1931-03-23

PRIVATE BILLS


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Bill No. 12, respecting Guaranty Trust Company of Canada.-Mr. Robinson.
Bill No. 13, respecting Grain Insurance and Guarantee Company.-Mr. Kennedy (Winnipeg).
Bill No. 14, respecting The Kettle Valley Railway Company.-Mr. Stirling.
Bill No. 15, respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.-Mr. Willis.

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On the orders of the day:
Hon. PETER HEENAN (Kenora-Rainy River):: In view of the fact that there is a
strike in Toronto on the part of eight hundred girls on the question of maintaining the principle of collective bargaining. I would like to ask the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) whether the government will not intervene for the purpose of trying to get the employees and employers together?


Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Prime Minister) :: The Minister of Immigration (Mr. Gordon), who is responsible in the house for the Labour department, happens at the moment to be absent. When he is in the house, perhaps later in the day, or, if not, to-morrow, he will give a reply. I am not familiar with the matter. No appeal has been made to me in connection with it.



UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

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On the orders of the day:
Peter Heenan: I have two other questions to ask
which I will endeavour to combine. One is based on a newspaper clipping contained in 22110-131
the Hamilton Herald of March 21, in connection with a meeting of the unemployed in the city of Guelph. The sentence I wish to refer to reads:
In the meantime, nothing can be done to relieve the unemployment in Guelph, as the council has no money to spend on the matter and no work to be done for some time.
There is also an article in the Fort Frances Times stating that the provincial government has stopped highway work between Kenora and Fort Frances owing to the fact that the appropriation has been spent. The work stopped in the middle of March and it is not anticipated that it will start again until some time in May. I should like to know what the government intends to do towards relieving the unemployed in those parts of the country?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The question can stand. The same
answer applies.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


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On the orders of the day:
Mr. CAMERON R. McINTOSH (North Battleford): May I ask a question of the Minister of Railways? What progress is being made in connection with the completion of the loop branch line extension of the Canadian National railways between North Battle-ford and Edmonton? It is an important branch line, and not only are Edmonton and North Battleford concerned, but other places such as St. Walburg, Red Cross, Loon Lake, Makwa and other points in "The North" on the Beaver river.
Hon. R. J. MANION (Minister of Railways and Canals):: Does the hon. gentleman refer to the St. Walburg-Bonnyville line?


Mr. McINTOSH:: Yes.


Robert James Manion: I have had many telegrams from bodies out there, claiming that the Canadian National Railways have discontinued the work. The reason for this action is that the earnings of the national railways have been decreased this year, necessitating a lessening 6f the charges on the railway. But having received so many complaints with regard to the great hardship that will be caused, I have made enquiries of the national railways and I am at present consulting with them in an effort to have at least enough work carried on to relieve unnecessary distress.
Acoustics of Chamber



PENSION EXAMINER AT SASKATOON

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On the orders of the day:
Mr. JOHN VALLANCE (South Battle-ford) :: I should like to direct a question to
the Minister of Pensions, arising out of a telegram I have received from the Unity branch of the Canadian Legion. The telegram reads:
Strongly protest any action regarding rumoured dismissal Doctor Cox, pension examiner at Saskatoon.
Is the rumour true?


Hon. MURRAY MacLAREN (Minister of Pensions and National Health):: That is
a matter that comes more especially under the Board of Pension Commissioners. I understand the rumour is not correct.



ACOUSTICS OF CHAMBER

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On the orders of the day:
Mr. PETER McGIBBON (Muskoka-Ontario):: I should like to ask the Prime
Minister if his advisers have found any way of improving the acoustic properties of this chamber. It seems too bad that probably one-third of the members can hear nothing that is being said. Something should be done at once.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The former administration exhausted
every scientific method at the disposal of governments for the purpose of endeavouring to make the necessary improvements, but without effecting the end to be desired. I can only say to the hon. member for Mus-koka that what they did not accomplish we may be able to do, but so far such is not the case.



VANCOUVER-SECOND NARROWS BRIDGE

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On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. E. MUNN (Vancouver North):: Has the Minister of Marine received any report of the engineers on the Second Narrows bridge at Vancouver, and if so, what action will be taken? I understand the report was made recently.


Hon. ALFRED DURANLEAU (Minister of Marine):: I have already answered a similar question asked by another hon. member.


Albert Edward Munn: Several days ago.


Alfred Duranleau: Yes. A report has
been received, but it is a very long one, and it has not yet been sufficiently considered. I do not know whether it will be advisable or not to table the report.



SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


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The house resumed from Friday, March 20, consideration of the motion of Mr. Max D. Cormier for an address to His Excellency the Administrator in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Mackenzie King.
Mr. PIERRE F. CASGRAIN (Charlevovx-Saguenay): Mr. Speaker, in listening on Friday last to the remarks of the hon. member for Montmagny (M. LaVergne) one must have been reminded of the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. The hon. member stood in the temple of pretence and proclaimed his merits at large: I thank Thee, O Lord, because I am a good Canadian, because I am a good Tory, because I am a man who lives, not on bread alone, but on the spirit of life that cannot be extinguished. I thank Thee because I am not like the materialistic Liberals who still believe that bread is necessary to the sustenance of life, and who are such bad people as to raise prejudices and to dare to love their country in a different way from that in which I do. Amenl Well, Mr. Speaker, I am not a Tory, as everybody knows. I claim to be a good Liberal and a good Canadian.
The hon. member for Montmagny, in his virtuous indignation, said that he wanted to unmask the Liberals. But in his haste to do so, he pulled off his own mask and exposed himself in his true colours. We know now where he stands. He is a bitter partisan, a Tory, and a bad one at that. If the hon. member sits where he is to-day, it is because he cannot find any other place in party politics elsewhere in this country, and surely we do not want him here; we want him to stay there. The hon. member went far back into history to revive dead issues and accuse us of raising prejudices. I shall not attempt to cover all the ground he travelled over, because I do not think it would be in the interests of the country at the present moment, and certainly it would in no way help to solve the problems of the day. The hon. member for Montmagny, however, ought to know that if prejudices were raised to the highest pitch in this country at any time, it was not by the Liberals of Quebec, but by some other people who are called Tories in various parts of the other provinces of Canada, and particularly in 1911, again in 1917, and at the elections following. It will be a great source of comfort to the house to know that the hon. member for Montmagny can be re-

The Address-Mr. Casgrain
lied on to indicate the faults and errors of parties on both sides of the house. We feel sure that his hon. leader will appreciate the sense of criticism of his new recruit and will thoroughly enjoy the performance of the Liberal-Nationalist, now the Tory member for Montmagny.
The hon. member for Montmagny also said he felt proud of being a Christian and a good citizen of Canada when he read the announcement by the Prime Minister that Canada would have nothing to do with Russia. Most of us in the province of Quebec also fedt as proud as he did on that occasion, but I think the hon. member for Montmagny, if he has a little bit of good in the bottom of his heart, could not have felt himself to be such a good Christian last Friday when he made such a bitter attack on the memory of our past revered leader, the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier. It was really sad to hear the hon. member accusing such a noble statesman, one of the greatest and one of the most cherished in our history, and yet the hon. member for Montmagny spoke of his having betrayed his country and his people. Such words, Mr. Speaker, bear in themselves their own condemnation. Suffice it to say, that posterity will judge who best served his country, whether the hon. member for Montmagny or the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier. When the hon. member will be no more, his name will have fallen into complete oblivion, while the memory of our revered leader, the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier, will live on forever, and his name will go down in history as one of the greatest statesmen that Canada has ever produced, indeed as one of the greatest statesmen of the British Empire.
Coming back to the speech from the throne, a reading of it is rather amusing. It conveys the impression that the people of Canada ought all to rise and sing for joy at having at the head of affairs in this country such a wonderful government to direct Canada at this time. Yet, Mr. Speaker, we have been sitting here for over a week listening to speeches in this debate, and as yet we have heard no member of the administration of to-day but the Prime Minister himself, in defence of his own administration. Not one of his ministers dares to stand up. Possibly the Prime Minister might not allow them to do so, and yet the right hon. gentleman is sad at heart when we call this a one-man- government. The Prime Minister was the only member of the government who attempted to say anything in answer to the speech of my hon. leader the
other day, and in his attempt I think you will admit, Mr. Speaker, that he utterly failed. The speech made by my hon. leader last Monday stands, I think, as one of the most wonderful and serious indictments that ever was laid at the door of any government, and yet to-day that indictment stands unanswered. As one newspaper so well put it, anyone who had any doubts that the speech from the throne was written by the hand of the Prime Minister was grievously mistaken. Anyone who is familiar with the doings of the leader of the government must have known from a reading of the speech that from beginning to end it was the work of the Prime Minister. A more nebulous pack of promises there never was-vague promises, nothing definite in relation to the problems that we have to face to-day.
Some hon. members from the west have asked questions of the hon. leader of the government, and quite properly so. They have asked him where was the agricultural policy of the government of to-day-a policy that is so badly needed to settle the difficulties of the west at the present time. No answer. Then hon. gentlemen on our side of the house have put to the leader of the government some most pertinent questions affecting their ridings. No answer. Apparently the right hon. the Prime Minister is not so much concerned with these matters as with running his own government alone-all the departments of the administration. Instead of immediate relief being afforded or in prospect, the man on the street looks in the speech from the throne in vain for anything constructive.' There cannot fail to be anxiety in the face of such a world crisis as that through which we are passing at the present time, when the only thing in prospect in the near future for the people of this country is more taxation to meet the huge deficit which the speech states we have to face to-day, and also to fulfil some of the costly promises which the government has made in order to get into power.
The speech from the throne states that in this period of universal distress our country has not suffered as much as other nations have. We are willing to admit the truth of that statement. But we disagree with the government when the speech from the throne states that our difficulties are not the consequence of the universal crisis, but are antecedent thereto, and that domestic factors have largely determined the degree of economic distress from which this country is suffering to-day. Let us examine those two statements for a moment, Mr. Speaker, to see if we can
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reconcile them. It is a well-known fact that in an influenza epidemic, for instance, those who suffer most are those who are tired out, worn down, and unable to put up any resistance. Yet we are told in the speech from the throne that Canada of all nations in the world will perhaps get on its feet the quickest. If that is so, the policies of the late administration could not have been so nefarious and injurious as the government has pretended that they were.
I need not repeat here to-day the figures that were placed on Hansard by my hon. leader in his speech last Monday. They show the wonderful progress of Canada under Liberal administration during the nine years my hon. leader was at the head of the government. Everybody knows that up to the middle of July last year, Canada stood fifth in world trade, but to-day it has receded from that position, and since the 28th of July last Canada has had to take a back seat.
When the speech from the throne also comments on the Unemployment Relief A'ct passed last session, we. cannot all agree with what it says, nor can we agree when the speech talks about the marked improvement in the domestic situation that has come about as a result of the changes made in the tariff last September. The government promised that factories would spring up here and there to keep our people employed. We were promised that work would be procurable in abundance throughout the country. During the last electoral campaign in every parish of my constituency my opponent promised that following July 28 the pulp and paper factories would be working six days per week instead of three days. To-day the same pulp and paper factories with few exemptions are closed. To-day I received letters from my people at Beaupre saying that the main industry there, the paper mills of the Ste. Anne Paper Company, Limited, are closed for a period of over a year and a half. The government now in office promised it would give employment to everybody and that the factories would be working full time. To-day we read in the newspapers that even in the good city of Toronto things are not as satisfactory as they should be. In the paper of March 22 we read:
Unemployed angered. Arson attempted when work was not forthcoming.
In this instance certain people went to obtain work and conditions were so bad that apparently they had to take the law in their own hands in order to get it. Mr. Speaker, the conditions I have outlined should not exist in this country especially in view of the bill passed by the government last September.

A hundred workers are going to Russia.
This is proclaimed in a headline of the Gazette of March 18.
Toronto Star says party of mechanics will leave in May.
Then the Gazette despatch continues:
Toronto, March 18.-"Soviet Russia's worldwide plea for skilled mechanics and expert craftsmen has been answered by 100 Toronto bricklayers, carpenters, technicians and contractors, who have been guaranteed employment in the Soviet Union and will leave Canada early in May. Arrangements for sailing have been made," the Toronto Star says to-day.
The party will be composed of Russians, Canadians, Frenchmen, Finlanders and other nationalities. Wives and children will travel with the heads of the households and many will carry with them their personal belongings.
We were promised that we would have more work after the present government took office but in a great city like Toronto where work is supposed to be procurable in abundance and where factories are working full time the people are forced to leave their own land in order to secure work in Soviet Russia. Will this government countenance such actions when it has placed a ban on Russian goods and has said "We will have nothing more to do with Russia"? I would be pleased if the government would take such action in the matter as would obviate the necessity of our own people leaving Canada to go to Russia. We know that the unemployment situation in Canada is as bad as, if not worse than, it was last July. I think previous speakers have placed figures on Hansard to show that the number of unemployed in Canada has now reached over 300,000. As one who has been looking around in the city of Montreal I say the Unemployment Relief Act of 1930 has not brought the results hon. members opposite expected it would. To my own knowledge Mr. Speaker, in the city of Montreal there are many unemployed and too many asking for help and assistance. Out of the moneys which were voted last September a certain amount was allocated to the city of Montreal, but up to the present time the best help and assistance which the unemployed have been able to secure has been derived from money received as the result of the few snow storms which we have had in that city. Certainly the leader of the government is not able to take credit for those storms. The works in the city have barely begun and employ but a few hundred people. The Canadian National terminal in Montreal is the only public work being proceeded with and God knows the work has been systematically hindered and delayed by the executive council of the city﻿MARCH 23, 1931
The Address-Mr. Casgrain
of Montreal which was more anxious to promote its own interests than those of the community. I learn from to-day's issue of the Montreal Gazette that the same city council has visited this city of Ottawa during the week end and has succeeded in obtaining from this government another extension of time and delay. They are trying to have their own views prevail in the matter which means, Mr. Speaker great delay in the relief of the unemployed in the city of Montreal. The operations of the Canadian National Railways have reached a standstill and an attempt has been made to spoil the policy adopted by the late government in the year 1929. If we have read the Montreal newspapers we will have seen that the situation is not satisfactory. For instance on March 13 Le Canada contained the following heading, over an article prepared by one of the reporters who had been around the city of Montreal and had visited the various works being carried on by the city:
The relief of unemployment Such are the facts ascertained hy a reporter of the "Canada" in the course of a visit to each yard
We notice that some of the men who were working were not our own good French Canadians but were foreigners. In the Montreal Gazette of March 6, 1931, under the heading Unemployed Relief System Described as Totally Wrong we have a statement made by Dr. Pedley who is at the head of the Hygiene Faculty of McGill university. In the article Dr. Pedley tells of the conditions in the city of Montreal. I think I shall read his statement as contained in the newspaper to which I have referred; so that you may have his opinion concerning the working of the relief act of 1930. I quote as follows:
Money voted might as well have been thrown into sewer. Director of Montreal Council of Social Agencies charges demoralization follows haphazard policy.
Criticism of Montreal's unemployment relief methods coupled with the declaration that the moneys voted for direct relief by the government might just as well have been thrown in a sewer, marked an address by Dr. F. G. Pedley, director of the Montreal Council of Social Agencies and assistant professor of industrial hygiene at McGill university, on "Unemployment relief in Montreal in 1930-31," before members of the Lions club yesterday at a luncheon meeting in the Mount Royal hotel. Unemployed men in Montreal had been given much food but no constructive help, he maintained. Their stomachs were filled, but neither the city nor the relief agencies had an intelligent plan to "put the men on their feet."
"Our whole system is wrong," Dr. Pedley maintained. "Giving something for nothing is a faulty system, one which undermines the morals of the unemployed, makes them
dependent upon others. We should demand some services of those to whom we administer unemployment relief."	_
He stressed that in some cities-particularly in the west, those to whom relief is given are made to pay for it by working. Winnipeg had its unemployed earning relief by labour in the municipal wood yards. Until Montreal was in a position to make the men work for relief, the system of relief as practised at present in the city was dangerous and devoid of constructive help.	.
The Dominion government, at a special session, had voted $20,000,000 to the direct and indirect relief of the unemployed, the speaker recalled. Of this sum $4,000,000 was scheduled for direct relief. Montreal's share of that sum was $150,000, granting that both the Quebec government and the city council would give similar amounts. The total in the city for direct relief, therefore, was $450,000, and this sum was already nearly exhausted with the worst part of the winter still to come.
Public Works Fail
"The public works undertaken by the city to relieve the unemployed have given little relief," Dr. Pedley declared. "Our records show that unemployment in the city has hardly been reduced through these works. The number of destitute men, helpless because they are unemployed, has not changed."
"We have been giving relief," he continued, "but we have tried to do the job too well though we are criticized for our parsimonius attitude. We have given Montreal a name as a good place for the hard-up to spend the winter in; next winter we will probably be stormed by destitute people who have heard this despite our great reluctance to give publicity on what relief work we are doing, of what is being done here for the hard-up and unemployed. Our system is entirely wrong."
He added that Montreal's relief system was productive of demoralization in the ranks of the unemployed. Their morale went with the definite assurance that they could keep on benig unemployed for they would always have a bed and three meals a day, and this without work or effort.
"The money being spent by the government on this kind of relief might just as well be thrown in the sewer," Dr. Pedley stated, adding:	"The situation is this:	No man goes
hungry in Montreal. There is an abundance of food, but no intelligent plan to put the men on their feet. There is great laxity in the system.
The system of relief work in the city of Montreal has been in the hands of the executive committee of the city of Montreal, which is friendly to the present government, and this is the result. The money voted by parliament at the special session last September has been spent without bringing about any substantial relief of the unemployment situation in that city. In the rural districts the situation is not much better. As was said by the Hon. Mr. Francoeur, Minister of Public Works in the provincial government, the Dominion government should have consulted the various provincial governments with respect to the distribution of the unemploy-
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ment relief fund. At many places the works for which money was appropriated are not yet under way, and will not be before the snow is all gone. In other words the rules and regulations framed by the hon. Minister of Labour are such as to render it practically impossible for municipalities to undertake any work for fear of running into debt and thus being obliged to tax the ratepayers to make good any deficiency in the federal appropriation. Under those rules and regulations money from the unemployment relief funds could not be used for repairs to churches or to public buildings belonging to school commissions or fabriques, and as a result many municipalities were unable to avail themselves of that measure of relief for their unemployed.
The late administration, Mr. Speaker, in the last session of the last parliament voted large sums of money for various public works in the province of Quebec, but some of those works have not yet been undertaken. In the city of Montreal, for instance-and the hon. member for St. James (Mr. Rinfrei) referred to it last week-$1,500,000 was appropriated for the purpose of constructing certain wharves in the harbour. That work has not yet been proceeded with. Certain votes for public works in my own riding have not yet been applied and, of course, no work has been done. I refer particularly to proposed public works at Pointe au Pic and Baie Ste. Catherine. If the money so voted had been expended on those various undertakings it would have afforded substantial relief of the unemployment situation in that district where now the people are idle. Is the government playing politics? Is it delaying expenditure of the money because of the fact that the member for the county is sitting on this side of the house? Does the government think that if the money is expended on certain public works at a later date the political effect of such expenditure will be to its advantage?
As has been stated by other members who have preceded me in this debate, farm products to-day are selling at lower prices than ever before. Butter-that played so prominent a part in the campaign of my hon. friends opposite-is selling at lower prices than prevailed last July. The same remark applies to cheese and eggs. Wheat has touched the lowest point for over thirty years and is selling at less than the cost of production. At the special session the Prime Minister promised to find a market for our wheat and to eliminate the competition from Russia and the Argentine. He went to England, and we all know he failed to secure the British market for our wheat. He tried also to find a market for it in China, but there again he failed.
JAr. Casgrain.]
He went to France, and as a result of his interviews with the French authorities we were led to suppose that France would take a substantial quantity of our wheat, but from what I have heard recently our exports to France will be in the neighbourhood of what she usually buys from us.
An hon. MEMBER:: Less.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: Yes, the amount will be less. He tried also to negotiate a treaty with France to supersede that negotiated by the late administration. In this instance also the results do not appear to be very encouraging.
The treaties with Australia and New Zealand were denounced on the floor of this house by our hon. friends opposite and during the general election of last July they told the people that if returned to power they would negotiate new treaties that would be of much greater advantage to Canada. After the Imperial conference we were told the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) had been able to come to a very satisfactory arrangement with the representatives of the Australian and New Zealand governments, but we have heard no more about those proposed treaties, of the wonderful attempts made to negotiate better treaties than those negotiated by the late administration. I dare say that the results will not show any improvement on those obtained by the late government.
During the absence of the Prime Minister in England a plan was launched by the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company for a credit organization to help the farmers of the west through their present difficulties by enabling them to adopt mixed farming. I should be ready to commend this plan if it were likely to be productive of good results, but from what I have heard from members from the west during the course of this debate the plan does not seem likely to be of much practical use to the farmers of western Canada. We need at the present time-and this view is shared by hon. members from the west-wider and freer markets, better credit facilities and lower freight rates, and until these are obtained the government will not be in a position to say that it has been able to settle any of the economic problems now bearing so heavily on this country, particularly the prairie provinces.
In the speech from the throne we are told that the government intends to reduce, the cost of production to the farmers in an effort to help them in their present difficulties. How can this possibly be brought about when the cost of nearly all the commodities needed by the farmer has been increased by about 300

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per cent as a result of the tariff amendments that were put into force at the special session? At that time we were promised that the legislation then enacted would stimulate business and relieve unemployment, if not cure it, without raising prices to the consumer. But the Prime Minister had not reached England when the glass producers in Canada increased their prices to such an extent that he was communicated with and authorized his Minister of National Revenue to withdraw the increased tariff duties on glass. The tariff amendments at the special session were also intended to help the textile and steel industries, but statistics show that the greatest decrease in employment is found in those two industries and also in the pulp and paper industry. As a result of the legislation brought down by the government last September, trade and industry to-day are stagnant. Business during the last six months shows a downward trend. It is useless to think that by closing our markets to imports we shall be able to increase our exports. To-day we have to face a substantial increase in the national debt with a decrease in revenue from customs and excise duties and sales tax. We have a deficit of over $100,000,-
000.	Yet we are told by the government that they intend to make a further revision of the tariff. Nobody after our experience since last September can believe for a moment that such a policy will bring about good results. We cannot but deplore the fixed idea of the government that protection and still higher protection is the only panacea for the evils of the body politic. The sooner the government changes its ideas on the tariff the better it will be for the country. The tariff policy of this administration appears to be an expedient rather than a solution of our economic troubles. In fact for a country such as Canada with its diversified production a high tariff wall is not at all feasible. I think I cannot do better, Mr. Speaker, than to read to this house an opinion that was given by an economist in the review published by La Banque Canadienne Nationale during the month of October, 1930. This opinion was as follows: The greatest danger of protectionism is that it lends itsellf to abuses. Producers are organized while consumers are practically unorganized, so that the claims of the "former are always much more strongly put forward than -those of the latter. Moreover, the advantage which an excess of protection confers upon a group of producers are far more in evidence than the hardships inflicted on the masses of consumers. Protection calls for protection. When the government intervenes on behalf of an industry others in their turn claim intervention on the score of fairness, and when a state initiates a measure of protection other states are inclined to follow
in its footsteps in order to equalize the competition.
Likewise excess of protectionism includes its own corrective protection by becoming general, loses part of its efficiency. The countries which adopt high protection strive to develop their exportations and restrict their imports. However, when a great number of countries endeavour to sell to other countries the greatest quantity of goods possible and purchase the least possible, it is a foregone conclusion that international trade must slow up so much the more so that in all these countries the excessive customs duties increase the cost of living as also the cost of production and reduces the purchasing power. Hence the necessity of negotiating trade treaties, in order to abate the ills brought about by protectionism. So through force of circumstances, we are brought back to this basic principle, that trade is an exchange.
This, Mr. Speaker, is the view expressed by a person who is not supposed to be a partisan, but who is engaged in finance and who expresses this opinion in a review published broadcast throughout Canada by such an outstanding bank as La Banque Canadienne Nationale.
In the speech from the throne, we are promised a new tariff board. Well, Mr. Speaker, we had a tariff board previously, appointed by the last administration. This tariff board acted in an advisory capacity; it was supposed to collect and as a matter of fact did collect most valuable information, after numerous hearings at which manufacturers, producers and consumers alike were heard freely and at length as to the changes which might be made in the tariff. The government then had the advantage of such intelligent investigation, and knew what it was going to do. Why should this board have been abolished six months ago, when the government of the day apparently finds it necessary to appoint a new one now? Is it to promote some friends of the government? This is hardly being done nowadays, under the new regime. This new board apparently will be composed of members selected by the present administration, and knowing the leader of the government as we do know him I dare say that those who will be appointed to the board will be staunch protectionists. We all know that under this board appointed by the present government there will be only one idea, that of raising the tariff and protecting industries in which there are numerous friends of the present administration. That will be the case if the new board adopts the attitude of the members of the government who received delegations which came to present their views in Ottawa about a month ago, and to which my hon. friend from St. James (Mr. Rinfret)

The Address-Mr. Casgrain
referred the other day. Certainly if that is the case this new board will attain no results, because when the leader of the government was to have received a delegation which appeared a few weeks ago, he did not listen to the members of the delegation at all but went away before they arrived. I am afraid that under the present administration this new board will be not a tariff board but a tariff farce.
We are also given to understand that possibly this board will have statutory powers, which was not the case with the old board. These statutory powers may give this board the right to raise or lower the tariff at its own discretion. Well, Mr. Speaker, if the government really intends granting such power to this board we on this side of the house could not possibly vote for such a measure, because I think it would be a direct departure from the rights and privileges which the members of this parliament must exercise with regard to the supervision of the taxation of the people of this country and the raising of revenues. Those are the exclusive rights and privileges granted to members of parliament by the British North America Act.
Another most amazing statement in the speech from the throne, Mr. Speaker, is the allusion to the success of the Imperial conference. Those who listened to the enlightened speech of our leader must realize that nothing is so far from the truth. The propositions that were brought up by the Prime Minister of Canada at that conference were, after careful consideration, flatly turned down and dismissed. The other members of the conference said, "We cannot accept that proposition." They nearly sent the Prime Minister home. The conference was practically a fiasco because of the Prime Minister of Canada, and it was only to save his face that the conference was adjourned to meet this summer in Ottawa. After the conference the Prime Minister travelled extensively through Europe. Wherever he went I do not think he brought any credit to this country. He has acted as a stormy petrel, and I believe he did nothing that could be called good advertising and good publicity for this country. Rather I would be inclined to say that he has lowered Canada in the estimation of the other nations of the world. The right hon. gentleman who runs this country is full of schemes.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: I think "running this country " is the proper expression. He had many great schemes during the last election and during the last session of parliament.

My right hon. leader has pointed out all his promises and all his schemes, and they are in Hansard both for this session and for the short session in September last. To-day, however, we have a new scheme of national development, including old age pensions, technical education and highway development. But, Mr. Speaker, the government is more careful to-day; they say that these matters will be proceeded with after careful consideration, and by progressive stages. I am glad to see that the right hon. gentleman who runs the government is progressing, in a way. We heard all about old age pensions, technical education and national highways during the last session of parliament, but the right hon. gentleman then promised that we would have these things immediately. He wanted to get into power then, but to-day, now that he is in power, he asks for more time.
According to the speech from the throne we are also to have more effective control of finances and over government purchases. With such a leader as the present leader of the government I am a little afraid of all these controls; I fear they may injure the credit of this country and they may even be detrimental to the party headed by the right hon. gentleman. We had such controls before, under the Union government, and God knows what they cost the country. If the government really wants to practise economy and do something useful I think they should out off some of the departments that perhaps are not necessary to-day, such as the Depart-of the Interior. If the right hon. gentleman who leads the government is going to do all the work of all the departments he might even do away with some of the ministers who at present are not so over-burdened with work that they are necessary to this house or to the federal government. The hon. gentleman appears to have been very busy since he came into power; he has made many attempts to solve the problems of to-day, but has had little success. Let me show what one of his own friends said about him in 1917. I find in Hansard for that year that the late Sir Sam Hughes, referring to the right hon. gentleman who leads the government to-day, and speaking in connection with another scheme of his, the National Service Commission, said:
He has brought bad luck to every undertaking, every interest, every man with whom he has been associated. . . . He stands as having been the head of the greatest failure that ever occurred in the public life of the Dominion of Canada.
Yes, the right hon. gentleman indeed has brought bad luck to this country; I think he has brought failure as well, and I believe

The Address-Mr. Bovrman
if he stays in office for any length of time he will bring bad luck and failure to his own party.


Mr. J. L. BOWMAN (Dauphin):: May I
join with those hon. members who have already spoken in extending to the mover and seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the throne my congratulations upon the very able and excellent manner in which their duties have been discharged. May I also commend the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) and his cabinet for the very earnest and sincere efforts put forth by them towards the solution of those grave problems with which they have been faced since assuming office, and the great measure of success with which these efforts have met. I would also express the appreciation which is felt by the people of Canada.
It is, of course, to be expected that remarks of this nature would be made on this side of the house. But to my mind a much greater tribute to the government of the day has undoubtedly been paid them unconsciously by hon. members opposite. This debate has been in progress for approximately a week. During that time the right hon. the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) has spoken in a fervent and eloquent address, every word of which denoted the most careful preparation; and he has been followed by many hon. members opposite in addresses in similar vein. But during all those addresses we have not had a single constructive suggestion from the opposite side of the house, saving that which I think was made by the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote) with respect to currency. This, it seems to me, indicates pretty definitely that in the main what should have been done in the way of good government has been done by the government in power to-day.
May I, as representing a constituency in western Canada much interested in agriculture, say a few words in that regard. Sentiments with respect to agriculture have been expressed by so many hon. members that it is pretty difficult to speak on the subject without more or less repeating what has already been said. But very briefly, the situation in agricultural communities is this: that the farmer is not realizing for his agricultural products returns in proportion to what he is paying for the goods which he purchases. There are one or two matters in that connection to which I might definitely refer. There has been in the west for many years a very strong feeling that the price of machinery to the farmer is too high. That opinion has been prevailing in my own constituency not only since 1929 but for some years previously. They have the idea, and I must say it is an idea shared by myself, that the cost of farm machinery is altogether too high. I have not seen last year's financial statement of the Massey-Harris Company, but I understand that that statement purports to show a loss of approximately two million dollars. If that is true-and I have no reason to doubt the truth of the statement-then something 13 wrong somewhere. Judging from the experience of the farmers in my own district, I would say it is because of one thing at least. The company were not selling as much machinery as they should, and the only reason they are not selling that machinery is the fact that it is beyond the means of the farmer in western Canada.
Personally, I do not know, I frankly confess, whether the price of farm machinery is too high or not. But there surely is a way for this house to find out the facts, and I would offer this very humble suggestion. We hav? a standing committee on agriculture empowered, I understand, to bring before it any person or persons to give evidence upon any points respecting which evidence is desired, and I would suggest that the machine companies of Canada be brought before that committee. In that way we should find out what ought to be proper prices, or whether prices are right or not. We shall know definitely just what margin of profit there has been on these articles and whether or not they can be sold at what would appear to be a less prohibitive price.
The hon. member who has just spoken (Mr. Casgrain) referred to the Canadian Pacific Railway scheme announced by the president of that railway, Mr. Beatty. I agree with the hon. gentleman that some good may come of this cooperation. But I say this, that the amount of capital is so small that it is entirely inadequate to meet the call even in western Canada or in a very small portion of western Canada to-day. I do think there is one thing that the farmers throughout Canada desire to-day, and that is credit. I think perhaps the west would have been better off in years past if we had had less credit. But the fact remains that we have become accustomed to receiving credit from the banks, and now when it is needed most we find it pretty well cut off in agricultural communities. I say that in no spirit of animosity to the banks at all; I am merely stating the simple fact that in my own constituency, as well as in others in the west, credit to farmers who are deserving of credit has not been given.
The question of interest rates is important. I think the interest rates in the west are too
The Address-Mr. Bowman

high. They might very well be adjusted. I am not asking credit on behalf of the farmer without any means or without something behind him; all I ask is that the banks extend reasonable credit on a reasonable basis of security.
Much has been said with respect to the price of wheat. Surely no fault can be attributed to this government for the present price of wheat. I note in the reference to wheat by the hon. gentleman who has just spoken, that he simply calls the attention of the house to the fact that the price of wheat has gone down since this government assumed office. I note this, however, that there has been no suggestion at any time since this house opened, from any hon. member opposite, as to what could or might have been done by the government to increase the price of wheat. And so in respect also to the matter of butter. Had we not so many millions upon millions of pounds of butter in cold storage brought in from New Zealand, perhaps the price in Canada to-day would be much better than it is.
There have also come from many quarters of the house tales of hardship from western Canada. I would say, in respect to the province of Manitoba where I have lived practically all of my life, that the people of that province are not broke. They may be badly bent, but they are still in the field and they will see this thing through. All that we in Manitoba ask is that the agricultural interests of western Canada be assisted to the greatest possible extent.
I wish to refer to certain remarks made in the house on Friday last by the hon. member for Montmagny (Mr. LaVergne) when he intimated that the foreign elements of western Canada were undesirable, inclined to bolshevism and the cause of racial division in the west. Surely my hon. friend has been misinformed. Let me say definitely and positively that western Canada is not racially divided. What little talk of secession there has been in the west has been grossly exaggerated; a mountain has been made out of a molehill, and anyone having a knowledge of the situation will agree with the statement of the hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull) that there is no substantial movement for secession in western Canada. Let me further emphasize that the few in number who have been responsible for all the furore are by no means all foreign-born. Speaking for Manitoba, the oldest province in the west, I have yet to hear of a single suggestion of secession from any person in my province. The bare thought of it does not exist and I would remind the 
bouse that the population of Manitoba is approximately 675,000. In the next place, if there are in Canada people holding bolshevistic or communistic ideas, they are certainly few in number and are not confined to the west any more than to the east, nor are they people of any particular nationality.
Speaking with particular reference to my constituency, I represent a fairly large riding in the western provinces. I think those on the voters' list number 15,000 to 17,000 people. Approximately .one-half of the population of my constituency is composed of people from continental Europe. These people came to Manitoba after the lands close to the railway lines had been picked up and settled by our own Canadian people. The lands were of poorer quality and harder to bring under cultivation. Nevertheless, these people tackled the proposition, and under these handicaps they have made good. They have brought under cultivation and production and made revenue-bearing lands which but for them would be idle to-day. Operating as they do, perhaps, on a smaller scale, being more interested in mixed farming and being more economical in their methods of operation, they are coming through these trying times better in many cases than some of our own people who have operated on a much larger scale. These people are exceedingly anxious to learn the English language. Their children all go to the public schools. Their children are particularly apt and bright, and in many instances they are at the head of their class in both the public and high schools. Many of the young men and women have attended the university and they are to-day occupying positions of honour in professional and business life ..in all parts of Canada. Owing to their thriftiness and industry they form an integral part of the business life of western Canada. In their homes, as anyone will testify who has visited them, they are most hospitable. They are interested in all things that tend toward the betterment of conditions in the home or in the community. Moreover, practically all these people are naturalized Canadians, and as such, they are entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizens of Canada. To sum the matter up, giving my personal opinion, I would say they were industrious, home-loving and loyal Canadian citizens.
I do not ask the house to accept my opinion alone. I should like to refer to a competition which was held in western Canada last year and which I understand will be held again this year amongst continental Europeans in the west, a community progress competition which originated with Doctor Black, Director of Colonization and Immigration on the Canadian

The Address-Mr. Bowman
National. Let us see what the objects are of this contest. I have in my hand an off-print from Queen's Quarterly, setting forth an article on "continental Europeans in western Canada" by Doctor Walter Murray, President of the University of Saskatchewan. In this pamphlet Doctor Murray states that the basis of judgment of the committees which had the matter in hand was as follows:
The committees were to be judged by their progress in education, in agriculture, in citizenship and in the arts, handicrafts and activities that minister to the home and social life.
Doctor Murray goes on to give a little more definite information as to education, agrioulture, citizenship and so forth.
For evidence of citizenship, a considerable variety of activities were considered, such as participation in cooperative enterprises, community organizations, such as agricultural societies, homemakers' clubs, clubs for boys and girls, school fairs, and, above all, activities for the promotion of health in the school, the home and the community.
May I call the attention of hon. members to the personnel of the judging staff. In Manitoba there were Doctor Mackay, principal of Manitoba college, Mrs. David Watt, at one time president of the Federated Women's Institutes of Canada and Brother Joseph, principal of Provencher school at St. Boniface. For the province of Saskatchewan, Doctor Murray, president of the university, headed the committee, with Mrs. McNaughton, for years a worker and leader among the farm women, and Doctor Hugh Rose of Dartmouth college, a Manitoba Rhodes scholar who spent fifteen years studying the background of the European races and in Alberta Dr. Wallace, president of Alberta university, Miss Gunn, for years president of the United Farm Women and Dr. Fairfield, superintendent of the Dominion experimental farm at Lethbridge.
I think that hon. members of the house will agree that these judges were leaders in education and in social welfare and community work in western Canada.
What did the judges say with respect to the conditions which they found among these continental Europeans who had settled in Canada? Dr. Black went to Saskatoon during the time the competition was on and there delivered an address to the Canadian club. Subsequently he made a summary of that address, which summary I have in my hand. Dr. Black opens this summary in the following manner:
The community progress competitions among European settlements in the west, which we inaugurated last year, have already demonstrated that among the many thousands of
settlers who have come to us from other countries in the past half century, there is found material of the finest type for the building of a splendid Canadian citizenship, with great gifts of industry and integrity.
I omitted to mention in the proper chronological order that in this contest in the three provinces forty communities entered representing about 125,000 persons, 600 schools and nearly 25,000 school children. Thirteen different nationalities of European extraction were represented. What did the judges find as they went about during their judging of the contest?
Everywhere the judges were received with kindness and a courtesy characteristic of Europe at its best. It is difficult to give an accurate picture of one's impressions. Perhaps the most general impression was great surprise and pleasure at the progress made, and the prospect of further advancement. These people have come to Canada to make homes for themselves and their children, not to make fortunes to take back to Europe or to the coast where they may live in idleness. They were industrious and thrifty and have a love for the soil. While they retain an affection for the land of their birth, its customs, language and history, they are anxious to be regarded as Canadians. Some groups resent the use of any other name than Canadian, and all sing "O Canada" and the National Anthem with a fervour and a vigour that put the native-born to shame.
That quotation is from the pamphlet by Dr. Murray, to which I have already referred. Dr. Murray goes on to say:
It may be said that the school buildings, their equipment, sanitary arrangements and grounds are as good as those found in eastern Canada, in some cases better. The efforts put forth for their school by these settlers from continental Europe, and their appreciation of the value of education surpass those of the Canadian or British. In some districts the rate for schools exceeds thirty mills. In one district three families [DOT] practically assumed responsibility for a new school building and the support of a teacher. The ambitions of the children and of the parents for their children to go to high school, normal school or university, was surprising.
Let me read what Dr. Black has to say in summarizing the results of the competition in each of the three western provinces:
In Alberta our first prize community is a twenty-year old settlement of Ukrainians, with a highly satisfactory record of progress. Most of the farm homes in the district are of a modern type, and the schools are astonishingly well equipped and conducted.
Dr. Black summarizes the situation in Saskatchewan in the following words:
In Saskatchewan the story was one of continual surprises. Our first prize community is a German settlement of more than thirty years' standing peopled by hard working, thrifty settlers, who radiate an air of plenty and prosperity, but who have their own stories of hardships endured.
The Address-Mr. Bowman

The findings of the judges in Manitoba were summarized as follows:
In Manitoba we found communities of Ukrainians, Poles, Dutch and German Menno-nites, and other nationalities, which not only revealed to us amazing tales of pioneer struggles and hardships, but gave evidence of success won from agricultural conditions which I doubt very much if many Anglo-Saxons would have had the patience and fortitude to stick it out. In the far northern Ukrainian community of Ethelbert-
I might mention that Ethelbert is in my own constituency. Ethelbert won a prize in this contest. I must admit, however, that they took second place to the prize won by Rossburn in the constituency of my hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. Mullins). To continue:
In the far northern Ukrainian community of Ethelbert the judges saw again examples of success won over thirty years of struggle with difficult agricultural conditions, and heard educational records of the large public and high school in that community which were on a level with the best in the province. . . .
Wherever the judges went they heard continually of the sacrifices made by these people from other lands that their children might have full advantage of the educational facilities we provide here for them. No sacrifice seems to have been too great for this purpose.
In all the communities visited our party had evidence in abundance of the industry and genius of the people in these communities, and of their wonderful attainments in handicrafts and music, for everywhere they went they were entertained in the most charming fashion with music of choirs and of gifted soloists; with native dancing, and in all places we saw exhibits of exquisite handicraft.
With respect to the English language and the learning of it, may I quote again from Dr. Black's speech to the Canadian club? He says:
It has also established beyond question, I think, that there is no English language problem in these communities. In every school visited, and the judges made it a point to visit at least four schools in each community, the language was well taught and well spoken in all grades above grade one.
While my own opinion in matters such as this would only be my own opinion, I do submit to this house that the opinion of men and women of the character of the judges who were in charge of this contest is entitled to the respect of hon. members of this house. In this connection may I say finally that as a new member of this house I have endeavoured to render a small measure of justice to those new Canadians in western Canada of whom I think we have no reason to feel ashamed.


Mr. ALFRED SPEAKMAN (Red Deer):: The Address-Mr. Speakman
come out to the prairies to push the boundaries of civilization further westward, to open up for Canada and the empire a great new country. They faced the future with unparalleled courage and boundless optimism. They faced with a smile all the troubles of drought, hail, frost, wind and inseot pests, all the privations and the loneliness which must be the lot of a pioneer community. As I say, they went through it with a smile because they always saw before them as a sure objective that comparative comfort, that modest competence which was their aim. I will give the house one illustration of the type of people they are, because, as I have said, you must understand the type before you can appreciate what a lack of morale means there and how serious must be the situation to-day.
Amongst my neighbours, a few miles from my own farm, were a young married couple, a soldier settler and his wife, with a family of three young children. That year by dint of tremendous sacrifice and unstinting labour, they had brought under cultivation and seeded in wheat a fairly large area for a small farm. The prospects of a good crop were very promising, and day after day, night after night, the husband and wife would talk about what that crop meant for them. It meant to them all those things that they had been obliged to do without, all those little conveniences for the home and farm which they needed, new elothes for the wife and children, a new suit for the husband, boots and shoes and toys for Christmas. Then like a bolt from the blue came a western hailstorm and in five minutes not a vestige of their crop remained. Gone were all their hopes. But they did not sit down and whine about it. The wife said to the children, "Let us gather up the hail and have ioe cream for dinner." The man said, "With all that moisture what a splendid crop we shall have next year." That is the type-the greatest "next year" people in the world; the world's greatest optimists. And, Mr. Speaker, when I hear those men whom I have known for forty years characterized as whiners and growlers, my gorge rises.
Now, what is the situation at the present time? Bad, as I have stated it; for the first time hundreds of men I know are wondering whether it is worth while to put in a crop. They are prepared to gamble with nature, but to-day they say the dice are loaded against them. If they do get a good crop what is the use of selling it at present day prices? Many more are without a dollar with which to carry on. They go to the bank-that institution 
created by the law of this country to meet such an emergency-and find that their credit is gone and not one dollar is available for them. What are they to do? Sometimes when I have nothing better to do I read the addresses given by some of our bank presidents and leading financiers in which they state in glowing terms the future of this country of illimitable natural resources, and in particular they express their confidence in the inherent soundness of our western agriculture and their belief that it will enjoy a state of prosperity greater than was ever known before. But, sir, actions speak louder than words, and which conveys the true opinion held by those at the head of our banks and financial institutions, the words they address to their shareholders at the annual meetings, or their attitude when a western farmer goes to his local bank for a loan? Our western farmer finds it impossible to obtain a loan. There is a growing feeling to-day throughout western Canada that a financial system which can only function when times are good, when there is business expansion and rising prices, but which fails miserably and abjectly during times of distress, is not an adequate financial system for this country. The people of western Canada appreciate the statements of the bankers that their duty is to protect their depositors-those overworked widows and orphans whom we always hear about at such a time-whose meagre savings are placed in the care of the banker. Anyone who gives the most superficial study to banking knows that only a very small percentage of loans are made from deposits. But, taking the statement of the bankers at its face value, we have come to the conclusion that if their main function is the safety of their depositors, and if to perform that function they must sacrifice the credit, the needs of the nation,-I say we have come to the conclusion that if that is the case we must find some other financial system with which to seoure that credit. We may have to have a national system of banking-and that is my own thought-but if the present system will not function we must establish another that will where we have the necessary security, I am more optimistic than most of the bankers themselves as disclosed by their actions. I believe that eventually when things have gotten so bad that every government will be obliged to face the situation, proper policies will be adopted and we shall have a great future for agriculture.
As I have said the present outlook is discouraging. The future is somewhat black. I have been asked many a time, is it the fault of the present government. Well, Mr. MARCH 23, 1931
The Address-Mr. Speakman
Speaker, to be perfectly frank, I will say, no, in the main it is not. The present government, in my opinion, is not largely responsible for the situation; nor was it fair, months ago, to attribute entire responsibility to the former government. In the main these conditions are due to world conditions, conditions which might have been corrected in days gone by, which might be corrected now, if governments were not so wedded to old concepts of what was good and what is good. But I am not blaming the present government. I do suggest, however, this- and I shall at this moment saddle the government with no greater responsibility than they themselves have assumed, no more, no less. The members of the present government when in opposition stated that they had diagnosed the complaint and had a remedy. All over the country, men-those who supported them and those who opposed them at the last election-are asking that some of those pledges be redeemed. I am not blaming the government at the moment. They have been in power only a few months, and they have had neither the time nor the opportunity to go into the present situation in any large way. But it is fair to say to them: This is the session when we expect that to be done. This is the time of opportunity, and upon the attempt at least made this session they shall be judged. Not only do I wish them well, in that effort, Mr. Speaker, but as it is their bounden duty as a government to provide these remedies it is also my bounden duty as a Canadian, representing agriculture, to do all I can to help them if they are willing to try.
We can go a little further than that, however. As I said, I am not seeking a scapegoat; I am seeking a remedy, and perhaps nothing can be more ironic or can more completely illustrate the futility of many partisan speeches than what is actually happening to-day. For nine years-and I am taking the words of my hon. friends opposite-we had a government in power which sacrificed agriculture, which gave away their markets and which did nothing for that industry. Now we have a government in power pledged to restore those markets and to see that agriculture has a fair deal. Yet during the last two or three months, for the first time in the history of my province Danish bacon is displacing local bacon on the markets of Alberta. That is not altogether the fault of the government; it simply shows how little governments have done or can do, in a general way. But there are some reasons for that. Coming down to the facts, how is it possible 22110-M
for the Danish farmer to buy grain in Alberta, to pay the transportation costs to Denmark, to feed and process his hogs there and to ship the bacon back here and undersell us? Here is one reason. Some little time ago, when hogs were selling at 51 cents per pound, the average price of bacon was 40 cents per pound, a spread of 7 to 1 as between the hog and the finished article. I am not taking breakfast bacon and the higher grades, but merely the average price. In Denmark at the same time the Danish farmer was receiving 71 cents and bacon was selling at 22 cents, a spread of only 3 to 1. It is impossible for any class of producer in this country to compete on terms like those, with the processing spread of 7 to 1 on his part between the raw material and the finished article, as against a 3 to 1 spread of his competitors. It cannot be done. I urge upon this government one thing at least that they may do to help; they should establish one or more experimental processing plants to see if it is not possible to diminish that tremendous spread and allow us to compete.
Then I will go a step further. Our only hope as far as bacon is concerned-and that is important because of the prospect of continued low grain prices and because even now a tremendous increase has taken place throughout the prairies in the number of feeder hogs in the pens, and in a few months there will be a tremendous surplus of hogs-our only hope is to get on the foreign and particularly the British markets. What keeps us from doing that? It is not because of the quality; our bacon is as good as can be found anywhere, and is welcomed by the British consumer. The fact is that the British dealer will not take the trouble to build up a demand for Canadian bacon unless he is sure he can fill that demand from week to week and month to month. In former times we only sent a little shipment to England when prices were low locally or in the United States, and that movement was cut off when prices went up again in our local markets. I ask the government-and I am only expressing what was asked by the convention of the United Farmers of Alberta last January-that a conference be called as soon as possible, because the need is urgent and there is no time to delay, between the packers of this country and representative producers, to see if we cannot guarantee a weekly or monthly delivery of some percentage of our hogs to the British market, in order to build up and hold some kind of market there.
We have been asked to give some practical suggestions. These are not very large, but I believe they are practical suggestions which, if applied, might at least assist us during



The Address-Mr. Speakman
these hard times which are ahead of us. These are small matters, but they are none the less important.
There is something, however, much greater and much more necessary than these. Assume for a moment, Mr. Speaker, that some intelligent inhabitant of Mars or of some other world could be dropped into our midst today, someone capable of surveying the situation as it is and of comprehending the condition of affairs, without any previous knowledge of our history or of the systems we apply. What would he find? I think he might be pardoned if he said we were a strange race, a mixture of wisdom and imbecility, of knowledge and utter lack of wisdom, because he would find here a people above the average in intelligence and in the application of mechanical science and ingenuity. He would find a country second to none in native fertility and natural resources. He would find everywhere an accumulation of wealth in usable form side by side with the most abject poverty. We speak of markets, and I understand the need for outside markets as well as any man. I know that upon our foreign trade, our export trade, the western farmer must live, and that without it he must die as far as production is concerned, but there is another market than that. Our friends opposite like to speak of a home market. So do I. Do my hon. friends opposite realize for one moment the potential extent, the potential value of that market? I will give another illustration, because sometimes illustrations will convey a fact which it is difficult to drive home in any other way. A few months ago I was in Calgary, and I saw two things which impressed me tremendously, taken in juxtaposition. The first was that the terminal elevator was full of wheat of excellent quality which could not be sold. The second was that during the same week the Calgary council put the unemployed on one meal, a day because they could not purchase food for them.
There is one of our markets at least, a market at our doors separated from us by no adverse tariff walls and by no great distances involving huge transportation costs. We must remember that every hungry adult and every under-nourished child is a potential customer for the goods produced by our farmers. That market is separated from us only by the folly of man, by the inadequacy of a bookkeeping system and a system of distribution and finance which no longer functions as it should. Can anybody say that system does function as it should? Why do we have recurrent cycles of depression? I cannot tell you, but I say I am no pessimist in that matter. Your

true pessimist is the man who says that depressions, such as we have had at different times and in varying degrees, are inevitable, like the law of gravity and the rising and setting of the sun. There is your true pessimist. I am an optimist, because I say that those depressions arise from man-made causes, and they are susceptible to human control. I am an optimist because, from the beginning of the world's history, every major problem which threatened the dissolution of civilization as it then existed, has been met and solved. This is a problem which must be met and solved also, but it will not be done if we are content to sit still and wait for times to be better. It will not be solved unless we are prepared, as courageous men-


Miss MACPHAIL:: And women.


Alfred Speakman: I thought it was unnecessary to speak of the courage of the women. It will not be done unless we have the courage to go forward with new ideas and bring about new conditions. I have heard people speak of the menace of communism to this country, the menace of the ultra-radical who walks up and down this land scattering his false doctrines throughout the country. No man has ever accused me of having sympathy with those doctrines, Mr. Speaker. I have been accused sometimes of not being sufficiently radical, but I have never been accused of being too radical. I have no sympathy with those doctrines, believing them to be destructive rather than constructive, although I have a great deal of sympathy with the conditions out of which they have arisen. However, they are not the menace to-day; their own violence defeats their ends. The menace to-day is the self-complacent inertia of men who, themselves in comfortable circumstances, fail to realize what is going on in the world around them. If we do reach a state of chaos; if we do find ourselves in the midst of revolution, which God forbid, it would be those self-complacent gentlemen who would be responsible, those who having ears hear not what, is going on and what is said around them; those who having minds, supposedly, understand not, and who having eyes close them to the human suffering around them.
I have made two or three small suggestions in my own way; beyond .that I have no power to go. But I do suggest, as I suggested before-and it will stand reiteration for the sake of emphasis: We must first understand the situation, and to that end I have spoken in what sounds like a pessimistic strain. I have outlined the truth, as I know it, during these forty years and during late months. We must first recognize the problems and con-

The Address-Mr. Chevrier
ditions. There is no use being blind to them; there is no use saying all is well when all is not well. And then we must set ourselves to solve those problems. The responsibility must in the nature of things lie on the government in power; it cannot be otherwise. They have accepted the responsibility, and that responsibility they cannot evade, of going forward and doing what they said they would do- study, understand and apply the remedy. And this session is their opportunity. By it they will rise or they will fall. Never, in my opinion, was such a responsibility laid upon a government in late years; never was such an opportunity as that which belongs to this government to-day. I for one will reserve my judgment as to the agricultural policy of the government because the speech from the throne may mean anything or nothing. It may contain, within its vague references, the most beneficial legislation, or it may mean nothing. But for myself and for the constituents whom I represent, I say that we are prepared to give every opportunity, to make every allowance for the difficulties. But we are not prepared to accept any alibis. We are simply asking that the government in power, realizing the situation, and realizing the weight of the obligation which is theirs, shall perform what they undertook to do. If they do so, or if they make an honest attempt to do so, I can only assure them of all the assistance and sympathy which I can give.


Mr. E. R. E. CHEVRIER (Ottawa) (Translation) :: Mr. Speaker, to the hon. members who have moved and seconded the address in reply to the speech from the Throne, I extend my congratulations for their deserving efforts. Indeed, it needed great courage to say the things they uttered with reference to the present administration, and I trust that their constituents, in the next election, will not be too severe in this regard.
Before I discuss the speech from the throne I desire to say a few words in reference to the situation in which we find ourselves today. It is with considerable reluctance and with considerable diffidence that I do so, and my task is rendered easier by the fact that the hon. member for Montmagny (Mr. LaVergne), who is Deputy Speaker of this house, is at the moment occupying the Speaker's chair. For that circumstance at least I am not responsible. True, the high office of deputy speaker allows that the deputy speaker may take the chair on occasions such as this. The hon. member for Montmagny on Friday last took it upon himself to deliver to this house a speech which, Mr. Speaker, in my humble opinion, it would have been better had it not been delivered at all. The 22110-14 J
hon. gentleman invoked as a reason for the delivery of that speech the fact that he was speaking in the interests of his constituents.
I have read the contents of that speech and have not found anything in it that related directly to the interests of the constituents of Montmagny. The hon. gentleman also said that he wanted to put an end to old sores and wounds, but he spent four-fifths of his time in scratching the old wounds and laying bare the old sores, leaving the scrapings at the door of the Liberal administration. I shall not follow him in that way; I shall not endeavour to show that the hon. member was right or that he was wrong. But there has arisen out of that situation on Friday last a very peculiar one. The hon. gentleman has said that the position of deputy speaker does not exist in this house. I take his words from Hansard of March 20, at page 177:
It does not appear in the rules of the house; it does not appear in any of the comments of either Beauchesne, Bsurinot or May. I am only the chairman of the committee of the whole house.
I think it is most important that we should know whether there is such a position as deputy speaker in this house. I want no better authority than Beauchesne's Parliamentary Procedure. I am not so much concerned with May or Bourinot. I take Beauchesne, and at page 372 of the 1927 edition, under Standing Order 56, I find the following:
A chairman of committees who shall also be deputy speaker of the house shall be elected at the commencement of every parliament,-
Then section 2:
The member elected to serve as deputy speaker and chairman of committees shall be required to possess the full and practical knowledge of the language which is not that of Mr. Speaker for the time being.
Then section 3:
The member so elected as deputy speaker

And so forth. Then section 4:
In the absence of the deputy speaker-
And so on. That might be conclusive in itself, but I want to refer to the Rules and Forms of Beauchesne, the 1927 edition. Surely the hon. member for Montmagny, who is deputy speaker, is not without knowledge of the provision of rule 480, which I am about to quote. It reads:
The deputy speaker-
Not chairman of committees.
-receives an annual salary of $4,000, in addition to his sessional indemnity.
Surely the hon. member for Montmagny, who occupies the position of deputy speaker,
The Address-Mr. Chevrier

if he should desire to draw this salary over and above his indemnity, must do so as deputy speaker and not as chairman of committees.
The hon. member for Montmagny, at page 201 of unrevised Hansard of March 20, proceeds:
T trust that any mistakes I may make they will attribute to my poor education.
I have never heard such expressions of modesty from the hon. member for Montmagny in the past. His poor education? A little further down he says:
I speak to-day as a Conservative by conviction, not by education or birth.
Let me discuss these various words together. At page 202 the hon. member says:
I must say, as a Canadian of French descent, and a Conservative by education ....
Well, Mr. Speaker, I find myself in a very difficult situation, in that the hon. member for Montmagny is not in his place; the deputy speaker is not in his seat. I have to solve the difficulty as best I can. The hon. gentleman cannot get away with statements of that kind. His poor education; a Conservative by conviction, not by education or birth. The hon. member, I remember well, was at Ottawa university with me, we studied at Ottawa university together. In the biography of the hon, member for Montmagny, in the Parliamentary Guide, I find that he was born in 1880, and was educated at College du Sacre Coeur, Arthabaska, Quebec Seminary, Ottawa university and Laval university; and around 1896 or 1898 he attended Ottawa university. I remember those days, Mr. Speaker, when the distinguished father of the present Deputy Speaker was Mr. Justice LaVergne. The Parliamentary Guide brings us back to the days of 1887 when the Hon. Joseph LaVergne was member for Drummond-Artha-baska in the federal house as a supporter of the Liberal party. He was elected in 1887, again in 1891 and again in 1896. Then my hon. friend's uncle replaced the Hon. Joseph LaVergne in 1900 and was elected in 1904 and re-elected in 1908. I remember those days when the hon. gentleman was a close attendant at the house of the Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, when his distinguished father lived in this city; he had practised law with Sir Wilfrid. No man in the city of Ottawa has been in closer intimacy with Liberal principles than the hon. member for Montmagny. In 1904 the hon. member for Montmagny was elected to that constituency by the efforts of Sir Wilfrid Laurier himself.
Mr. LaVERGNE: If my hon. friend will allow me, if he looks in Hansard of 1906

he will find a copy of a document which I handed to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and which I was asked to sign. He will see I refused to run as anything but as an Independent Liberal.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: It is a good thing the hon. gentleman is now in his seat.
Mr. LaVERGNE: Not for my hon. friend.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: The hon. gentleman was elected in 1904. He may later have become an independent. Then he resigned in 1908. He became a nationalist. That was the privilege of the hon. member. In 1917 he ran as an independent Liberal in Montmagny, and was defeated. In 1921 he ran as a straight Conservative in Quebec county.
Mr. LaVERGNE: I beg your pardon; I ran as a Liberal.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: So much the better. The hon. gentleman is showing good taste. In 1925 he ran as a Conservative in Montmagny and was defeated. In 1926 he ran as a Conservative in Montmagny and was defeated. I understand that in 1930 the hon. gentleman ran, not as a Liberal but as an Independent Conservative, and was elected.
The hon. member, as reported just a few words lower down on page 201 of unrevised Hansard, has this to say:
I claim that, being perfectly independent of partisan politics, I have become a good Tory.
If the hon. gentleman has become a Conservative it is either as a result of education or of evolution. It is pretty hard for him to say that to-day he is a Conservative because of the Liberal education he received. If he travelled on the road to Damascus in that way, the road was rather rough. I can only apply to the hon. gentleman, after that wonderful experience of conversion, the words of Sir Wilfrid: "What a salad!" If the hon. gentleman has reached the stage of perfection now that he is a good Tory, nonpartisan, and if that be the result of evolution or education, in whatever way the hon. gentleman means it, I want to leave him with the words uttered by the Prime Minister at Guelph on May 11, 1930. If the hon. member for Montmagny is a convert, those words of the Prime Minister may fittingly apply:
Whenever you have any convert doing something he has not been brought up to do, he will always make a mess of it.
I find in Hansard words that never should have been spoken, words that never should have found their way into Hansard, and more particularly, as coming from a son of the old province of Quebec, words, which, being unparliamentary, should be ruled out. I turn

The Address-Mr. Chevrier
to Beauchesne's Parliamentary Procedure, and it is with the greatest reluctance that I repeat the words as I find them on page 183 of Hansard:
Mr. LaVergne. . . . Who betrayed the province of Quebec if it was not the great Sir Wilfrid Laurier?
Why associate the name of the great Sir Wilfrid Laurier with an expression of betrayal? I cannot read the hon. gentleman's mind, and for many reasons, but why associate those words in that way? The definition of "betrayer" is "traitor." I could ask that those words be removed from Hansard, because according to May and Beauchesne expressions of that character have previously been ruled out of order. But far be it from me to demand that the words be expunged from the record; I want them to remain in Hansard as a sword in its scabbard. I want them to remain there so that they may forever ring in the ears of the hon. member for Montmagny. I want them to remain there so that they maj' be read by his constituents and by the people of the province of Quebec, English and French, and of every denomination. I want them to remain there so that the people of Canada may be able properly to appreciate the hon. gentleman's worth. I desire to conclude by saying to the hon. gentleman, in the words of Victor Hugo, "L'oeil etait dans le tombe et regardait Cain." -The eye was forever there looking at Cain.
Mr. LaVERGNE: If the hon. member wants to discuss the question with me in the province of Quebec, he will be welcome, but I do not think he will do so.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Yes. I will be glad to consider that in due course. I want to conclude by quoting the words of the Prime Minister which will be found at page 179 of Hansard. They are words that exactly fit the occasion and apply aptly to it. This is what the Prime Minister said:
As to participating in any debate in which highly controversial or-shall I say?-highly political differences manifest themselves, his own judgment, his own good sense, must be the determining factors with respect to the extent to which he does so participate. Because the punishment is clear; he forfeits the esteem and regard of the house, and if he becomes a violent partisan his usefulness as deputy speaker will be regarded as ended. If, on the other hand, he discharges the onerous duties which we have asked him to accept according to the traditions of this house- because there is no deputy speaker at Westminster at the moment-then he will merit the commendation and approval of this chamber. That seems to me to be the rule which should govern in a matter of this kind.
I leave the hon. gentleman; I leave his speech and I leave his fate to hon. members of the house.
I daresay if the Prime Minister were to summon sufficient courage to return to the city of Calgary, he would be unable to use more aptly the words he uttered there last summer. Undoubtedly he would see that there is now a much larger body of white-buttoned men parading the streets. The words he used on that occasion are certainly fitting to-day. He said:
Surely he could not stop his ears with smug complacence and self-esteem to the cry that carries across the nation, the cry of the destitute and hungry, the cry of the fathers and mothers of little children who call to us as Canadians and as Christians to heal their pain.
Those words fit the occasion to-day better than at any time in the past. Now more than ever is the opportune time for the right hon. gentleman, after his sterile trip to the Imperial conference, after his failure to "blast" new roads into the markets of the world, to repeat the words he used at Calgary on the 13th of June last. May he find some consolation in them, and may they give the Canadian people some relief. These are the words he then used, and this is the situation he is now facing:
We will look over the top of the wall and beyond the horizon to make provision for the Canadian agriculturist and secure markets for him.
After looking over the top of the wall and .ooking for markets for the agriculturist! A new Moses in quest of a promised land.
In order perhaps better to describe the present situation I might quote the words of the Prime Minister, speaking at Regina, as reported in the Regina Leader-Post of the 11th of June last. Perhaps we may find some consolation there. He is quoted as saying:
There is a good time coming.
But he adds:
We may not live to see it.
I want no better authority to describe the present situation than that of the editor of the Liberal-Conservative organ in Ottawa, Mr. O'Leary. He contributed, under his name, an article to the Commonweal Review, entitled Canada Faces Her Problems. It appears in the issue of January 21, 1931, and reads:
Canada, like the United States, is beset by political unrest and economic depression. Mr. Hoover may be bowed down by the problem of prohibition, the plight of the northwestern farmers and the insurgency of congress, but it. is doubtful whether his position is more onerous: than that of Premier Bennett back from the London Imperial economic conference empty-

The Address-Mr. Chevrier
handed, confronted by farmers who want a fixed price for their wheat; by nation-wide unemployment; by the threat of an enormous budget deficit.
Never since the post-war depression, which produced an agrarian uprising in the west and brought a new orientation in party politics, has the Dominion experienced such vicissitudes.
Mr. O'Leary, writing of the Pi'ime Minister's attempt to secure better trade facilities with Great Britain, does not call that humbug, but he says:
Mr. Bennett's course lacked the approval of his warmest supporters.
He adds:
It was therefore a hard blow to Canadian homes when the London conference failed to offer even a ray of promise to the western farmer.
He says further:
The chief effect of the conference, indeed, so far as Canada is concerned, was that Mr. Bennett, who went to England with a high ambition for imperial economic unity based upon tariff, left London with a veiled threat of economic separatism.
Mr. O'Leary continues:
Nor was this the end. Mr. G. Howard Ferguson, premier of Ontario, who was recently appointed Canadian High Commissioner to London, committed the extraordinary indiscretion of making a vigorous attack upon the socialist policies of the Labour government to which he has been accredited. This, not unnaturally, has added to the strained relations between Ottawa and Downing street, and has made cooperation between the two governments difficult, if not impossible. Mr. Philip Snowden, the acid-tongued socialist Chancellor of the Exchequer, has a good memory.
But what is most interesting is the summing up of the present situation by Mr. O'Leary In these- words:
So Mr. Bennett has returned to Canada, which lias still some 250 million bushels of msold wheat, and which has an acute unemployment problem, and whose declining revenues threaten an enormous deficit at the close of the fiscal year. The weakness of his position is like that of Mr. Hoover in the United States, who took office on a platform of prosperity.
He goes on:
After four months-
It is now six.
-and millions voted for unemployment relief, the western Wheat problem remains unsolved.
That is an appreciation from one of the Conservative party's staunchest supporters.
I should like to quote from another article, written in about the same tone, which appeared in MacLean's Magazine. I am not .*saying that Mr. O'Leary is the author of this .*article, but he is a very frequent contributor to MacLean's. We in 'Ottawa have good reason to remember that, because Mr. O'Leary
I Mr. Chevrier.]
wrote an article about the civil service some years ago entitled The Pork Barrel. The civil service has always received the considerate attention of the Conservative party. Mr. O'Leary wrote the article to which I have just referred. It was the hon. member for East Algoma (Mr. Nicholson) who some years ago made some nasty remarks about the civil service. It was the hon. member for Mount Royal (Mr. White) who some weeks ago recommended a general slash in the civil service, and it was a Conservative member of the Ontario provincial house who called civil servants "parasites."
The article to which I am about to refer is entitled Back Stage at Ottawa, by a Politician with a Notebook It reads:
Governments begin to die when they are born,-
Never was truer word said about the present government:
-and some old politicians, looking under the surface, and knowing something of what transpires behind the scenes, agree that Mr. Bennett's ministry, launched with such seeming virility, has ingredients of decay. They admit its good record in some fields. They concede the Prime Minister's resolute will to get things done; they praise his vigour and courage in the special session of parliament; they applaud his provision of work. Yet a lot of them stop there. They stop at the point where they hold that Mr. Bennett's strength is his weakness; that his attitude of domination toward nearly everything and everybody, coupled with his aloofness from his ministers and the rank and file of his party, bodes no good for the future. He is, said one hardbitten veteran, Woodrow Wilson over again. Yet though reefs and shoals be ahead, no impenetrable gloom encircles Mr. Bennett. Some in his party may furtively complain or express whispered doubt, but the majority are loyal or well-disciplined and are prepared to give him a blank cheque.
An authoritarian, a terrific, dynamic force, brooking no opposition, and with a certain intellectual superiority, he is master of his administration, and it would take a pretty formidable palace revolution to put another in his place. His ministers often disagree with him. Some disagreed with his reply to Britain's Thomas; disagreed with his standing behind the banks to steady the wheat in the west. But Mr. Bennett had his way. And as long as his policies succeed, or promise to succeed, he will go on having his way. As much as a government can be, this is a one-man government.
I take this from the Ottawa Journal of the 11th of March last. Speaking of the anticipated stand of His Majesty's loyal opposition, the editor says:
_ They will seek to show-and at this Mr. King is a master-that Mr. Bennett is a tyrant, an autocrat, a sort of Mussolini and Marshal Pilsudski rolled into one; a dictator who is running the nation in blinkers, governing it by order in council.

The Address-Mr. Chevrier
After saying that, the same editorial goes on to say:
When the proper time comes and orators are weary, Mr. Bennett will bring down his policies, put on his whips, bring on his divisions, produce his necessary majorities.
I should like to refer to what the Prime Minister said when he was speaking at Vancouver. He is reported in the Montreal Gazette of June 19, 1930, as follows:
So would I, when the government is mine, continue to blast a way through all our troubles and difficulties.
Much more recently, in Hansard of the 17th of March, at page 60, he said:
I came into power-our government came into being.
When the Liberal administration came into power in 1921, they found that the coffers of state were depleted and the revenues gone, just as they shall find them when they get back at the next opportunity. During the session of 1930 we brought down our budget. We showed reductions in taxation; we showed reductions in the national debt; we showed payments made out of the revenues; in fact, the nation was in a state of uncontradicted prosperity. A few months later the election took place and the present administration took over the reins of office. At once they proceeded to disturb, change and destroy the fundamental policies of the previous administration and to replace them by new principles. The reaction was great and spelled disaster. Now verily the country is in the state of distress which was described by the present members of the government during the last election. Canada under the policies of the previous administration, although facing aggravated special conditions fared better than any other nation. But the sudden changes brought about by the present government absolutely interrupted the avenues of commerce and trade and placed fear, dissatisfaction and lack of confidence into the hearts and souls of the Canadian people. The great fears they entertained before the election were at once realized when the present administration assumed office. Immediately our revenues began to decrease. Unemployment instead of being checked increased; financial distress increased. In connection with unemployment I wish to quote from the Labour Gazette of February, 1931. This article is published by the authority of the Minister of Labour (Senator Robertson), who yet has no seat in this house. At page 208 I find the following: During August and September, very little variation from July conditions was shown,-
Bearing out exactly what I have said above.
[DOT]-the tendency, however, being in a less favourable direction. Unemployment continued to rise steadily-
After the special session called to end unemployment.
-until the close of the year; the contractions being more extensive each month until the last day of December, when the percentage of idleness stood at 17-0, being the peak of unemployment for the year.
In other words, Mr. Speaker, as soon as the doctor took charge of the patient and administered the medicine the condition of the patient became worse. I do not wish to enter into any controversy as to whether or not the historical words of Mr. Thomas, the Secretary of State for the colonies, fitted the occasion about which he spoke, but I am sure they most fittingly suit the present circumstances in Canada in reference to the policies recently enunciated by the present administration.
I must hurry on, but in passing may I saj" a few words about the legislation contemplated by the hdn. the Secretary of State (Mr. Cahan). I extend to him my congratulations for advocating these necessary changes in respect to copyright. I sinserely trust that after the bill has been fully considered the aims and purposes surrounding the introduction of the bill will be achieved. It is time that the voice of those for whose protection the law is drafted should be given some attention and that the Copyright Act should be an act to protect copyright owners and not one to make easier plagiarism and the unlawful and detrimental exploitation of authors' rights by unscrupulous captains of industry.
I wish to deal with one further point. I have learned that suggestions have been made, to the effect that large reductions are to take place in civil service salaries. Some of the changes are to come about by superannuation, some by retirement and some by reorganization. I want to warn the administration that it should not attempt to lower salaries in the civil service; such action would be disastrous. The state has not the right to set such an example for manufacturers or people in industry over whom they have no immediate jurisdiction. If the state begins to reduce salaries of its employees it will be setting a tremendously bad example for the rest of Canada. Not only should the government refuse to reduce salaries but it should stand by every word of the contracts entered into with these people who are employed in
The Address-Mr. Chevrier

the civil service. I understand some employees are to be superannuated. There are two systems of superannuation: Under the new' law the government may superannuate an employee at the age of sixty-five; under the old law there is no age limit at which the employee may be retired. Removal from office must be in the public interest, or because the employee concerned is physically or mentally unfit to continue in the position he has occupied. I warn the government that they will not escape liability simply by asking the Civil Service Commission to make a reorganization and by placing upon its shoulders the responsibility of saying who ought to go who ought not to go. We have had just recently a most glaring example of the power of the government to do as it pleases in the matter of dismissal; in that connection I shall say more at a later time. If those who have reached the age of sixty-five are to be retired it is unfortunate that through the indiscretion of the publishers of the Parliamentary Guide we learn that the right hon. the Prime Minister is approaching the age of sixty-five. Who would believe that the hon. Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. MacLaren) will be seventy years of age on April 1 of this year? The Secretary of State (Mr. Caban) will be seventy years old on October 31. The hon. gentleman who so ably represents the Prime Minister in his absence, the hon. member for Argenteuil (Sir George Perley) will be seventy-five on September 12. He is hale and hearty enough and is at present in Buenos Aires. No one would believe that the hon. the Minister of Justice (Mr. Guthrie) will be sixty-six on August 15. The Minister7 of National Revenue (Mr. Ryckman) will be sixty-six on April 13. So the government would do well to take care when it tampers with the payrolls of its employees. If such action is in the public interest great care should be exercised. The changes may be made through a desire to inaugurate the patronage system after an election. It may be that the changes are to be made to allow promotions to under employees. It would be most unfair if those who are to fill new positions discharged their duties at a remuneration smaller than that of the previous incumbent. If the one who is promoted receives the minimum salary of the person who has been superannuated there would be very little difference financially because someone would have to be appointed to fill the vacancy created by the promotion of other clerks. It would be most unfair to ask the new incumbent to carry on at the minimum salary. I IMr. Chevrier.]
say therefore that in the public interest the matter has to be very carefully considered. When the proper time arrives I will check up the various appointments and changes. The same applies to statutory increases. I think hon. members take it for granted that it is the intention of the government to do away with statutory increases of salaries exceeding $2,500. I say the government has no right to take that action because when these employees took office it was understood, and it is the law, that so long as they filled their positions to the satisfaction of their chiefs or deputies they were entitled to statutory yearly increases. I say the government has not the right to break those contracts. The government has no right to supervise or direct the salaries of people working outside the civil service-we sympathize with them, but they are not employees of the state and parliament has no control over their pay; but the government has no right to deal in this way with salaries within the service. The government should at once give instructions to the Beatty commission to continue and perform the work for which it was appointed. I do not think the right hon. gentleman intends to balance his budget at the expense of the servants of the state. I do not think he intends to set a bad example to the rest of the nation in that regard.
At all times there rests upon the shoulders of the members of this house a great responsibility, charged as they are w'ith the passing of measures most conducive to the material comfort, happiness and prosperity' of the Canadian people. But at no time is that responsibility greater than it is at present. We have to-day to do with conditions that are worse than those that obtained before the war. But to face this world-wide depression the nations are not resorting to armed, defensive tactics and operations. In this financial and economic crisis they are seeking means to dispel and forever extinguish those disturbing factors and principles. There are now two great factors or systems being tried and opposed to each other, high and low tariffs. The question is, which of the two, a high or a low wall, will produce greater financial and economic safety to the nation, protect its interior trade and at the same time allow the expansion of its exterior trade. The right hon. Prime Minister and his followers believe that the financial security of Canada resides in building around its borders tariff walls of such height as wTere never before built. Those ideas and doctrines I respect. I believe our friends on the other side are sincere, but in my view Canada's destiny can-

The Address-Mr. Thompson (Lanark)
not be marked out in that way. I do not believe that its financial and economic salvation can be assured by the erection of high and inflexible trade barriers, but rather by the putting into effect of such tariffs as will meet circumstances and conditions as they arise, having as their foundation such basic principles as will permit elasticity and flexibility.
Sir, I feel sure that when the time comes again for the Canadian nation to select between the two doctrines, it will unhesitatingly and resolutely turn its eyes to, and again embrace, those principles and doctrines under which it lived in peace, progress, happiness and contentment from 1921 until July last, under the Liberal standard.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. T. A. THOMPSON (Lanark):: 
Mr. POULIOT:: When the French settlers
came to Canada, France was not an empire; it was a kingdom.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: I thank the
hon. member for the information. It is quite true that conditions in Canada are not just as we should like to have them. But I have no fear for the future of this great country. Canada in her distress has thrown aside the fallacies of the Liberal party and pinned her faith to the principles and policies of the Conservative party. And the Conservative party, under the leadership of the right hon. Prime Minister, will not betray the confidence which the people of Canada have placed in them.


Mr. A. F. TOTZKE (Humboldt):: Before making a few remarks on the questions raised by the speech from the throne and the amendment to the address in reply moved by my right hon. leader (Mr. Mackenzie King), I wish to say a few words regarding the speech made the other day by the hon. the deputy speaker (Mr. LaVergne).
May I say at the outset that for a good many years I have lived among French Canadians and I know them well. I have fought for them and with them. Some of my closest friends are of that race. I have a great admiration for them. I have heard many of them express admiration for my hon. friend the deputy speaker, but after the speech of my hon. friend I am afraid that admiration will change to something else. It may be that it will change only to pity- pity such as one feels when he finds that a great mind has broken under the strain. My hon. friend would have this house and country believe that he is working for a united and harmonious Canada, but I wish to say this, Mr. Speaker: Although I am not of French,
English, Scottish or Irish descent, when it comes to loyalty to the land of my birth, when it comes to a desire to do whatever lies in my power to help Canada, I will take off my hat to no one, and more especially not to the hon. member for Montmagny (Mr. LaVergne). He says he is a Canadian. Mr. Speaker, if Canada is to depend for her future on Canadianism of this kind, then I say, may the Lord help Canada. I have in my constituency a good many people who are not of the races mentioned by my hon. friend, but they are loyal, law-abiding Canadians. The younger generation, bom in this country, are as loyal Canadians as we have. They are studying the history of their country; they are anxiously looking for anything that will increase their loyalty and love for the land of their birth, the land chosen by their fathers.
I pray that those young people may not see the speech of the hon. member for Montmagny. The hon. member says in his speech as reported at page 182 of Hansard:
If you had had in your western country Canadians of French descent, of French tradition, or, speaking plainly, habitants of Quebec, instead of the foreign element which you brought in, do you think bolshevist speeches along the lines of those of Lenin in Russia would be possible in Canada?
In spite of what the hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull) has said, there has been in western Canada some discussion on the question of secession. I do not want to discuss that at this moment, except to say that the originators of this idea were not of the foreign element my hon. friend describes, but belong to the favoured races, the races that he says are the only ones who can possibly make a united and harmonious Canada.
Mr. LaVERGNE: I think my hon. friend is misquoting me.


Albert Frederick Totzke: I am not misquoting; I am not quoting at all just now.
Mr. LaVERGNE: If my hon. friend is not quoting me, I rise to a point of order. He has no right to put into my mouth words that I have never used.


Albert Frederick Totzke: I read the quotation from my hon. friend's speech. He said:
If you had had in your western country Canadians of French descent, of French tradition, or, speaking plainly, habitants of Quebec, instead of the foregn element which you brought in, do you think bolshevist speeches along the lines of Lenin in Russia would be possible in Canada ?
If that is not working against the harmony of Canada, I would like to know what is. I do not say there are not people of those races
The Address-Mr. Totzke

who have joined the movement, but they did not originate it, and they do not dominate it. I deplore as much as anyone can appeals to religious and racial prejudices to gain party advantage. I have at times had to suffer from that myself. I deplore as much as the hon. member the attitude of the Premier of Saskatchewan toward the French language, but this is what my hon. friend says as reported on page 182 of Hansard:
If Mr. Anderson is allowed to do to-day what he intends to do out west in Saskatchewan, where does the fault lie? It lies on the other side of the house.
Mr. LaVERGNE: Hear, hear.


Albert Frederick Totzke: My non friend says
"Hear, hear." I am not misquoting him now.
Mr. LaVERGNE: No.


Albert Frederick Totzke: Again he says as reported
on page 183 of Hansard:
And if Mr. Anderson is allowed to do what he is doing to-day, where did he get the right and the power?
I hope my hon. friend agrees that he is being quoted properly.
Mr. LaVERGNE :	Quite correct.


Albert Frederick Totzke: Surely the conversion of
the hon. member to the Conservative party has been thorough. He denounces the action of the Premier of Saskatchewan and then he proceeds to excuse it. He says that if Mr. Anderson gets the right and power to do these things, it is because years ago the Liberal party did not protect the rights of minorities in Canada. Is that not wonderful logic? The action of the Premier of Saskatchewan is wrong, but he has the right and power to do this thing that he has done because at some time in the past someone else did the same thing.
Mr. LaVERGNE:	Will my hon. friend
allow me to correct him? I said that in 1905, when the autonomy bills were passed, the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) and I asked Sir Wilfrid Laurier not to grant that power to the new provinces, but to protect the rights of the minorities, and on the 21st of February he was in favour of that but on the 21st of March he changed.


Albert Frederick Totzke: I think I have been very
fair to the hon. gentleman. I have quoted his remarks and I am drawing conclusions from them. I leave it to the house and to the people of Canada to say whether my conclusions are right or not. I say again the action of the premier of Saskatchewan is wrong; I say that just as strongly as my 
hon. friend does, but my hon. friend says that the premier of Saskatchewan has the right and the power to do the thing he has done because sometime, years ago, someone else did the same thing. We cannot have peace, harmony and prosperity in this great country until the hon. member for Mont-magny and other men who think as he does come to realize that there are in Canada staunch, loyal and true Canadians who are descended from races other than French, English, Scotch or Irish.
May I for a few minutes discuss some of the questions that are before us at this time? We have heard a good deal in the house lately about conditions in western Canada. The hon. member for Regina has told us that conditions in western Canada are not too good but at the same time they are not too bad. Before I quote from a letter that I received from a constituent of mine, and from another letter that I have on my desk, I should like to point out that the hon. member for Regina is a city member. He represents largely the city of Regina. Whether he is in a position to judge as to conditions in the rural parts of Saskatchewan I doubt very much. I am glad to hear from the hon. gentleman that conditions in Regina have not been too bad this winter. I should like to ask the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. MacMillan) whether conditions have been as good in the city of Saskatoon as they have been in Regina. The hon. member for Saskatoon must tell the house, if he says anything about conditions there, of the hundreds of unemployed men they have had out in the exhibition grounds and have been feeding all winter. He will, I am sure, say that conditions in Saskatoon have been far from good. He will admit, in fact, that conditions there have been very bad. I want to quote from a letter that I received from a constituent of mine since I arrived in Ottawa. I am not going to give this gentleman's name, but he is not one of the races referred to by the hon. member for Montmagny. He is descended from a foreign race, from the same race as my own. Let there be no doubt as to the fact that his English is very good. This is what he says: You can tell your friend the Prime Minister that if he thinks our hard times are mostly in our own imaginations that I will swap jobs with him in a minute and then he could see what a person has to contend with.
You know the ideal location of my farm and there never was as good a crop threshed on it before as last fall. I worked day and night till I nearly dropped in my tracks and so just by brute force was fortunate enough to get the last bushel threshed before bad weather set in and every bushel I hauled into the elevator just put me that much deeper in debt. By doing all the work myself this spring and

The Address-Mr. Totzke
straining my credit to the breaking point I should be able to get my crop in this spring but unless conditions change and my crop shows a substantial profit I might as well declare myself bankrupt. That will be a pretty hard pill to swallow after twenty-eight years of hard work and doing my full share in building up this community.


Jean-François Pouliot: What is the date of that
letter?


Albert Frederick Totzke: March 16, 1931. That is not an isolated case in Saskatchewan. This gentleman, whom I know very well, is one of the best farmers in my district, and if anyone had been able to keep on his feet, he is one of the men who would. In my constituency and in Saskatchewan generally there are many people who are in far worse condition than this man.
I want now to quote from a petition handed to the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) when he spoke in Regina last December, that meeting of his to which not only the farmers of Saskatchewan but the members of his own party looked forward with great expectation, trusting that he would throw some ray of hope on conditions then existing in Canada. This is the letter referred to by my hon, friend from South Battleford (Mr. Vallance) in his address the other evening. It was handed to the Prime Minister at his meeting in Regina last December:
The conditions of the farmers of the west are nothing short of deplorable, and these conditions, unless rectified, sir, are bound to be reflected first by corresponding distress among urban dwellers of these prairies, and latterly, in the city dwellers of eastern Canada.
There is an erroneous impression that portions of the province are in a fairly safe and secure position because they have had very few crop failures in past years. This, Sir, is wrong. The truth is that always the farmer has had to pay so much for necessities of production-
Hon. gentlemen opposite will please listen carefully to what follows:
The truth is that always the farmer has had to pay so much for necessities of production, such as machinery, necessities of life such as clothing, and has been forced to pay such high interest rates that, in the vast majority of cases, even in good crop areas, no reserves were built up and now that a general condition of crop failure, on the one hand, and spoiled crops on the other has occurred, coupled with a general price depression, the small reserves have been swept away and the general condition is one of want.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that those quotations answer very fully the contention made by my hon. friend from Regina that conditions are not as bad as they might be in western Canada. I agree with what my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Speakman) said this afternoon, that conditions are the worst they
have ever been in western Canada. I wish to repeat also what my hon. friend from Red Deer said about the farmer of western Canada not being pessimistic. He is anything but pessimistic. He is the most optimistic man in the world. Out in the west we have from year to year suffered from various conditions -frost, hail, and drought, and even from that little animal that my hon. friend from Yorkton (Mr. McPhee) mentioned the other day, the gopher. The people of western Canada are optimistic generally. They are the greatest "next year" people that exist on the face of this globe; but they are not optimistic now. Why? Let me quote again from the speech of my hon. friend from Regina. At page 113 of Hansard of March 18 last he says:
Personally, as representative of the capital city of Saskatchewan, I am listening anxiously for any word from any side of the house that will point a ray of hope and progress to this Dominion.
Is it any wonder, Mr. Speaker, that the people of Saskatchewan are not optimistic at the present time? That they are pessimistic? The hon. member for Regina says that he has listened to his leader and he has not been able to find a ray of hope for bettering the conditions that exist. I agree with him. I also have listened to his leader the right hon. the Prime Minister of this country and to the speeches of all hon. gentlemen from that side of the house, and I am still looking for a ray of hope.


Mr. COTNAM :: Perhaps the hon. gentleman would point out one.


Albert Frederick Totzke: I am going to do so later on. Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, what has something to do with the depression that now exists in western Saskatchewan is the fact of their representation in the cabinet at the present time. In the past, Saskatchewan has had representation in the cabinet in the person of the Prime Minister, in the person of the Minister of Agriculture, and in the person of the Hon. Charles Dunning, Minister of Finance in the late government. Saskatchewan is represented in this government to-day by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir), whose constituency is just north of mine. I am sorry the minister is not in his seat at the moment because I should like to hear what he has to say in connection with conditions in western Canada, and what he thinks is the solution for our difficulties. We on this side of the house are looking for a ray of hope. We have an idea of what should be done to do away with the depression and alleviate present conditions. The people of Saskatchewan are
The Address-Mr. Totzke

waiting to hear from the Minister of Agriculture as to what he has to offer to alleviate present conditions.
The hon. member for Red Deer, speaking this afternoon, said that he was very anxious to do whatever he could to help find a solution for the difficulties that exist in Canada at the present time. In spite of the fact that hon. gentlemen opposite may laugh with derision, I also would say that I am ready to do whatever I can in any way, irrespective of party advantage, to help find a solution for the present conditions in this country. We on this side of the house believe that when the May day budget of 1930 was introduced into this house, we had found to some extent a solution for our difficulties. We felt that through the granting of preferences to Great Britain on goods coming into this country, we would create a feeling of good will on the part of Great Britian towards the people of Canada. We realized that the main market for our wheat was Great Britain, and we wanted to do whatever we could in return as she was buying our wheat from us. We were certain that what did happen at the Imperial conference as a result of the visit of the Prime Minister, with his colleagues, would happen if we tried to deal with Great Britain in that way. We realized that it was impossible at the present time, and perhaps for a good many years to come, to induce the people of Great Britain to impose taxes on their foodstuffs. We knew that Great Britain had been our best customer and had bought two or three times more from us than we had bought from her, and we thought that lit would be a friendly gesture on our part to give certain preferences to her, to enable her to sell more of her manufactured goods in this country. We believed that we could profitably transfer to Great Britain some of the business that we had been giving to the United States. That was the object of the May day budget of last year. We went to the country on that policy, and hon. gentlemen know what the result was; we are sitting over here, and they are sitting over there. They told the people of western Canada, they told the people of my constituency, I know, that if they were returned to power all this depression would be relieved. They said: You will immediately get relief, and get higher prices for your wheat. My hon. friends from Saskatchewan will know that I am not .telling an untruth. I do not say that hon. gentlemen opposite made those statements, but men campaigning on behalf of the Conservative party and on behalf of the

members from Saskatchewan on the other side of the house made those statements. They said: Immediately the prices of wheat and butter and of eggs will go up, and immediately unemployment will be done away with. What has happened? Our friends opposite have been in power for about eight months. I do not know what their meaning of the word "immediately" was, but out in Saskatchewan and in western Canada generally, by "immediately" we mean at once-pronto. That was the condition, Mr. Speaker. We put before the people our policy, what we thought would revive trade and enable us to sell our wheat to Great Britain to better advantage.
Let us look for a moment at the policies of my hon. friends opposite, so far as we know them. We know them only from what was discussed during the last campaign, what was said by Conservative candidates and by those campaigning on their behalf. Their policy was to put a tariff wall all around Canada, to make that tariff wall so high that it would keep out the manufactured goods of all foreign countries, that we would have to ourselves the home market for all the goods that we could by any chance make in Canada. This, Mr. Speaker, was to relieve unemployment. Now, if we relieved unemployment in that way, if we placed a high tariff wall around Canada and kept out of this country all the goods we could manufacture, and if we gave our fanners of western Canada the home market what would be the result? In this country we have about nine or ten million people. It is estimated that the average consumption of wheat per person is five or six bushels, so that there would be a total consumption of fifty or sixty million bushels. The remainder we must export; we must ship it to the markets of other countries. If we do not do that, what can we do with our surplus production? Under those conditions what would happen to the farmers of western Canada? They would have to stop the production of wheat. My hon. friends opposite take much pleasure in stating that as a result of a high tariff the number of people employed in factories of eastern Canada will be increased and we will have a greater market for our home products, including wheat and other agricultural products. What does it mean to us? With a tariff at its maximum height 200,000 more workmen might be employed. That would mean an increase in consumption of wheat of a million or two bushels. We would still have to look for a market for the remainder of our wheat; we would have to look for a market in the other countries of the world. At the present time the farmers

The Address-Mr. Totzke
of western Canada must operate on an export basis; there is no possible chance of developing a home market sufficient in extent to take care of the surplus produced in the west. The hon. Minister of Agriculture has suggested that the farmers of western 'Canada should develop mixed farming. He suggests they should abandon the idea of raising wheat only. There is a considerable amount of that type of farming being carried on in western Canad'a at the present time. True, mixed farming has not been developed to its greatest extent. In explanation may I say however that in the province of Saskatchewan alone we have about 12,000,000 acres of land under cultivation which are not suitable for mixed farming. There is a lack of pasture and a lack of water for stock, and those two factors alone make it impossible for the western farmers to adopt mixed farming methods. If they did undertake on a large scale that type of farming I wonddr where they would dispose of their cattle and hogs when at the present time hogs are selling as low as 5i cents per pound? How long would the farmers of western Canada be able to exist under those conditions?
At this time may I say a word about the Imperial conference? My right hon. friend the Prime Minister went to that conference, accompanied by his advisers. It is reported that he intended to find the solution for this condition of depression with which we are now faced. He was going to find a market for Canadian wheat, and as has so often been said, he was going to blast his way into the markets of the world. Mr. Speaker, that blasting has turned out to be a fizzle. Instead of reaping a benefit the western farmer as a result of the conference is more depressed to-day than ever before.
Let us suppose that we could secure for our wheat the entire British market. The average imports into the British market for the last three years has been 166,000,000 bushels. Our share of that was 66,000,000 bushels. We export from 200,000,000 to 300,000,000 bushels per year. Where are we to find a market for the remainder of our wheat? Obviously we have to find other markets. We have to establish closer relations with the other markets of the world. What will happen if we follow the policies of our hon. friends opposite and raise a high tariff wall against other countries? We will lose the trade of those countries just as the United States is commencing to lose the markets of those nations against which she has raised high tariff walls.
I wish to say a few words, Mr. Speaker, in connection with the position I take concerning
the tariffs of this country. On many occasions it has been said that all the western members are free traders. In a sense that is correct; at heart we are free traders because our products in western Canada cannot be protected. We sell our products on the markets of the world and anybody can see that a tariff would not be of advantage to us. We do not however expect to get free trade in the near future. Personally I do not expect that in my day we will get free trade in Canada. I have made the statement in eastern Canada that we are not seeking to injure any of the established industries of this country. We believe however that under our present tariff the majority of industries in Canada are receiving too high protection. Under the tariffs as laid down by this government, undoubtedly they are. Under the former administration the industries received too high protection, and during the term of that administration efforts were made towards the reduction of those tariffs. The former administration appointed the tariff board for the purpose of hearing applications concerning the reduc-* tions or advances in tariff duties on goods entering this country. That tariff board eliminated the hole-in-the-corner method of allowing industrial experts to make applications secretly. Under the old method they were allowed to approach the Minister of Finance and lay the facts before him in a more or less closed hearing. The consumers of Canada did not have a chance to offer suggestions. Those who were most affected by tariff changes were not given an opportunity to hear the arguments of the claimants, and were not in a position to present arguments against the proposed changes. The present Prime Minister abrogated that tariff board; he wiped it out of existence. Through a series of editorials coming from eastern Canada and Ottawa in particular, the people of western Canada have been told that through the abolition of the tariff board the country has saved about $260,000. To-day the people of western Canada are wondering how much more the abolition of the tariff board will cost them because of the increase of tariffs on goods which of necessity they must buy. We are told by the Prime Minister that he is going to form another tariff board. He has not given details, however, and we are not going to criticize until we learn his plans.
Before I conclude I want to repeat that I am sorry the Minister of Agriculture is not in his seat. During the Easter recess a number of us will be returning to the province of Saskatchewan and we are going to be met by the farmers of western Canada. We will be
The Address-Mr. Willis

asked "What is being done to help us; what did the Minister of Agriculture say?" Up to the present time the Minister of Agriculture has said nothing. As stated by the hon. member for South Battleford the Minister of Agriculture has already intimated that he has two or three different policies for the solution of agricultural difficulties. Yet in this house we have heard not a word from the hon. gentleman. Before we leave for western Canada I hope the minister will tell us from his seat in the house and tell the people of western Canada and of Canada as a whole what his policy will be.


Mr. E. F. WILLIS (Souris):: Mr. Speaker, as a very junior member of this house. I rise with great diffidence to pay the customary compliments to the hon. gentlemen who moved and seconded the address. I think I should also pay a compliment to the hon. member for West Elgin (Mr. Hepburn) in that since the special session he has been appointed leader of the Liberal party in the province of Ontario.
I trust he may long continue to be leader of ' the opposition there. May I also express the wish that when he retires his successor will take his seat in this corner of the house bringing with him his binoculars and ear trumpet.
I well remember the bright speech of the member for West Elgin when he spoke of certain members of the Conservative party who visited his constituency. I may say that I also had certain visitations from men on the other side of the house during the last election.
I had a visit from Thomas Alexander Crerar, then Minister of Railways and Canals, who came to the town of Killarney in my constituency. Then the former Minister of Finance, Charles Avery Dunning, who has been referred to this evening, came to the town of Boisse-vain. My third visitor was Joseph Thorarinn Thorson, who I understand, used to delight hon. members in this corner of the house; he spoke at the town of Deloraine. I bring these matters to the attention of the house, not because in the town of Killarney, where Mr. Crerar spoke we had the first Conservative majority since 1904; not because where Mr. Dunning spoke we had the largest Conservative majority in the constituency, not because where Mr. Thorson spoke-he used to be my teacher

we had the first Conservative victory since Manitoba was carved out of the Northwest Territories; no, I do not mention their visits because of those facts, but rather for the reason that there came into my constituency three wise men from the west, brilliant boys bearing bulging briefs of meaningless matter, and where are they to-day?

The constituency which I have the honour to represent is situated in the southwestern corner of Manitoba. In that constituency, as in the constituency of Marquette, we have a beautiful forest reserve, 36 by 6 miles, containing a large number of lakes, meadow land, forest, hay land and pasture for cattle. At the southern extremity we have the international boundary, on the west the province of Saskatchewan, on the north the Souris river, and on the east that great dynasty that has been presided over by the member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) for ten years. I like the clerical stories that the hon. member incorporated in his speech last week, but I trust he will not repeat them from the pulpit. In my constituency, as the hon. member indicated, we are engaged in mixed farming; we grow wheat, oats, barley, and we raise cattle, pigs and poultry; but wheat is our major crop. Barley is our next crop in importance, and, after all, this is a great crop in Manitoba. Manitoba exceeds every other province in the production of barley. Ordinarily our farms average 320 acres, but sometimes their acreage is ten times that figure.
I want to speak in particular on the question of barley. This is the production for 1929 and 1930:
1929: Manitoba, 36,518,000 bushels; Saskatchewan, 30,755,000 bushels; Alberta, 12,514,000 bushels.
1930: Manitoba 49,974,000 bushels; Saskatchewan, 40,522,000 bushels; Alberta, 18,999,000 bushels.
Those are the figures given by the Bureau of Statistics. It will be seen that we in Manitoba are largely interested in the production of barley. This year to date we have marketed from western Canada only 14.000,000 bushels of barley. Last year up to the same period we had already marketed 23,500,000 bushels. Deducting the marketed barley from the production figures, we have on hand in western Canada over 95,000,000 bushels of barley. In addition we have a carry over from last year of 23,000,000 bushels. Deducting from that total the amount which has been fed to our cattle, I think the house will agree with me that we have at the present time over 100,000,000 bushels of barley in western Canada with no market. That is worth around 10 cents a bushel to-day.
But I want to point out that at the same time we are bringing in from the United States and from the Argentine corn in very large quantities. With the consent of the house I want to place on record the import figures of corn for the last twelve months. These are the imports for other than purposes of distillation. The figures cover the period

The Address-Mr. Willis
from March, 1930, to February, 1931, and they show we have imported for purposes other than distillation more than 10,000,000 bushels of corn. The Bureau of Statistics have estimated for me that of that amount over 8,000,000 bushels were used for feed purposes, mostly in eastern Canada. Corn is admitted free for purposes of feed; for distillation it is subject to a duty of 7J cents a bushel. That is the condition with which we in western Canada are confronted. We paid out to our great competitors, the Argentine and the United States, more than $6,000,000 last year for corn for feeding purposes. The Toronto price on March 2, as given me by the Bureau of Statistics was as follows: barley, 38 cents a bushel; corn, c.i.f. Port Colborne, 63 cents. This indicates that even in the east there is a spread between corn and barley of 25 cents a bushel.
Now, I would direct the attention of the house to the fact that in practically every case barley is as good as corn for purposes of feed. The federal government through its experimental farms for a considerable period has been carrying on experiments with a view to finding out whether barley cannot be substituted for corn, and with the indulgence of the house I wish to place on record certain results that they have arrived at. I have in my hand pamphlet No. 127, new series, issued by the Department of Agriculture, headed Greater Use of Barley in Live Stock Feeding. These are some of the conclusions contained in the pamphlet. After conducting experiments throughout Canada in regard to feed for beef cattle it says that 66 per cent, or even 75 per cent, of barley may be used, and it may be substituted at any time for corn in any way in which corn is used. For dairy cattle barley should not form more than 25 to 33 per cent of the grain ration. For horses it can be used up to 25 per cent or more. It is used largely now in Africa, the orient, Europe and the United States. For swine feeding it is the equal of corn. Corn is slightly more fattening, but otherwise barley is better. When one considers the difference in price there is no comparison at all. That is why I am urging that our people in eastern Canada particularly who are feeding corn should now feed barley instead, thereby serving their country, assisting western Canada and getting prices as good as they can get now for whatever they are feeding. Let me read to you the conclusions at which this pamphlet arrives: It is generally recognized as the most useful Canadian grain grown for swine feeding.
It is almost equally useful in the feeding and finishing of beef cattle.	_
With oats, it forms a good base for dairy cattle grain mixtures where the additional 22110-15
protein required to balance the ration is otherwise supplied, for example, by alfalfa or high protein cereal-legume hay crops.
Barley may be safely and economically fed to work horses as a part of the grain ration. It is best rolled or bruised.
Barley, rolled, cracked or coarsely ground, combines well with oats in fattening of lambs.
I also wish to refer to another pamphlet which has been issued by the Department of Agriculture, and just here I might say that anyone may get these pamphlets by writing the department at Ottawa. I refer now to pamphlet No. 128, new series, which covers the feeding of poultry, and which arrives at the same results. For those who may be experts perhaps it might be well to refer to certain figures given me by the Manitoba Agricultural College covering actual tests in regard to the feeding of hogs. This schedule indicates the first weight of the hog, the last weight, the gain, the number of days on feed, the total feed consumed, the feed per hundred pounds gained and the daily gain, showing exactly the result of the hog feeding with barley instead of com. Of course in western Canada there is a marked difference between the price of corn and the price of barley. At present in Winnipeg corn sells for 66 cents per bushel, whereas barley may be bought for 15 cents a bushel. The difference in the east, where we wish to sell, may not be so great, but there is a spread of at least 25 cents per bushel.


Mr. REID:: Would the hon. member tell us whether he has any statistics regarding the feeding of corn to poultry?


Errick French Willis: Yes, I have some statistics which I will give my hon. friend. I am just coming to that subject. The animal husbandry department of the Manitoba Agricultural college states that corn is less than 5 per cent more valuable than barley, and with the difference in prices it is much more economical. Then in regard to poultry I may tell my hon. friend that the results obtained at the Manitoba Agricultural college are these: As a growing ration it is just as good as corn; as a laying ration it is just as satisfactory as corn, but in other respects it is slightly inferior. These are the conclusions at which they have arrived after actual tests: The cost of producing one hundred pounds of chicken with a barley ration is $9.54 as against $9.90 with a corn ration, or a difference of almost a half cent per pound. Those figures are given as of May 1, 1930. On the basis of this year's prices, however, the cost of producing one hundred pounds of chicken would be $7.38 per 100 pounds with the barley ration and $8.02 with the corn ration.

The Address-Mr. Willis

In case there may be those hon. members present who do not think much of the Manitoba Agricultural oollege, I have a letter here from the professor of animal husbandry at the Ontario Agricultural college in which he says:
It has been our experience that corn and barley are, in nearly every ease, interchangeable when fed in a mixture for cattle, sheep or hog feeding.
Now I may say that there are three considerations in connection with this problem. The first consideration which I bring to your attention is the fact that barley is interchangeable with corn. The second fact is that we are permitting to come into this country free of duty ten million bushels of corn, which is being used as feed and which should be replaced with barley. The third consideration is that we have freight rates in this country which are too high. As an example, it costs 13 cents a bushel more to ship barley to the maritime provinces than to ship barley to Denmark, and it costs 3 cents a bushel more to ship barley to Vancouver than to ship it to Shanghai. Those are the conditions which exist at the present time. There has been a great deal of talk to-night concerning agriculture, and I must say that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir), ever since he came into office, has been striving to have these freight rates reduced.
In this connection may I say that I am not one of those who believe the east is always trying to choke the west. I have heard that opinion expressed here, but I do not agree with it. Neither am I one of those who believe the west is just a group of whiners. I was born in that great western country, and the longer I live the more firmly I become convinced of the fact that the east and the west are interdependent and that the sooner they find that out the better it will be for both of them. I say this is an opportunity for us to put that principle into operation. Every man who is feeding corn to live stock in this eastern country has the opportunity to say to himself, "If I were feeding barley I would be helping someone in western Canada make a living." That is the attitude which should be adopted, and it would not be detrimental to the live stock, the swine or the poultry of eastern Canada if that change were made.
It has been said that the last election was a butter and egg election, and we have heard a good deal lately with regard to butter and eggs. So far as I may, I should like to still some of the discussion and get down to the facts. I have secured from the Bureau of Statistics the actual imports of butter into Canada by months, commencing March 1 
1930, and continuing to February 28, 1931. We find that in March, 1930, we imported 8,029,435 pounds of butter, whereas in February of 1931 we imported only 468,851 pounds. I wish to place this statement on record, and I want to show exactly what those imports were. I do not want to pick out a month here and a month there, although of course it is true that at the present time we have in store ovrr
11,000,000 pounds of butter.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I do not wish to interrupt the hon. member, but I have noticed that he has sent to Hansard various documents intending them to be copied into the record. I should like to quote rule 291, which states:
It is not permissible for a member to hand in to Hansard any writing or statements which have not been orally addressed to the house in his speech. Although occasionally, by the courtesy of the house, the finance minister has been allowed to do so in making his budget speech wherein important financial statements and abstracts have been referred to.
I wish to call the hon. member's attention to that rule in case, under a misapprehension, he may leave out statements he would otherwise make but which will not appear in Hansard, having been handed in and not read.


Errick French Willis: I shall be very glad to read what I wish to appear in Hansard. This table is as follows:
Canada's Imports of Butter
(By months-March 1, 1930, to February 28, 1931)
1930 March	
April	
May	Quantity Lb	
8,029,435 .. .. 2,698,270 .. .. 2,952,367	Value $ 2,733,265 893,182 904,749J une	.. .. 2,855,415	771,859July	.. .. 438,559	121,074August	. . .. 1,806,472	497,222September	.... 878.298	246,181October	. . .. 2.243.196	593,655November.. . . ,	.. . . 124,943	41,820December . . ..	. . .. 404,902	120,7811931	J anil ary	. . .. 448,447	134,172February	. . . . 468,851	130,864
Those are the imports of butter into this country. In that regard I was very much surprised this afternoon to hear the New Zealand treaty still being discussed. As a matter of fact, I have only three things to say with reference to the New Zealand treaty: First, I believe I am here as a result of the New Zealand treaty; secondly, if the New Zealand treaty was a good thing why was it abrogated? And thirdly, if it was a bad thing, why was it defended for four years? That is all I have to say with reference to the New Zealand treaty.

The Address-Mr. Willis
I come now to the importation of eggs, because that comes in also for discussion. Under the Speaker's ruling I shall not be able to quote you full details on this subject owing to the forty minute limitation. However, I have the figures for the last year and I find that in March, 1930, we imported, in dozens, 1,177,513 valued at $325,238, and in February, 1931, 3,972, valued at $1,361. That in effect, is the result of that treaty.
I wish for a few moments to speak in regard to that famous speech made in Regina. Mark you, I am referring now to the speech made by the present Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) and not the past prime minister. In a Canadian press despatch which appeared in the Manitoba Free Press under the heading Salient Features, giving a summary of the Prime Minister's speech, I find the following:
Regina, Sask., Dec. 30-Premier Bennett to-night announced the federal government's policy on the wheat situation.
Salient features of his speech were:
1.	Creation of a private corporation to lend money to assist farmers in getting into mixed farming.
2.	Promise of grain rates on Hudson Bay railway, when placed in operation, fixed on basis of Crow's Nest Pass rates.
3.	Assistance for the provincial governments in providing free food, clothing and seed grain for needy farmers.
4.	Credit arrangements to prevent forced selling of the 1930 crop.
5.	Guarantee of French government to purchase 7,000,000 to 9,500,000 bushels of 1930 crop.
G. Opening of negotiations with Chinese government for sale of Canadian wheat in China.
Strangely enough I find directly under this despatch an item with the following heading:
Bracken says Bennett speech encouraging.
That in itself ought to be good testimony. But in regard to the credit corporation, I know that when I am home I receive at least one letter a day with reference to the matter, inquiring when the corporation is going to open up, because the people in my constituency feel that it will be of great benefit to them and they are looking forward to the time when it will be started.
I have heard here a discussion concerning a gentleman named Mussolini. I have in this house heard the Prime Minister referred to as Benito Mussolini. But after all, was it not Mussolini who was the saviour of his country? In the press, however, I find that Mussolini is not compared to the right hon. the Prime Minister; rather is he compared to the leader of the opposition, as to which of these gentlemen holds the world's record for the longest speech.
22110-15J
We are thankful in our constituency for the things which came from the special session, and it might very well be remarked that, whatever else you are getting from this government, you are getting action. And at a time like this that is what the people want- action. I remember a story which I could repeat in regard to the Mussolini incident. I was at one time a student in the province o1' Alberta. It will be recalled that in 1920 the hon. member for West Edmonton (Mr. Stewart) was there, and in the language of Amos 'n' Andy he was then the "head man"; and I remember that one evening he came to speak to a group of students. I recall one resounding phrase he used on that occasion. He said, "The more I see of democracy the more I believe in a good autocracy". There you have it from the hon. member for West Edmonton himself. I have heard much criticism is regard to the Prime Minister and I would ask hon. members to check me on the facts as I shall state them. It seems to me that the Prime Minister of this country was elected at the largest convention ever held in Canada. I think that is true. It is true also that the Prime Minister has been perhaps the biggest business success of any man who sits in this house. It is true too that he has been the biggest professional success of any man in this house, and also the biggest political success of any man in the house. I say that, because the greatest journal in the empire has said so; it said he was the most cutstanding statesman at the last Imperial conference. But the greatest thing the Prime Minister has done has been to break those blocs which formerly we had in the province of Saskatchewan and in the province of Quebec. We have therefore in the government now in power the greatest guarantee that all the interests of this country will be properly looked after. We have adequate representation in this government from every province in the Dominion. When I give the figures I think hon. members will agree with me in the statement I have just made. We have on this side from the province of British Columbia, seven out of fourteen; we have in Alberta four Conservatives, three Liberals and nine United Farmers. And may I say in passing that for my part I am happy at the way the United Farmers of Alberta have taken part in the iebate. We have from Saskatchewan seven Conservatives and from Manitoba eleven out of seventeen. From Ontario we have fifty-aine, which is a majority, and from Quebec twenty-four Conservatives. Perhaps I might repeat something a press man said to me just recently. He said, "You have on the
22S
The Address-Mr. Willis

right of Mr. Speaker the most brilliant group of Canadians speaking French who have ever sat behind any prime minister in this country". From New Brunswick we have ten Conservatives and one volcanic Liberal, from Nova Scotia ten Conservatives and four Liberals, and from Prince Edward Island three Conservatives; while from the Yukon we have one Conservative. So that on this side of the house we have agriculture represented as never before, and when hon. members on the other side rise and say, in a loud voice, like a radio, that they speak on behalf of agriculture, let them remember that there are as good agriculturists on this side of the house as anywhere in this chamber.
With regard to western conditions, I do not altogether like the way the banks are acting in western Canada; nor do I think that the mortgage companies are taking advantage of the great opportunities which are theirs. In addition to that I am assured that the machine companies in the west will not sell their products until they reduce prices 25 to 50 per cent. We can do without a good many things that are given us. We can do without alemite and springs under the seat, without ball bearings and other things. The machinery we used to get served us for fifteen years and that was long enough. Only in this way will the machine companies be able to sell what they produce.
In the west conditions are not good; there is no use saying they are. This is no time for passive optimism. This is no time for taking the attitude that it is just a matter of psychology. It is useless to say that prosperity is just around the comer. Bather is it a time
for clearer thinking and harder working,	a
time for making greater sacrifices on behalf of one another. If we could but get the spirit of those pioneers who came to the west about the year 1880, many of our problems would be solved, for they made sacrifices then which we shall never have to make in this country again. Prosperity is not just around the comer, but rather does it remain on the hilltop. We in western Canada grow the finest wheat in the world, and we grow it more economically than any living people. We are served in this country by two of the finest railways that ever served ten million people. The world must eat and we must feed it, and by these means we shall succeed. By these means we shall march out of this valley of depression up on to the hilltop and into the sunshine.


Mr. A. L. BEAUBIEN (Provencher):: In rising to make a few observations on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, I intend to follow my usual course and be

brief. In the first place I regret that Mr. Speaker himself is not at present in the chair, because I wish to extend to him my congratulations on his acquisition of the French language since his elevation to the high position which he now occupies. It is gratifying to all Canadians who love their country and have the spirit of the confederation pact that the Speaker of the House, although English is his mother tongue, is able to read the prayers in French. Moreover, I think a man in this bilingual country who can recite the prayers in both French and English, has probably a better chance to have his prayers answered.
I also wish to congratulate the mover (Mr. Cormier) and the seconder (Mr. Porteous) of the address. It is no small task to move or second the address in reply to the speech from the throne. I had that task once myself and I found it rather hard because the eyes of the newspaper correspondents and of all the members are on one. Those two gentlemen acquitted themselves admirably, especially in view of the fact that they had to defend a government that to my mind, as far as the masses of the Canadian people are concerned, is the worst government that Canada has ever had. I shall qualify that statement later.
May I also refer to the speech of the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Mullins). How he loves that old cow! He told us the other night how he won his election and the large majority he had. I am going to tell the house how he won his election. He went to the tinsmith and had a miniature cream can made. At every meeting he talked about the old cow and the price of butter fat, and producing this can he said: "If I am elected and if Mr. Bennett becomes Prime Minister, this cream that the old cow puts into the can, instead of being twenty-six cents, will be forty cents a pound for butter fat."


Mr. MULLINS:: The statement that the hon. member is making is absolutely incorrect. I do not see how the house can permit a statement of that kind to be made. I said nothing of the kind. It was unnecessary for me to do so.


Arthur-Lucien Beaubien: I trust, Mr. Speaker, you will allow me the time that the hon. gentleman has taken from my speech. Every time he mentioned the butter fat, the old cow which was outside of the building would let out a bawl of approval. That is how the hon. gentleman obtained his 2,700 of a majority. If the same hon. gentleman went back to that constituency with the same cream can and talked to the same old cow, she would not bawl in approval, she would horn him. I was really surprised to hear the hon. gentleman

The Address-Mr. Beaubien
the other day attacking the Hon. T. A. Crerar and stating how Mr. Crerar farmed the farmers. Mr. Crerar was President of the Grain Growers' Grain Company; he was really the man who formed the company, the greatest company the grain growers ever had in western Canada, a company which was composed of 36,000 shareholders who were farmers, and which returned in dividends thousands of dollars that went into the pockets of the farmers. Is that the man who has farmed the farmers? The hon. member for Marquette, although I have a great deal of respect for him, does not always preach the same thing. Judging by his actions, when he is out in the country he is the best Liberal that I know of, because he preaches Liberal principles. The only help that the hon. member for Marquette ever gave for the farmer was to talk about the old cow and "shoot the bull" when the bull got rough. During the election campaign the hon. member for Marquette also referred to the old hen. He did not look after the spring chicken; it was the old hen lie was looking after.
I wish to refer now to the remarks made by the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi (Mr. Pickel) the other night. He rather accused the western farmers of being lazy. I think the hon. member from Brome-Missisquoi knows as much about farming conditions in western Canada as I know about medicine and that is nothing. But I will invite my hon. friend, after this session is over to visit western Canada, and if he will send me a telegram I will devote some time to him in order to educate him as to conditions out west. Let me also inform my hon. friend that the sun in western Canada sets a good deal later in the evening than it does in the east.. Therefore the day is much longer and the farmer works longer hours than the farmer does in the east.
I should like to congratulate sincerely the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Willis) who preceded me on his presentation to-night. Although I do not agree with all he said, he made a very fine presentation, and I am sure it is no small task for a new member to make his maiden speech in the house.
I wish to make some reference to the speech of the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Bowman) who spoke this afternoon. May I be pardoned if I refer to Mr. Deputy Speaker, who is at present in the chair? The other day the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) took the stand that the deputy speaker should not take part in house debates which are controversial. Whether that
is right or wrong is probably a matter for argument, but in listening to the speech delivered by the hon. member for Dauphin today, I could not help thinking that the leader of the opposition was right, for this reason, that almost the whole speech of the hon. member for Dauphin was a denunciation of what Mr. Deputy Speaker had expressed the other day in regard to the foreign-born population of Canada. I agree with what the hon. member for Dauphin said. I am just as much a Canadian as anybody else in Canada, but I say without fear of contradiction that if we allow a man, no matter from what shores he comes, to enter Canada, and if we permit him to become a British subject, he should enjoy all the rights and privileges that any British subject enjoys. These people who come from foreign countries, whether from central Europe or elsewhere, are making in that western country a contribution that many people do not appreciate. They are bringing here their literature, their traditions. They have settled on land which is more or less inferior and they have made a success where many of us would have made a failure. We have allowed them to come to our shores and to become subjects of our country, and it is up to us to accord them every right and privilege which a British subject should be accorded in this country.
Another discovery which the hon. member for Dauphin made was that the price of machinery was too high. I think he is right. He also discovered that the prices of all the commodities that the farmer has to buy are too high. We on this side of the house know that they are, but every move that the government and hon. gentlemen on the other side of the house make is a move that is going to raise the cost of those commodities that we need so badly on the farm. How can my hon. friend from Dauphin complain of the price of machinery and at the same time support policies which inevitably have the effect of increasing the price of machinery? How is he going to expect a reduction in the price of machinery so long as he supports a government which will allow the manufacturers of machinery to hide themselves behind a tariff wall of 25 or 36 per cent? It cannot be done. The manufacturer is a human being, and of course he will take advantage of the tariff, and has always done so:
I come to t'he speech from the throne. I have read this document through several times, both in French and in English, but up to the present I have not been able to find anything in it which would enable me when

The Address-Mr. Beaubien
I go home at Easter to tell my people that the government is going to do something to alleviate the situation as it exists to-day. There is only one paragraph in the speech from the throne that refers to agriculture to any extent. It reads:
My ministers have had under anxious consideration the means by which an orderly marketing of the wheat crop of western Canada may be assured, and have already taken such effective action towards that end as the circumstances appear to justify.
When the right hon. the Prime Minister came back from the Imperial conference I read a statement in the press that some arrangement had been made to secure an orderly marketing of the wheat crop of this country, but I have yet to find the details anywhere or to hear any statement which would give us any indication of what that orderly marketing scheme is. I do not know if any other hon. member has heard anything more about it than I have. I say that the Prime Minister right now should tell the people of western Canada and the people of this country generally just what that arrangement is. The agricultural industry is looking for information in that regard, information that is not forthcoming. Why keep the man on the farm, whether it be in eastern or western Canada, in the dark? Why not let him know what is being done, if anything is being done to give him a new lease of life and alleviate his condition? Here is the farmer ready to sow his crop and begin all his spring operations, and he does not know what to do. If the Prime Minister or the Minister of Agriculture has some scheme for alleviating the condition of the farmer,, let them tell the farmer in order to give him new courage.
Some people say that the farmers who ask for a pegged price for wheat are on false ground. Can you blame the farmer for asking for that? The government has found some means of protecting the manufacturers by pegging the price of manufactured goods. The farmer knows that all the commodities which he has to purchase for the operation of his farm are protected by a tariff wall, and naturally he says: If the manufacturers are going to dig into the jack^pot, I want to get in too.
We hear a lot of talk -about prosperity being just around the corner, but we have not found the corner. Bank presidents and the presidents of .great railway companies and financial institutions have all told us in their annual statements for last year that prosperity is just around the corner. The average individual, whether he be a farmer or a workingman, when he reads these financial statements of institutions which are choking agriculture 
with high interest rates, when he sees the whole page of a newspaper taken up with an annual statement showing that the banks have made a tremendous amount of profit in the past year and have been able to pay the same dividends that they paid in 1929, and in some cases more, and compares their flourishing condition with his own or with that of the farmer who has a large deficit at the end of his year's operations, can hardly be blamed for becoming dissatisfied. Prosperity will 'be brought back in this country as soon as the industry of agriculture is put on a paying basis, and no sooner. How are you going to bring that about? You can bring it about by reducing the rate of interest which the farmer has to pay for the money he needs; you can help to bring it about by reducing the cost of the goods which the farmer has to buy; you can help to bring it about by reducing the freight rates which press so heavily on the farmers to-day; and that is the only way you can do it. If the present prices of farm products, whether grain or other products, remain as they are, the farmer will have to lower his production costs tremendously, and he cannot do that unless these interest rates are reduced, and unless freight rates are reduced, and unless this madness of tariff wall is eliminated.
I want to deal shortly with the Beatty scheme that was proposed some time ago. Mr. Beatty is president of one of the finest transportation companies that we have in Canada. He is a very influential man, and whatever Mr. Beatty says is taken notice of by almost everybody. I do not know whether Mr. Beatty was chosen by design to deliver that famous speech in Winnipeg, or whether it came about by accident. It seems, however, that Mr. Beatty and the financial interests of this country are prepared to lend $5,000,000 to the farmers in western Canada to enable them to go into mixed farming. May I at this moment remind my hon. friend from Brome-Missisquoi that I left Quebec forty-nine years ago this May, and when I was a boy ten years of age we milked ten cows on my father's farm. Mr. Beatty, I say, and these financial interests are going to lend $5,000,000 to the western farmers to go into mixed farming. Well, we have had several schemes of that kind before. In 1921 we had a steer fattening epidemic. The bankers advised the farmers to buy steers and fatten them, and the farmers could borrow money from the banks to buy steers at high prices. The consequence was that most of the farmers in western Canada went into the steer fattening business. Then what happened? The market went right down, and practically all the farmers who went into

The Address-Mr. Beaubien
that business lost money, but they still had to pay the banks the money they had borrowed and the full interest charges. A couple of years ago some financial people came into western Canada, and said that we ought to go into the sheep raising business. I think the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Manion) was to some extent responsible for that, because he had complained a lot about Australian mutton coming to Canada. What was the consequence? They went over to the United States and bought a great many ewes and sold them to the farmers at $14.50 per head. Many farmers went into the sheep raising business, although they had no facilities for raising sheep, knew nothing about them, and consequently the whole project was a failure. The result is that to-day we are selling spring lamb on the Winnipeg markets for $3. Now Mr. Beatty comes along and wants us to go into another adventure. This time, however, he has taken Sir Herbert Holt's scheme and advocates the raising of hogs. In my constituency about three weeks ago Mr. Burnell, president of the Manitoba wheat pool, made a statement to the effect that a 15 per cent increase in the production of hogs would flood the market. I do not think Mr. Burnell would have made the statement if he had not been accurate in his figures. If the scheme of hog raising were adopted, instead of an increase of 15 per cent there would be an increase of 300 or 400 per cent. If that were the case what could we do with our production? I am reminded of a cartoon I saw in the Manitoba Free Press, and I feel free to mention that journal because it has been mentioned by my friend from Souris (Mr. Willis). The picture shows a farmer standing in a mountain of wheat. Beside him is standing the Prime Minister. The farmer is asking the question, "What am I going to do with my wheat?" to which he receives the reply, "Eat it." I wish my hon. friends to understand that that is merely a cartoon, and that the Prime Minister might not have used those exact words. I think, however, that the farmer will have to eat his hogs. If Mr. Beatty, Sir Herbert Holt or any of our great financiers want to help the farming situation in Canada let them surrender their high profits. Let Mr. Beatty surrender a part of that $39,000,000 net revenue made by his company in the year 1930. Let the banks which have been making fabulous profits from year to year shoulder some of the loss. Let those people surrender until the depression has passed, some of the profits they have been making. I will give a concrete example: Let us suppose that we have a quarter-section of land in western
Canada, that upon that land there are buildings valued at $5,000 or $6,000 and on the farm a mortgage of $3,500. That is not a large mortgage because many western farms carry heavier mortgages than that. Hon. members could not sell that land to-day for the mortgage against it. What does that mean? It means that the whole equity of the farmer is wiped off. Is it right and proper that one part of our community should stand the whole loss of the economic depression? I say it is not. If Mr. Beatty, Sir Herbert Holt and other financiers are sincere in their wish to help the agricultural industry, let them take smaller profits. I know the conditions which prevail in the province of Quebec as well as does the hon. member for Montmagny (Mr. LaVergne). I know that farmers in his constituency are as hard up as we are. Conditions in Ontario are not very good either. If the financiers are sincere let them surrender some of their dividends and some of the profits they have made.
I do not suppose that we on this side of the house could influence the Prime Minister in his policy of protection. I am however going to attack him in another way. He has been accused of being a one man government. His followers, the hon. member for Marquette, the hon. member for Souris, and the hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull) have said that statement is not correct. If it is not so I am going to give these hon. members a scheme by which they might prevent the economic destruction of this country through their high tariff madness. I am going to ask the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir), the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Murphy), the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Burns), the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Beaubier), the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. J. H. Stitt), the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Willis) the hon. member for Nelson (Mr. B. M. Stitt), the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Bowman), the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hay) and the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Mullins) to have a little caucus to-morrow morning. They are familiar with conditions in the west. They know that no fai'mer can continue on his farm if we are to have a restricted market wherein he must buy his goods and compete with the rest of the world in the sale of his commodities. They know that as well as hon. members on this side of the house know it, and no hon. member knows it better than the hon. member for Marquette.


Henry Alfred Mullins: The people in Marquette are tired of that kind of song. They gave me a majority of 2,700; that is proof of the fact.

The Address-Mr. Beaubien


Arthur-Lucien Beaubien: What must be the state of mind of the electors during times of depression when in a weak moment they send to this house the hon. member for Marquette in place of Mr. Allison Glen, his predecessor? I cannot account for such things. I am going to ask these hon. members to have a meeting to-morrow morning. I have taken part in the discussions of such little groups.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about the Seven Sisters?


Arthur-Lucien Beaubien: I know nothing about the ladies. I would ask those hon. members to say to the Prime Minister: Here are the conditions of the western farmers; you must stop this madness of erecting tariff walls or you are going to ruin the agricultural industry of the west. If we have not a one man government those hon. gentlemen may have a chance to convince the Prime Minister; he may listen to them rather than to us.
Before taking my seat may I say that if the policies the Prime Minister and his government put into force in September are to continue, if this tariff madness is not to end, the agricultural industry instead of improving will become much worse.


Mr. W. J. LOUCKS (Rosetown):: Mr. Speaker, I deem it a great privilege and pleasure at this time to address the house. As I am making my maiden speech I feel that hon. members might well extend some slight indulgence if I transgress in any minor details. At the outset may I be permitted to congratulate both the mover (Mr. Cormier) and the seconder (Mr. Porteous) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne.
Conditions in western Canada have been outlined by many previous speakers and it would seem unnecessary at this time for me to add to their observations. I would however like to endorse the views of the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman) to the effect that we should consider such steps as would bring relief not only to western Canada but to the whole Dominion. Many splendid recommendations have been made which if acted upon would bring assistance to western Canada.
First, I want to deal with the subject of our trade relations with soviet Russia. Some criticism has been levelled at the government because of its action in placing an embargo on certain imports from Russia. At this time I wish to compliment both the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) and the cabinet in that connection. Probably one of the best things that ever happened to the western 
farmer was when the government put on that embargo. I was asked by many people in my constituency, some of them my strongest political opponents, "What is your government going to do now with that $10,000,000 proposition from Russia?" They added, "We will know now whether the Prime Minister and his cabinet are sincere in their sympathy for us farmers. If they are more concerned with the manufacturer, of course they will accept the proposition." May I say that some of my political opponents came to me after the Prime Minister rejected Russia's offer and said, "We are convinced now that both the Prime Minister and his cabinet are thinking of the farmers rather than of the manufacturers; we believe they must be thinking about us farmers in western Canada."
Let me refer now to something that happened in 1929. In that year a trade deputation, not from Russia but from Great Britain, came to Ottawa. Our friends opposite were then in power, and if my memory serves me correctly the Right Hon. J. H. Thomas headed the British party. He proposed to the government of the day that the British government would take the greater portion of our wheat at $1.47 a bushel if the Canadian government would undertake in return to buy a certain tonnage of British coal. I assure the hon. members that as a farmer in western Canada I was very anxious about the outcome of that offer. I expected the government of that day would be considering the welfare of us farmers in western Canada; but to my disappointment the then leader of the government, now the right hon.. leader of the opposition. (Mr. Mackenzie King), implied by the course he then took that "your wheat of course will find its way into the various markets of the world." Had the government at that time accepted Mr. Thomas' suggestion it would have meant to me on my own crop over $4,000.
When I hear our friends on the other side express their belief in the British preference* and their deep concern for the poor farmers of western Canada, I cannot help wondering whether they are sincere. I say this advisedly, because at the time Mr. Thomas' offer was rejected Russian coal was being permitted entry into eastern Canada. I may be asked how that affected the farmers in western Canada. Well, the president of our wheat pool went over to Great Britain and he found a decided change in the British attitude towards our wheat, due to the fact that our government of that day had antagonized the people of Great Britain by turning down Mr. Thomas' offer of British coal in exchange for our wheat and allowing.

7'he Address-Mr. Loiicks
Russia to dump coal into eastern Canada. Again I desire to express my commendation of the action of the present government in declining to accept the recent Russian proposal. In effect they said to Russia, "We are more concerned at this time in looking after the interest of the farmers of western Canada". The best market we have for our wheat is Great Britain, and I am glad to think that today the government of this country is looking after our interests along those lines. Had the mistake of the late government been repeated, Great Britain would have been still further antagonized.
The hon. member for Montmagny (Mr. La-Vergne), addressing the house yesterday, stated that there were more important things to be considered than bread. I agree with him.
I think at this time we would be well advised to pay a little more attention to the bolshevistic propaganda that is being carried on throughout the Dominion. I am a little surprised when I hear my hon. friends representing labour pleading for the soviet government. A few days before leaving the west for Ottawa I was told that soviet schools or classes are being conducted in 121 of our towns and cities. In those classes our boys and girls are being taught to pay no attention to the future; materialism is stressed, the spiritual is ridiculed. In all sincerity I ask hon. members, what can we expect of the next generation if our boys and girls are taught such pernicious doctrines? Not long ago I had occasion to address a meeting in my constituency. The hall was crowded and I concluded my address in these words: "'Ladies and gentlemen, if materialism is all important, then you can endorse the government of soviet Russia or communism; but I think you are not thinking only of the material." Even some of those who opposed me in the last election shook me by the hand and congratulated me. They said: "You are right, Mr. Loucks, after all there is more than the material. After hearing what is going on in western Canada we are beginning to think more about the soviet menace than we did in the past."
In discussing the speech from the throne my hon. friend from South Vancouver (Mr. Maclnnis) said he could see no results at all favourable to the farmers so far as orderly marketing was concerned. I wish to assure him and other hon. members that the farmers of western Canada have been helped very substantially by the action taken by the government to ensure orderly marketing. I am convinced by his remarks that he has little conception of what orderly marketing means to the west. But for the steps taken by the government, the farmers of western Canada would
have been much worse off to-day. If the government had not persuaded the banks to guarantee the wheat pool we would have had to dump our wheat on the market. If ever there was a time when orderly marketing was essential it is to-day, especially when we have such overproduction. Let me point out some of the results from orderly marketing. The wheat pool never would have come into being had it not been for the fact that some of us farmers were convinced that we had to change our attitude with respect to the marketing of our grain. The operations of the old wheat board demonstrated that there was much to be gained by orderly marketing. I hear much criticism of the wheat pool, but notwithstanding all its mistakes I have no hesitation in stating that the farmers of western Canada will never go back to the old system of marketing their grain through the grain exchange. That system never eliminated market depression in the fall of the year. We farmers in western Canada have our obligations to meet at that season. What happens? Every creditor is after us for money. There is only one thing to do, hurry our wheat off to the market. That depresses the market. We found under the old system that individually we could not do anything to eliminate that depression, but that collectively we could. Now our creditors have to stand back and wait until we have received our initial payment; then we pay off part of our indebtedness and later the balance.
I have sat here and listened very patiently to all that has been said during this debate about the tariff. One would think from the arguments submitted by hon. members opposite, especially by those from the west, that western farmers are going to be put out of business by the tariff. I am safe in saying that in my constituency we export more wheat than any other district in western Canada, I ran against the most rabid free-trader in the whole dominion, Mr. John Evans, who represented the riding for nine years. I am told that free trade was about all he spoke of here in this house; I know that is all he talked about during the campaign, but he nearly lost his deposit. I went out and preached tariff, right from the commencement, and the farmers of my constituency supported me because I had the assurance from the Prime Minister that there were to be no exploitations. I have heard a great deal from the other side with regard to exploitations, but I ask any hon. member to prove to me that there has been exploitation in any one case since this government came into power,
The Address-Mr. Loucks

Just a few days before I left I attended a meeting, where I said, "I am here seeking information; before I go to Ottawa I want to know if you can teill me one commodity in which there has been exploitation since the tariff was increased last September," and not a man in that large audience could give me one instance.
I want to say something else, Mr. Speaker, in connection with the tariff on corn. I can see where that will bring about results. We have been told by the opposition that as yet the farmers have received no protection. I feel that this is not quite true; we have obtained protection, in connection with butter at least, since this government came into office. If tariff means anything, Mr. Speaker, it means protection to the farmers. We have received that protection with regard to dairy products, but we want to go further than that. I have pledged myself to support this tariff on corn; before I left home my supporters asked me if I would do my best to have that tariff imposed, and so I came here supporting that proposal.
I think it is only fair that hon. members should ask me a question or two in this regard. The first question I think should be asked is this: "Will you, as western farmers, exploit the eastern farmers if we do put up the tariff against corn?" A question of that kind would be only fair, and my answer would be that we would not do so. Some hon. members may ask, "How can you be sure?" My answer is this:	We know there will be
no exploitation. We know what happened last fall in connection with the tariff on glass. The government made an example in that case, and I am safe in saying that the same thing would rightly happen to us if we should exploit the farmers of eastern Canada in connection with corn.
There is another question which I think you should ask, and it is this: "Are you western farmers sure you can meet the demand?" I think the statistics which were given to-night should leave no doubt as to that. Surely with millions of bushels of grain in the bins of the west there should be no need to worry about that, so my answer is, yes, we will meet the demand as far as eastern Canada is concerned.
Then I want to come back to the subject brought up by my hon. friend who is interested in the ranchers. I can see an opportunity for great benefit to the farmers of eastern Canada who are feeding cattle as well as to the farmers of the west; I think you can help us out and we can help you out. Some of you eastern farmers can come out to the

west; we can provide you with feeder steers and also with barley and oats with which to finish them, and I think in that way you can help out the ranchers. I mention this with no other thought than that perhaps because of climatic conditions it would be good business to cooperate along this line. You could give us a fair price for our feeder steers, as I think you would, and we could give you plenty of coarse grains for finishing, also at a reasonable price.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I come to something else; I am going to advocate what is practically interprovincial preference instead of empire preference, and I think this question should be considered at this time. In order to make this proposal a success, however, something will have to be done in connection with freight rates. I think the time has come when it is only fair to bring our domestic freight rates in line with the export rates. For years, as I understand it, the domestic freight rates have been about double export rates. As a farmer I received a great surprise when, during the campaign, I made some investigations along this line. I went to the extreme western part of Alberta and found that from Calgary to British Columbia the domestic rate was just a little more than twice the export rate. Under the present system it would pay us, as farmers, to ship our wheat all the way to England and bring it back _ again in order to sell it in British Columbia. I have every faith in this government; I think they will take action and get the domestic rate down to the export rate, and I will be disappointed if that is not done!
I think we are going to show some of the horn members opposite who have been criticizing us that this government is trying to do something for us in western Canada.
Some reference has been made to our banking system in western Canada. I am not much in sympathy with it, and neither is any other western farmer. I am just an ordinary farmer, and I had no idea that the legal rate of interest was only 7 per cent. Surely the hon. gentlemen who are now in opposition, and who had control of affairs for nine years, must have known that fact, but I did not know it. I am told now that the legal bank interest is 7 per cent, but I have been in western Canada for twenty-six years and I have never been able to borrow money from the banks for less than 8 per cent interest.
If I go to the bank to borrow S100, the banker takes my note and hands me only $92 on which to do my financing. I went to the manager of the bank and said, "Are you not violating the Bank Act in this procedure?" He said he was not, and when I asked him

The Address-Mr. Loucks
why he said that, his reply was, "We do not call it interest at all; we call it discounting your note." In that way they get around the Bank Act. Again I have every confidence in the ability of this government to see that something is done to make the banks stay within the law. I have received many resolutions from different farmer organizations asking that something be done in this regard, and I believe something will be done. I go further; I do not believe the farmers can afford to pay more than 6 per cent interest on loans. We will do a great service to western Canada if we see to it that the interest rate is reduced, and I am here from western Canada pledged to do my part in seeing that cheaper money is provided for the farmers of the west.
To an ordinary farmer parliament is rather a funny place, if I may use those words. For over a week I have listened to this debate;
I have heard ridicule heaped on the government by hon. members opposite, but I have not heard anyone suggest a remedy. It seems to me that the opposition have taken the attitude of saying, We can wash our hands of the matter now; the whole responsibility is on the government. If the leader of the opposition were in his place I think I could tell him without fear of contradiction that he would do better in the west, at the next election if he just sat back and folded his arms and did not interfere with the program of the government. Some of my neighbours were at the station to see me off and they said, "Well, Bill, you are going to have a long drawn out session down there, I suppose?" My answer was, "No, I do not expect it; I think there will be a sort of coalition government down there this time. I think the opposition has enough vision to cooperate with the government in order to see if something cannot be done to relieve present conditions." All these conditions 'have not arisen during the last eight months; do not let us fool ourselves. When hon. gentlemen opposite get up here and ridicule the present government, misrepresenting things, and saying that the responsibility for prevailing conditions rests with a government that has been in power eight months, those hon. gentlemen must think that our intelligence in western Canada is not very high. Are those hon. gentlemen going to support us and see that the farmers of the west get the protection they need? Are they going to vote against a policy which is intended to benefit the west? Every gentleman across the way should be nodding his head now in assent. If they are sincere I do not see how they could help agreeing to give the farmers some protection.
But I do not see any of them nodding their heads. There must be something wrong with their necks. I would give them a prescription; they had better get a little lubricating oil, if their necks are so stiff that they cannot nod in agreement with a policy which is intended to further the interests of western Canada.
What is the attitude of those hon. gentlemen in regard to freight rates? They were in power for nine years but did nothing to help us out in that regard. Will they accept the invitation now to lend us their support in regard to an export rate which will help to improve conditions both in eastern Canada and in the west? They should be bowing their heads to show that they endorse what I am saying. If they do not endorse that position they will not be back after the next election.
There are many things I should like to mention, but naturally as a new member I am somewhat embarrassed. Imagine an old farmer living away back in the prairies, and the farmers of the district coming after him and saying, "We want to put this matter into your hands; we know that we can trust you; you know the situation in this constituency and we want you to represent us." I know they thought that way or I should not be here. But let me suggest some of the reasons why I am here. One of them is the fact that we have in Canada to-day a prime minister who was not afraid to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific through all our manufacturing concerns and say, "When I protect you there will be no exploitation." I am glad to say that we have such a man at the head of the government; and so long as the present Prime Minister conducts the affairs of the country in that spirit we need not worry very much about conditions in the west. We are behind him. The trouble with us heretofore has been that we were exploited; but we are not going to be exploited from now on. We feel confident now that exploitation will be a thing of the past.
I received a letter from the former member of the constituency, written in very sympathetic terms, before I accepted the nomination. It was written in language to this effect: "Mr. Loucks, I would advise you to have nothing to do with either Liberals or Conservatives. You will be subjected to severe trials. You will be under a whip." I was quite amused. Of course, as a farmer accustomed to using a whip, I pondered what sort of whip this gentleman was referring to, whether it was a cat o' nine tails or what. I am glad to say that so far I have not seen any evidence of any whip of that description.
The Address-Mr. Loueks

But when the leader of the opposition got up to speak I must say I began to quiver. When he referred to the way in which the Prime Minister was running the country I said to myself, " May'be Mr. Evans's word has come true." And the only thing that I could see was this, that if there was a whip it must have been used on the Liberal side during the past administration, when Mr. John Evans was here. It seemed to me that that gentleman must have been thinking in terms of the past administration when he warned me that I might be subject to such punishment.
Before I close I wish to assure the government, as a farmer of the west, that they will have my sincere support so long as they do those things which they have undertaken to carry out. So long as they take such steps as will help to alleviate the distress in the west, I can assure them of my support; and I have no doubt that, before the session is over, those things which I have pointed out to-night as being necessary in the interests of the country will cease to have been matters of theory and will have been put into practice.


Mr. HARRY BUTCHER (Last Mountain):: I have noticed that three or four of the newer members who have recently spoken have said they have risen with diffidence. To say that I have risen with diffidence would be altogether to underestimate my feelings at the present moment. I must confess that I have not yet overcome the sense of awe I experienced when I first entered this chamber. When I looked upon the faces of men whose names have been household words in Canada for many years, whose speeches I have been reading for many years, men on both sides of the house, men I have come to feel that I knew personally, although I had never met them or spoken to them, I felt it would be almost an impertinence for one like myself, with so little knowledge, with so little ability to express himself, to rise and give utterance to the opinions I hold. Nevertheless I hold certain opinions that are the result of reading, the result of meeting with other men who have become possessed of knowledge in the political world, and I feel it is my duty to give expression to those opinions to-night, because that was one of the purposes for which I was elected in July last.
I should like to say first of all that I frankly and freely admit that the Conservative party in power to-day is not and cannot be held wholly responsible for the unhappy conditions that exist at the present time both in the matter of the lack of market for our farm products and in the matter of unemployment. I must say however that in my opinion, in the 
matter of a market for farm products, the situation was aggravated somewhat by the legislation passed at the short session of parliament; and I firmly believe, in the matter of unemployment, that time will prove that even in that respect the legislation of the last session has been an aggravation rather than otherwise.
During the election campaign our opponents in the west, and in the east too, were blaming the policies of the Liberal party for the unhappy conditions then existing. We did not believe that we were to blame. On the other hand, we were willing to accept the reasoned opinions of those who were fully conversant with world conditions. I have before me an opinion expressed by Sir Frederick Williams-Taylor, vice-president of the Bank of Montreal, as published in the Financial Times of London, England. He said:
Canada, except for the wheat situation which is slowly correcting itself, has been less affected than almost any other country by the economic and industrial crisis through which the world at large is at present passing.
About the same time Mr. J. C. Waugh, President of Brydges and Waugh Limited, financial agents of Winnipeg, said:
I had the pleasure recently of meeting a very prominent English business man. He was on his return from a tour around the world.
I was telling him of our grain situation here. He said, "You know, your situation is not peculiar. Australia's wool market, Mexico's silver market, Brazil's coffee market, Cuba's sugar market, the United States' grain and cotton market, and practically the market of every producing country in the world, is each in just as difficult a position as yours here. In England we have been going through these conditions for nine years, and I should say that Canada seems to be the last place to have been affected.
I am led to the conclusion that even our Conservative opponents in the west were not quite sincere when they said that they held us responsible for those unhappy conditions to which I have referred. I notice to-day they are inclined to blame world conditions for this situation. I notice that even the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) at Calgary on January 3rd is reported by a Canadian Press-despatch as having made a statement to this effect. He himself did not use the following, words; they are the words of the correspondent. I quote:
Application of temporary measures to correct present economic conditions will not satisfy Premier R. B. Bennett. He is determined to unearth the final causes of the present depression and lay a secure foundation for permanent future prosperity. So he told a large gathering of his fellow-citizens of Calgary assembled Friday at a luncheon arranged jointly by the board of trade, the young men's section of the board' of trade and the ICiwanis club.

The Address-Mr. Butcher
"I cannot make up my mind," lie said, "why this country between the lake and the mountains should experience the depression, why people who have lived here for years should now find themselves without any accumulation of goods, sometimes without the barest necessities of life."	_
Mr. Bennett said he had no fixed idea as to the answer to the questions which came to his mind, but was determined to find it. With a country with the credit of Canada palliatives could easily be supplied, but it was essential to provide for lasting security. The government was confronted not only with a problem of adjustment, but with the necessity of finding and eradicating the ultimate causes of depression.
From that it seems clear that the Prime Minister himself did not believe that Liberal policies were the cause of the depression that existed; but on the other hand he declared that he was setting out to discover what those causes actually were. Notwithstanding the fact that I cannot find it reasonable to blame the Conservative party, the government of to-day for the conditions that exist, I think I am quite justified in again reminding the Prime Minister and his followers that they were pledged to remedy the situation at once, forthwith. The Prime Minister himself said that if he were returned to power he would end unemployment; he would cause unemployment to be a bogey to be laughed at. He further said that he would force a way into the markets of the world for our wheat. Surely we have a right to believe that the Prime Minister was sincere when he uttered those words, and we have a right to say t<5 him: Redeem your promises; you were returned to power upon the understanding that you would fulfil this promise forthwith after your election.
I am going to add that the present Prime Minister did redeem two promises which he made, and he redeemed them very promptly. The first of those promises was that a special session should be called to deal with these matters; the second was that at that special session provision would be made for unemployment relief. Both of those promises were kept. The special session was called as soon as possible after the people had recorded their verdict. At that special session an amount of $20,000,000 was, as we all know, voted for the relief of unemployment; but this vote of $20,000,000, important as it was, for the relief of unemployment, was but a trifling matter when compared to the vote to The vested interests, to the manufacturing interests of this country, by way of increased tariffs. All this was on a special plea of "Canada first." Within the breast of every man in this chamber to-day there is a "Canada first" heart, a heart that beats first
for Canada. I was not born in this land; I was bom in old England. I did not come here until I was thirty years of age, but I will yield to no man in my love for this Canada of ours. I have good reason to love it. It is twenty-seven years ago to-day that I passed for the first time a few miles south of Ottawa. I think the Canadian Pacific at that time ran some thirty or forty miles south of this city; at any rate, we did not enter Ottawa. I know this country has been for me and mine a land not only to have been desired before we came here, but in which we have been glad to find our home during the last twenty-seven years. We yield to no one in our love for Canada, but we say that in the matter of how best we may serve the Canada we love, there is a difference of opinion between us. Our friends to your right, Mr. Speaker, think we best serve Canada by having a very high tariff wall that will close out the manufactured goods of other countries. I had thought of a comparison I was going to use, one that had already been used, a tariff like unto the Chinese wall, suggesting not so much height, as mass, impassability. But I think the illustration that was used by another hon. member was a better one. He used the term "as high as Haman's gallows." May I remind the house of one or two facts in connection with that tall structure that has come to be known as Haman's gallows? The idea of building that gallows was conceived by a great man who might justly have been called the Hon. Mr. Haman.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Harry Butcher: We know he was honourable because he enjoyed the confidence of his king. He built this structure with three objects in view. The first was undoubtedly to benefit his country; the second was to. elevate himself, and the third was to eliminate his rival. I need hardly remind hon. members that in his design he was at first more or less successful. He succeeded in erecting the structure and at first it seemed as though all were going well. His progress was forward and upward, but when he reached the summit of his career, the pinnacle of success, he experienced a very sudden drop, with a very abrupt termination. The result was an end to all his schemes and a further result was the elevation once more of his rival to a position of power. I do not think it was very kind of the hon. member on the other side of the house to suggest that the high tariff structure of this country bears a resemblance to the structure known as Haman's
23S
The Address

Mr. Butcher

ister for making that statement. I assume he came in contact with people who are not aware of existing conditions. I was also very-much surprised to hear the hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull) say that conditions were bad only in spots and that they might be much worse. Probably his statement is due to the fact that he has been sitting in his well appointed office in the city of Regina and has not come in contact with the actual sufferers. I notice further that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir), a farmer from a farming constituency, is reported to have given an interview to a newspaper in Saskatoon wherein he stated that he had had no complaints from his constituents. I would like to tell hon. members that the Minister of Agriculture is respected by all the farmers and townsmen throughout the district in which he lives. He is very popular, but I think he may expect a little criticism when he returns to his constituency. Shortly after the interview which he is reported to hace given I was passing through his constituency and happened to be sitting opposite four farmers who were discussing conditions in the west. I heard one of them say, "Well, we will have to give the Hon. Bob"-I suppose they were referring to the Minister of Agriculture,

"a talking to when he returns to the west." As a matter of fact there is tremendous hardship in western Canada. Some hon. members on the opposite side of the house seem to think that we cannot talk about anything else but those hardships. It may be that we are not conversant with the conditions of the farmers in eastern Canada, but we do know of the suffering of those who live in the west.
I would extend an invitation to any hon. gentleman on the other side of the house who may be disposed to visit the west on the understanding that he adopt one of two methods which I am about to suggest. In the first place we might leave Winnipeg, having met at the Fort Garry hotel. From the hotel we would go to the station and board a pullman car. We would choose our companions, and upon reaching Regina would stay at the Hotel Saskatchewan. At Calgary we would stay at the Pailiser, and in Edmonton at the Macdonald. Having completed our journey we would return to Winnipeg and stay at the magnificent Canadian Pacific hotel. Having taken such a trip we would be justified in saying that there is no hardship in the west. We would meet a few of the wealthy people and our impression would be that there were no
(Mr. Butcher.]
complaints from that part of the country. There is a second way of travelling, however, which might leave a different impression. Instead of travelling by pullman from Winnipeg we might go back to the smoking or second class car and sit with the men who work on the land. We would travel with those men rather than with our wealthy associates, and we would not be long in learning that conditions are much different from what we had originally supposed. We could visit the district in which I live and would find farmers who have laboured from twenty to twenty-five years and are to-day bankrupt. One of the hon. members who spoke a few days ago-I have forgotten the constituency from which he came-stated that the men who went west from his constituency were the lazy ones. I think if that hon. member were to visit the constituency of Last Mountain he would find the contrary to be the fact. In that district there are many men who have worked hard for years and years and have nothing to show for their labours.
I would like to say a few words on behalf of these farmers and with that in mind I refer to the following paragraph in the speech from the throne.
The present situation has emphasized the. necessity of effecting a reduction in the costs of production and marketing of the wheat crop and of providing more stable markets, as the welfare of all parts of Canada is involved in satisfactory returns being received by the grain growers.
I believe there is nothing more true than the last sentence in that paragraph. Undoubtedly the welfare of all parts of Canada depends upon the satisfactory returns received by the grain growers. In that connection I refer to an editorial which appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press on December 16 last. This article refers particularly to the necessity of finding a market for our grain, and is as follows:
And it cannot be too emphatically stated that it is not merely the livelihood of the people directly dependent on the land-there are at least half a million of them-that is in peril. Involved almost equally, though not so directly, are the much larger number of people engaged in every conceivable line of endeavour, who live by serving these people on the farms whose future is now in question: Workmen in eastern factories, railway men, commercial travellers, employees of every kind of distributing agency, dealers in every sort of goods in general demand, professional men, school teachers. Investors-not only those who are direct creditors, but nearly everybody who has money invested subject to market risks-are in danger of suffering heavy losses. We are all in the boat that is labouring in the heavy seas.

Unemployment Relief Tuesday, March 24, 1931
Nothing more true has been said concerning the situation. But hon. members have the right to ask me: "What do you propose?" I have been rather struck by the fact that hon. gentlemen on the other side have complained more than once that we are not making suggestions. Of course not. Why should we? Our friends opposite have said that they know the remedy and are going to apply it; they know exactly what to do and they are going to do it.
I was very much struck by this sentence in the speech from the throne:
The present situation has emphasized the necessity of effecting a reduction in the costs of production and marketing.
What are some of the things that enter into the costs of production? The high cost of implements has already been referred to. Then we have the high cost of heavy machinery such as tractors and separators, high rates of interest, and high freight rates. I may be asked what I would propose should be done. Well, I think it would be wise for the government to do what has already been suggested by the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Bowman). I think he gave us a splendid address. He expressed the view that it would be wise for the government to investigate implement prices and see whether they should not be reduced. In my opinion these prices should be reduced. I think also that the prices of tractors, separators and threshing machines should be reduced to something approaching parity with the price of wheat. Freight rates have already been referred to; they too might well be reduced. While there is a flexible shield for the protection of the manufacturer against the winds of adversity, and while large corporations, such as the railways, are assured a certain standard of profit, yet the farmer is not protected at all against the cold east winds. I would suggest that the government advise those who are responsible for the prices of farm implements and heavy machinery, the high rates of interest and high freight rates, that unless those prices and rates are reduced they will not continue to receive the protection which they now enjoy.
But, Mr. Speaker, I feel the hour is approaching when hon. gentlemen want to see the house adjourn, and therefore I will bring my remarks to a close, although there are other matters that I should like to have discussed.
On motion of Mr. Cowan (Long Lake) the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Guthrie the house adjourned at 10.55 p.m.