discontinued or reduced their dividends, and 397 have distributed the same dividends as in 1929, which was a record year. This, I think, is a magnificent attestation of the results attained in less than six months and due, greatly, the the energetic and farsighted policy of the government which has brought back national confidence, strengthened our industries, created work, opened markets and maintained in the path of economic stability the whole of Canada.
The speaker goes on:
To carry on the slow work of economic recovery in Canada, the government has closed the doors to all attempt of flooding the country by dumping competitive goods.
The hon. Postmaster General, sir, alluded to protection, which I look upon as exaggerated, granted to certain industries. However, is it not astonishing that the hon. Postmaster General who, it is stated, mentioned and repeated to his constituents during the elections that, if elected, he would be appointed minister of agriculture, yet, he has chosen to be Postmaster General?


Mr. SAUVE (Translation):: I rise to a
point of order. I wish to be indulgent for my neighbour from Terrebonne, but I must declare that I never made the statement which he attributes to me, I have better breeding than that.


Louis-Étienne Parent: In answer to the hon. Postmaster General, may' I say that I pointed out in my speech that this had been reported.
It is amazing how soon the hon. Postmaster General forgot the farmers, and allowed the Canadian market to be flooded with 2,000,000 pounds of Australian butter in the course of the last five months, When he so strongly criticized, during the election, that policy which permitted butter imports from New Zealand.
The quantities of butter imported, sir, within the last five months were out of proportion with the requirements of our population, and the government, to a degree, is responsible if, to-day, the farmers sell their butter at half-
Agricultural Conditions

price and at about the cost of production. This is a striking proof of the irrational and inconsistent policy of the Conservatives in their campaign of disparagement of the Liberal administration, when butter brought the farmers almost double of what they are receiving to-day.
Any one, sir, who glances over the speech of the hon. Postmaster General, will note that no mention is made of any measure which might give the farmers'of Quebec or those of other parts of Canada some hope. No, there is no mention of such a measure in his whole speech.
I wonder what the farmers of Laval-Two Mountains and of Quebec will think of the statement made by a member of the Bennett cabinet, that everything done heretofore by the government to inspire national confidence, has been done for the benefit of companies which pay record dividends to their shareholders, when, on the other hand, the farmers must sell all their products at wretched prices, ever since the last elections, and have no share in those record dividends. I lay stress on the word "record."
Indeed, the work of economic recovery will be very slow in the agricultural sphere as I have just pointed out to the house, and these conditions will exist as long as the government shows indifference and is neglectful of the interests of the farming community. The cost of living is reduced at the expense of the farmers. The speech from which I have just quoted extracts, as well as present conditions go to prove my contentions.
These good Conservatives, now in office, do quite the contrary to what they promised before the elections. Let us see what the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) stated on June 13, at Calgary, as reported in the Calgary Herald:
In my opinion the basic industry is agriculture. Agriculture has been the basis of this country's prosperity.
At Ormstown, on June 30, as reported by the Morning Citizen of Ottawa, Mr. Bennett, among other things, stated:
Agriculture stood first in Canadian development. We must supply the same advantages to agriculture as to other activities.
"We conservatives are pledged to see that agriculture receives the same benefits as in days gone by." Distribution and marketing were essential factors in assisting agriculture.
These statements are clear and very explicit. Yet, had the present government an end in view when they allowed, last March, 800,000 pounds of foreign butter to enter the country, which resulted in upsetting the market?
If the right hon. Prime Minister was in earnest-and I wish to give him the credit

for being so-in stating that agriculture is the basic industry of the country, that it has always been the foundation of Canada's prosperity, that it should be fostered and given the same advantages as other industries and that he pledged himself to develop this industry, why then does the government enact a high tariff-an exaggerated protection -by which only the large overcapitalized companies profit, allowing them to pay record dividends to their shareholders, as was stated by his colleague the hon. Postmaster General (Mr. Sauve)? Why did not this minister use his influence with his other colleagues in order that the farmers, who are in majority in his county, be given by the government the consideration to which they are entitled, * and thereby also draw, indirectly, dividends or profits from the sale of their products?
Another pledge was made to the electorate, previous to the elections, by the right hon. Prime Minister, on June 9, at Winnipeg, as reported by the Montreal Star:
We pledge ourselves to foster and develop agriculture, and the live stock and dairy industries, now so sadly neglected.
I draw your attention, sir, to the words "so neglected" and I think I have established by facts and authentic statements, what irony is shown by the words "so neglected" in speaking of agriculture under the Liberal regime. It behooves the farmers of Canada to think and judge whether it is not the Conservatives who, to-day, must be charged with negligence towards the farming community. The facts are there as evidence. Moreover, the action of the right hon. Prime Minister, when he refused to wait more than two minutes for the delegates of the farming classes, who came here to submit their grievances and claims before the tariff board, show pretty well his indifference towards the farming community.
There is another statement of the right hon. Prime Minister which also deserves to be pointed out to the Canadian people, and that is the one he made on June 17, at Saskatoon, as reported in the Star Phoenix. I shall give the text itself, and shall close my remarks by reverting to English as the quotations which I have yet to make are couched in that language.
There is only one way we can get the moneys of England for Canadian wheat rather than Russia and the Argentine, and how is that?
I would direct the attention of the house to the concluding words:
By providing our wheat cheaper than the others.
One can see in the inertness of the present government a possible reason; by not enacting any measures to help agriculture. Another

Agricultural Conditions
reason may be seen in the exaggerated policies of high protective tariffs where help is being given only to manufacturers and super-capitalized companies. No appropriation, either directly or indirectly, has been made out of the 120,000,000 voted for unemployment relief to help the western grain growers and the farmers of the country as a whole. The hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains (Mr. Sauve) has declared that in order to create faith this government has enacted measures to help industries to pay record dividends. However, he made no mention of a declaration of policy which would benefit the farmers. This is borne out by the declaration made by the right hon. Prime Minister at Saskatoon on June 19.
The agriculturists of Canada cannot but believe that the policy of this government is to drive the price of agricultural products to the bottom of the well which action would be prejudicial to the welfare of the country as a whole. The government's policy seems to be to reduce the cost of food products. This casts a burden upon the agriculturists while the manufacturers are being benefited by high protection.
These are the conditions faced by the Canadian people, and the agriculturists as a group
Farm products
are rising to condemn this government. The farmers of this country are still somewhat tickled at the report which appeared in the newspapers some time ago as to how valuable was the time of the Prime Minister. It was claimed that he did not have the necessary assistance with which to carry on his duties and had only two minutes of time to give to the farmer representatives who appeared before the tariff commissioner.
Another declaration or promise was made by the right hon. the Prime Minister at Winnipeg on June 9, as follows;
Listen, you agriculturists from the west and all the other parts of Canada, you say tariffs are only for the manufacturers. I will make them fight for you as well. I will use them to blast a way into the markets that have been closed to you.
This house and the Canadian people are interested in knowing how a way has been blasted into new markets to permit the sale of farm products. How has this been accomplished since the new administration came into office?
I would like to quote a few figures which appeared in the summary of Canadian trade. The exports of farm products to the United States were as follows:
1930	1931	Decrease$1,977,000	$	752,583	55 per cent
The exports of farm products to other markets of the world were as follows:
1930	1931	DecreaseJanuary	
$27,000,000	$18,000,000	35	per	centFebruary	
27.138,000	18,600,000	35	per	centMarch '	
36,100,000	21,800,000	35	per	cent
These figures show the difference between the thoughtful and business-like Liberal administration, and that of the Conservative administration with its policy of blasting its way into the world's markets. The Conservatives, when elected, were to put new life into agriculture, but instead of doing so they have let it die. I have no hesitation in saying that the agriculturists of this country have been humbugged with promises and a castle of cards put up in order to secure votes for an election, but that castle of cards has since collapsed
While everyone recognizes the fact that agriculture is the basic industry and while all the provincial governments-and I mention Quebec, for instance-are giving keen attention
to agriculture, the present federal government, since it has taken office, has failed to fulfil its promises and has given no attention to agriculture, so that it has lost the faith of the agriculturist group and deserves the condemnation of this group and of the Canadian community as a whole.


Mr. THOMAS McMILLAN (South Huron):: In rising to address the house upon the question now before it, I am sorry indeed that the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) is not in his seat. Allow me, however, to read the words of the amendment; which is as follows:
That all the words after the word "that" to the end of the question be left out and the following words be inserted instead thereof:
Agricultural Conditions

1.	The house regrets that the administration has failed to implement its definite promises with respect to agriculture and to this moment it has failed to announce any agriculture policy to this house.
2.	That the policies of the present administration operate to restrict, rather than to expand Canadian trade.
3.	That without the development of international trade Canadian agriculture will become increasingly paralyzed.
And further, in the opinion of the house, any policy with respect to agriculture should include emergency measures to meet the present agricultural crisis and adequate provision for the processing of meats and the marketing of live stock, wheat, dairy and of all other agricultural products.
What are the government's definite promises to Canadian agriculture? These are the Prime Minister's own words:
I shall regard it as my great responsibility, if elected on July 28, 1930, to see that the collective weight and power of the Dominion of Canada is placed behind agriculture. I would be lacking in qualifications entitling me to head a Canadian government if I failed to do so.
That is his pledge to Canadian agriculture. What have the Prime Minister and his government done to implement that pledge? I am not going to repeat the words that I uttered to the house on March 17 last, but I would like the house and the country to read those remarks in unison with what I am about to say. I then showed how, after the Imperial economic conference, the Prime Minister became wildy uproarious and left Britain with a veiled threat of economic separatism because a British minister, Mr. Thomas, mildly designated his whole proceeding as "humbug." In that respect I would like to place on Hansard this extract from the British Morning .Express:
Mr. Bennett must be very simply constituted-
I do not think this means that the right hon. gentleman is simple minded.
says the News Chronicle, if he imagines that any intelligent Englishman would be deluded by the proposal that we should tax our food m return for Canada's generosity in putting another brick on her tariff wall against foreign imports and keeping the wall at the same effective height against British goods. If that proposal is not humbug, what is it?	The
Dominion premiers like to claim the right to speak plainly and like to exercise it. They should be able to keep a stiff upper lip when an itngush statesman for once in a way speaks plainly too.
What kind of stiff upper lip did my right hon. friend keep? I am sorry he has become so touchy that hearing the simple truth should cause him to make such an exhibition of
[Mr. McMillan.!
himself as has become notorious throughout the world. To think, after receiving a degree from a great university, he should humiliate Canada by asserting that the old ties of blood and kinship between the motherland and the Dominion were gone, and that if they were not replaced by "commercial ties" -the mercenary and monetary spirit

which caused Great Britain to lose the greatest possession she has ever lost, our far-flung empire would share the fate of other great empires of the pastl WTas it not time he wa3 leaving England and the heart of our great empire, after laying down a platform such as that, and giving the quotation from the volume of the old sacred law? We could give him many quotations to show that it is the money and mercenary spirit which has caused the downfall of every great nation of the past. What was said of old Babylon? We know that in the matter of riches, in the matter of sordid wealth and outer splendour, old Babylon had no rivals in ancient times, but her fatal weakness was that she placed no weight on real manhood and -true character. As a consequence, her gorgeous palaces and hanging gardens became the abode of selfishness and sensuality with the result that we now read that over that spurious greatness rests the stillness of the desert, the gloom of an eternal night. Let him trace the downfall of every nation of the past, and he will find that that has been the cause of its fall. Is it any wonder, too, that he was not received with any great spirit of acclaim when he landed on the shores of Canada? But he hastened at once to Regina, either to prolong the hopes or to dispel the fears of the farmers of western Canada, I do not know which. To my mind it is most amusing to study the peculiar mentality of the Prime Minister. At Regina, after talking a great deal more trash he said:
Attempts are being made and would be made to fasten upon the present government responsibility for present-day conditions. But no one can deny that the present depression was only the culmination of nine years of total disregard of the fundamental principles of constitutional government, and disregard for the elementary laws of economies.
I deny that statement in toto. It is absolutely beside the fact, and if the Prime Minister knows anything, he knows that expression is some of the most arrogant piffle ever uttered by the tongue of man.
When he went to Calgary, he had rather changed his mind; he had become more hesitant, and he said he was going to find out

Agricultural Conditions
why the people of western Canada had not even the bare necessities of life. These are his words:
I cannot make up my mind why this country between the lakes and the mountains should endure such depression.
The Prime Minister seems to regard the situation in western Canada as a mere matter of psychology. He said:
Our closeness to other people has much to do with our ideas of depression. We get the idea that the whole world is out of joint, and the psychology of it is reflected in the morose and solemn way in which some men walk down the. streets of Calgary.
I tell the right hon. the Prime Minister that there is no -class of people in this world who show a finer spirit in the face of adversity than the people of western Canada, -but when men cannot sell their labour or the product of their labour, the cause and remedy must be sought in stern realities, and sir, it is stern reality which this government is giving in the villainous legislation which it has already passed, and which is grinding out the very lifeblood of the farmers of Canada. To-day all over this country the farmers are praying and pleading for a government which will relieve them of their serious fiscal burdens and increase their purchasing power by enabling them to secure access to wider and better markets in which both to buy and sell. They are praying for a government which will legislate for the general good of the people.
But let us go further. After listening to an outline of the present distressing conditions existing in many sections of western Canada, we have witnessed on two occasions in this house, on April 21 and April 28 last, the most surprising exhibition on the part of the Prime Minister. Time and again while in opposition he told the house and the country that he would prescribe for the ills of Canada once he was called in. After listening to his appeals, what is the remedy he now proposes? Mr. Speaker, it is the most humiliating spectacle I have ever witnessed in this house. He characterized the whole appeal on behalf of western agriculture as nothing more than the cry of stinking fish. Mark you, Mr. Speaker, those are the words of the Prime Minister of Canada; they are not mine. The Prime Minister declares that there is no evidence of acute distress at the moment, and he has thrown the farmers' pool into the waste basket.
He went to England and took John McFarland with him; had him appointed sales manager for the pools; he has broken down the whole line of sales communication which the wheat pool had taken years to establish, has had their sales force in Great Britain and on the continent withdrawn; has thrown the whole business back into the old channels of the grain trade, the life-long enemies and determined competition of the pool; and then after destroying the farmers' whole line of sales communication in that way, the Prime Minister has the audacity to try and convince this house that he is a friend of the pool, and he takes credit for Canada getting rid of more wheat during his regime at ruinously unprofitable prices.


Mr. GOTT:: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member for -South Huron (Mr. McMillan) took the strongest exception in the last parliament to speakers on the opposite side of the house reading any part of their speeches. I object to the hon. member reading now. No objection was made to his reading the whole of his speech in the debate on the address, but I do take exception now.


Mr. SPEAKER:: It is a well known rule
of the house that members must not read speeches or essays. The rule has been more honoured in the breach than in the observance, particularly this session. I hope that now the attention of the house has been drawn to it, the rule will be better observed in the future.


Thomas McMillan: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am within the judgment of the house when I say there is no member who has read less of his speeches than I have since I have been a member.
After declaring that there was no evidence of acute distress among the farmers of western Canada, the Prime Minister went to the relief of the banks, and absolutely relieved the banks from the liability of losing a single dollar, and he -did that while his Minister of Agriculture was protesting against the manner in which the banks were treating the people of western Canada. What has his own Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) to say? He is reported as follows:
Credit is the desperate need of the Canadian farmer at the present time. The necessity of providing some means by which loans can be given to farmers was continuously brought to his attention. As an illustration of the reluctance of financial houses to advance money on farm property, he told of one man who was unable to borrow any money at all on a large and well-kept farm but had little difficulty in borrowing several thousand dollars on his race horses.
Again he said:
The attitude of the banks was providing the opportunity for the radical to argue that whenever capital had the chance, it reared its head to secure its toll.
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Mr. McGIBBON:: Does the hon. gentleman not know that the 1929 New Zealand butter was only released from cold storage about two weeks ago?
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Thomas McMillan: The hon. gentleman can study that out himself.


Mr. COTNAM:: Is it rot a fact that the hon. gentleman voted to cancel the New Zealand treaty, or the order in council extending the treaty to New Zealand? Why did he do so, if that order in council was so beneficial to the dairy industry?


Thomas McMillan: Yes, I did, and I am glad to answer that question. The late government gave notice of the cancellation of that order in council for the simple reason that when the Imperial conference met during the fall of that year, no Canadian government could have done anything at all unless that notice had been given. That was one of the stipulations contained in the agreement with Australia, and I recall that hon. gentlemen opposite went from one end of this Dominion to the other and never told a single audience that this condition existed. They wanted to keep the truth from the people.
So much for the dairy business. From this time henceforth the London market will regulate, in a general way, the price of Canadian butter and, as we have always informed the dairymen of Canada, the eight-cent tariff imposed on New Zealand butter is of no use. This is another instance of the sham remedy of high tariff; it vindicates every word we have said as to the folly and hypocrisy of high protection.
Now I come to the question of live stock. I hold in my hand an outline of what is purported to be Canada's new agricultural policy, and with the consent of the house I should like to be allowed to place that outline on Hansard.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Thomas McMillan: Very well, it does not amount to very much anyway. In this policy there is nothing new. If -we can only show to the live stock producers of Canada a. clear outlet by which they will be able to place their products in the hands of the ultimate consumers free from present serious obstructions and with some slight margin of profit to the producer, the problem will largely be solved. That fact is shown conclusively in the present and prospective supply of dairy products. Notwithstanding the howl that went abroad that there was a shortage in the supply of Canadian-made butter which would take years to satisfy, that shortage has disappeared within seven months.
In the Ontario section of the Canadian fat cattle trade, from the point where our animals

are dumped into the Toronto union stockyard market to where the finished product reaches the ultimate consumer the funnel is blocked so effectively that the feeder is at the mercy of the processing and distributing interests. So completely is this the case that the production of beef cattle is paralyzed to such a degree that the cattle feeder is disheartened and does not know which way to turn, with the result that our successful feeders of the past are almost entirely out of the game. No one knows what kind of a stone wall the producers are up against but those who have been actively engaged in the trade. There are no secrets in the business of meat production; there should be none in its processing and distribution. The whole business should Be an open book with no hold-up which will deprive the hard working producer of the fruits of his continuous, careful exertion. This is true also of the business of hog production, with the one redeeming feature that so far the packing combine does not seem to have all the abattoirs so effectively corailed. However, the unreasonable fluctuation in price is most exasperating to the producing partner in the game. This is a business which demands immediate, searching investigation and continuous control.
It may happen, and not infrequently does happen, that after all the wheat is garnered, transported, graded, milled or exported, it leaves no margin of profit to the grower. When this occurs the consequences are reflected at once in depressed business conditions. The partnership betwen agricultural prosperity and business prosperity now has been clearly established, and the safeguarding in every possible way of the interests of the producing partner ought to be the prime consideration of national policy.
Apart from general world conditions since the war, in the course of which nearly all nations, with the exception of Great Britain and Canada-under the Mackenzie King administration-have become high tariff crazy; apart also from the fact that international war debts should have been cancelled, the present agricultural depression in Canada is largely the result of inequality in the returns from urban and rural labour. Higher wages in urban industry and in transportation service have drawn labour from the farms to such a degree that the farm population in Ontario is incapable of properly cultivating the land. It is well known to every real student of agricultural conditiens that the farmer receives les3 return for his investment, energy and labour than any other department of our whole

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national economic life, and yet I have never been any place on earth where this problem has received less real sympathy and true consideration than on the floor of this Canadian House of Commons.


Mr. SPENCE:: Tell us how to run it, then.


Thomas McMillan: For once we will take a leaf out of the book of my hon. friend's revered leader; we will tell you when we are called in.


James Houston Spence: Tell us now.


Thomas McMillan: You read my speech carefully and you will find that I am giving you the remedy right along.
In 1922 the Mackenzie King government started on the right lines, with a trade policy of gradually reducing tariff restrictions on all necessities, with reciprocal trade preferences towards all countries willing to meet Canada upon mutually favourable terms. These are the two factors which will tend towards a permanently successful agriculture and the encouragement of industry, shipping and international trade. In that way, and in that way only, can a Canadian government ever secure, broaden and develop the markets which Canadian agriculture must have in order to lift the Canadian farmer out of that slough of despond in which he is now placed. It is true that along the lines of lower tariff the government did advance very slowly, but in their efforts they had to overcome the obstruction of a world of advancing tariffs surrounding almost every nation. Nevertheless, under that policy the government made a wonderful record. Canadian agricultural production increased in value from $1,389,000,000 in 1922 to over $1,806,000,000 in 1928. The value of manufactured goods increased from $2,482,000,000 in 1922 to almost $4,000,000,000 in 1929, with an increase in the number of employees of manufacturing concerns from 474,430 in 1922 to 711,000 in 1929.
Canada's foreign trade also increased from $1,501,731,341 in 1922 to $2,654,574,166 in 1929, although owing to world conditions it fell back to $2,393,212,000 in 1930-a growth in which Canada led the world in her per capita exports of manufactured . and semimanufactured goods, . even leading Great Britain, France, Germany and the United States; a growth which no other nation of ten million people in any similar period of the world's history ever attained.	'
It is true that even such a record did not prevent the present world depression from partly reducing Canadian trade, along with that of other nations, in its train of economic
destruction. This shows that we are living in a world where no nation can live unto itself. In this respect I cannot help recalling that in this house some time ago I drew pointed attention to the fact that, while a policy of high tariffs had been discounted for an age, protectionists still chatter its shibboleths; that 1,028 of the leading expert economists from 46 states of the American union met President Hoover, on May 15, 1930, and made one of the strongest appeals in history against the high tariff of the United States. Some two years ago I also recalled how that great British economist, Sir George Paish, had declared that, "unless the United States and many other nations ceased telling their people, you must sell here but you must not sell there," the world was facing an economic cataclysm from which no country could escape.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. member has
been speaking for forty minutes


Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Melville):: Mr. Speaker, it seems too bad, after engaging ourselves during the last twenty-four hours in such pleasant entertainments, receptions and banquets, that we should now have to fall into line of battle and hear the clash of arms on the various questions that divide the parties in this house. I had a very pleasant experience listening to the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett). I observed how gallantly and entertainingly he played the part of host at the luncheon we attended at noon. We have seen him in that delightful humour only too seldom during these last nine months, but once in a while these festivities make us realize how human we all are, and how friendly we can be with one another at such times. It was my good fortune to have on my right at that luncheon one of the Conservative members whose name I thought I did not know. Towards the close of the luncheon, however, I thought I would try him out to see where he came from; and lo and behold it was the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Thompson), my own old county in which I was born. At the same time, to my left, I saw my deskmate (Mr. Euler) and the hon. member for South Battleford (Mr. Vallance), looking askance at me, no doubt wondering that I found such delight in the company of a one hundred per cent Tory from a constituency one hundred per cent Tory since confederation. However, we had, as the saying is, a whale of a time. We differed in politics, but that did not matter there. We like the Tories but we dislike their politics; we like

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the sinner but we dislike the sin. That is the way we stand. But after all what good would the house be without some Conservatives? Indeed, I would resign to-morrow if there were none. Nevertheless, we cannot allow any sentimental feelings of this nature, or any sort of squeamishness to interfere with our duty to our constituents.
Before leaving for Ottawa I was invoked by my constituents, at two or three little gatherings I had of some of the executives- and when the word got around that these meetings were going to be held, there, would be .a hundred or more present-I was invoked, I say, to represent things here just as they exist in the west. I asked them what they expected me to do. I had never been in opposition before, and if we wanted to help the country it was obvious that we should have to do it through this outfit-there was no other way. I do not say that at all disparagingly, and perhaps I should not use that expression. But I think my hon. friends know what I mean. Well, at one meeting they told me what they expected of me; they said, "Tell them exactly what conditions are like in the west, because we in the prairies do not believe that they understand the situation down there." That was at one meeting. And, they added, "having performed that duty, and seeing no results, then give them hell." Now I have not carried out that invocation yet, and I do not want to go back home until I have done so, at least to some extent.
A week ago to-day, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister undoubtedly gave us on this side something of a castigation. And he can do it too. Some people call it scolding, but I call it a general tongue-thrashing. I have heard fishwives in the old country who could do it better, but I have never known any man in this country who could do it so thoroughly as the Prime Minister. I have not been brought up, either at school or anywhere else, to submit to that kind of bullying and I do not propose to start now. So that I shall have some things to say before I sit down.
Now, Mr. Speaker, ever since time was, everyone who has tried to better conditions as he has found them has been accused of discrediting his country. You may go back to old testament - history; you may turn to the various revolutions that have taken place, in the United States, in France, or in any other part of the world; you may study, more recently, the reciprocity question, and more recently still the Dunning budget, and in. every instance you will find that there have been people who have been prepaired to stand

up and say that those who have advocated improvements were endeavouring to discredit their country. And because hon. gentlemen behind me and on either side of me have been stating what they know to be the facts in western Canada, all sorts of epithets have been applied to them. But what did the Prime Minister himself say, before this parliament met, with respect to conditions in western Canada? He has been quoted on several occasions. He stated at one time, in very contrite terms, that he feared the spring would find us with no seed for the sower and no bread for the hungry. Well, that is sad enough. With the chastening influence of Christmastide upon him, and at Calgary, he did not understand how that vast country from the lakes to the mountains could not enable the farmers to lay by some reserve for an occasion like this, notwithstanding that at that time many of them were unable to secure the bare necessities of life. Could you hear anything more pessimistic than that? I have not heard anything worse. Is it wrong to say such things if they are true? Is it pessimism? Is it "stinking fish," to use the Prime Minister's expression when he spoke the other day? And what did his colleague, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir), have to say? And here I wish to compliment the hon. gentleman. Sir John Macdonald used to say that the best apple tree would always be found to be the tree with the most sticks and stones under it. If that is so, my hon. friend must be the best apple tree in the orchard opposite. But what about the rest, if he is the best? I am not blaming any of them, Mr. Speaker. They have all been on the leash and under the gag of their leader. Well, that is a matter of discipline among themselves. I know what it is to be a member of the government and I sympathize with my hon. friend, because in my estimation he is not being done full justice by his leader. At Toronto I heard a friend say that the Minister of Agriculture at the Royal Winter Fair had conducted himself really creditably, and I believe he can do so in this house when he gets the opportunity. But what did the hon. gentleman say? It has been referred to by previous speakers, and I have here a quotation of some remarks of his with reference to the banks. It is about the only kudos he obtained among his various manifestos. If the rest of us require disciplining by the Prime Minister because of references we have made to the banks, what about the Prime Minister's colleague? The quotation to which I refer is from the Globe. I do not know what that paper is now politically;

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it is supposed to be independent. My hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture, speaks about people being "in want." That is a very comprehensive word. The hon. member mentioned the unlikelihood of anything like secession manifesting itself in his constituency. That statement may be correct, although there may be a little corner or two where something might be heard about it. It is too bad if farmers in distress and extremity cannot say something of that nature to act as a safety valve for their vocabulary when they are backed up against the wall.
What about the Prime Minister when he was in Belfast? What did he say? He predicted the decline of the British Empire like all empires of the past unless there were applied some economic nostrums of his own making. Not a word was said against that, but the farmer out on the prairie who makes a statement as to what he thinks should be done to relieve conditions or as to what he is prepared to do if they are not bettered, is immediately castigated not by the Minister of Agriculture but by his leader and other hon. members of this house. I do not approve of that action, and I do not believe the farmer does. He wants a betterment of conditions; he is proud of Canada and he is proud of the west, but he wants to be given a chance. That is the reason he is talking in that way. Look at the example given by the Prime Minister while abroad. No one in western Canada has ever suggested the decline of the British Empire.
Another statement by my hon. friend (Mr. Weir) had to do with the lack of credit, which lack is felt very keenly by the farmers. He said, in effect, that the attitude of the banks was providing an opportunity for the radicals to advance the argument that whenever capitalism secured the opportunity it would rear its head to secure its toll. That sounds something like the remarks of my hon. friends in the haw corner of this side of the house.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


William Richard Motherwell: Well, on my left
hand.


Mr. STEVENS:: Where is the gee corner?


William Richard Motherwell: That was a good
bid for popularity by my hon. friend (Mr. Weir); it was good advertising; why should he work his head off without letting the world know about it? He continued:
If they (the banks) are not prepared to extend credit, someone else must and will.
I wonder who that someone is? My hon. friend was assuming the role of prophet.
22110-81*
Was he speaking for his sleeping colleagues? Will they not wake up from their stupor and advise us who this benefactor is? Who is this man who is going to supply credit? My hon. friend has a grand opportunity to tell us; he would sweep things before him and would have everything his own way.
If the Prime Minister intends to castigate the hon. members of this side of the house, let him turn to the Minister of Agriculture, who has been on the leash so long. I prefer not to make many comments with regard to my successor. I had a delightful experience with my predecessor and I would have liked to have handed that on. However, there are those I regard more highly even than my successor, and that is my constituents.
I have recited before the various and varied experiences of the Prime Minister during the last nine months, but I will hurriedly go over them again. What did he do to assist interempire trade on the very day he took train for Quebec to embark for London-he put up the tariff as an indication of affection and good will towards the motherland. Would not that take the beard right off anyone? Certain wild animals in captivity show their affection for their young by devouring them. Take the mother fox, for instance; if you disturb her she will eat her young or smother them because of her love. That is t'he way the Prime Minister showed his love for interempire trade-by smothering it. How strangely some people display their affection! We see in his London experience an attempt to eat Hon. Mr. Thomas without salt. There was also the Manchester Guardian incident, the cotton spinner and shoemaker incidents, and then again at Belfast where he was being honoured with a degree. He said the most extraordinary things there, such things as one would expect to come from a rattlebrain, but we do not suspect the Prime Minister of being that. I do not think that there is a hole between here and hades into which the Prime Minister has not put his foot to the hilt during these last nine months. I see by the countenances of hon gentlemen opposite that they all agree with me in this, because none knoweth better than they.
We will have a vote on this question and we will be interested in seeing how our western Tories will vote. Of course they will vote right, and for that reason we will have to be as pleasant as possible in putting up with Tory policies for the next three or four years.
We are being asked: what would we do? I do not think that is a fair question, but I intend to accept it as one. In the past no opposition leader or opposition that I know of
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has ever produced a policy for the government, nor should they be expected to. People call in a new doctor and no matter how much of a fake that doctor may he it is a violation of medical practice and etiquette for the old doctor to nose in unless he is urgently asked to do so. We have been so repeatedly and almost urgently asked to supply a policy, that I think I will do so, with limitations. Many hon. members will recall that in the fall of 1929 the Department of Agriculture through its officers-for a time assisted by myself just before I went to the hospital in December-realized that things were sliding with regard to the live stock industry. Wheat had been such an attractive proposition in the west in previous years that the production of live stock in some lines had been permitted to decrease in relation to consumption. It had not kept up with the consumption in Canada because of the extraordinary developments during the previous five or six years. We had the home market which our Tory friends love so well and we were just able to keep up with the consuming and purchasing capacity of the people during the growing and *developing years from 1923 to 1929. However, I did not like to see our exports disappearing off the British market, and my then deputy and my then self took an initial step and got out some 1,200 questionnaires with the view of increasing the production of live stock in Canada. Certain agricultural papers strongly opposed a greater production program, even in this province-some in the city of Toronto-and in order to be fair to the others I might mention the Canadian Countryman. However, these papers had a right to express their thoughts on this matter. Out of the 1,200 questionnaires which were returned, mostly -from farmers, we found that two-fifths were either against this suggested increased production or indifferent to it, while three-fifths vere fairly strong for it, particularly if the government would provide some additional means of marketing the increased production. It was suggested that a number of experimental abattoirs should be established, along similar lines to the experimental creameries at Finch, which would demonstrate the value of lessening costs by mass production. A live stock conference was held in my then office in March, 1930, but there were too many present to permit the formulation of any definite policy. There were forty in attendance, every one with views and opinions of his own, but we had received sufficient information as to the feelings of the farmers and their live stock organization to realize that some forward step should and could be rMr. Motherwell.]
taken with fair prospects of public sentiment among farmers being behind it. This will be found recorded in Hansard of last year, although not quite so fully as now.
In the meantime I had recovered sufficiently to get on my pins, although not much more. We had to "give some effect to that sentiment, assuming of course we were going to come back to power, although on that score I had a few misgivings of my own. Possibly my being ill accounted for them. As a matter of fact, however, if hon. gentlemen care to hunt up the supplementary estimates of last spring they will find that, on my advice to my colleagues, there was placed in the supplementary estimates an item of $25,000 for a thorough investigation into the live stock industry, including live stock products and all things associated with live stock, that is seeding down, drifting soil, and many things that require to be gone into thoroughly before one embarks on a big campaign of increased live stock production, especially in western Canada.
Of course we know what intervened. The electors thought our hon. friends opposite could do better. They have been quite disabused of that idea by now, but my hon. friends opposite are in power and what can we do but make suggestions? If they call for the files, they will find it is on record that the money was there for a live stock inquiry, and the present government did not choose to use it. They apparently thought they could evolve a better plan without anybody outside of themselves telling them what to do, with only one gentleman in the cabinet being a recognized authority, and he with a limited experience as to years-three years' residential experience on the farm. He (Mr. Weir) was the only agricultural authority within the cabinet, and a great responsibility surely rested upon his shoulders. They also seemed to spurn the idea of seeking outside advice, possibly because of the known objection to commissions generally entertained by more or less uninformed individuals. Nevertheless they had a commission, the Stamp commission, composed of eminent gentlemen. I could never find out who asked the government for it. It is not safe to predict before the event, but I will take my chances on predicting that the result will be just about what we all knew before, namely, that you cannot dispense with future marketing, future selling; but that certain limitations will be put upon it. It will be something like what is in practice in Chicago and Kansas City. This shows that it was not hostility to commissions that led the government to take

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the course they did, but simply that they thought they were all sufficient in themselves to formulate a policy regarding live stock and live stock products.
My good friend is desiirous of proving himself fully qualified to fill the very difficult position he now occupies. He has my sympathy, and I am not going to recite all the policies that he has evolved, and that, have been increasing in numbers as the months go by. In the beginning he had only four items, and they looked a little small to be called a new national policy. He was going to take care of pollorum in chickens, something that has been rampant in some flocks in Canada for fifteen years. This is not something new. Ask the chickens in the maritimes if it is new. They were so affected. Ask the Dominion poultrvman. Why, if there is one branch of agriculture that has been developed in the last five, six or eight years in Canada, it has been poultry, and the diseases are the constant attention of the departmental officials. Yet my modest friend is going to cure pollorum, which is "white scour" in chickens. This is a commendable and very necessary work, but surely it cannot be called new any more than the agriculture of King Tut can be called new. Wheat has been found in those catacombs or bowels of the earth, whatever you call them, and this indicates that there was an agriculture in those days. What is field agriculture? It is the developing and growing of selected domestic plants good to nourish man and beast. Consequently there was nothing new about that.
Some months later in MacLean's, a very enterprising magazine, a Mr. Churchill had an interview with my hon. friend. In a moment of weakness he unfolded himself further with regard to policies. He has evidently a good standing with the press and he has given them a good story. Anyone who gives the press a good story will receive a good hearing from them, but sometimes it is inconvenient to talk as freely as one might and especially when the very self-same policy, which was unfolded in MacLean's magazine, was unfolded in that good old farmers' journal, the Farmers' Advocate, on which I was brought up. Nevertheless to make it more official, we find it in the library of the Department of Agriculture: "Descriptive List of Accessions." This is supposed to cover the books. This is not a book: this is an accession which I am going to read:
Canada's new agricultural policy; an exclusive and authentic statement of the new farm policy shortly to be announced in parliament by the Hon. Robert Weir, Minister of Agriculture. by R. Churchill (in MaeLean's magazine, March 15, 1931, pages 12, 64).
Canada's new agricultural policy consists of-
-so and so. We have to take that as official. I think my hon. friend will nol object to my taking it as official. It may have got in there without his knowledge, because in my experience I have found the most extraordinary things happen without a man's knowledge; but not knowing anything different, until recently we have had to take this as only semi-official, particularly when associated with the Prime Minister's remarks the other day when some of our more pertinent members from Saskatchewan, shall I say, wanted to know more about this matter. He the Prime Minister said that the Minister of Agriculture was a practical farmer-I almost heard the smile that came over their faces at that- intimation-and that he had very decided views on certain phases of agriculture, which views would be divulged when his estimates were before the house. Consquently this magazine policy is not the official announcement after all, and so far as I can see we are just wasting our time on it. The hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) and the hon. member for Southeast. Grey (Miss Macphail) went over it so effectively that in charity I shall not deal with it any further. As my time is going on, I shall simply proceed with my further remarks.
What do I propose? I have a hunch that none of these manifestoes or policies is the real Kildare. There is another one coming. I say so for the simple reason that none of them was worth a snap of the fingers. As the kindergarten of agriculture, they were all 100 per cent genuine; they were largely elementary-, rudimentary and good in their place, but they were not what the farmers on the prairies or down here are thinking about just now. If anyone were to go into a farmers' meeting such as was held in Saskatoon this last winter with that so called new government policy, 1 would not guarantee his getting out without some bodily injury. That is the case, and the hon. member knows it. But I want to commend the Minister of Agriculture for trying to do his best without the assistance of any in the cabinet with any experience except that they were born on the farm or as they went to school saw, through the cracks in the fence, somebody farming.
That anticipated live stock commission which never materialized expected to look into a number of phases of the question. I had not any cut and dried proposition, but if I had to bring the matter up myself, I had in mind something forward to do with the development of the dairy industry. Our opponents, rivals, competitors, all over the world for the last twenty-five years have been gradually developing and enlarging the manu-
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factoring units of their dairy products and increasing the production of the production unit, the cow, increasing the flow of her milk and increasing the size of the dairy buildings until they are eight or ten times as large as they were fifty or sixty years ago when dairy and cheese factories were started in Ontario. That has been going on for twenty-five years in both the United States and New Zealand. Our present dairy commissioner was the chief resident factor and adviser in starting up the present dairy industry in New Zealand. Doctor Ruddick knows all about these plants, and of what advantage it is to have a large production in each one, which tends not only to quality and cheapness of production but to uniformity of product, which is so acceptable on the markets of any country. In our own country, through the effluxion of time, the old junk factories, which were all right at the beginning, are disappearing, and better ones are taking their place; but if we leave it to the process of evolution I am afraid it will take us about a hundred years before we can compete successfully in dairy products with our competitors throughout the world. We can compete now, yes, but it is a competition that leaves our dairyman skinned right down to the heels; there is nothing left for him at all, with cheese at nine cents and butter at twenty and twenty-two cents a pound. They need government help; and let the government take action now. The thought I have in mind now is what I had in mind when I was minister and when S25,000 was put in the estimates of 1930 for a live stock inquiry; and it looks even better now than it did then, because this government is committed as no previous government ever was to putting the whole weight and power of this Dominion behind agriculture, as was promised at the last election. My good friend the Minister of Agriculture can ask for almost anything from this government for agriculture, and if he secures it I can assure him that he will have a solid phalanx of this side of the house behind him too. It is said that we sometimes play politics, but in view of the present distressing conditions in the west, the member of parliament who plays politics alone will not last very long. They want us to be big enough to stand up and help the government in anything that will be of benefit to agriculture, even though we oppose the general policies of the government. I see the hon. member for Rosetown (Mr. Loucks) nodding his head. I hope he will nod it in an effective manner when this question comes to a vote. He knows agriculture, and so does my hon. friend from Qu'Appelle (Mr. 
Perley). They are both extensive practical farmers in the west.
That is the thought I had in mind; and not only that, but its companion industry, the meat packing business. Whether rightly or wrongly, the producers of live stock in Canada have no confidence in the abattoirs. I do not think that feeling is quite justified, although to some extent it may be. I do not think the abattoirs have been making a nickel in the last few years because of a lack of supply of the raw material; the farmers are not supplying it because they have no confidence in the packers. The thing continues in a vicious circle, neither the farmers nor the packers, as to supply of raw material, having confidence in the other. We have had an increased activity in recent years on the part of the Canadian Live Stock Cooperative Association Limited, and that body hopes for a friendly abattoir in which to process their live animals. What was in our minds at the time we had the conference in my office when I was minister was that we would have an experimental packing plant so that we could ascertain the cost of processing, and find out just what was the reason for the ghastly spread between the cost of the live hog and the finished meat. We thought of one experimental plant in the east and one in the west as a starter. Everybody who has been to Europe, especially Denmark, knows that dairying alone would fall down, and hog raising alone would fall down; but the two together make a go of it, because one is the complement of the other. So I say that it is high time we got a start along the line of properly constructed and standardized combination creameries and butter factories, capable of handling milk and converting it into the most profitable product at the particular time of production. Other nations are doing that already, and we must do it if dairying is going to continue in this country and we are to meet changed conditions abroad. It was with that idea in mind that this prospective commission was thought of, which never was born; nevertheless it may yet come to life. I hope it will, because it is not in the boots of any one man in this Dominion to lay out a proper policy for advanced present-day agriculture by himself. We want the combined knowledge and experience of the very best three or five men that we can find in this Dominion, or, if necessary, we should go beyond the Dominion; but I do not think that is necessary.
Let me ask the Minister of Agriculture not to be shy in following in the footsteps that I endeavoured to trace out for him in this re-

Agricultural Conditions
spect. I know how hard it is to do that, but perhaps he will be able to do something along the same line-anything, so long as we get proper and effective action. When the Prime Minister was over in London at the Imperial conference, how often we heard the excuse made on his behalf, "Well, at any rate, we are getting action." That is what the fellow said when he was going over Niagara falls in a barrel; but where was the action taking him to?
I shall not dwell much longer on the dairy industry. It is not my business to evolve government policies, but they helplessly call for it. For the sum of $50,000 a standardized creamery can be established. We have one in Finch, Ontario. It was established in the time of the Hon. Martin Burrell, just to demonstrate this one point I have been making. I do not claim that my proposal is new, but I say it is high time that the idea was given a trial, especially with butter and eggs selling at just a little better than half what they were selling at one year ago. Something must be done, and if anybody has any better idea I will at once dismiss mine and fall in behind that better one, but I want to be shown the better one first. The receipts of the plant at Finch increased from
2,000,000 pounds in 1912 to 11,000,000 pounds in 1925; that poundage includes the various products into which the milk and cream was made. The operations of that plant resulted in an increase from. 10 to 31 cents per hundred which the plant was able to pay to its patrons for their milk. There was such a rush of dairymen to get milk sale accommodation in that factory that we were really embarrassed. Having got all the information we wanted from our operation of that Finch plant, we sold it for $25,000, which was the initial cost to the government. So the experiment meant no loss at all to the government, and it was of tremendous benefit to those particular farmers, and of tremendous benefit also to all those who followed the Hon. Martin Burrell in completing the superstructure on the foundation which he had laid. I think the department had something to do with it too. Doctor Ruddick knew the effective competition of New Zealand with larger dual factories, but we have to give the minister in charge the full credit which is coming to him because, after all, he had to dig up the coin for it, and that is no easy matter sometimes.
This dairy policy which I am suggesting, and which has been forced upon us by conditions in competitive countries, has already been started at Finch, and when we find the government so teetotally pledged to the hilt
to get behind agriculture in this country, is it not time they were moving? Are we going to be met with the old stereotyped excuse that was given to us the other day in regard to needed public buildings, that it is hard to get the money? It is always hard to get money, and admittedly sometimes it is harder than others, but if this government puts up its tariff wall so high as to exclude imports, what can it expect but diminished revenues? If the government cannot get money anywhere else, what about the claim of the hon. member for South Battleford (Mr. Vallance) against the Department of Trade and Commerce in connection with the handling of the 1917-18 crop? I would like to see a little more about that. Probably the western farmers might lend the interest on that money, which would amount to about $20,000,000, to prime the pump, as it were, and start the thing going. Anything to get action, but not in the direction I was speaking of a minute ago. We have these two factors:	The government is pledged to get
behind agriculture, and there is this second factor that nc industry is so closely associated with the health of the nation and the fertility of the soil as the dairying industry, and therefore I believe that the government would be justified in going to almost any limit in reason towards that desired end. They could start with an item in the estimates of $1,000,000, with the two old provinces of Quebec and Ontario each contributing $500,-
000.	That would make a total of $2,000,000, with which you could construct forty up-to-date standardized combined-cheese, butter, etc.-dairy plants at a cost of $50,000 per plant. In ten years you would have four hundred. That seems to me reasonable. You cannot do it all at once. These parliament buildings were not all put up at once. The central buildings were erected first, then the east block, then the west block, later on the Connaught building, recently the Confederation block, and there will be other buildings later on. Only let us make a start in this matter. I suggest to my hon. friend that he start-but not in the direction of Niagara falls.
There is the example at Finch. It is not a model creamery, because the original building was added to from time to time until it became a combination of rookeries. Still it did better than a small creamery. Attempts in this direction have been made in the province of Quebec, but, oh, the established institutions, dating back fifty or sixty years, are hard to root up, so sacred do such local rural associations become. Private interests have their money invested in those little cheese
Agricultural Conditions

factories turning out three or four cheeses a day. How can they make them pay on that small production? How can they afford to engage a proper cheesemaker?-and yet they make wonderful fine cheese therein. It may be that those private interests will have to be indemnified. The cost is so great if undertaken alone by the provinces, and the necessity is so urgent that I appeal to my hon. friends to say if this is not a good time to undertake cooperation action with the provinces. It is not new. I am prepared to hand the credit back to the Hon. Martin Burrell, to anybody, as long as we get something done.
Then we have our grain marketing. Unless there is a mighty quick right-about we are riding for a fall again there at the coming London conference. I do not think my hon. friend opposite (Mr. Weir) knows anything about grain marketing. He is a live stock man, a prize-winner, but I do not think he claims to be an authority on the marketing of grain any more than I am. There used to be one man in this house, the Hon. C. A. Dunning, whom I looked upon as the greatest authority in Canadian public life on grain marketing. Well, we will have to try to get along without him at present. But we have had a grain conference at Rome. Mr. Ferguson I notice, has got into trouble there with the Orange order.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh. oh.


William Richard Motherwell: I did not mean to create a diversion, but that just slipped out. Live representatives of our farmers and the wheat pool in the west were there, and when it was over and the shaking of the dice completed, the net result was that Mr. Ferguson proudly swiped off a chunk of that original conference and decided to take it to London. London conference-doesn't that suggest something awful? But let us forget it. This is going to be a different one-just the same only different, unless quick-foot action is taken. As soon as the wheat-exporting countries started organizing, the wheat-importing countries also began to organize, and quite naturally. I am afraid my forty minutes is running out. Time does fly. Where was I Mr. Speaker, when I seemed to be interrupted? Oh, yes at Rome. A long distance away, but the world is getting-


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. member for Melville has been speaking for forty minutes.


William Richard Motherwell: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that even with the aid of this hearing device I have not quite caught your words. Is my forty minutes up, or have I another forty minutes?


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. gentleman has exhausted his forty minutes.


William Richard Motherwell: All right. To be
continued in my next.


Mr. ELIE BERTRAND (Prescott) (Translation) :: Mr. Speaker, as the representative of a riding almost entirely agricultural, I take great pleasure in supporting the motion offered by the hon member from Lisgar (Mr. Brown). It is readily seen that the agricultural class has not been receiving all the consideration it was entitled to expect from those elected to power last July. The pledges made during the campaign had led us to believe that agriculture was to be revolutionized. Our farmers were almost sure that their produce was going to bring extraordinarily high prices. But what did happen? If the hon. member for Lisgar brings down a motion of non-confidence, on the agricultural issue, I feel' certain that the least surprised of all are the members of the Conservative party; what surprises them most is that this motion was not brought up before. What have we witnessed since these gentlemen came into power? First of all, at the emergency session of last September, when we voted
820,000,000 for the relief of unemployment throughout Canada, rather extraordinary powers were given the minister of National Revenue (Mr. Ryckman), and a large number of items in our customs tariff were revised. Certain short items, here and there, in the newspapers sought to convey the impression that promises made to farmers were being implemented, for instance through the tariff increase on butter, and like products. But today we can clearly see that these changes brought no relief to the farming community as they were led to expect from the pledges made during the last campaign. At this advanced stage of the session it is high time that the hon. minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) should define the government's policy on the matter of agriculture. From both sides of the house it has been stated that the agricultural crisis is the worst in Canada at the present time. Nevertheless when certain activities of the department were under discussion and the minister asked if that were his policy, whether the four sections of his program were quoted or whether the said program were published in MacLean's magazine, I believe his answer always was that these were merely some of the activities of his department, and that they were not his entire program. After all the promises made by the Conservative party I think the Canadian farmer was entitled to expect at the

Agricultural Conditions
very least a definite program for the protection of agriculture, and that quite some time ago.
On this score I wish to quote from a speech made at Winnipeg by the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) during the course of the campaign. Amongst other things he said the following:
Listen, you agriculturists from the west and all the other parts of Canada, you have been taught to look down upon the customs tariff and to pin your faith to free trade. Tell me, when did free trade ever benefit you? You say tariffs are only for the manufacturers. I will make them fight for you as well. I will use them to blast a way into the markets that have been closed to you.
Mr. Speaker, after statements like that were made repeatedly throughout the country. is it any wonder that our farmers began to believe they were at the dawn of a new day? They were told that the Canadian market had been flooded with New Zealand butter, that the Canadian farmer was not reaping enough profit on his produce, in consideration of the labour their production entailed, their situation was shown in a very bad light. They agreed that there was some truth in this and felt that the Conservative party really did intend to help them through a policy quite different from that actually put into practice.
Let us see what has happened since the Conservative party came into power and since they raised the tariff on butter. No new duty was levied on cheese because it was recognized that the price of this product was necessarily fixed by conditions on the world market. But the very fact that the duties on cheese were not raised-cheese being one of the most important of our dairy products-goes to show, does it not, that a tariff is of no use to the dairy industry since its production can bring only the price set by the markets of the entire world.
To-day the farmer is much worse off than before. An analysis of the present situation -these figures have been quoted on several occasions on the floor of the house, but I intend repeating them because I wish to draw them to the particular attention of the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir)-shows that the price of butter has dropped considerably on the Montreal market within the last few days. After this weakening movement, the hon. Minister of Agriculture had a conference with Mr. T. W. Grieve, Mr. A. Me-Kergow, Mr. K. D. Olive and Mr. John Charest, all butter merchants in Montreal. Since the conference we have heard it said that certain suggestions had been made by
the hon. Minister of Agriculture-for instance, that butter be stored until later. I do not know whether I should attribute this advice to the hon. minister because I should have to ask him if he thought the suggestion very wise. I do not wish to be too severe towards the hon. Minister of Agriculture, who is himself a farmer, and has had the fact broadcast from one end of Canada to the other by the Conservative party; still we would like to see him rise to the situation and really do something for agriculture. Under the circumstances I believe I am well within my rights in putting him this question: What was the result of your meeting with the butter importers and merchants in Montreal? We certainly would like to know; and the farmers of the entire country ask you this question which appears to me to be fair, reasonable and timely just now.
The right hon. Prime Minister promised (he farmer that all his ills would be remedied by the tariff ; and we had the right to expect that the leader of the government would adopt a policy favourable to the farming community. Once more I say to the hon. Minister of Agriculture that the session is already well along and that still no policy has been announced. We trust that before the present debate is ended he will deem it his duty to reveal just what his program is in relation to Canadian agriculture. A visit to our different country markets during the last few weeks proves that the real situation is very far from that all these promises led us to expect.
During the campaign we were given to understand that the increase in customs duties would enhance the prices of agricultural produce and that the farmer would be protected like the other classes of the community.
According to the statistics disclosed on the floor of this house-these figures are known to all our Canadian citizens, because to-day the situation is being studied more than ever before-there is no reduction, or very little, in the price of the necessaries of life, while the prices of agricultural produce are constantly on the down-grade; as a consequence the condition of this industry in our Dominion is very bad, not to say desperate. But to come back to what we noticed: The difference in prices on the markets is so great that housewives are always surprised when they compare this years' prices with those they had to pay last year. But those who are most surprised and who feel it most are the farmers who see the prices of their products striking bottom all along the line. Here are a few facts revealed by an investigation made last
Agricultural Conditions

we may say that the farmer, although very often he is not so well-equipped as he would wish to be, and sometimes has not the money necessary for improvements, spent last $1.05 per 100 pounds of milk. And although there has been a decrease in the price of grain no one can show that the farmer is in a position to care for his herd throughout the year, to pay the wages of his help, and to sell milk at 65 or 70 cents per 100 pounds. It is plain therefore that the farmer is working at a loss. If the dairy industry is the main industry of a majority in the province of Ontario, and of quite a number of farming districts in the province of Quebec, how can the farmers get along if they continue to receive such low prices?
During the last campaign the farmers were given to understand that the tariff would come to their assistance, that new markets would be opened up for their products and that they w.ould sell their produce at reasonable prices. If the conservative candidates at that time found that the farmers were not receiving reasonable prices, I ask them if to-day, after eight months of conservative administration, they consider prices reasonable: butter, 22 cents a pound; cheese, 9 cents; eggs 15 to 17 cents a dozen, and so forth. Prices have fallen outrageously since the conservative party came into power.
Quite everybody agrees to-day that the agricultural class carries the largest share of the burden of taxation, be it the customs tariff, the sales tax, or whatever else; that is to say that the farmers are taxed not only on property they own, but further on values which they do not possess. While I do not wish to make any comparison with other provinces, let me tell you that we, in the province of Ontario, where we are ruled over by a conservative government,-a past-master, believe me, at the art of tax-raising: I am really convinced that no other province in the world derives as much revenue from natural resources - of whatever kind-still our government never succeed in meeting expenses, despite all the taxes they impose; they always end up with a deficit.


An hon. MEMBER:: Take Quebec.


Elie-Oscar Bertrand: I intend mentioning later some of the taxes that must be paid. Very often the government sidesteps the responsibility of collecting the tax directly and acts through the county council. To-day our county councils are recognized as being collection agencies for the political machine at Toronto. This is so far true that the Ontario farmer must pay to the province, not directly

but through the county council, 20 per cent of the cost of construction and upkeep of provincial roads; we must pay 50 per cent of the construction of county roads, and 70 per cent of the cost of all township highways. Furthermore we must bear the entire cost of the administration of justice. This administration is in the hands of the provincial government, but the bill is sent to the county council which collects from the ratepayers and pays the bills. We must pay our share of the cost of administering the Mothers' Allowance Act, an excellent piece of social legislation, which I would be the last man to criticize. However, we bear a part of the cost of this tax, as also of the Old Age Pensions. We pay for the protection of children, for treatment given under the Hospitals Act, for primary and secondary schools, for school grants, and for the general administration of the municipalities and counties. Apart from that we must contribute towards debentures and the extinction of the local debt. The farmers bear the largest share of this burden of taxation.
Consequently it is little wonder that the farmers cannot stay on their land. The older generation try to hang on just as long as they can; but the youngsters are far less attached to the soil. What makes the oldsters try so hard to cling to their farms is that they have given 20 or 25 years of their lives to unceasing efforts in cultivating the land and striving to rid it of encumbrances. If during the last few years this older generation of farmers have succeeded in paying $2,000, $3,000 of $4,000 towards the settlement of their indebtedness; if to-day they find themselves so burdened with taxes that they cannot pay these taxes and their interest, and still earn a living, they at least do all they can to hold on to their equity, so as not to lose what they earned in years gone by.
But the new generation, not having given so much effort to the farm, are infinitely less interested. There you have one of the reasons why our young farmers are drifting into our cities and swelling the ranks of the unemployed. There is nothing surprising in the fact that from the month of September, 1930, to to-day, the number of unemployed rose from 117,000 to 300,000. The Conservatives cannot deny these figures now.


Mr. DORION (Translation):: Did not the
same conditions exist before?


Elie-Oscar Bertrand: I might
say to the hon. member for Quebec-Mont-morency (Mr. Dorion) that if he compares the

Agricultural Conditions
present prices of agricultural produce with those of last year he will be ashamed of his remark.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, all I have to say is simply this:	If the Conservatives
really believe that agriculture is the foundation of our entire economic system; if they really believe that Canadian prosperity depends on that class who produce the necessaries of life; if they believe that the prosperity of our country can only come through the prosperity of Canadian agriculture, then it is high time to make an about turn: let the prices of farm produce increase, let there be a reduction in the other necessaries of life. At the present time there is no economic balance; the situation is so utterly unequal that the farmer is getting beyond his depth, while the other classes of the community, who are protected, can still enjoy the fruits of their labour and safeguard the value of their property. Is that a proper balance? Is that prosperity? Before resuming my seat I make a special appeal to the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir). I say to him that this class must obtain something; it is absolutely necessary. Since the prices of their products are determined by world markets and we cannot increase them, for we must compete against other countries, then the goods farmers need must be brought within their reach and not be protected by fictitious tariffs which only result in creating enormous wealth, for a few captains of industry, from the sweat and toil of the farmer.
Mr. J.-A. VERVILLE (Lotbiniere) (Translation) : Mr. Speaker, I shall avail myself of this opportunity to discuss certain items in connection with agriculture and to reiterate what other speakers have stated before. It seems to be the view held by all that our farmers are to be pitied that they are at present passing through a serious crisis and that their financial situation is critical.


Charles Napoléon Dorion: That is not what Taschereau says, in Qudbec.
Mr. ST-PERE (Translation): Discuss federal politics. Represent this house and not the legislature of Quebec.


Mr. VERVILLE (Translation):: We had
hoped that with the change of government all our farmers would be happy after eight or nine months of a new administration. They are not. People in the country complain. We were told in the course of the debate on the address in * reply to the speech from the
throne, that we spoke too much of butter, hens and eggs. We shall, sir, never speak enough, because our opponents made an abuse of it last summer. Those who accepted everything they were being told as if it were the word of the gospel, are inclined to say today: we were deceived, the market has fallen through. I ask the government whether it is possible for them to raise our people's morale and prevent market dips as took place last week, 10 cents per week is too much.
The fact remains that, to whatever class we belong, we depend on the farming classes. Whether we be lawyers, doctors, merchants or anything else, we acknowledge that the farm is the foundation of all our institutions, and when you disturb it-you may threaten it to win elections-von disturb the vital parts of our economic structure.
If you do not fulfil your pledges to them, it will be your condemnation; at present, they are suffering; but beware of the future.
Have conditions improved since last July? I simply put the question and leave it to you to answer. Our people under the spell of fine pledges, splendid speeches delivered in public, changed their allegiance, thinking perhaps, that conditions would improve. Have they improved?


Arthur Sauvé: Things were
quite bad.


Joseph-Achille Verville: Not so bad, but it is worse to-day. Those who changed their allegiance hoped that in doing so an improvement would take place. They now find that conditions have never been worse.
The question under consideration has been debated at length, I do not wish to scrutinize all the arguments that- have been so well discussed in the house. May I, however, submit for the consideration of the house, eertain suggestions although not new-they are inspired by excellent motives

they should nevertheless help the government in drawing up legislation which will help the 'farmers. I am aware that the government's intentions are the very 'best, I therefore do not wish to be unfair towards them. Their intentions are good, but they move too slowly. I do not mean that they are lazy, but the measures are slow in coming. I admit the government's good -intentions, however, may I ask that they expedite matters as our people -are in distress and the blame falls on the government, especially when the government contends that the depression was due to the King administration, now that they are in office what are we to expect.
Agricultural Conditions

May I, sir, make certain suggestions to the house, which are very simple and will toe readily understood, they have been prompted by the needs of the farmers of my riding. My constituents have the same needs as those of other ridings, their needs are those of the farming class.
I know that- the government recognize that there is a wound, a sore spot which they seek to heal, they have been seeking a remedy for the last nine months. Let them apply the remedy which will permit us to tell the people: The government which you have elected have found a cure. The government have no further need of seeking a panacea.
I wish to make known certain facts that I have observed in my riding and which, I trust, will serve, together with others that have been brought to the attention of the House, to solve the difficult problems which beset the government.
You are aware that, for ever so long, in fact it has never been otherwise, the farmer lives on the products of his farm, in some districts in Quebec, however, he also seeks outside the limits of his farm additional means to meet the needs of his family. He depends on his farm but to some extent on his sales of pulpwood as a side line. For the last few years, sir, the pulpwood industry has gone down and the reason given, is that our pulp mills have to compete with large foreign concerns, this obliges the merchant to put in the market a No. 1 product. Such is the situation. Our people are willing to do almost the impossible to supply the market with a product of superior quality, however, they must secure returns commensurate with their efforts. If the government are in earnest, if they really intend to help farmers, why not, while enacting measures to better the lot of large concerns for whom I have great respect and whose prosperity I wish to further, consider also the lot of those who are operating on a small scale, in the pulpwood industry. If in earnest, they will act immediately, if not, they will continue as they have done for the last nine months, that is do nothing.
In 1927, sir, the Liberal government enacted the Farm Loan measure and established in each province a board to look after the ad-Ininistration of the act and carry out its provisions. Why was this beneficial act passed? You all know why. Following the after-war depression, the disorganization of business, the facility with which our farmers had recourse to the Bankruptcy Act, there came a time when our farmers could no longer secure credit. The aet of 1927, intended to help

the farmer, had its good side. It was a new measure, a tentative one, which therefore lends itself to improvement. We gave it a trial. You are aware that following the bankruptcy act-
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, May 1, consideration of the motion of Mr. Woods-worth for the second reading of Bill No. 19, to amend the criminal code.
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in the few minutes at my disposal the other evening I was attempting to show the conditions which exist in some of our Canadian cities which have led me to introduce this amendment. I had referred to a statement which appeared in Toronto Saturday Night which referred to the Toronto police as follows:
They have attempted to suspend the laws protecting free speech and free assembly in the case of a band of gentle idealists known as the Toronto branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Later on Toronto Saturday Night speaks of the sixty-eight professors, lecturers and instructors of the university of Toronto who declared that attempts to nullify or restrict one of the proudest heritages of the British people, that is, free speech, were shortsighted, inexpedient and intolerable; in the opinion of Saturday Night they were worse than that-they were criminal. I referred also to the representations on behalf of the Fellowship of Reconciliation which had been made by Doctor Salem G. Bland. I will quote again one sentence, as follows:
What the Fellowship of Reconciliation does protest against is that a policeman, high or low, should take the law unto himself and decide in advance whether a meeting is going to be lawful or not. What right has he to judge beforehand?
Rabbi Eisendrath said:
Nor can any rectification of the present attitude toward our own society content us unless the same liberty be guaranteed to the humblest and most helpless, the most friendless of Our fellow-citizens, however mistaken and unpopular his views may be.

Criminal Code-Unlawful Assembly
I mentioned the interference with certain groups in Toronto during the last elections, which led Colonel 0. M. Biggar to write as follows:
If these-
Referring to certain allegations:
-are true it would appear that there has been established in Toronto what can only be properly described as a police tyranny entirely outside the law-, and that they should be true would be incredible apart from the absence of any satisfactory denial or explanation of the allegations made by Mr. Cohen in his previous communication. The real question raised by these and Mr. Cohen's present letter is the question whether in Toronto the police are enforcing the law or are persecuting persons who hold opinions of which they disapprove by the confiscation of printed matter found in their possession, by physical violence, by the misuse of licensing powers, and by threat of the institution of criminal proceedings for which there is no foundation.
The response made to this letter of Colonel Biggar's is typical of the attitude of the police. It was stated that the police were apprehensive of a serious breach of the peace and a charge of vagrancy was laid against one man. The police statement is rather curious, being as follows:
When Ewan appeared in the police court the charge was withdrawn upon his stating that he was leaving the country for Europe on the following day. I do not know whether vagrancy was the proper charge in this case, or not. Probably one of the subsections of the vagrancy section would apply, but I am quite sure the charge of obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty, or a breach of the city by-law would have been appropriate and that in this case Ewan was most generously dealt with by being permitted to go on his assurance that he was going to Europe.
This statement by the police officers themselves would go to show that they wanted to get rid of this man; they thought him undesirable and they considered the meeting which he was addressing to be an unlawful assembly. They were willing to charge him with vagrancy, and if that charge was not good enough, they thought they could substitute for it one of obstructing a police officer.
Several years ago a conviction against Harvey Murphy was appealed. On September 12, 1929, Mr. Justice Raney quashed the conviction and ordered the police to pay the costs. In delivering judgment, Mr. Justice Raney said:
One cannot help from reading the evidence but be impressed with the view that this police court case was the outcome of an attempt to hold a meeting by people who call themselves communists. If there was any offence that was
the offence .... what disturbance was there except that created by the police? ... I have been referred to no authority which makes refusing to move when instructed by a police officer an offence under the criminal code.
There are certain ways in which the police may proceed; at times they may insist that people move on, but I submit that attention should be paid to this decision of Mr. Justice Raney, that it is not a crime under the criminal code for a man to refuse to move on when instructed.
The police of Toronto are not the only ones who have adopted a very highhanded attitude in this regard. I should like to read a few extracts from an article which appeared in the Montreal Gazette of April 6, as follows:
Police heads in Montreal are seeking within the ranks of their subordinates for three detectives against whom warrants have been issued charging common assault.
The article continues:
The. warrants arise out of a suspected communist meeting, and out of "communist literature" which, when dropped by the small boy who was thought to be carrying it. oozed out onto the sidewalk in yokes and whites of eggs.
And again.
For some time a group of young people, interested in current events, social movements and books, have been gathering in private homes under the name of "The Saturday Night Club." There they discussed everything under the sun, agreed and disagreed with one another, and listened to speakers expound their specialties.
And in conclusion:
The nature of the Saturday Night Club, which was suspected of communist activities, is best indicated by a partial list of speakers who have addressed it. Among them were G. H. Corbett, secretary of the Society for the Protection of Women and Children; Rabbi Stern, of the -Temple Emmanu'El; Mrs. Kensett of the Children's Bureau; H. S. Ross. K.C., Doctor Silverman, of the Mental Hygiene Clinic; C. P. Rice, and A. Heaps, M.P. for Winnipeg North.
It does seem ridiculous that the police of Montreal and the detectives who are more or less under their direction should not only undertake to supervise public halls but should actually maintain a system of espionage with regard to private homes. In this particular case a boy who was delivering eggs to the home was actually maltreated by the police, and action was taken against them. When private homes are put under surveillance like that, it seems to me it is time some further action is taken.
Not only have we this attitude on the part of the police in eastern cities, but the western police are beginning to copy their methods. I hold in my hand a copy of the
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Star-Phoenix of Saskatoon in which there is a despatch from North Battleford under date of April 13:
Claiming that there was too much talk of force, revolution and bloodshed in the offing. Chief of Police D. Felker on Saturday placed a ban on meetings of the North Battleford Open Forum in the Savoy cafe here, after a sixth meeting was addressed by Magistrate J. H. Greaves.
The article goes on:
It is understood that the ban on the Open Forum meetings applies only to the Savoy cafe, use of which was granted free by the proprietor, William Burgess. As no fee was paid for use of the building, no, responsible officers of the organization needed to be elected. If future gatherings are held in a public hall which is rented, an executive would have to be elected. This is understood to be the object of the chief of police, so that if future meetings contained statements which bordered on sedition there would be persons to hold responsible.
That is a most extraordinary statement. It is a most extraordinary condition of affairs when a chief of police undertakes to interfere with a private meeting held in a -private hall and insists that there -must be organized a society so that he can hold some society responsible for what is said. Sedition is not that kind of crime. It is the individual who commits sedition, if. sedition is committed, and it is the individual who should be charged. If this magistrate were guilty of sedition, the police might have arrested -and changed him *with sedition, but the idea of banning a meeting in a private hall or -cafe 'because it was not held under the auspices of some society just illustrates the ridiculous length to which some of our police are going. It reminds me of a motto which was hung up in the office of an editor of a paper in the western states at the time of the war: "We are 100 per cent Americans, so keep your mouth shut." In fact I fancy we are simply -copying some of the methods of the United States, and we ourselves are becoming somewhat infected by the hysteria that has prevailed so long on the other side of the line. I should like to call to the attention of hon. members and to commend this editorial which appeared yesterday in the Ottawa Journal and which deals with the communists:
Doesn't it all suggest that a lot of this talk about communists in Canada is inspired by fright, with the fright a product of ignorance, and that, taken together, the two things are hardly creditable to the country?
A little bit further on it states:
This country doesn't want to become another United States. Over there they have got to thinking that every, man who dares to express an original idea must necessarily be a com-

munist, if not an anarchist, so much so that they have made talk a crime, and have punished people for saying things that men like Jefferson would have thought mild. It will be far better for Canada if, in these matters, we stand by the old British way.
I heartily subscribe to that. This is a clipping of several years ago from a Toronto Star editorial and it is along the same lines:
How did England handle her affairs on May day? London is a wise old town, with a very long history. She has seen centuries and generations go by and from them has learned much. In most countries riots are spoken of and dealt with as revolutions. In England, revolutions, try as they may, can never palm themselves off as anything better than riots.
And so on.
There is much to be learned in this country from the way England deals with some things 

guided by an experience gained over a long period.
It would seem as if we on this continent were in a period similar to that through which England passed over one hundred years ago. The other day I was looking up May's Constitutional History and I noticed away back in 1792 the situation then was described as follows:
The government invested the doings of a small knot of democrats-chiefly workingmen- with the dignity of a widespread conspiracy to overturn the constitution. Ruling over a free state, they learned to dread the people, in the spirit of tyrants. Instead of relying upon the sober judgment of the country, they appealed to its fears; and in repressing seditious practices, they were prepared to sacrifice liberty of opinion. Their policy, dictated by the circumstances of a time of strange and untried danger, was approved by the prevailing sentiment of their contemporaries; but has not been justified in an age of greater freedom, by the maturer judgment of posterity.
I should like to come to this amendment. It is very limited in scope. I admit that it will not touch many of the abuses which I have mentioned to-night. It has really nothing to do with sedition. Sedition is dealt with under an altogether different clause in the code. My amendment is intended simply to clarify and safeguard the law with regard to unlawful assembly. The main clause of the law as it now stands in the criminal code, section 87 reads:
An unlawful assembly is an assembly of three or more persons who, with intent to carry out any common purpose, assemble in such a manner or so conduct themselves when assembled as to cause persons in the neighborhood of such assembly to fear, on reasonable grounds, that the persons so assembled will disturb the peace tumultuously or will by such assembly needlessly and without any reasonable occasion provoke other persons to disturb the peace tumultuously.

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I would add this amendment which has the effect of safeguarding the general right to assemble:
Nothing in this section shall restrict or interfere with the right of all persons peacefully to assemble for the purpose of discussing or hearing any discussion upon any matter of public interest, and such persons when so assembled shall not become an unlawful assembly merely by reason of speeches made to them or discussion carried on by them unless-
Then I think I add sufficient safeguards:
[DOT]-unless the general nature and character of such speeches or discussion would be likely, in the opinion of firm and reasonable persons, to cause an immediate breach of the peace.
The police in the instance to which I have referred were not able to prove that there was any likelihood that there would be caused an immediate breach of the peace. They simply did not like the particular group of people and they said that they could not hold a meeting and that if a meeting was held, it would be called an unlawful assembly, An assembly ought not to be called unlawful unless there would be an immediate breach of the peace. That is clearly the intention of the law. Further, whether or not this assembly would be unlawful, is to be judged not by the utterance of a single word, but rather by the nature and character of such speeches. I think that is the rule that is generally applied: that you are not to judge a man by some isolated word he may use; you must base your judgment upon the general nature and character of the speeches. I may say, for the benefit of my lawyer friends who may be interested, that that phrasing is in accord with the words used in the summing up of the judge in the case of Rex vs. Burns,
16 Cox C.C. 355.
Further:
Such speeches or discussion would be likely, in the opinion of firm and reasonable persons-
I do not know whether you can find those firm and reasonable persons in Toronto, although I would make an exception in the case of the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Geary), who is sitting opposite. I am quite willing to trust myself in his hands. But when it comes to some of those who are on the bench or the police force, I am not very sure that I should feel that I could so entrust myself. I might say that this phrase, "firm and reasonable persons" is an almost verbatim reproduction of a phrase used in the judgment in the leading case of Rex vs. Vincent, which is cited in Crankshaws's Criminal Code, fifth edition, pages 108-109.
I do not think it is necessary for me to add anything to the case which I have pre-sentedi. Let me repeat that this amendment
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has nothing whatever to do with sedition, and that it is very limited in its scope. It seeks simply to prevent some of the abuses which have grown up in the last few months, owing largely, I think, to ignorance and hysteria on the part of certain individuals in this country. As the side note to the bill states, and I cannot put it in better words, it is intended simply to provide a safeguarding clause to ensure that the general nature and character of speeches upon public affairs must be the ground for regarding any meeting unlawful. I cannot very well see, Mr. Speaker, how the house can refuse to accept an amendment of this character.
Mr. R. B. HANSON" (York-Sunbury):	I
desire to make a few brief observations on the subject matter of this bill. I impute no improper motives to the hon. gentleman who has fathered this proposed legislation (Mr. Woodsworth). He has stated to us that the amendment is very limited in its scope, and that it is his desire to clarify and to safeguard the law as it now stands. I submit to you, sir, and to the hon. members of this house, that the law as it now stands is perfectly clear and needs no clarifying, and further, that the privileges of any honest citizen in this country are to-day amply safeguarded under the existing provisions of the criminal code.
In my humble opinion the hon. gentleman has come to the wrong jurisdiction tO' attain the end which he has in view. I listened attentively to him and his plea, his indictment, if I may so call it, is not against the law as it stands on the statute books to-day, but against the manner in which that law is carried out by those who are charged with the responsibility of administering it. May I remind him most respectively that the parliament of Canada is not charged with the responsibility of administering the criminal law. That responsibility rests solely upon the provincial jurisdiction, and it is to those jurisdictions that the hon. gentleman and those associated with him should address themselves on this subject.
I hold no brief for the police force of the city of Toronto, but if I had to make a decision, I would say very frankly mat I am on the side of the police, and such I am sure would be the view of all thoughtful men in this assembly to-night. What is the law? The hon. gentleman has read the first part of section 87 of the criminal code relating to this matter, as follows:'
An unlawful assembly is an assembly of three or more persons who, with intent to carry out any common purpose-[DOT]
The intent, I remark, is an integral element of the offence:


EDITION
[Stage Direction]
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-assembles in such a manner or so conduct themselves when assembled as to cause persons in the neighborhood of such assembly to fear, on reasonable grounds, that the persons so assembled will disturb the peace tumultuously, or will by such assembly needlessly and without any reasonable occasion provoke other persons to disturb the peace tumultuously.
I admit frankly that it is often very difficult, sometimes impossible, to prove the intent with which people may assemble together. The intent may develop only after they have assembled and have spoken, and after they have caused the damage which is sought to be prevented. To limit the law in any way, to restrict it-not to use the word "clarify"-to restrict the law even in the very mild manner suggested by the hon. gentle-[DOT]man would be, I feel, to take away from those charged with the duty and responsibility and obligation of preserving the peace in this country some of the powers which they now have and upon which they must lean in the discharge of their duty.
I suggest to the hon. gentleman that his proposed amendment will in no event meet the situation which he apparently desires to meet. But even if he did take away some of their present powers from the police of this country, is it desirable in this time of unrest that the arm of the law be weakened rather than strengthened? I think we should pause before we do anything of a legislative character in this house which would have the effect of saying to those charged with the responsibility of administering the law: This you shall do, and this you shall not do. If the present law is too stringent, the hon. gentleman desires it to be ameliorated on the part of those who desire'-what? After all, what do those people in Toronto desire? I have not been present at their meetings and I have not heard directly what they do desire, but if I understand correctly from those who have been present and have reported their proceedings, the hand of these people is against established authority in this country. That is what it is; and would it not be a pretty spectacle in this year 1081 if parliament were to weaken the arm of the law which is to protect your home and mine, your family and mine? Certainly I am against anything that would tend toward the weakening of the authority of those charged with the responsibility of maintaining law and order. The onus in every case of proving a violation of the law is upon those who allege the law to have been violated, upon those who seek to punish someone charged with its violation; and if the chief of police of the city of Toronto or some other large municipality, having a direct
TMr. R. B. Hanson.)]
sense of the responsibility that rests upon him, has forbidden the holding of certain public meetings, is it not fair for hon. members to assume that he has reasonable grounds for his attitude, reasonable grounds to believe that there will be a breach of the peace? After all, the police must be the judge. I submit that parliament, having heard the few isolated instances that were related to the house by the promoter of the bill, and knowing perhaps none of the circumstances surrounding a single one of these cases-I submit that the hon. member himself cannot have any firsthand information, no information other than what he has gleaned from the newspapers- should not assume the responsibility of weakening the position of those in authority. Not for one minute do I believe that the members of this house will be so forgetful of their responsibility to our citizenship as to do anything of that sort, even in a negative manner; because I submit, and shall presently argue, that the proposed amendment is negative in itself and will have no force and effect.
What the hon. gentleman seeks to accomplish by 'his proposed amendment is now, I submit, the law of this country. That being so, the bill itself is wholly unnecessary. What is the affirmative part of the bill? He proposes to add the following subsection to section 87 of the criminal code:
Nothing in this section shall restrict or interfere with the right of all persons peacefully to assemble for the purpose of discussing or hearing any discussion upon any matter of public interest-
That is the law to-day, it always has been, and I hope if always will be, and there is no need to put upon the statute books any affirmative assertion such as is contained in what I have read. The proposed clause continues :
-and such persons when so assembled shall not become an unlawful assembly merely by reason of speeches made to them or discussion carried on by them-
Men must do much more than merely listen to speeches before they come within the purview of our criminal law. That is just what the law as it now stands provides for. Section 87 deals with intent, and I submit this is a very important element in the consideration of the question. It reads:
An unlawful assembly is an assembly of three or more persons who, with intent to carry out any common purpose, assemble in such a manner or so conduct themselves when assembled as to cause persons in the neighbourhood of such assembly to fear, on reasonable grounds,
[Stage Direction]
Who are to be the judges of these grounds, -those making the speeches? Surely not.

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Those in authority on the ground are charged with that responsibility and they must act, if, in their judgment on reasonable grounds, the position has become such that there is danger of a breach of the peace. I feel confident that this house will never do anything to impair the authority and power of those charged with that responsibility. The part of the amending clause that I have quoted, is, I submit, the criminal law of Canada to-day, and therefore this is wholly unnecessary. But the hon. gentleman, in language which apparently he has obtained from some legal decision, adds that there shall be no restriction-
[DOT]-unless the general nature and character of such speeches or discussion would be likely, in (he opinion of firm and reasonable persons, to cause an immediate breach of the peace.
" Immediate 'breach of the peace," that is to say, the hon. gentleman would lock the barn door after the horse is stolen-he would allow the people to meet, say anything they like, and after they have caused an "immediate breach of the peace" an indictable offence would be committed. In my opinion that is far too limited in its scope. We had better leave section 87 as it is, and not wait until there has been a breach of the peace before we bring those who assume that position within the ambit of the criminal law. I do not believe for a minute that on sober, calm reflection hon. members will be willing to vote for anything of that character.
Let me read very briefly what Roscoe in his work on criminal evidence says in regard to proof of unlawful assembly:
Proof of an unlawful assembly. Any meeting whatsoever, of great numbers of people, with such circumstances of terror as cannot but endanger the public peace, and raise fears and jealousies amongst the king's subjects, seems properly to be called an unlawful assembly.
If in the city of Toronto and in other places in the Dominion to which my hon. friend has referred the meetings which have been held there have not been of the character described by Roscoe, then I tell him there has been an excess of zeal on the part of those in authority. But that is no reason why this house should in a proper case take away from the authorities the power which is now theirs of acting properly within their discretion. Rather should my hon. friend, as I said a moment ago, appeal to those in authority over the police in the city of Toronto. I understand that the local police commission is composed of reputable men, first class citizens. Surely if my hon. friend has a good case he will not be denied a hearing in "Toronto the good." Surely they are not going to take away the liberty of
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the subject. What I fear is happening in Toronto, and is the desire of certain people there, is not liberty of speech but licence. If that be so, then I say, more power to the arm of the law, exercised with proper consideration and with reasonable care for the liberty of the subject.
For the reasons given, Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to this bill. The law as it stands is quite clear, and in support of this I could cite judicial decisions from now till midnight, but I will not inflict them on the house. I submit there is no necessity to clarify the law, the liberty of the subject being already well safeguarded.
Mr. G. M. McDADE (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, I also am unalterably opposed to the amendment. I agree with my hon. friend from York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) that the provisions of the criminal code are quite adequate and do not involve any hardship on those who do not transgress them. The police authorities must enforce section 87 and the other provisions of the code. The right of every man to a fair trial has always been recognized under British institutions. As the section stands an unlawful assembly, or the members of it, would be charged with an indictable offence. That involves the right of trial by jury. As my hon. friend from York-Sunbury has said, in all criminal cases the burden of proof is on the crown. In other words, the accused is presumed to be innocent until the contrary is proven, and his guilt must be established beyond a reasonable doubt founded on the evidence What does my hon. friend propose? That an assembly shall not become an unlawful assembly:
-unless the general nature and character of such speeches or discussion would be likely, in the opinion of firm and reasonable persons, to cause an immediate breach of the peace.
Mark you, Mr. Speaker, an "immediate breach of the peace." If section 87 were so amended, men could assemble and as a matter of fact .cause a riot within five minutes. I say that this is a bad piece of legislation, to which I am unalterably opposed. We in New Brunswick do not seek legislation of this kind, and just here I should like to question the right of the hon. members for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) and North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) to speak on behalf of that great class of citizens, the labour element of Canada. I would far rather take the advice and counsel of such outstanding labour men in the province of New Brunswick as Mr. John S. Martin, former Labour member of the legislative assembly at Fredericton, or of Mr. Stanley S. Fleiger, of the town of Chatham, than that of my hon. friends opposite. The
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men I have mentioned, I submit, represent true Canadian labour; their judgment is sound and their capacity is unquestioned.
Just in conclusion let me say as a friend of labour, as one who had the high privilege of representing this great class in the courts of the land at the time of the strike in the lumber industry on the Miramichi river, about ten years ago, and as one who, as I feel, has received the wholehearted support of this great element in my county, that this bill does not commend itself to my labour friends in New Brunswick, and I for one am opposed to it. I invite hon. members on both sides of the house to come to a realization of the serious consequences of the proposed amendment. To me it seems to introduce a very radical and drastic change in our laws, and I submit that the law as it stands at the present time is adequate to preserve to our citizens the right to assemble for all lawful purposes.


Mr. G. R. GEARY (South Toronto):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with much attention to my hon. friend from Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth), and 1 can assure him that as far as he is concerned he is perfectly safe in my hands in Toronto or elsewhere, , although I cannot say the same for his bill. As .other hon. members have said, my hon. friend directed his remarks rather to the administration of the criminal law, particularly with reference to its administration in Toronto, than to the substance of the law as we have it on the statute books. The hon. member read from section 87 of the criminal code the definition of an unlawful assembly, but I would call his attention to the next subsection of that same section, which goes on to say:
2. Persons lawfully assembled may become an unlawful assembly if they conduct themselves with a common purpose in such a manner .as would have made their assembling unlawful if they had assembled in that manner for that purpose.
I think that clearly indicates that there are and there can be, without any restriction of the law, meetings which are lawful, peaceful assemblies. That is to say, people may come together peacefully and lawfully, and may turn that meeting into an unlawful assembly by their conduct during the course of the meeting. Their conduct during the course of the meeting is not confined to physical conduct, gestures or anything like that, but I should say, embraces as well speaking and discussion, the manner of speaking and the manner of discussion. So when my hon. friend is introducing an amendment to provide that
[Mr. McDadej
people may come peacefully to a meeting, he is providing for something which is already provided for or implied by the statute as being already quite right and proper.
My hOn. friend has gone on in his bill to say that this peaceful or lawful meeting shall not become an unlawful assembly merely by reason of speeches made to that assembly or discussion carried on therein. In the explanatory note to the bill my hon. friend states, as he stated during the course of his remarks:
This bill is intended simply to provide a safeguarding clause to insure that the general nature and character of speeches upon public affairs must be the ground for regarding any meeting as unlawful.
If that is what the bill is designed to bring into effect, certainly it is not done by the measure proposed, which provides that you shall not call a meeting an unlawful assembly, or it shall not become an unlawful assembly, merely by reason of the speeches made. It may be an unlawful assembly for other reasons; as I say, under subsection 2 of section 87 it is provided in what ways a meeting may become unlawful, that is, by unlawful conduct including speeches.
I thoroughly agree with the two speakers who preceded me that there is nothing in this bill, with some exceptions to which I shall come in a moment, which carries the law one step further than it is at the present moment. There are certain points in the bill to which my attention is directed; the first is that the unlawful conduct must cause an immediate breach of the peace. There my hon. friend is making, from his point of view, a much less drastic bill than the code as it stands. Under the present code people at such meetings must conduct themselves so as to disturb the peace tumultuously, before the meeting can be termed an unlawful assembly. It would be more difficult to convict a person of attempting to disturb the peace tumultuously than of doing something which may provoke an immediate breach of the peace. But the introduction of the word "immediate" would indicate that, taking an extreme case, if somebody deliberately instructed people as to the preparation and use of bombs and as to the method to be followed the next day in using those bombs on some public building, certainly there would be a breach of the peace involved, but not occurring until the next day. My hon. friend, however, would say thac such a meeting was not unlawful because the breach of the peace which was provoked was not an immediate breach. Again, if we are to confine the unlawful conduct to speeches, no longer could one be convicted for any other

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method of agitation than that of the spoken word at a meeting.
I fear these words very greatly lessen the effect of the statute as it stands now, while getting my friend no further along the path which he seeks to tread, and for those reasons it seems to me the bill should not pass. In one view, the bill means nothing and so is unnecessary, and secondly there is the other reason that we do not know what the difficulty would be if, in order to convict, it had to be proved that the words were calculated to produce an immediate breach of the peace. In addition, my hon. friend provides in this bill that the nature and character of the speeches must be such as would have a certain effect on a "firm and reasonable person." I do not know such a class of persons in Toronto or anywhere else; they are not known to the law. My hon. friend is very much safer with the words of the section as they stand, which provide that the culpable conduct must be such as to cause persons in the neighbourhood to fear on reasonable grounds. That is the law as it stands now; reasonable grounds must be shown.
My hon. friend has outlined-and perhaps this is what brings me to my feet more than anything else-the history of certain happenings in the city of Toronto. The Board of Police Commissioners is not, of course, constituted under anything contained in the statutes of this parliament. As another hon. member said, it is independent of the city council and, so far as I know, the only restriction the city council is able to impose upon the actions of the board of police commissioners is that the board has to spend only the money the city council votes for that purpose, with this proviso, that the city council has nothing to say as to the number of policemen thought to be necessary for the preservation of law and order. That is a matter within the sole jurisdiction of the Board of Police Commissioners. I am not here to defend every action of the Board of Police Commissioners of Toronto, and I may say that in Toronto there has been a good deal of discussion as to whether that board under certain circumstances was right or not. They did pass two years ago some sort of order with reference to speeches made in other tongues than English, but I fancy it must be a dead letter. It would not appeal to me as a proper regulation to be in force, and if it is in force I can only say that I have sat time and again in meetings in Toronto where the speeches were delivered in some language other than English. I do not know what has
become of that regulation. I was not at home at the time of its discussion when it was first promulgated, but I should think it has become a dead letter, at least so far as my knowledge of it goes. .
With respect to this band of gentle idealists referred to by Saturday Night and known as the Toronto branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the names of persons I have heard as belonging to it and interested in its *affairs are the names of very respectable citizens, and I do know that they had no end of a time with the Board of Police Commissioners. They were admitted to a hearing and were allowed to lay their charge and prove it if they could. About the beginning of the present year the present mayor, who became a member of the Board of Police Commissioners, undertook, with the assent of the other members of the board, to indicate the policy of that commission with regard to What is called free speech. The policy so enunciated by his worship has been generally accepted in the city of Toronto as being perfectly right: that is, that free speech, within the law and with proper respect for British institutions, British traditions and British principles, is the sort of speech that is to be allowed and encouraged in Toronto, as it probably is in every other part of the country. I mention this merely to show that if there was a misunderstanding as to what was thought by the police to be proper in the way of speech, the policy so enunciated by his worship the mayor, representing the Board of Police Commissioners, within the last two or three months, seems to have satisfied everyone as settling any controversy that had arisen.
There is no intimidation, I am advised by the Board of Police Commissioners, of the owners of halls as to what meetings they shall allow in those halls. The owner is responsible under the code for certain happenings, and he would remain so responsible under the amendment. There 'is no attempt to say to him whom he shall allow in his hall, what price he shall charge, or whether there shall be a licence for any meeting. I thought it well to clear up in the mind of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) the situation as it exists in Toronto and as I have indicated it.
So far as my city is concerned, my hon. friend need not concern himself very much. The people of Toronto are fully alive to the menace that lies in communism. They recognize that perhaps Toronto is the centre of communistic activity in Canada; at least,
I am told that Toronto is its headquarters.
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The people of that city realize that and will . watch carefully. But they are not an unfair people; they do not propose to have the Board of Police Commissioners act outside the law. Neither do they wish to restrict in the least that freedom of speech so eloquently discussed by my hon. friend. Freedom of speech is not licence; it must be within the law-the law as it is laid down in the statute books or, it may be, the common law. And it is not asking too much, I think, when I ask the house to agree with me that freedom of speech must imply that those using that freedom are to use it with respect for British traditions, principles and institutions. That is what we are striving to enforce in Toronto. We are not troubled to any great extent in our administration, and any difficulty we have we believe we shall work out of satisfactorily.
I do not believe that on one construction this proposed section would add anything to the criminal law. On the other view, if we enact anything about the opinion "of firm and reasonable persons," something as to utterances that would cause an immediate breach of the peace, I do not know on what principles j'ou would direct the jury as to whether or not the onus had been proved or the defence made out. It would be introducing something new, something uncertain, to which I am not prepared to accede. For these reasons I do not believe that this bill should pass, and I shall vote accordingly.


Hon. PETER HEENAN (Kenora-Ramy River):: I am in favour of this measure because of the experience I have had throughout Canada during the last ten years. As I read a few days ago the bill submitted by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) I take it that meetings which would be a probable cause of immediate trouble he would not be in favour of. But I rise mainly to reply to the remarks of my hon. friend from York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson), who I see is smiling; because just as I wa3 leaving the chamber a little while ago he was making a statement to the effect that the people whom it is the object of this bill to relieve were men whose hands were against society. All I have to say in that regard is this, that these very same men and women who are now pictured as having their hands raised against society were pictured during the last election as reasonable Canadian citizens who had the misfortune to be unemployed, and for whom the government of that day would do nothing. These very people were collected to go around with white labels on the lapels of their coats in order that they might be recognized as good Canadian citizens un-

employed, for whom the government of that day would do nothing at all. But now it appears they are undesirables; and the very men who congregated these people together for election purposes now wish to deport them and will not give them permission to hold meetings.


Mr. TURNBULL:: Where did that occur?


Peter Heenan: It occurred in the home town of my hon. friend, in Regina.	.


Franklin White Turnbull: The people who wore those labels put them on themselves.


Mr. ERNST:: I rise to a point of order.
The hon. member is attributing to those on this side something they never did. No one on this side attacked any unemployed.


Peter Heenan: Quit quibbling now.


William Gordon Ernst: I am not quibbling.


Peter Heenan: Hon. gentlemen do not like to hear this, Mr. Speaker; but, as I have said, these men were collected together in Regina and in Winnipeg also.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: Order. It is now nine o'clock, and the house will revert to the motion under consideration at six o'clock.



SUPPLY-AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS AMENDMENT TO MOTION OF MINISTER OF FINANCE

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Bennett for committee of supply, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Brown.
Joseph-Achille Verville: When the
house rose at six o'clock I was commenting on the Farm Loan. I stated that in 1927, the Liberal government of the day had a measure enacted so as to help the farmers to develop their farms by means of loans. I admire cur banking system. It has been rendering great services to our people. However, it will never answer the wishes or the needs of the farming classes, it was not established for that purpose, and the government realized that fact. Our farmers had to be assisted.
During the after-war depression, and the disorganisation of business which followed, formers availed themselves, extensively, of the Bankruptcy Act, which, was placed at their disposal to enrich certain people who were in that business, and laid hands on whatever assets the farmers might have, whereby the creditors and merchants, were left without anything on which to fall back. Many a time efforts were made and rightly so to amend

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this act, I shall again refer to the subject shortly.
The Farm Loan Act was a new measure, it was possible to amend ancj improve it. It did not quite answer the end for which it was enacted. Among the reasons which prevented it being popular as it should have been, I shall point out three which should, at present, strongly appeal to the government. First, the 6J per cent rate is too high; secondly, the fees in connection with a loan are too high; thirdly, the 5 per cent required from the borrower, as board fund, does not appeal to the farmer.


Charles Napoléon Dorion: Who is responsible for this act? Who had it passed?
Some hon. MEMBERS (Translation): You
are responsible.


Joseph-Achille Verville: I respectfully suggest that if the government-who have the interests of the farming classes at heart-wish sincerely to better the lot of farmers, there are other means than having subsidies of millions of dollars voted. There are certain considerations which must be kept in mind, and in this respect, I wish to make some suggestions. I shall willingly answer questions. There is an hon. member on the government benches who has a resolution on the orders of the day, the purport of which is to reduce the rate on interest from 6i per cent to 5 per cent. I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Richmond-Wolfe (Mr. Lafleche) for his resolution. It meets my wishes and those of the entire country, and for this reason the government will probably accept it. This change has been asked in the past and it is also being requested this year. I personally make the same request. The provisions of the Act are known, they have been taken advantage of, if, however, they were made more easy they would become more, popular. This could be done by reducing the rate of interest from 6J per cent to 4 per cent, not 5 or 5^ per cent but 4 per cent.
It is true that the Quebec government, in its kindness and sdlicitude for the people, agreed to pay what should have been the federal government's share, nevertheless it still remains a Dominion Act. Have some pride, assume the responsibility of your act and take up your share of payments, in connection with legislation of which you should bear the burden, and Shoulder the whole responsibility.


Charles Napoléon Dorion: You have. . .
Mr. VERVILLE (Translation). You may put that question in half an hour from now. Moreover, the fees necessary to obtain a loan are too high. I know this through experience because I am in the business.
. Mr. LAURIN (Translation): Your fees are too high.


Joseph-Achille Verville: My services are free. That is why I am a poor man -and I wish to remain so-I give my services free to my fellow-citizens. The fees necessary to obtain a loan are too high I said. There are occasions when the board is most unreasonable in its demands and the farmers are unable to meet them. Let the government acquit these fees and strike out the clause which forces the borrower to pay 5 per cent on the amount loaned to him from the funds of the board. The farmer who borrows is not a lender, but a borrower and if he is required to contribute 5 per cent to the funds of the board, he strikes a bad bargain. Seeing that the government has established the Farm Loan Board to assist farmers, let them not follow the example of banks. It should not be looked upon as a paying business. The banks look after their interest, but the Farm Loan Board is a different institution, it is a government affair, it was enacted to help the farmer. Let us lend hkn a hand, and let us never demand from the farmer who borrows $5,000 to return 5 per cent of that amount.


Charles Napoléon Dorion: Why did you not bring that matter up last year?


Joseph-Achille Verville: These three considerations are the reason why the present act, although in force, is not as popular as it should be. Let the government, which made So many pledges which they cannot realize, adopt the amendment that I have suggested, it would be a splendid move.
Moreover, the Bankruptcy Act stands as an appendix to the previous act. The former is indeed a fine piece of legislation. Like many others, I ask-my only aim being to serve the farming community-that the farmers be deprived of the facility which is given them of having recourse to the Bankruptcy Act. In the past, our people called on their neighbours, their relatives or their friends, when they needed $500, $1,000 or $5,000, and they got it. Owing to after-war conditions and the present depression, no farmer is able to borrow $500, $200 not even $100 from a relative or friend; no one will advance him money. What contributed to ruin entirely the farmer's credit? Practically, it was the Bankruptcy Act. I do not wish to despoil it of its merits, for it serves its purpose. However, as far as the farmer is concerned, I ask the government-others have made that request-to withdraw from the farmer that opportunity which is afforded him of going into bankruptcy whenever he sees fit. That is what ruined his credit and forces him, at present, to beg from friends the bread needed at home.
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Mr. DORION (Translation). It took you some time to discover that.


Joseph-Achille Verville: There is
another question. Will our opponents-who claim to be the friend of the farming class- after being responsible for the conditions under which we live and of which the farmers bitterly complain, after their deceitful pledges, try to remedy these conditions by giving away millions of dollars. I well recall, just a few years past when we were in power, they strongly criticized our experimental farms. I shall explain: there are throughout the country large experimental farms which are very tiseful and fulfil the end for which they were established, they have already rendered great service to agriculture. I contend that this is the time to give this kind of farm education the greatest development and publicity. Instead of establishing experimental farms in each district let us utilize those already established for experimental purposes, and let us spread farm education by establishing demonstration farms -not one but many-so that all may benefit by them.
Are you aware that, in certain sections of the country, when' our farmers leave to visit these experimental farms, they act very much as if they were going to an Exhibition.
Educate our farming classes and give them the means to acquire useful knowledge. Do not oblige them to travel at much expense to themselves so as to enjoy a good dinner and see fine and healthy cattle; keep them on the farm, in their parishes if necessary, and teach them the knowledge they require, and this, at no expense to them. That was a ' policy advocated in the past by our opponents which they now forget to put into practice.


Charles Napoléon Dorion: You never
thought of applying it since 1921?


Mr. POULIOT (Translation):: If the constituents of the hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency heard him, they would rejoice to note that he is not dumb.


Joseph-Achille Verville: Pep, sir,
is the lot of youth. My friend will become wiser with years, if not his constituents may show some resentment for his interference. If the government is in earnest-which I doubt-they have something better to do than vote millions of dollars. The people have been suffering for the last nine months and they call for markets to sell their products. If, in assuming office Mr. Bennett closes all gates, the people will smash them, however, owing to the respect they have for law, they will bide their time. Give us markets, that is all we ask. You were put in office owing

to the extraordinary pledges you gave, you promised to make us happy, do so! You promised our farmers that they would sell their butter at 50 cents per pound, find them such a market. You equally promised them that they would sell their eggs from 35 to 40 cents per dozen, show them where they can get those prices, it is your duty.
At present, potatoes are sold $1.00 per bag; in the past they fetched $2.00; find them such a market. Those are pledges which were not kept, and there is no getting out of it. Stop dreaming and come back to earth. Protection has perhaps its good side, however, we are living in too critical a time to keep on dreaming. Face the facts. Our farmers demand markets for the sale of their products.
I do not wish to delay the house, however, there are questions that must be discussed and the house is the proper place to do so. I was asked on Saturday last by my constituents, why things were at a stand-still. My reply was: We are unable to make any progress, Mr. Bennett is in office, and Mr. Bennett is the government; forward your requests to the Prime Minister. May I, sir, give the same advice to everybody:	that in future all
requests should be made to the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett). The people will no doubt request that all pledges be fulfilled. May I also, sir, console my constituents by telling them: Be courageous, live in hope. Perhaps this rule of terror will not last long and in a few years a good Liberal regime may replace the present one and prove satisfactory to you.
The Conservatives, sir, never let up talking of distrust and discouragement during their election campaign. They told the people: The King government is no good, banish it, place us in office, we will look after your interests. We will revive what seems dead. For sometime past however, things have been more than ever at a standstill. We also note that no pledges were kept. It behooves any one who has a policy to submit and represents his fellow citizens, to constantly inspire them with confidence. What happened last summer? Disillusion and distrust were continuously being referred to.
The most cherished thought which a public man can harbour, is that intimate assurance of having bettered the people and of having inspired them with confidence in the administrative order. If I respect the powers that be, -the king, the government which protects me-I have confidence in them. I clearly realize that this government forgets its mission when it preaches otherwise.
In closing my remarks, may I give an advice to the leader of the government, that is: to set aside all selfishness and walk hand

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in hand with the people instead of dreaming, to efficiently govern the country, by keeping in touch with its needs; to be one of the people, help them and be of some service to them.
I shall end my speech by saying: Let us endeavour to have the people love what they should love. Let us tell them: love your country, love its administration,-though I realize they cannot love those who are now in power,.-love those in office when they are worthy of it, but in any case show respect for law and order.


Mr. SAMUEL GOBEIL (Compton) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I notice that
the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) is not in his seat-
An hon. MEMBER (Translation):	He
never is.


Samuel Gobeil: I am in no
way complaining; but I would have been happy to see him here and I hope that tomorrow or in the course of the next few days he will acquaint himself with the speech just delivered by the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Yerville), which speech levelled pointed, though quite justified, criticism at the preceding administration.
My hon. friend from Lotbiniere finds fault with the Farm Loan Act. He cannot reasonably claim that the present government has had time to change the act. When the hon. member complains that the farmer who borrows money must pay exorbitant rates everybody in the house understands that he is criticizing the adminstration of the former prime minister of this country.
When the hon. member for Lotbiniere speaks of our experimental farms and gives advice to the government, he is quite plainly criticizing the former regime, since the present government has not had time to make any changes as regards experimental farms. However, I can assure my hon. friend that such changes will be made before long; and thereafter our experimental farms will be of some use to agriculture.
I had no intention of taking part in the present debate; but so many contradictory, incomplete and even inaccurate statements have been made on the floor of this house that I felt it my duty as the representative of a farming constituency, to put matters in their proper light.
The hon. members of the opposition say that the price of butter has fallen very low. Quite so. Nobody denies that fact. But our friends on the other side of the house seek to lay the blame at the door of the present government. For this purpose the house has
been treated to certain statements which, I repeat what I said a moment ago, are inaccurate and incomplete; some are even contrary to the true state of affairs. For instance, Mr. Speaker, it was stated that Canada had imported 2,098,379 pounds of butter during the first three months of 1931. That is a fact. But to be fair to the government and make the case more complete our friends of the opposition should have made the comparison between the first three months of 1930 and the first three months of the present year. This comparison shows that Canada, during the first three months of the year 1930, imported 24,159,568 pounds of butter.
An hon. MEMBER (Translation):	This
year or last year?


Armand Renaud La Vergne: The hon. member for Compton has the floor. Hon. members may not interrupt, without having first obtained his consent.


Joseph-Achille Verville: We have
a right to know if he means this year or last year.


Samuel Gobeil: The comparison I have just made is between the imports of 1931 and 1930. The hon. member doubtless knows that we lived through 1930 before entering 1931.
More than that, the quantity of butter in cold storage on October 1, 1930, was 37,255,263 pounds; at the present time the total is only six million and a few hundred thousand pounds.
I suppose these hon. gentlemen can hardly restrain themselves from interrupting me again with the cry: Just the same prices have gone down. Once more I admit the truth of that statement.
Mr. Speaker, our opposition friends have stated also that from the month of August, 1930, to January 1, 1931, Canada imported from New Zealand and Australia 4,933,303 pounds of butter.


Mr. RHEAUME (Translation):: Will my
hon. friend allow a question? If there were such a large quantity of butter in cold storage why did you admit another four million pounds and why did you reduce the duty on Australian butter from 1-7 cents to 1 cent?


Samuel Gobeil: If the hon.
member will be patient a moment I intend to discuss that matter a little later on.
The opposition seek to make the present government responsible for the importation of 4,933,303 pounds of butter between August 1, 1930, and January 1, 1931. These hon. gentlemen are well acquainted with the New Zealand agreement, which expired only on October 12, 1930. The data for the two
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months of November and December, 1930, the only two months that they can properly count as coming under Conservative administration, reveal that during this period butter imports reached the total of only 509,664 pounds. So our hon. friends are not fair when they upbraid the Conservative government for having imported 4,933,303 pounds of butter; but under legislation for which the Liberal government is responsible 39,000,000 pounds of butter were brought into this country.
A moment ago I said that I intended answering the question asked me by my hon. friend from St. Johns-Iberville (Mr. Rheaume). The hon. member says that the Conservative government reduced the duty on Australian butter. To my knowledge, Mr. Speaker-I may be wrong; if so, I hope someone will set me right-but to my knowledge the present administration has made no change whatever in the import duties on Australian butter. If as my hon. friend claims, rightly or wrongly, the tariff was 1-7 cents under the Liberal government, the same tariff is in force at the present time. However, so far as I know, the duty on Australian butter was 1 cent per pound under the Liberal government and is still 1 cent per pound under the Conservatives.


Pierre Auguste Martial Rhéaume: If the hon. member will turn to page 985 of Hansard, April 27, 1931, he will find that from August 1, 1930, to March 1, 1931, the duty was 1 cent.


Samuel Gobeil: If I mistake not, the hon. member for Lotbini5re (Mr. Verville) quotes the speech he himself made to the house on April 27, 1931. I say the hon, member is mistaken; and the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) can certainly tell us whether I am right or wrong.


Pierre Auguste Martial Rhéaume: It is not
the hon. member for Lotbiniere.


Samuel Gobeil: I did not mention the speech myself; it was referred to by the hon member from St. Johns-Iberville (Mr. Rheaume).


Pierre Auguste Martial Rhéaume: I referred
my hon. friend to information given us by-


Armand Renaud La Vergne: The hon. member for Compton has the floor. He may not be interrupted without his consent.


Samuel Gobeil: The hon.
member from St. Johns-Iberville, since he refers, himself, to his own speech-


Pierre Auguste Martial Rhéaume: I beg pardon; not to my own speech. If you will allow me, Mr. Speaker-
Some hon. MEMBERS (Translation): Order, order, order.


Pierre Auguste Martial Rhéaume: I was
quoting the speech made by the Hon. Mr. Stevens, Minister of Trade and Commerce.


Samuel Gobeil: My hon. friend .says he was not referring to his own speech; and I accept his word for it. In opening my remarks I said that inaccurate statements had been made here and I believe I have proved what I said. I also said that inaccurate statements had been made outside the chamber. For the last few days the hon. members of the opposition have sought to prove that the present government is ,to blame for the price of butter. I have in my hand here a copy of an agricultural journal, under date of April 29, 1931, which contains a letter from the vice-president of the Montreal Produce Exchange.


Mr. MERCIER (St. Henri) (Translation):: What paper?


Samuel Gobeil: "La Terre de Chez Nous,'' organ of the Catholic Farmers' Union in Quebec province, an association which is naturally representative of the agricultural class. The vice-president of the Montreal Produce Exchange in a letter, very able, very well-written, but which gives figures that I cannot accept, has this to say:
May we he allowed, in passing, to state frankly, in the light of present events, that no government, whatever its colour, can bring about any improvement in the present situation; and that economic forces are much more powerful than the dictates of cabinets and of governments.
Mr. ST-PERE (Translation):	That is a
contrary gospel to the one you preached.
Some hon. MEMBERS (Translation): Order, order.


Samuel Gobeil: I am allowed only a few minutes. My hon. friend from Hochelaga can make a speech after I am *through, if he so wishes. I said that I did not accept the viewpoint of the vice-president of the Montreal Produce Exchange, not perhaps with any special reference to the paragraph quoted; but I maintain that the letter is merely a statement made by the butter trade in Montreal to justify their attitude.
I say, with the vice-president, that, the government is not to blame for the drop in prices, since the government reduced butter imports-

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Mr. CASGRAIN (Translation):: That is not what you said last July.
An hon. MEMBER (Translation): Opinions change.


Samuel Gobeil: -from 38,000,000 to 6.000.000 pounds; and I claim-
Mr. ST-PERE (Translation):	We do not
doubt it.


Samuel Gobeil: And on April 1, 1930, there were 12,260,322 pounds of butter in cold storage; while on April 1, 1931, there were only 6,579,636 pounds. If the Liberal government had remained in power we would have to-day as we did on October 1, last year, over 37.000.000 pounds of butter in cold storage, while under a Conservative government the total is only 6,000,000 pounds.


Mr. FAFARD (Translation):: Butter was
selling for 29 cents.


Samuel Gobeil: I hear these hon. gentlemen saying that we had quantities of butter in storage, but that it was worth more than to-day. That is true. Speaking on my own responsibility I say that the Montreal trade is to blame for the drop in price. Figuring on the basis of the quantity of butter in storage at the present time, and on the certainty that no more butter will be admitted under a lesser duty than 8 cents per pound-figuring also on the present quantity of production which, though increased, is very far behind the yield claimed in some quarters -I maintain that to-day our farmers should be receiving between 25 and 26 cents a pound for their butter. Between August 1, 1930, and March 1. 1931, Canada imported 6,375.109 pounds of butter as against 28,176,634 pounds the preceding year. The vice-president of the Montreal Produce Exchange says in closing that six million pounds are sufficient to meet the requirements of the Canadian consumer.
Mr. ST-PERE (Translation): Is this vicepresident a Conservative or a Liberal?


Samuel Gobeil: I haven't the slightest idea. He is a businessman.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: A pretty
poor one since he mixes in politics.


Samuel Gobeil: At any rate, we have 50 per cent less butter in storage; and the trade has been given the guarantee that no foreign butter will be admitted on payment of a lesser duty than 8 cents per pound.
An hon. MEMBER (Translation):	The
present duty on Australian butter is 1 cent per pound.


Samuel Gobeil: Thanks to the former Liberal government. I say that the
butter trade in Montreal is in the grip of a monopoly.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: Older members especially should be well enough acquainted with the rules of the house to know that they cannot interrupt an hon. member continuously without his permission.
I ask the older members, yes and the whips too, to give a good example.
Mr. ST-PERE (Translation): Is the order meant for everybody?


Armand Renaud La Vergne: Everybody.


Mr. DENIS (Translation):: I must protest, Mr. Speaker.


Samuel Gobeil: The innumerable interruptions are pleasing to me; they show that the medicine I am giving the opposition is just what they needed.
Mr. Speaker, I say that the farmers of Quebec province, and of the entire Dominion expected the price of butter to remain at 32 cents a pound. I say that the farmers of Quebec and elsewhere expected at least 25 or 26 cents a pound for their butter. I say that the present conservative government reduced the quantity of butter in storage and made it possible for the trade in Montreal to pay the farmers of Quebec and of Canada at least 25 or 26 cents a pound.
An hon. A1EMBER (Translation):	Why
don't they pay it?


Samuel Gobeil: Because the
trade combined to force down the price: they wanted to buy butter cheap during the producing season. WThen I made that statement I am not playing politics. I see the hon. member for Hochelaga (Mr. St-Pere) nods his head in approval; he knows that what I am saying is not meant in any partisan way.
Mr. ST-PERE (Translation): It proves that the tariff cannot maintain the price of butter.


Samuel Gobeil: It merely
goes to show that the trade think they can take advantage of the eight-cent duty imposed on foreign butter and enrich themselves at the expense of the farmer-producer. A short while back my hon. friend reproached the hon. member for Compton with the latter's views on protection. The member for Compton is a protectionist because he believes that the protective policy is in the interest of this country. As the duly elected representative of the county of Compton I have this to say to the gentlemen of the butter trade in Montreal: If the increased duty imposed by the present government for the protection of the farmers succeeds only in protecting the trade;
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if the trade 'believe they can do what is predicted in Montreal on William street, that butter will be selling at 35 and 40 cents this coming fall; if the trade, taking unfair advantage of the promise given them that no butter will be allowed into Canada on payment of a lesser duty than eight cents per pound, seek to speculate on the needs of the consuming public, I say that, as member for Compton, I shall request the government to make these gentlemen of Montreal see the light, by reducing the tariff from 8 cents to 4 cents if necessary, and even to demand-


Mr. BOUCHARD (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member allow me to ask him a question?


Samuel Gobeil: Mr. Speaker, I readily understand that the opposition-I suppose I would do the same were I in their place-want to make political capital out of the present low price of butter. But the real facts of the situation should be brought out; the farmers should know that on April 1st, 1931, there was 50 per cent less butter in storage throughout Canada than in April of last year: the farmers should know that while during the first three months of last year we imported-


Joseph-Achille Verville: Nevertheless butter is selling at 20 cents a pound.
Mr. GOBEIL (Translation!: If I make no mistake, even without the figures before me,
I believe that during the first three months of 1930 we imported 24,000,000 pounds of butter, and only two million pounds in 1931. I repeat that the farmers of this country should know that the present government has done its duty and that- the trade in Montreal could very well pay the producer a reasonable price for his butter.
Mr. Speaker, if we imported still more butter, to the tune of two million pounds, during the first three months of 1931, the responsibility rests with the defeated government, the government of the right hon. Mr. Mackenzie King. I made the definite statement, for if we had not had the Australian treaty-brought into force by the former administration-we would not have imported
2,000,000 pounds of butter, because that butter would not have been allowed to come in under a tariff of one cent per pound.
Mr. Speaker, the figures which I have just quoted-
An hon. MEMBER (Translation):	Are
false.


Samuel Gobeil: If they are
false* let me tell the hon. member that the records of the Statistics Branch are false because I got my figures from that branch.
I have a few words to add for the benefit of the butter trade in Montreal. These gentlemen try to justify the drop in price by claiming that production has increased at least 75 per cent-some even say 100 per cent. I agree that production has increased by 75 per cent in some western provinces. For instance in Manitoba, during the month of March, 1931, the yield was 59 per cent greater than in March, 1930. There has been an increase of 79 per cent in Saskatchewan.
Mr. ST-PERE (Translation):	In production?
Mr. &OBEIL (Translation): In production. In Alberta production increased 71 pea- cent. But these increases in the three western provinces, which average 75 per cent, amount after all to only a million and a half pounds of butter, not nearly enough to explain the present low prices, because the increased production has been compensated 200 and 300 per cent by the decrease in imports shown by a comparison between this year and last. Mr. Speaker, if the increase in the west amounted to only a million and a half pounds, the increase which should be noted, that in Quebec and Ontario, was only 22 or 23 per cent-in Ontario, 23-68 per cent for the sake of accuracy. Hence I maintain that the trade cannot make use of this excuse to explain away the drop in price. This increase in' production does not mean that 1931 will show a gain of 75, 50 or 23 per cent; it merely signifies that we have had an early spring. It is most unfair to compare the month of April, 1931, with April, 1930. The reason of the increased production of butter in 1901 is found in our exceptionally early spring. They are trying to make the farmers believe that the gain in our butter yield in 1931 will equal our imports of 37 million pounds last year; while as a matter of fact, in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario alone, just through the slaughter of tuberculous cattle, the herds of milch cows have been reduced by thousands and thousands. I have nothing more to say on the subject. My few remarks were meant not to displease our opposition friends, but to let the butter trade in Montreal know what we think of the present prices.
Mr. ST-PERE (Translation):	So they'll
stop gouging the people?


Samuel Gobeil: Exactly. And to inform our Quebec farmers that the Mont-

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real trade is well able to p'ay them a reasonable price for their butter.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on one or two remarks made by certain hon. members to your left, especially on the speech delivered by the hon. member for Prescott (Mr. Bertrand). My hon. friend reproached the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) with having changed certain items in his departmental estimates The hon. minister's estimates are increased by some hundreds of thousands of dollars; still my hon. friend from Prescott takes the minister to task for having changed the items around and for not having encouraged agriculture as he should.
An hon. MEMBER (Translation): That is true.


Samuel Gobeil: It may be true from my hon friend's standpoint; but I beg to differ, whether it pleases him or not.
The hdb. member for Prescott finds fault with the minister for having reduced by $300,000 the vote for Health of Animals purposes, by which is meant, I suppose, the amount paid out for animals slaughtered as being positive reactors to the tuberculosis test. Mr. Speaker, my view is. absolutely contrary to that of the hon. member for Prescott and, speaking in my own name, I congratulate the hon. minister on having reduced this appropriation. I have said the same thing outside the house; my claim is that we have been going altogether too fast in this matter of the elimination bovine tuberculosis and during the last two years-please note that I am not criticizing the government; I couple 1930 with 1931-the slaughter of such large numbers of cattle weakened the price the farmers got for their beef. I have no advice to offer the government; it is quite evident that the hon. minister thought as I do, since he reduced the vote. I am convinced we should go a little more slowly. There is no great hurry to free all our herds from tuberculosis. I am not in rebellion against science, neither do I say the system is not a good one; but I do believe that we should go about the matter with all due precaution, and that we should see to it that the number of slaughtered animals should not be a drug on the market and prevent the farmer from reaping a decent profit from the sale of his cattle.
The hon. member for Prescott quoted some figures also concerning the production-cost of milk and butter. According to him the average cost of production in 1930 was $1.35; hence the farmer made nothing out of it. I agree with him, Mr. Speaker. But there is nothing new in that. My hon. friend from Prescott stated himself that last year the production-cost of milk was $1.35 while the
producer received only 90 cents or $1 per 100 pounds. The hon. member certainly cannot blame the present government for what it cost to produce milk last year.


Elie-Oscar Bertrand: The average for October, November and December, 1930, was 98 cents.


Samuel Gobeil: Ninety-eight
cents. On some later occasion-I do not ask my hon. friend to give the information right now; I have only a few minutes left and I must use them to good advantage-I trust the hon. member will explain how milk was being sold by the farmers for only 98 cents in November and December, 1930, and the price was higher than that in July. I suppose that butter was selling for 26 to 27 cents a pound in July and for 29 or 30 cents in November and December.


Elie-Oscar Bertrand: I was
speaking of icheese which sold for 16 cents in July and 10i cents in February.
Mr.	GOBEIL	(Translation).	The	hon.
gentleman tells us now that he was speaking, of cheese; but at the time he told us he was discussing the question of milk and butter in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, our friends on the other side take the government severely to task for not having	improved	the situation	since	their
accession to power.
An hon. MEMBER (Translation):	They
have made it worse.
Mr.	GOBEIL	(Translation):	And our
friends wish to know why. Eveiy reasonable Canadian knows the government have done all in their power, no matter what our friends opposite may pretend. But, Mr. Speaker, if the government have not succeeded in doing all they could have done since the beginning of the present session it is chiefly because our Liberal opponents seem to have forgotten that they are not running this country any longer. These gentlemen think they are still a part of the government. How can they expect the government to make any progress when they go on talking, day after day-
Aon hon. MEMBER (Translation):	Just
like you.	.


Samuel Gobeil: -on matters of no import, on questions which can never contribute one iota to the improvement of the present state of affairs. Five weeks were taken up .by the debate on the address, while two would have been ample.


Elie-Oscar Bertrand: Mr. Speaker-	[DOT]
Some hon. MEMBERS (Translation): Order, order. Sit down.
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Elie-Oscar Bertrand: If the
farmers of Compton-


Samuel Gobeil: Mr. Speaker, if the hon members-


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Unless the hon. member permits a question, he cannot be interrupted. When the hon. member for Prescott (Mr. Bertrand) was speaking this afternoon, he was given a courteous hearing.


Samuel Gobeil: I fully appreciate how difficult it must be for hon. members to realize that they are no longer in power. Fifteen or twenty years from now when the Canadian electorate will think the time has come for another change, we will probably feel the same Way. The sooner our friends of the opposition realize they are out of office and are not running the country any longer the better it will be for the country. The government will then be able to improve the financial situation of Canada.
I am pleased to admit, Mr. Speaker, that our friends to your left are not lacking in courage. The hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Verville) must be courageous indeed to treat the subject he spoke on this afternoon. He spoke on the question of pulpwood and asked the government what they intended doing to put this industry back on its feet. The hon. member should know that the federal government has nothing whatever to do with the industry in question and cannot move a finger to improve the situation; he must know also that if this industry is in a bad way it can thank the government to which the hon. member is friendly, the Liberal government in Quebec province. In the space of ten years the pulp industry in Quebec increased by over 600 per cent. The Quebec government, in spite of repeated warnings, in spite of the protests of those who were most familiar with conditions in the pulp and pulp-wood industry, the Quebec government, I say, went on selling our forests in an outrageously extravagant way.


Sir EUGENE FISET (Translation):: They were leased.


Samuel Gobeil: They were
sold.


Eugène Fiset: The
government leased them.


Samuel Gobeil: That is not
my belief. May I remind the hon. member for Rimouski (Sir Eugene Fiset) that I put no trust in 99-vear leases.
Some hon. MEMBERS (Translation): Order, order.


Eugène Fiset: Will my hon. friend allow me a question?


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I must advise the hon. member he has spoken for forty minutes.


Paul Mercier: Mr. Speaker, I had no intention of taking part in the discussion this evening, however, I was so amazed at the hon. member for Compton (Mr. Gobeil) referring to certain statements which he made in his speeches, or that his friends made throughout Canada and which had an important bearing on the results of the last election that I deemed it my duty to take part in the discussion. It is in vain that the hon. member quotes figures, it is useless for him to seek them in our statistics, or in the campaign literature previous to July 28, last, there is one feature which he will be unable to explain away, it is: that in the last election campaign, especially in Quebec, the Conservative candidates insisted that it was the butter imports from New Zealand which ruined the country and that if elected, they r^rnld put an end to it, that they would negotiate a new treaty and that the butter industry would flourish again in the farming counties of Quebec. Owing to these speeches, they were elected. Notwithstanding the figures you may quote regarding trade which readjusted itself in the course of September, October and November, as a result of legislation enacted by the Liberal government, you especially pledged yourself to stop all butter imports either from New Zealand or Australia. You did not carry out this pledge. It behooves you to tell your constituents so and I especially ask the hon. member for Compton what reception *would his constituents give him if he went back to his riding and told them: I have omitted to put into practice what I advocated previous to your electing me, and again I come to tell you, in May, 1931, that the King government is responsible for the unceasing butter imports to Canada.


Samuel Gobeil: Mr. Speaker,
I rise to a point of order. The hon. member for St. Henri (Mr. Mercier) has just stated that we have imported 6,000,000 lbs of butter. That is not correct.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order, order, order.


Samuel Gobeil: The Conservative government-


Mr. MERCIER (Translation):: I welcome
questions. I shall not act as you did a few moments ago when you refused to listen to those who wished to question you as to the accuracy of your figures or statements. You may put any question you wish, I shall courteously answer you. I may tell you that the importations of butter amounted to
6,000.000 lbs.

Agricultural Conditions
An hon. MEMBER (Translation): That is not correct.


Joseph-Alexandre Mercier: These are
the figures given by the hon. Mr. Stevens and reported in Hansard on April 27, last: Total, 6,375,100 lbs. Why did you allow these
6,000,000 lbs. of butter to enter Canada, when you had promised that not a pound of butter would enter the country? I am glad to hear that my hon. friend from Stanstead (Mr. Hackett) will presently take part in the discussion. He is a distinguished member of the Montreal bar, and an upright citizen as well, he will tell you how the Montreal merchants-


Samuel Gobeil: Will the hon.
member allow me to ask him a question?


Joseph-Alexandre Mercier: With
pleasure.


Samuel Gobeil: Will he tell
us which were the butter imports from New Zealand between August 1, and October 12, 1930?


Joseph-Alexandre Mercier: I have not the figures with me here. I ask you this question : why did you permit so "much butter to enter the country when you had given a pledge not to allow one pound to enter? You condemned the late administration. There is no need for me to seek in statistics to prove that 4, 5, 6 million pounds were allowed to enter the country. Why did you permit one single pound to enter?
Now, as the representative of a Montreal riding, I want to point out that our merchants of butter, cheese, eggs and other dairy products-to you *who represent the county of Compton and have stated in this house that the merchants of William Street take advantage of the farmers-our merchants, I say-are honest and do their best to dispose of their butter having in mind the best interest of both the consumer and manufacturer, if they did otherwise they would show very little business acumen, because the proper method is to purchase the butter and sell it at a profit and not to store it, with the perspective that it will have to remain in storage. I wish to state again that in the metropolis of Canada the merchants are honest and work in concert with the consumer and the farmer so as to give the former his money's worth and the latter a fair price for his products, while at the same time making an honest profit. There is, at present, an overproduction in Quebec, and that is what spoils the prices. We do not export more and we still import a little, thus the market is overflooded and the purchasing power is lacking. Unemployment has increased to such an extent that no sales are possible. Last Saturday butter retailed in
Montreal at 22 cents and sold wholesale at 19 cents. What was the price paid to farmers? About 17 or 18 cents, allowing a reasonable profit to the farmers. That is, sir, how the matter stands, that is the bogy that was dragged to and fro in Quebec, especially in the eastern townships where the farmers were told that ruin was staring them in the face because they were unable to sell their butter, because their cattle was being slaughtered, and the compensation was inadequate. Were the butter imports stopped? Was the testing and slaughtering of cattle discontinued since the last elections? I state that the evil is still existing. You promised to apply an unfailing remedy, to deftly put a stop to all the ills from which we suffer, and I find that you did not keep your pledges, that butter still continues to be imported and cattle to be slaughtered in the eastern townships as elsewhere.


Mr. J. T. HACKETT (Stanstead) (Translation) :: Mr. Speaker, I wish in a few words to answer the clear-cut question put by the hon. member for St. Henri (Mr. Mereier). When figures are quoted in such a way as to mislead so charming a gentleman as my hon. friend, I deem it necessary to explain the true meaning of their figures. I must say, Mr. Speaker, that the figures appearing on page 985 of Hansard are such as to convey a false impression to anyone who reads them.


Mr. VENIOT:: They are the government's own figures.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who gave them out?


Peter John Veniot: The government did.


John Thomas Hackett: The figures were given in answer to questions put with a skill to which the hon. gentleman from Gloucester (Mr. Veniot) is assuredly no stranger.


Peter John Veniot: I did not ask those questions.


John Thomas Hackett: At any rate, here are the facts: During the year ending March 31st, 1930, we imported 28,000,000 pounds of butter. During the year following our imports were
6.000.	000 pounds; but there is this further important detail that, out of the total of
6.000.	000 pounds, almost 5,000,000 entered Canada before the legislation passed at the emergency session last September came into force. That is the first point I wanted to clear up, Mr. Speaker.
But the matter does not end there. It must be borne in mind that, although butter is selling at a very low price just now, we ourselves are supplying Canada's requirements; our own Canadian producers are providing the butter needed by the Canadian consumer -something which had not happened, Mr. Speaker, since the notorious Australian treaty was negotiated by our friends to your left.
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Neither should it be forgotten that our prices here are higher than in London, that they are still above the world level, and further that no more butter is entering Canada from New Zealand. This latter source, practically inexhaustible, which caused such havoc in the eastern townships, need worry us no longer. We are receiving only a few pounds of butter from Australia.
The hon. member for St. Henri stated on the floor of the house tbait promises had been made to the effect that no more butter would be imported into Canada from across the sea. I do not know whether he himself heard any such promises made. People are prone to some exaggeration at election time. I may tell him in reply that I made no such promises. I was well aware that a contract existed between Canada and Australia, and that we had to live up to that contract. I understand that next summer representatives of the Australian Commonwealth are coming to Canada and that our ministers will avail themselves of the opportunity thus afforded to negotiate a new treaty, a new contract. Meanwhile we are bound by the contract entered into by our friends on the other side of the House.
That is about all I had to say on this much-discussed butter question. I want to emphasize to the house that since the legislation of last September came into force our imports have been limited to some two million pounds of butter, while during the previous year we had received 28 million pounds. It is true some 4 millions came into the country during the three months immediately preceding the enacting of that legislation.
The legislation of the short session helped the farmers in another way. Now the farmers in the neighbourhood of cities can for the first time enjoy the benefits of their own markets and sell their early produce without fear of what almost amounts to unfair foreign competition, either from the United States or from the islands of the Atlantic. They are well pleased with the laws passed last September. I do not believe a single member coming from the neighbourhood of Montreal, and who has truck-gardeners among his constituents, would dare claim that these people who after all, make up a respectable and considerable portion of our farming community, are not delighted with the new laws which have proven so beneficial to them.
Mr. Speaker, I rose to point out the misapprehension which has arisen from the answers appearing on page 985 of Hansard, and which I thought needed a word of explanation, to forestall any interpretation contrary to fact.


Mr. C. B. HOWARD (Sherbrooke) (Translation) :: Mr. Speaker, I wish to say a few
words in reply to the two hon. members who preceded me. I want to point out to the hon. member for Compton (Mr. Gobeil), in spite of the insinuations he made against the butter trade and the wholesale houses in the city of Montreal, that when the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) was looking for enlightenment and advice he did not go to the farmers, but to these very merchants in Montreal.
It is easy to say that not much butter is coming into Canada at the present time, and that a lot came in last year; but after all, whether our imports are large or small, what interests our eastern township farmers is not the quantity of butter entering the country, but the price at which butter is selling here today. It is an absolute fact that last Monday butter was selling on the Montreal market for 22 cents a pound. It is also a fact that a year ago, when we were receiving such large quantities of butter from New Zealand and Australia, butter sold for 35 cents a pound.
For the benefit of my hon. friend from Stanstead (Mr. Hackett) I note that to-day, for the first time in ten years I believe, the price of butter is a little lower in Montreal than in London.
Another conviction of mine is that the farmer is entitled to a steady market, like other producers strive to attain. When we see the Government in power put a duty on potatoes one day and remove that duty two weeks later, it seems to me that the farmers can have no idea where they are going, nor can the merchants, nor the other citizens of Canada.
I shall add one further word in reply to the hon. gentleman from Stanstead concerning this much talked-of page 985 of Hansard. I have every confidence in my esteemed friend, but I do not believe he answered the question, nor did he point out one single falsehood on page 985. I think the figures in question are accurate. I would probably accept them in preference to a good many figures quoted by hon. members on the government side. Let me draw the atteniion of the hon. members for Compton and Stanstead to what I find on page 985-it is there for all to see: from August 1st, 1930 to March 1st, 1931 the present government collected a duty of 1 cent per pound on Australian butter. On 1074 we find that under the King government the tariff on this same butter was 1.70 cents per pound. So the present government is actually putting a lighter duty on Australian butter this year than we did.

Agricultural Conditions
And that, as my hon. friend from St. Henri (Mr. Mercier) noted a while ago, despite Conservative pledges that if returned to power they would put a stop to the imports of butter from New Zealand and Australia.


John Thomas Hackett: Will the hon. gentleman (Mr. Howard) tell the house how much butter was imported into Canada from Australia during the time the rate was 1.7?


Charles Benjamin Howard: The answer is that the price of butter was a good deal higher then than it is now.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: Mr. Speaker, I noticed that the speeches delivered by Conservatives during the election campaign were entirely different from those we now listen to in the house. During the election our opponents claimed that no reason could justify the low prices paid for farm products. I recall that they told us then, that if Mr. Bennett was elected on July 28, the farm products would sell at a much higher price. I also recall asking my opponent in the riding of 1'Islet: How could Mr. Bennett increase the prices and negotiate favourable trade treaties with other countries, with a protective policy like the one he wishes to inaugurate in this country? His answer was: Mr. Bennett will blast open markets. I also, inquired: What means would Mr. Bennett take to increase the price of butter and the production of milk? His answer was: Mr. Bennett will seize the bull by the horns. I had never heard, sir, of such a policy, and I frankly admit that I was anxious to be present at the emergency session, so as to witness on the flour of the house these new dynamiters, these political toreadors who seize the bull by the horns. I confess I was somewhat disappointed. Once here, I perceived that these great statesmen had very little to say.
I listened to the hon. member for Mont-magny (Mr. LaVengne) during the election. He then proclaimed that 'he would see to it that the price of butter increased. Furthermore, he promised that 'the factories of Mont-magny would open their doors and give work to about 1,500 people, thus creating a market to help the farmers and should the doors remain closed, he pledged himself to give up his mandate. I notice that he has shifted his aim, he no more endeavours to have 'the doors of the Montmagny mills opened but is bent on having the name of Dominion of Canada changed to the Kingdom of Canada-this will be of great benefit to the farming class of Montmagny.
I also listened to the hon. Postmaster General (Mr. Sauve). He established a record in the last July elections by his eloquence. He carried Two Mountains without assistance, but once in the house no mention of agriculture is made. He does not even refer to the growing of couch-grass Which he advocated when leader of the opposition in Quebec.


Arthur Sauvé: I am afraid
that the hon. member is suffering from a delusion.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: I recall that the hon. Postmaster General at the time stated that it was a plant which would be useful in medicine. Let him take his medicine now that he is in Ottawa. The hon. Postmaster General shows no more desire for farming, he is now a man of letters. He has shifted his aim. He is busy dismissing postmasters who disagree with him.
The hon. member for Quebec-Monbmagny (Mr. Dorion) also made pledges. When he referred to hangers-on he had not in mind those of his riding. Now, the hon. member for Montmorency is in with them.


Charles Napoléon Dorion: You feel lonesome when you are out of it.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: That may be but the hon. member for Montmorency is not content with being in the manger, he feeds direct from the bag. The hon. gentleman is fond of interrupting, but let him not forget that with his small majority of 47 he cannot afford to play a big game and that we can dispense with his interruptions. He likes to be heard in this house, but those who are acquainted with him know fully well that in the riding of Montmorency there is a great Fall or Soo-


Charles Napoléon Dorion: Taschereau
will fall into it.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: -the swift
current of which accelerates the drop. As I do not wish to be misunderstood, I shall drop the subject.
An hon. MEMBER (Translation): It is Taschereau who is the Sot.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: That is a
chestnut, however, I think the hon. member for Montmorency is mistaken. He seems to take offence at my remarks. However, the Sault I make reference to-
An hon. MEMBER (Translation): -is the one who is just now making himself heard.

Agricultural Conditions


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: It is the Sault Montmorency which has been harnessed by civil engineers and which distributes light in the district of Quebec. On the other hand, the sot which the hon. member has in mind sheds no light neither in this 'house nor outside.


Charles Napoléon Dorion: Is the one we are listening to?


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: Let us drop the subject. This government has done nothing for the farming class. What hon. members endeavour to prove is that during the Liberal regime 28,000,000 pounds of butter were imported from New Zealand or Australia, while this year only 6,000,000 pounds were imported. What interests the farmers is not so much the quantity imported from Australia, but the price they get for their butter. They were haippier when they received, on July 28, 30 cents for their 'butter than they are to-day.
The $20,000,000 appropriated to relieve unemployment were of no benefit to rural districts because municipalities were too poor to take advantage of it, that is, to pay their quota. This means that the rural districts will be called upon to contribute their quota of this appropriation without having benefited by it through the identity card which means telling the farmers: you will be given no work as a means of earning your share of the $20,000,000, but you will be taxed for it all the same.
The repairs to wharfs in my county and that of Montmagny, for which appropriations had been voted by the house, were not carried out, this would, indeed, have been a great help to the farmers of our ridings. On the other hand, $2,000,000 were spent on the Welland canal without being not voted by the house.
I state, sir, that two-thirds of the money appropriated for public works in Quebec was not spent. In brief, there was no need to call a special session, there was no need of federal help to alleviate unemployment. The government had but one thing to do, that is, apply the money which was voted for public works in our counties. The government made a great stir over that $20,000,000, and proclaimed that, thanks to it, much suffering had been avoided throughout the country; yet, this year when conditions are 50 per cent worse, when unemployment has increased 50 per cent, that same government cuts off $38,000,000 from the estimates.
This is not rational, sir, or else I am greatly mistaken. $20,000,000 more last year to relieve unemployment, and when conditions are worse this year, $38,000,000 less toward relieving unemployment. Two million dollars is given to

the city of Quebec to alleviate unemployment while one million is withdrawn also to alleviate unemployment.
The farmers, sir, are already aware of the deceitful policy of this government, this money was of no benefit to them and they realize now that they will be taxed to the tune of $20,000,000. Through its tariff policy, the government has closed foreign markets to Canadian products and has increased the price of manufactured goods which the farmer is bound to purchase. In other words the farmer sells his products for almost nothing while he pays a very high price for what he needs. Take, for instance, the price of butter, it lent itself to much controversy and the hon. member for Compton, although deploring that butter was so cheap, seemed to assure us that the farmer was satisfied.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not at all.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: .... Its 22 cents was a reasonable price.
An hon. MEMBER (Translation): No, no, I beg your pardon.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: I have here
souvenirs of the last election. There was a great deal of this fine campaign literature distributed all over the country. Here is a pamphlet from Conservative headquarters in which it is stated that the cost of butter production in Canada, according to experts of Macdonald College, is 39 cents per pound. So that, at present, for each pound of butter produced the farmer loses 17 cents. In the face of such distressing conditions and especially after the speeches to which we listened in the course of the last election, I thought that the government would feel very depressed and that the Prime Minister would be in his seat to hear, at least, the hon. member for Compton. No one seems to care. The hon. Minister of Agriculture, himself, is as silent as a tombstone which lies in a grave yard of broken election pledges. When information is requested, what answers do we get? None. What information was I able to gather in regard to agriculture in my constituency? 1 was able to lay my hands on a document, " Bull Loaning Policy " that is all I found in it. On the first page, is seen a bull without horns. It is certainly not the government's bull which the Prime Minister was to seize by the horns, according to my opponent.
The farming class received nothing from the federal government and the farmers would be in great distress, in Quebec, had it not been for the provincial government's help. To give you an idea of the outlay made to help the farmers in our rural districts, let me point out that in the counties of 1'Islet and Kamou-raska, in connection with roads only, the

Agricultural Conditions
provincial government spent $329,000. For colonization purposes we are granted between $20,000 to $25,000 per year. Apart from this, the provincial government provide funds for the building of schools, up to an amount of $1,200 per year for each school so as to help primary education in rural districts. Those amounts just mentioned were given to help the farmers of l'lslet and Kamouraska; thanks to these grants we were able to face the present crisis. This is mot all that the provincial government has done. I know that, this year, in the newly settled districts of Kamouraska, Mont-magny and llslet, the provincial government had seed grain distributed free. This is how our provincial government administer the affairs of the province. I recall having seen, at the last session, in Quebec, grants given to those who wished to drain and break their land. I know that this is a policy that many approve, and I feel certain that the hon. member for Two Mountains (Mr. Sauve), who has always favoured agriculture, certainly approves of the measures advocated this year.
We have done a great deal, in Quebec, to help agriculture. Take, for instance, the riding of my hon. friend from Kamouraska (Mr. Bouchard), you will find there an experimental farm which was established in that county when that riding was represented in this house by the hon. Mr. Lapointe. I think, that this experimental farm is one of the first established, in the Quebec district at any rate. It is under Dominion control, admirably well managed by a man who is deserving of all our congratulations. This institution simply aims at spreading new farming methods and does not look forward to returns, but it is continuously experimenting for the benefit of the farmers. The government, however, .found that while this experimenting has its good points, the farmers could hardly obtain the necessary information and keep tab on the experiments tried in these agricultural schools. The system, therefore, of demonstration farms was resorted to in all the rural districts. These demonstration farms duplicate the experiments carried out on experimental farms in the presence of the farmer who is able to benefit by them. '
We also have an agricultural college at Ste. Anne de la Pocatiere. That is probably why we have as representative of Kamouraska one of the best scientific agriculturists of the province of Quebec. May I mention also that, this year, the. agricultural college was not forgotten. Our Quebec farmers are not so much behind the times as some may think. The Quebec government appropriated, this year, $200,000 for the agricultural college of Ste. Anne de la Pocatiere.
22110-83i
Who was the first, in Quebec, to foster the education of numerous agriculturists? It was the hon. Joseph-Edouard Caron, who loved farming, and had many a battle with the hon. member for Two Mountains. However, I think, that both worked to attain the same end because they were always very good friends.


Arthur Sauvé: We did not
fight, we discussed seriously.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: The hon.
Postmaster never fights. Although his fight was successful on July 28.
They trained a group of agriculturists who are now spread throughout the rural counties of Quebec. These men are destined to render great services to the farming dass. Not only do they teach scientific methods to farmers but they are well qualified to follow experiments which take place at experimental farms, they are there to see that the farmers of the various counties receive the grants made by Liberal or Conservative governments, they endeavour to teach the farmer and impress on him that there is always a market, especially for standardized farm products. Moreover, sir, these agricultural experts are found in every county, whether liberal or conservative, organizing farming competitions which are most useful to agriculture, as they stimulate and create a certain friendly intercourse between the leading farmers of various counties; and the young men take an interest in these demonstrations.
I know, sir, that everybody is, indeed, prompted by the same motives and is desirous of helping the farming class. We, from Quebec, have much sympathy with the citizens of the west in these difficult times. They can rest assured that we greatly sympathize with them in their present day trials. We have our own troubles and we hope to overcome them, thanks to the energy which characterizes the farmers of Quebec.
One suggestion I would like to make to the house. It is the fostering of small industries in our rural districts in order to decentralize industrial towns. There is an excellent instance of this decentralization in my county. In my native parish there exists an industry known as the L'lslet Foundry which specializes in stoves, heating system equipment and baths with an up-to-date enamel factory attached thereto. Thanks to this industry, the neighbouring parishes of llslet send the surplus of their population to these factories which gives them an opportunity to earn an honest living.
One hears a great deal about the advantages of our banking system. My connection with banks is not sufficiently extensive to consider
Agricultural Conditions

myself as a banking expert. Generally, when I deal with banks it is to negotiate a loan. I acknowledge that our banking system is a safe one but it also claims all the savings of our rural population, centralizing them in large cities-I noticed that in the United States- I do not like to quote the United States as an example or to copy their institutions, because I believe that our banking system is superior to theirs-I noticed, however, in the United States a banking system established with the aim of assisting the depositors and encouraging local industries. The depositor receives a reasonable interest for 'his money, however, what is most noticeable, is that banks cannot make loans outside of certain specified districts. That is, in a district like the counties of l'lslet and Montmagny, for instance, the banks would accept the savings of farmers, pay them 5 per cent on their deposits and the money could not be loaned outside the counties of l'lslet and Montmagny. This system would work splendidly here, because our farmers could place their savings-when they have any-with a sound banking institution, and feel assured that such funds will be used in industries known to them. This would prove a boon to our farmers, especially after the poor investments which have been made for some time past. I can state that within the last two years, in PIslet alone, S200.000 were lost in unprofitable investments. This represents the savings of, at least, two generations. Widows and heads of large families, who had with difficulty realized savings, were, in the space of a few weeks, ruined by swindlers who have the gift of convincing honest people to invest money in their schemes.
Mr. DORION Translation):	The Montmagny factories.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: 
Charles Napoléon Dorion: That is
Taschereau legislation.
Mr. FAFARD (Translation); I am not a lawyer, however, I think, that the hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Guthrie) could amend the criminal code.


Samuel Gobeil: Will the hon. member allow me to ask him a question?


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: No. It will
tire you out. The hon. member for Compton (Mr. Gobeil) may sit down. The hon. member has just discussed New Zealand butter; he now wishes to take up the embargo.


Samuel Gobeil: Do you approve of it?


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: The members on this side of the house are outspoken. I shall give you my views on the Russian embargo. Everyone in this house, whether French or English Canadian, Protestant or Catholic, are absolutely opposed to the policy prevailing in Russia. Everybody is opposed to such a policy.


Samuel Gobeil: Not the
Russian policy, but the embargo.


Joseph-Fernand Fafard: The hon. member is well informed: he thinks that bolshevism comes with coal. He intends to tell us that the Russian embargo is a splendid act of the government. He was not a member of this house when we were in office and the right hon. Mr. Mackenzie King moved the embargo on alcohol. This, sir, was a shock to the gentlemen on your right; still it was not to be compared with the Russian embargo. Notwithstanding this, England buys Russian wheat, and will continue to do so, she will purchase hats from Russia and stick the label "Made in England;" the Compton people will buy those hats. Instead of settling Russian affairs, let us settle ours, those of Canada.
You have as Prime Minister of Saskatchewan one of your friends whose policy is worse than that holding sway in Russia. The exodus of our people towards the United States has been referred to. It is therefore not to be wondered at, if French-Canadians instead of settling in Saskatchewan, where they are not allowed to speak their language, or even kneel down,

barely are they allowed to bring up a family,-should take the road which leads to the United States, where at least they are given hospitality. In what country are we living? I was in the United States, at Easter, visiting the beautiful city of Manchester. Who says that Canadians do not amount to much

Business of the House
in the United States? The mayor of Manchester, a city half English and half French, was a Mr. Moreau and he is a credit to that city. Travel through Massachusetts and visit the towns of Springfield and Holyoke; both at their city halls and their banks you will find French-Canadians in charge. Three weeks ago, I attended mass at Barry, in Vermont, and to my great surprise the priest, an Irishman whose French was somewhat deficient, was not ashamed to give his instructions and preach in both French and English. In leaving the church I wondered why in our own country, in Saskatchewan, the children were not allowed to learn their own language and practise their religion. Yet, it was the French-Canadian race that sent out the first pioneers and settlers to that western country. When comparing conditions, I thought to myself: We are worse off than they are in Russia.
I see, sir, that my time is almost up. I wish, in closing my remarks, to state that I am acquainted with what is going on in Quebec, I know the feelings of our rural districts, I also have some knowledge of the feelings which exist in cities, and if it is true to say that the Tory government has a majority to rule over us, it is also true to state that it is always liberalism which rules in the people's hearts.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, May 6, 1931.