1932-11-24

QUESTIONS

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

[Stage Direction]
Mr. LaVERGNE:
1.	When will the government fill the vacancy which occurred recently on the bench of the Superior Court, judicial district of Kamouraska ?
2.	Have any complaints been made in view of the congestion of the dockets resulting from the existence of such vacancy?
Mr. GUTHRIE:: 1.	In due course.
2.	One letter has been received upon the subject.
war debts


Mr. CASGRAIN:: 1. Does Canada owe any war debt to the L'mted Kingdom at the present time?

2. If so, what is the amount of such indebtedness?


Mr. RHODES:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered by 1.


POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT-DISMISSALS
Mr. POULIOT:: What are the names, addresses and dates of dismissal of the employees of the Post Office Department, who were dismissed on charges of political partisanship arising out of the provincial elections in the province of Quebec?


Mr. SAUVE:: Post office-Postmaster-Date of dismissal: Batiscan, W. Moreau, March 3, 1932. Boulanger, A. Larouche, March 8, 1932. Knoxbridge, E. Couture, January 11, 1932. Lac Ste. Croix, A. Duchesne, March 10 1932.
Le Petit Bois Franc, M. St. Pierre, August 13, 1932.
Normandin, J. B. Hebert, March 12, 1932. Ruisseau a l'Eau Chaude, A. McLaughlin, August 20, 1931.
St. Jacques, J. Levesque, April 15, 1931.
St. Norbert (Berthier), J. O. Laporte, December 16, 1931.


NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT BUREAU
Mr. FAFARD:: 
Mr. BENNETT:: I think it well to direct
attention to this question, which is not a proper one. It asks what the government proposes to do or is going to do.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Question dropped.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Jean-François Pouliot: How many postmasters have resigned since the month of August, 1930, after having received a letter or circular from the Post Office Department notifying them that complaints of political partisanship had been made against them?


MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Jean-François Pouliot: For a copy of all telegrams, correspondence, reports and other documents in the possession

Relief to Pensioners
of the Post Office Department, since the month of August, 1930, with respect to the postmastership of St. Benoit de Packington, Temiscouata county.


MISS RUTH EDWARDS
Mr. GAGNON:: For a copy of all letters, requests, correspondence and other documents, exchanged between the Department of Agriculture at Ottawa and the different branches of the Department of Agriculture in the different provinces of Canada with the Civil Service Commission at Ottawa, and between the different officers of the Department of Agriculture concerning the transfer from Ottawa to Montreal and elsewhere of one Miss Kuth Edwards who is now working in the Department of Agriculture, Seed branch, Montreal, since 1925 up to now.


MISS MARGUERITE GIRARD
Onésime Gagnon: For a copy of all letters, requests, correspondence and other documents, exchanged between the Department of Agriculture at Ottawa and the different branches of the Department of Agriculture in the different provinces of Canada, with the Civil Service Commission respecting the employment and promotion of one Miss Marguerite Girard, an employee of the Department of Agriculture, Seed branch, Montreal, since 1925 up to now.


INQUIRY REGARDING QUESTION
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. J. GOTT (South Essex) :: I wish to call attention to the fact that a question of mine which was on the order paper yesterday has been dropped, although it was not answered. I should like to have it restored to the order paper.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was made an order for return and
passed accordingly.


RELIEF TO PENSIONERS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: The other day I asked a
question of the Minister of Pensions and National Health with regard to the relief given to disability pensioners. I have a further wire from Winnipeg today, as follows:
Winnipeg pensioners without food, insufficient fuel and clothing. Many children unable to attend school. Immediate increase in relief plus clothing allowance needed.
I understood the minister to say the other day that the department had not been granting clothing but that the pension allowance was equal to that paid in the cities. I am informed that this is not so. May I ask the minister whether it would be possible to have the allowance increased to the extent of the decrease last spring.


Hon. MURRAY MacLAREN (Minister of Pensions and National Health):: Will the hon. member give the signature that appears on the telegram which he has read.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The telegram is
signed, ''D. H. Niles, Disability Pensioners Association, 504 Beverley St."


Murray MacLaren: The question asked by
the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre the other day had reference to clothing, and when I replied on that occasion I did not notice that that feature was included in his question. I subsequently sent an answer to the hon. member, to make it clear that the provision did not include clothing and that the department had never furnished clothing for pensioners. If the hon. member will now' kindly send me a copy of the communication which he has just read, I shall be pleased to look into the matter.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The telegram will
appear in Hansard.


TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN CANADA AND THE UNITED KINGDOM
[Stage Direction]
On the order:
Resuming adjourned debate on the motion of the Minister of Finance that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to resolve itself again into committee of ways and means.
Pierre Édouard Blondin: Will the hon. member
for South Cape Breton (Mr. MacDonald) please take the chair.
The house in committee of ways and means, Mr. MacDonald (Cape Breton South) in the chair.


Mr. IRVINE:: May I point out that I
have the floor.


Richard Bedford Bennett: On ways and means, on
Thursday, the Speaker leaves the chair automatically. I said yesterday, when the matter was raised with respect to supply, that the
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rule is clear with respect to ways and means that the Speaker must leave the chair on Thursdays and Fridays without motion put. The Speaker has done so.
Customs tariff-77. Beans, viz.:	Tonquin,
crude only; locust beans; locust bean meal. British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.


Hon. E. N. RHODES (Minister of Finance):: If it meets with the approval of the committee I suggest that unless there is some special reference which it is desired to make to those items considered when the bill covering the United Kingdom agreement was in committee, we should deal with items which were not dealt with at that time and which have to be dealt with as a consequence of our having dealt with certain items in connection with the United Kingdom bill. For example, item 77 covers beans, viz: Tonquin, crude only; locust beans; locust bean meal. This item which will be found as part of the resolution which appears in the votes and proceedings of October 12 is the residual of item 77b passed in connection with the' United Kingdom agreement and which was taken out of the original item 77.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: I should like
to ask the minister whether in his view it is necessary to pass in committee of ways and means the items which have been passed already under schedule E attached to the British agreement, or whether it is his view that in approving of the United Kingdom-Canada agreement and the other agreements, this house, once these measures have passed the Senate and assent is given to them, will not thereby have enacted into law the rates set forth in those acts?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Oh, no, it is essential that
we should pass in committee of ways and means the various tariff amendments. The governing law is that which will be found in the bill to be based upon these resolutions to be passed in committee of ways and means. I referred to these special items in order to point out that the discussion which took place when the bill was in committee would serve equally as well for the committee of ways and means. It is quite necessary that we should pass all these items. My right hon. friend will recall that when the bill was in committee I expressed the hope that we would not duplicate the discussion at that time when we reached committee of ways and means.


Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: Some of
these items do not appear to be changed, and I should like to know whether or not eveiy item is intended to show a change from the schedule in effect.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: As I explained in connection with item 77, portions of certain tariff items were extracted to form part of the United Kingdom agreement and it is now necessary to make adjustments in committee of ways and means. As we come to the items which must be considered in ways and means and which are in addition to those considered in connection with the bill, I shall direct the attention of the committee thereto.


Charles A. Stewart: Am I correct in understanding that where an item has been split and a portion has appeared in schedule E, it is then necessary to readjust 'the balance?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: That is quite right; it is
necessary to deal with the residual.


Mr. BROWN:: Am I correct in understanding that there are no items in this resolution except those which were dealt with in connection with the agreement with Great Britain?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: There are only technical
amendments or amendments necessary because of the articles already passed as part of the United Kingdom agreement.


John Livingstone Brown: There seems to be at least, one item here which has reference to the New Zealand agreement made last year. I shall direct attention to it when it is reached.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I understood the minister to say on a previous occasion that if the house itself were to pass a measure involving changes in customs duties without going into ways and means, the duties thus imposed would be binding at law and that it would not be necessary to go into ways and means in order to make an agreement respecting duties with another country. I have all along understood the contention of hon. gentlemen opposite to be that the Liberal administration did that very thing when we were in office, that we made agreements with other countries which were approved and became law without the house considering the tariff changes involved in committee of ways and means. Is that what the minister is still contending?

United Kingdom


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I am not calling into question any circumstances as I do not think it is necessary for us to deal with procedure at this moment. However, I have no objection to answering my right hon. friend. If my memory serves me right, we dealt with one or two items in connection with the New Zealand treaty, which items were contained in the bill and in connection with which the house did not proceed into ways and means. I may be wrong, but that is my recollection. Whether or not that be so, the fact is that it is absolutely essential that we should go into committee of ways and means, not only to carry out the tariff proposals which were provided for in the United Kingdom agreement but to make the necessary adjustments to the tariff schedule in connection with certain items which were taken from the parent items. That is why I directed attention to item 77, and I shall be glad to call specific attention to each individual change which has been made in addition to those already considered. It will be recalled that I pointed out some time ago that there were some forty items or portions of items which we must consider in committee of ways and means as a consequence of passing the items in connection with the United Kingdom agreement.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is something more than the mere question of procedure, there is the question of whether or not it is necessary to go over the items which were included in the schedules attached to the bills already approved.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I think I get my right hon. friend's point. Technically, we should go over each item but my right hon. friend will recall that when we went into committee on the bill I pointed out that if we took the discussion there it- would not be necessary to repeat it. It will be only necessary to deal with the other items and then pass the whole lot, unless there is some particular item to which hon. gentlemen wish to refer. I have no desire to limit the discussion but I should like to avoid unnecessary duplication if it can be avoided.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think that
which the minister has just said brings out the point I have been trying to make clear all along. My hon. friend now says that technically it is necessary to go into committee of ways and means on every item. I
say that the principle governing the imposing of any duty makes it necessary that that duty shall be imposed only as a result of a resolution coming from committee of ways and means, and that it can only be imposed where a resolution has been recommended to the committee by a minister of the crown who has the authority of His Excellency in the first instance to make that recommendation. The minister says that he thinks on some previous occasion, possibly with reference to New Zealand, we never had a committee of ways and means to consider the tariff items-


Mr. ERNST:: It was done in the budget.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: -and if that be the case, I would say it is because no duties were being raised or any additional burdens being placed on the people or that the duties had already been considered in committee of ways and means as a part of the budget, or else that there had been a complete oversight on the part of all parties in the house as to what its rules require, an unintentional oversight and something with respect to which no question has been raised.
I hope the minister will now see that what I have been saying all along, namely, that we should have proceeded in committee of ways and means in the first instance, and that it is only when we have in ways and means approved the resolutions that we can with propriety legislate to approve agreements based upon those resolutions, is the right course to pursue. May I direct my hon. friend's attention to standing order number 60. This is not a question of procedure but a question of principle which governs the imposition of burdens upon the people. Standing order 60 reads:
If any motion be made in the house for any public aid or charge upon the people, the consideration and debate thereof may not be presently entered upon, but shall be adjourned till such further day as the house thinks fit to appoint; and then it shall be referred to a committee of the whole house, before any resolution or vote of the house do pass thereupon.
And section 551 in Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms has the following, which is related not to the British procedure, but procedure in this House of Commons:
It is a fundamental principle that no resolution or amendment to increase a charge upon the people can be moved with the speaker in the chair; it must be initiated in committee by a minister acting on behalf of the crown.
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We have thus far in this house passed, or rather approved, four agreements, three of which impose additional burdens upon the people. We have done all that without being in committee of ways and means at all. It is quite true that we have been in committee of the whole for the purpose the minister has just referred to, namely, for purposes of discussion only, but not for the purpose of voting resolutions upon which fresh impositions in the nature of customs duties must be based. The discussion was general, but with respect to the agreement with South Africa, the committee was denied the right to do more than refer to the items in the schedule. We were told by the chairman that we might only refer to them; it was only when we came to the United Kingdom agreement and secured the general consent of the house that we were given the liberty of discussing them in detail. The step that we are now taking is the one which should have been taken at the outset with respect to the duties which appear in the schedules of these agreements; we should have gone into them all in the first instance item by item in committee of ways and means and had the resolutions reported therefrom; afterwards we would have been in a position to enact legislation based upon the items approved. The government has repeatedly said, referring to the treaty with the West Indies, the treaty with France, the treaty with Czechoslovakia and other agreements, that it is following the same procedure as was followed by the former administration in reference ito these measures. I respectfully submit that the government is not following the same procedure, for this reason; that in these other treaties to which reference has been made-I speak subject to correction, but I think I am right-additional burdens in the form of increased customs duties were not imposed upon the people and it therefore was not necessary in those cases in the first instance to go into committee of ways and means to have the house adopt the necessary resolutions. Those agreements related to duties as they were existing at the time, or as already mentioned the house had dealt with them in committee of ways and means when it was considering the budget; any additional charges or duties imposed by the agreement were in the nature of changes made when the house discussed the budget resolutions, and it was after the budget resolutions had been approved that the agreements were brought in and the approval of parliament was asked for them. It has been one or other of those two courses, but in any case if any additional burden has been imposed upon the people without the resolutions being considered in the first instance in ways and

means with a minister of the crown recommending them to the house, I can say without fear of contradiction that has been due to an oversight in connection with the rules, for which oversight all parties in the house were responsible and with respect to which no question was raised at the time.
With regard to this agreement between the United Kingdom and Canada and the other agreements, the question was specifically raised and the attention of the government was directed to the proper procedure and the underlying principles. The government took the attitude that there was a difference in the methods of procedure followed in the British and Canadian houses. In that the minister is entirely wrong. The principle is the same in both houses. It is a fundamental principle which is at stake, and one which should have been observed.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: With respect to the earlier portion of the remarks just made by my right hon. friend I am in entire accord. He has asserted that we are now taking the right course for the purpose of enacting the tariff schedules, but with respect to the latter portion, my right hon. friend and I must agree to disagree. I do not for one moment assent to the proposition he has made that w7e should have started in the first instance in committee of ways and means. If he will look at article 9 of the United Kingdom agreement, he will find that it reads:
His Majesty's government in Canada will invite parliament to pass the legislation necessary to substitute for the duties of customs now leviable on the goods specified in schedule E the duties shown in that schedule, provided that nothing in this article shall preclude His Majesty's government in Canada-
And so on. We are now doing that, and the only reason we are in committee of ways and means is in consequence of the United Kingdom agreement which calls upon us to implement it. We can do that only by committee of ways and means. I do not propose to labour this argument with my right hon. friend, because I am prepared to agree at once that he is thoroughly sincere and, if I may say so without offence, obsessed with the idea that we are proceeding wrongly in this matter. I wish to repeat: If the house had in its wisdom rejected the United Kingdom agreement, it would not be necessary for us to go into committee of ways and means. Therefore it would be absurd, prior to the house having assented to an agreement,^ to go into committee of ways and means in order to implement items in the tariff which are called for only if that agreement is approved by the

United Kingdom
house. I submit that we must agree to disagree. I believe we have taken the absolutely correct procedure. Having said that, I do not know that I can say anything more. I do not know that any good purpose can be served by our discussing the question as to what has been done hitherto with respect to the agreements and whether we have or have not gone into committee of ways and means. My right hon. friend and I are in entire agreement that it is necessary to go into committee of ways and means and we are here. That is the essential part.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not any more desirous than is my hon. friend to delay the committee by discussing the matter at greater length, but it is one that may affect subsequent procedure in this house and it ought to be definitely settled at once. May I ask the minister this question: Assume for some reason it had become necessary to adjourn this house today, the Senate having approved the agreement with Great Britain and His Majesty's representative having given royal assent to that agreement so approved; would that agreement not then become binding upon Canada as law, and would not the changes in the tariff which are contained in the schedule which form a part of it be law? May I ask my ion. friend to answer that question?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: May I point out to my right hon. friend that we cannot in committee settle a question of procedure. The only procedure we have to do with in committee is a technical one having reference to the articles and the subject matter for consideration in committee. The question whether we should proceed in committee is one which can be decided only by the house.
May I say to my right hon. friend that there is nothing mysterious about this thing. If we were to proceed to adjourn parliament without having gone ahead in committee of ways and means and passed a bill based upon those resolutions, and if the United Kingdom agreement were to pass the Senate, be assented to by His Excellency and become law, we would be placed in this position, that while we had agreed in that agreement to do certain things, we would not have implemented our pledge by reason of the fact that we had not taken the necessary action in ways and means.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend and I are not very far apart just now. He says we would not have implemented the agreement. But that does not answer my question whether what was embodied in the agreement would not become the law. He
has said that this house has proceeded simply with the agreement without going into committee of ways and means, thereby implying that we can make an agreement imposing duties without first of all going into committee of ways and means.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The bill would become
law, yes, but we would not have passed the necessary implementing legislation associated with it which we must pass in this committee of ways and means. My right hon. friend and I are not very far apart. The only difference between us, as I apprehend it, is that my right hon. friend says that we should have proceeded with ways and means before we proceeded with the bill. I am in direct disagreement with him on that point, and I think we must agree to disagree in that respect. I think logic is on my side for this reason:	If we had proceeded into committee of ways and means and had passed these resolutions and had then failed to pass the bill, what position would we have been in? My right hon. friend says that the answer is obvious and that it is only necessary now that we should go into ways and means because parliament has agreed that we ought to do what we are now called upon to do in committee of ways and means.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: When my hon. friend says that in the circumstances I have mentioned the bill approving the United Kingdom trade agreement would now be law, that means that everything in the bill is binding on the country, that it is part of the legislation of the country, that the duties there imposed are part of our tariff schedules.


William Gordon Ernst: He has not said so.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is what he said, and if the bill is the law that must be the case. But whether the Minister of Finance says so or not, after the bill is approved by parliament and assented to by His Excellency that bill is the law and the tariff is in effect as set forth in the schedules. But the procedure would have been wholly unconstitutional and against the fundamental principles governing in these matters. That point is very clear.
I am stressing what I am saying at the moment first of all because I believe that we would have had an entirely different view of this situation if we had proceeded in the right way, but even more I stress it because it is the duty of every hon. member, and of no one more than the leader of the opposition to see that the rules of the house are observed and that the right procedure is observed, and that fundamental principles are observed, and
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ilso to see if there have been mistakes made in the past or being made in the present that they shall not, if possible, occur again in the future. My contention is that we have already enacted these tariff schedules so far as this house is concerned, and going over them here and now a second time is a mere pretext in so far as the items in the schedules may be the same as those we have discussed. They are already enacted so far as the action of this house is concerned, and they have been so enacted without this house having done what the Minister of Finance himself says is necessary in imposing any duties or obligations upon the people, namely, being considered first of all and approved by resolution in committee of ways and means. We are at this moment in committee of ways and means for the first time this session, and we have not yet considered a single item. The whole procedure I contend has been subversive of the rules of this house.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Mr. Chairman, I shall not
yield to my right hon. friend in a desire to see that the rules of this house are observed in every particular. We may differ sometimes upon the interpretation of a rule, but I am just as anxious as any hon. gentleman in this house to see that its rules are strictly observed, and I believe that they have been strictly observed in this instance except in this one respect, that we are breaking the rules of the house at the present moment in discussing a question of procedure here that ought to be discussed in the house. But I am not going to stress that point.
My right hon. friend draws an inference from what I said which he could not properly draw at all. I said a moment or two ago that if we passed the United Kingdom agreement and it passed the Senate and received the assent of His Excellency the Governor General it would become the law, but at the same time I said that we wrnuld have failed to implement the agreement contained in the bill unless we passed the tariff schedules in committee of ways and means. In other words, the statute itself would not make operative those changes in our tariff. That must be done in committee of ways and means, and then we would have to pass a bill, just as we shall have to do after these resolutions have been approved by this committee. A bill will then have to be introduced and pass through all its stages.
I submit to my right hon. friend that we are not serving any good purpose by prolonging this discussion. As I said before, we are in agreement up to one point. We are in agreement that we are regularly in committee

and that we ought to be in committee of ways and means, and that we should deal with these schedules in committee of ways and means. The only point on which we differ is that my right hon. friend says that we should have considered these schedules in committee of ways and means before we considered the bill. I say precisely the reverse, because if we had not passed the bills it would not have been necessary to go into committee of ways and means at all.
Customs tariff-20a. Butter produced from the cocoa bean:	British preferential tariff,
free; intermediate tariff, 3 cents per pound; general tariff, 3 cents per pound.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should like to say something on this item.


Mr. STEVENS:: I have no objection, but we agreed that we would not repeat the discussion.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not wonder that the minister does not want anything .to be said.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Oh, now, Mr. Chairman, I was simply reminding the right hon. gentleman, in I think a most courteous and friendly way, that we had agreed that we would not repeat the discussion. The right hon. gentleman himself was the one who responded to that suggestion, but if he desires, I have no objection to his discussing every item all over again.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Chairman, I think the house has only to look to what I said to the Prime Minister last night with respect to my desire to see proceedings brought as speedily as possible to a termination to realize that I have no desire unduly to discuss any matters, but I have a desire to make perfectly clear the position of this side of the house on some matters which have not been discussed. Surely I have that right. May I ask this question of the minister? According to the change that is being made here, the duty on butter produced from the cocoa bean is being raised from 2 cents per pound in the intermediate and general tariffs, to 3 cents per pound in both those tariffs. May I ask the minister whether that change will apply to goods of this class coming from Great Britain and also to goods coming to Canada from Ireland? I assume I may take it that his answer would be that it does.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Then may I
ask this? The British agreement has a clause providing that the margin of preference on

United Kingdom
goods coming from Britain must be maintained for a period of five years. That is explicitly set forth in that agreement. That means that in order to maintain the preference of three cents given to Britain the intermediate and general tariffs cannot be lowered for a period of five years. Will my hon. friend show me where in the agreement with the Irish Free State there is any undertaking that the intermediate or general tariff shall be maintained at any existing level; in this case it would be on cocoa butter at three cents per pound.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It is quite clear. Under
the British agreement we fix a certain rate of duty in the British preference column, and we undertake to maintain that preference on certain articles. Under the Irish agreement we extend to the Irish Free State the duty rates extended to Great Britain, and as long as the duty rate is maintained against Great Britain it must necessarily extend to and be maintained against Ireland for a period of five years. It is as simple and as clear as day. That is provided by, I think, section 3 of the Irish treaty.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Minister of Trade and Commerce has just said that under the British treaty we extend to Ireland these privileges. I did not ask with respect to the British treaty; I asked with respect to the agreement between Ireland and Canada. Where, in the agreement between Ireland and Canada, is there any condition or any undertaking to maintain any preference? There is none. I should like to make my position clear, in order to illustrate what I sought to bring out the other day, and which was responsible for the change, in my own mind, as to the attitude hon. members on this side of the house should take towards the Irish agreement. That change was brought about because the minister was placing an entirely different construction upon the Irish agreement than we were placing upon it or than its wording permits being placed upon it.
First of all, may I say that at the beginning of the discussion on the agreements, I asked the Prime Minister if there were any undertakings or understandings with respect to any of them which did not appear on the face of the agreements themselves, and I was assured by the Prime Minister that .there were no such undertakings or understandings. I accepted his word for that, and in every action with respect to the agreements since that time I have based my action upon that assurance. I have been under the impression that there was no undertaking or understanding of any kind
between this country and either the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, the Irish Free State, South Africa or Rhodesia which did not appear on the face of the agreements made between those respective countries and Canada.
The agreement between the Irish Free State and Canada is comprised in its entirety in the schedule attached to the bill we have before us. That agreement I studied carefully before this house met, in order to see what was to be given to Ireland. My reading of it led me to believe-and I am sure other hon. members must have come to the same conclusion; it is the only conclusion that could be come to by the reading of the agreement in itself- that it simply gave to Ireland an undertaking that no duties other than those which were imposed on British goods coming into Canada would be imposed upon goods coming from Ireland, and that no higher rates of duty would be imposed against goods coming from , Ireland than are imposed against Great Britain. That, and nothing more, was set out with respect to goods coming to Canada. Let me illustrate: If, for example, there were no duty on linen from Great Britain to Canada, for the period of five years for which the agreement would be in force, duty could not be imposed on linen coming from Ireland. Or, if duty on linen coming from Great Britain to Canada had been fixed at ten per cent, then Canada could not place a duty of fifteen per cent on linen coming from Ireland, because we had undertaken to see that no higher duty would be imposed against goods coming from Ireland. The clause is as clear and distinct as it can be.
Goods, the produce or manufacture of the Irish Free State, imported into Canada, shall not be subject to other or higher duties than those paid on similar goods, the produce or manufacture of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
That is the whole undertaking as set forth in the agreement with Ireland with respect to duties upon goods coming into Canada. In the light of the assurance given by the Prime Minister that there was no undertaking or understanding which does not appear on the face of the agreement itself for which approval was being sought by the government, I was prepared to voice my approval of the Irish agreement. But, what do we now find?
When we come to the bill to approve the agreement, we find that the government has done something with respect to Ireland which is entirely wide of, and apart from the terms of the agreement altogether. The agreement relates only to duties-no new duties, no higher rates of duty, that is all. By the provisions of the bill, however, the Minister of
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Trade and Commerce told us on Tuesday last, the government was asking not only approval of the Irish agreement but approval of the Irish agreement plus the British agreement, in the one measure. Mark you, this is not as respects anything in the agreement itself; it is what appears in a separate bill. It is supposed to be an act approving the Irish agreement, but, according to the statement of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, it is an act to approve of the Irish agreement, plus approval of the British agreement in its entirety. I say that is complete deception. Whether or not it was deliberate or intentional I must leave to the opinion of hon. members. To say that it was would not be parliamentary, but if that was the intention and the intention a sincere one, I believe it to be most extraordinary that the intention and the language, by which it was carried out, were not made known to the house by the Minister of Trade and Commerce before we were asked to support anything of the kind. Speaking when we were approving the agreement on Tuesday last, the Minister of Trade and Commerce said:
This whole bill-
The bill approving the Irish agreement.
-is based upon, allied to, intertwined and amalgamated with, or any other similar term you like to use, the British agreement. Every jot and tittle, every crossed t and every dotted i of the British agreement is in this.
Well, Mr. Chairman, I should like to know if there was occasion for surprise that, having accepted the Prime Minister's word with respect to what was proposed to be done in connection with the approval of the Irish agreement, and being led to approve it on the understanding that it did not increase or maintain duties, but simply gave to Ireland the benefit of duties imposed against Great Britain and being led to believe that duties would not be raised or new duties imposed I should change my position and ask the party with which I am connected to change its position when we were told by the Minister of Trade and Commerce that the bill not only enacted the Irish agreement but imposed the whole of the British agreement upon us as well.


William Gordon Ernst: I rise to a point of order.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Just a moment.


William Gordon Ernst: I am rising to a point of
order. I should like to know, Mr. Chairman, whether the item before us is cocoa beans or sour grapes. I do not know what the remarks of the right hon. gentleman have to do with cocoa beans.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should like
to know whether the hon. member who has just spoken is speaking as a member of parliament or as a very smart boy?


William Gordon Ernst: I am serious, Mr. Chairman; what have the remarks of the hon. member to do with cocoa beans?


Mr. REID:: Give him another medal.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My remarks
are directly connected with the item before us.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Not at all.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: They have
everything to do with the item before us, because the whole question of the maintenance of duties is raised by this as well as by every other item. My contention is that there is nothing in the Irish agreement which obliges us to maintain any rates of duty, so long as that agreement is in force. In support of my belief that there has been some endeavour to mislead parliament, I should like to draw the attention of hon. members to the sequence in which the different agreements were brought into the house. First there was the agreement with Southern Rhodesia, followed by the agreement with Ireland; that in turn was followed by the agreement with South Africa, and last of all we were called upon to deal with the agreement with Great Britain. The terms of the bills approving the various agreements are much the same, but there are one or two significant differences in certain of them, the significance of which has only just become apparent.
Article 4 of the schedule attached to the agreement with South Africa is as follows:
His Majesty's government in the Dominion of Canada will, in regard to the goods enumerated in schedule "A," maintain the margins of tariff concession represented by the difference between the rates accorded to Union goods in that schedule and the presently existing rates on similar goods when imported from any foreign country.
That was a clause in the agreement with South Africa definitely obligating us to maintain certain rates with respect to commodities coming from South Africa to Canada. In the Irish agreement there is no clause corresponding to that at all. There is no article in the agreement between Canada and Ireland which obligates us to maintain any preference, any margin of tariff concession or any existing rates at all. If at this time we are obliged to maintain any preference or rates of duty with respect to goods coming from Ireland it is because the government has gone outside the Irish agreement altogether and, by a

United Kingdom
clause in the approving bill which is worded differently from those in the bills approving of any of the other agreements, has done what the Minister of Trade and Commerce has said it was the intention of the government to do, namely to smuggle the whole British agreement into the bill which we were being asked to pass at that time.
When we considered the bill approving the agreement with South Africa we found a clause worded except in one particular similarly ito that which appears in the agreement with Ireland. It reads as follows:
After the said agreement is brought into force, and so long as it remains in force, goods mentioned in the said agreement, the produce or manufacture of the Union of South Africa, imported into the Dominion of Canada in the manner provided in the said agreement, shall he admitted to the Dominion of Canada at the rates of duties provided in the said agreement.
The clauses are exactly the same in the bills approving the South African agreement and in that approving the Irish agreement, with the exception of these last words of section
3.	They will be admitted to Canada, the South African approval act says:
At the rates of duties provided in the said agreement.
If those words had been used in the bill relating to goods coming from Ireland we would have had and would now have no exception to take.


Henry Herbert Stevens: There was no schedule in the Irish agreement.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is a reference to duties, which is the same thing. A schedule only sets out certain duties. "At the rates of duties provided in the said agreement; " that is as far as any act approving the Irish agreement should have gone, because it did not relate to anything else except undertaking that duties would not be raised or new duties imposed.
May I say this further. There is a double reason why in the act approving the Irish agreement the same language should have been used as in the South African agreement: it is that the language in the schedule itself warranted the use of the same language. Article 2 in the schedule is:
Goods, the produce or manufacture of the Irish Free State, imported into Canada, shall not be subject to other or higher duties than those paid on similar goods, the produce or manufacture of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The act approving that does not include, as the South African act does, the under-53719-97
taking with respect to duties set forth in the agreement, but it inserts something which does not appear in this other agreement:
. . . shall be admitted into the Dominion of Canada on the terms granted to similar articles, the produce or manufacture of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
"On the terms granted," On those words, which we were expected to read in the light of the agreement between Ireland and Canada. and in the light of the Prime Minister's undertaking that we would not be asked to approve anything that was not in the agreement, we naturally assume that the terms there referred to were the terms of the schedule, that is to say, the terms of the agreement itself, and nothing more. Instead they were in the intention of the government quite other terms, namely, those of the United Kingdom agreement, terms of which we had no knowledge or suspicion whatever until the Minister of Trade and Commerce so informed us just before the division on Tuesday last. I say, Mr, Speaker, it is entirely in order, and indeed necessary, to bring up this matter at this point, because it affects the whole schedule of tariff items or rather tariff resolutions now before us. If the government continues, as I presume it intends, after what the Minister of Trade and Commerce has said, to say that in approving the Irish treaty we were approving the whole British treaty, then all I can say is that the house has been completely deceived, and the country has been completely deceived as to the true nature and intent of the agreement made between Ireland and Canada. May I illustrate what I am saying in this way; there is nothing on Ireland's part which corresponds to the undertaking which we are giving in this parliament with regard to maintaining the British agreement in reference to goods coming to Canada from Ireland. The fact that there is not, shows that this addition has been made, not at the instance of the Irish Free State at ally but by the present administration for purposes, I venture to say, too sinister to permit of my mentioning them at this time.


Henry Herbert Stevens: In the first place I want
to draw attention to the fact that this has been all out of order. Not only out of order in that we have an item before us and are in committee of ways and means, but on the ground that the Irish agreement, the South African agreement, and the British agreement have passed third reading and left

1530	COMMONS
Imperial Conference-Trade Agreements
this house. But I am going to crave the indulgence of the committee for a moment, if on no other ground than on the question of privilege, to reply to the last observations of the right hon. gentleman. The right hon. gentleman said that with motives too sinister to mention the government had deliberately deceived this house. In the first place that is not a parliamentary reference, it is strictly out of order. In the next place it is not true, and it cannot be borne out by the record. The right hon. gentleman has repeatedly in the last half hour indicated and also inferred it the other evening in a brief observation that he made just before voting, that he was deceived by the Prime Minister and by the government, when the Irish treaty was before the house. If you turn to page 888 of Hansard you find there the record of the introduction and acceptance by the house of the Irish treaty. I am going to read what the right hon. gentleman then said and what the Prime Minister said, and I will leave it to the house as to where probity rests in this matter.
Mr. Mackenzie King: With regard to the schedule,-
Referring to the Irish treaty.
*-I observe that for the most part its purpose is to secure both the Irish Free State and Canada against duties being raised against each other. It is protection as against the raising of duties on the part of either country.
That was his interpretation on the first reference he made to the agreement. Yet the Prime Minister deceived him, did he?
Mr. Bennett: I do not think the right hon. gentleman has followed the language of the schedule. The first article reads:
"Goods the produce or manufacture of Canada, imported into the Irish Free State, shall not be subject to other or higher duties than those paid on similar goods, the produce or manufacture of any other country."
In other words, no more favourable terms can be accorded any other country than to Canada^ Then, so far as the complementary article is concerned, it provides:
And the Prime Minister reads again from the agreement to the right hon. gentleman in reply to his question, enlightening him, calling his attention to the point. The Prime Minister reads:
Goods, the produce or manufacture of the Irish Free State, imported into Canada, shall not be subject to other or higher duties than those paid on similar goods, the produce or manufacture of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Calling the right hon. gentleman's attention to precisely what was in it, yet he now says we deceived him on that.

But that is not all. Then the right hon. gentleman proceeded. I quote again from page 888:
Mr. Mackenzie King: It may be said, however, that, generally speaking, the emphasis is on protection of each country against higher duties, rather than-
And the Prime Minister interrupts, and sets him right.
Mr. Bennett:	No. I think I can put it
fairly by saying that it does not do either one or the other. It does, however, secure this preference to Canada, that we shall receive the benefits of the lowest rates imposed by the Irish Free State; and, conversely, we afford to them the rates, whatever they may be, charged against the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.
Yet the right hon. gentleman says we have deceived him, says that he had not an opportunity of understanding the Irish agreement. Twice the Prime Minister set him right when the agreement was before us, twice he answered him, twice he corrected his interpretation of it, the same interpretation as he now puts upon it. The Prime Minister carefully, as a nurse would for a child, corrected the interpretation the right hon. gentleman put upon it. Yet he comes to the house today and says that this government deliberately deceived him, and " for motives too sinister to mention." What are the motives that he infers? AVhat motives have we? Everything that human beings could do has been done in the last three weeks to satisfy every reasonable question asked by my hon. friends. I apologize to the committee for speaking with a little heat, but is it any wonder? I ask hon. gentlemen opposite, leaving aside my hon. friends on this side of the house, is it any wonder, sitting here as we have week after week for six weeks, and during the past two weeks going over these items in the most minute detail, that we should feel at least somewhat chagrined when the right hon. gentleman stands up and says that "for motives too sinister to mention " we have deliberately deceived him, in face of the fact that the Prime Minister set him right twice previously when the Irish matter was under discussion ?
Now, coming to the point that the right hon. gentleman has raised, he says that I can show nothing in the Irish treaty that guarantees to the Irish the continuance of the preference. I have already answered the question but I will answer it again, and I appeal to the intelligence and reasonableness of any hon. gentleman opposite whether my interpretation is not a fair and correct one. We made no specific schedules with relation to the

United Kingdom
Irish. It was a broad and sweeping contract. The contract with the Irish was simply this, in plain language-and it could not be plainer than it is in the article itself. We said that we would give to the Irish the rates and conditions and terms that we gave to Great Britain. In other words, we looked at it this way when discussing the question with the Irish-and I may say that I discussed it with them myself and found them most reasonable gentlemen. We took this general view. The Irish Free State is now separated from the United Kingdom under Dominion status, whereas previously it was part of the United Kingdom, like northern Ireland. But we said that for the purposes of these trade negotiations we would look upon the Irish Free State as though it were part of the United Kingdom and northern Ireland, although in order to conform with the constitutional status we had to enter into this separate agreement; and instead of going into a lot of elaborate detail we merely extended to them all that we have extended to the British. Now, what have we extended to the British? Certain schedules, certain rates of duties and preferences; and furthermore we have guaranteed that in regard to schedule E the spread will be maintained. That, broadly speaking, is what we have done. We have simply said to the Irish, "We will give to you the same rates, the same spreads and for the same period of years." Could it be more clear or more definite than that? "But," says my hon. friend, "I don't see that mentioned in here." Well, the language itself ensures it:
Goods, the produce or manufacture of the Irish Free State, imported into Canada, shall not be subjected to other or higher duties than those paid on similar goods, the produce or manufacture of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
In the next article we declare that this agreement shall be in force for a period of five years from the date of its -coming into force and thereafter until the expiration of six months from the date on which either government shall have given to the other notice of its intention to terminate the agreement. If it can be made clearer than that, if the right hon. gentleman can suggest how it can be made clearer, I should like to know.
I resent, more than I can express, indeed, more than I dare to express, the suggestion, the unfair, unparliamentary statement of the right hon. gentleman, that from motives too sinister to mention this government had deliberately deceived. He had no right to make that statement. There was no ground for it. There has not been one moment during the past six weeks that we have not laboured, tc 53719-971
the point of absolute exhaustion, to give the right hon. gentleman and his followers replies as courteous and as full and complete as we could; and I may say to him that, in marked contradistinction to his attitude, many hon. gentlemen opposite, gentlemen, have come to me and come to the Minister of Finance in my hearing and, I know, out of my hearing, and have thanked us for the manner in which we have replied to their numerous demands. That I look upon as parliamentary sportsmanship. In the face of the courteous corrections which the Prime Minister gave to him when he put upon the Irish agreement the same interpretation which he now puts upon it, I invite the right hon. gentleman now to say whether or not he was justified in making that most unparliamentary and unfair slur upon the government and upon the Prime Minister and his colleagues.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I accept the minister's invitation. May I direct his attention to the fact that in all that the Prime Minister said and in what the minister himself has just read, the Prime Minister was careful enough to speak of duties and rates of duties, but he made no mention whatever of any preferential margins or maintenance of preferential margins or of any of the terms of the British agreement. The minister has talked about parliamentary sportsmanship. May I say that hon. gentlemen opposite knew, and knew very well, that our main objection to the agreements was what they effected in the way of making tariffs permanent and seeking to maintain preferential margins at a level which would shut out goods from other countries. It was not only the part of sportsmanship but a part of the duty of the ministry itself, which it did not perform, to have drawn the attention of the house to the fact that these clauses had the meaning which is now attached to them if such was the meaning attached to them by the ministry. That is the answer I make to the minister. May I further observe that so far as parliamentary sportsmanship is concerned, we have nothing to learn from the hon. gentleman.
The first obligation upon a ministry, in dealing with any question, to say nothing of an imperial question of such large proportions and far-reaching possibilities as this, affecting as it does the relations between different parts of the empire, is to disclose to parliament the fullest significance and bearing of all that is implied. When I speak of sinister methods what I have in mind is precisely the kind of thing that was done when the ministry sought to carry through a byelection in South Huron
1532	COMMONS
Imperial Conference-Trade Agreements
on the basis of agreements which had not yet been made public-giving to the public that part of the agreement which related to the preferences we were to get in the British market, but withholding from the electorate all those increases in duty which were contained in the other part of the agreement, a kind of procedure which was followed in this house, when we were given only the portions of the agreement referring to preferences in the British tariff before being given the parts referring to the increases in our own tariff, and when we were asked and compelled to give approval to the agreement before we had discussed in committee of ways and means the tariff changes involved. That is all of a piece. It has been an endeavour to have parliament legislate in the dark, to have the country governed in the dark; and the sinister part of the whole business is this-


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is false.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: -that under the guise of an endeavour to further trade between different parts of the empire this ministry has been seeking to increase the tariffs of the country beyond all previous proportions and to fix them at intolerable heights for a period of five years.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: I do not want to protract the debate, but-


An hon. MEMBER:: The Irish vote is gone now.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: If the hon. gentleman who interrupts cannot make any more intelligent contribution to the discussion, he had better leave the chamber. It seems to me that this whole discussion has been brought about by one circumstance, namely, that these agreements were all thrown together at the conference at the last moment, not necessarily through the fault of this administration. The fact is, however, that they were thrown together at the last moment in undue haste. Remember what happened. When we commenced to discuss the British agreement, Bill No. 8, article 1, different interpretations were placed upon it by many of us, rightly or wrongly, as a result of what the Prime Minister himself said when he introduced the resolution, and we debated the matter for some ten days until we obtained the admission from the Minister of Trade and Commerce himself that there was no guarantee in article 1 of the British agreement with regard to preferential margins, but only in regard to free entry. Then came schedule 2, and I deemed it my duty with respect to article 2 of the agreement to make another inquiry as to whether the British government was 
obliged thereunder to maintain the schedule of duties which were given to Canada and which the minister himself said constituted the kernel of the agreement so far as Canada was concerned. The same with article 3 and article 4, to the end of the chapter. Right through you will find in all the agreements nothing but chaos and confusion-absolute and utter confusion. And that confusion was added to by the confusion of the ministry itself.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I do not expect my hon. friend from Renfrew to understand this argument; ho is not intellectually qualified to do so. Let me deal with the facts. Now, the resolution was introduced into this house by the Prime Minister. The first request came from this side at the time we were considering the merits of the resolution. WTe asked that the schedules of the bill be considered in detail in order that we might obtain the necessary knowledge. That request was refused and we were compelled to vote upon the resolution as an entity. The bill was introduced and when it came to second reading we asked that we should go into committee of ways and means at that time. We are now in committee of ways and means for the first time. I agree with my right hon. leader that we have violated every single rule of this house in the procedure which we have adopted.
In regard to the treaty with Finland, the treaty with New Zealand and the treaty with France, a special rule of parliament applied and continued to apply until 1927. The previous government carried out the rules of this house to the utmost degree, while this government has broken those rules.


William Gordon Ernst: The hon. member is out of ' order now.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: You are out of order all the time.


William Gordon Ernst: What has this to do with butter produced from the cocoa bean?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The
other evening the Minister of Trade and Commerce, in referring to the Irish treaty, said:
Every iot and tittle, every crossed t and every dotted i,"of the British agreement is in thiB,-
Is that statement true? It is an absolute misstatement of fact. The British agreement contains article 2 and schedule B which do not appear in the Irish agreement. The Minister of Trade and Commerce should be the last to impute motives to other hon. mem-

United Kingdom
hers when he himself has made such a statement as appears on page 1427 of Hansard. I ask any hon. member in this house: Is that a true statement? It is not. Article 2 and schedule B of the British agreement do not apply to Ireland. I say to the minister: am I not right?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Certainly you are.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Of course I am right.


William Gordon Ernst: Were you ever wrong?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The other day when the minister got up in the house-


Mr. COTNAM:: Just a gas tank.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: If my hon. friend has not recovered from the effects of last evening, he should leave the chamber.
The minister may have made that statement in a hurry, but I ask him: Is it fair to say that eveiy jot and tittle of the British agreement is contained in the Irish agreement when article 2 and schedule B, which he himself said two weeks previously were the kernel of the British agreement, do not apply to Ireland? As my hon. friend pointed out a few moments ago, the Prime Minister stated, very fairly I think, that our goods entered Ireland under the most favoured nation rates and that possibly they had given us better conditions than they had to Great Britain, taking into account the tariff war now being waged.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Does my hon. friend want an answer?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: When I am through, certainly.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend asked a question and then answered it himself.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I will not deprive my hon. friend of his opportunity to answer, but I do suggest that when he says that every jot and tittle of the British agreement applies to Ireland, it is not the fact because schedule B and article 1 do not apply.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is for goods going the other way.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Yes, for goods going the other way. The trouble with my hon. friend is that he was going both ways when he made that statement.
Mr, STEVENS: It was your leader who was going both ways.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I ask hon. members on both sides of the house: when any one says that every jot and tittle of the British agreement applies to Ireland, what does he mean? Does he not mean that every clause in the treaty between Great Britain and Canada which affects goods coming from Great Britain to Canada and going from Canada to Great Britain, applies to the Irish agreement which affects goods coming from Ireland to Canada and going from Canada to Ireland? The terms are absolutely synonymous; the minister knows that and he knew it when he made that statement. In parliamentary language, I say that that statement is not in accordance with the facts because article 2 and schedule B do not apply to Ireland.


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. MacDonald, Cape Breton South):: I should like to direct attention to one or two matters which have occurred to me. We are now dealing with the first item in the resolution, and I would refer the committee to standing order 60, quoted by the right hon. the leader of the opposition, which reads:
If any motion be made in the house for any public aid or charge upon the people, the consideration and debate thereof may not be presently entered upon, but shall be adjourned till such further day as the house thinks fit to appoint; and then it shall be referred to a committee of the whole house, before any resolution or vote of the house do pass thereupon.
All the items in the resolution now before the committee have been passed upon by a committee of the whole house. My impression from the minister's opening remarks was that there were certain items which would have to be dealt rvith, which were consequential to the agreements and that this discussion would necessarily be confined to such items. If we go over the whole thing again then we will be repeating what has been gone over in a committee of this house. In doing this I think we would be up against the rules of the house.	[DOT]


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Chairman, I think the Minister of Finance will agree with me that there was an understanding that we would not repeat in committee of ways and means much of the discussion which had taken place when the bill approving the United Kingdom agreement was before us in committee. What we have been discussing this morning is something which has arisen since that time and which relates to a matter in its general significance quite apart from the understanding arrived at. As wTe go through these items one by one. T
1534	COMMONS
Imperial Conjerence-Trade Agreements
should expect that we would not repeat what was said with respect to the particular items when we were in committee; that is perfectly clear, but we would like the items called one by one as we may wish formally to register our disapproval of many of them. Speaking generally, we are opposed to all increases; if we do not oppose every item as we run along, it is simply because we do not wish to delay unduly the proceedings of the committee. But we want to have that perfectly understood.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should like
to know just what the attitude of hon. gentlemen apposite is going to be. If they are going to contend that because we do not rise and oppose each item, we are thereby consenting to the increases, we will insist upon our right to rise and oppose each individual item. If there is not going to be fair play on both sides of the committee, we will not get through as soon as hon. gentlemen opposite expect. I want it to be understood that if we do not rise and oppose every single increase, it is not because we are consenting. We are opposed to all increases which appear in this resolution. We intend to exercise our right to register that protest with respect to single items and in doing so it will be but indicative of our general attitude.
In regard to your remarks, Mr. Chairman, although it is perfectly true that these agreements have been referred to in and somewhat discussed by the committee of the house, where matters have reference to the imposition of duties or taxation, they must be brought before the house in the first instance in the form of resolutions and discussed in committee of ways and means. Such matters cannot be dealt with in any final or authoritative manner by discussing the clauses of a bill only after its second reading.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: When we were in committee on the bill we agreed that the discussion would proceed in the form it would take in committee of ways and means. At that time I expressed the hope that when we came to committee of ways and means, we would not duplicate the discussion. That was assented to. Despite that, however, I have no objection; if hon. gentlemen wish to open up new items, that is their privilege. But I wish to point this out: we are now in committee of ways and means and the rules specifically state that discussion in committee shall be applicable particularly to the item under consideration. I wish to say to my
LMr. Mackenzie King.]
right hon. friend that practically the whole of his remarks made in committee today have been distinctly out of order. He was discussing in the first place the principle of bills which are not before the committee, which have been agreed to by the house and which have been passed on to the Senate. 'The hon. member for Vancouver Centre was doubly out of order. Not only was he discussing that, but he proceeded to quote from a previous debate in the same session, and to do so is precluded by the rules.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The
Minister of Trade and Commerce did the same thing before I did.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The Minister of Trade
and Commerce was exercising his right to make a reply to the leader of the opposition-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Have I
not also the same right?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: -but he particularly pointed out, in doing so, that my right hon. friend was out of order and he could reply only as a matter of courtesy and privilege. It is not necessary for my right hon. friend to make specific objection to each individual item. By the statement he has just made he preserves his whole position, and lest there be any misapprehension upon that point, let me repeat that we understand the right hon. gentleman and his supporters are opposed to every one of these items.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The increases.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Items which
involve increases.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Which involve increases.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In the maintenance of the preference.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: In the maintenance of the preference. We have that specific declaration, I hope beyond any question of peradventure. That being so, I submit, if we are going to make any progress, we had better return to cocoa butter, follow it with other items and endeavour to make progress.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Finlay MacDonald: Shall I call out each item?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Call out the
numbers.

United. Kingdom
Customs tariff-135b. Sugar, above number 16 Dutch standard in colour when imported or purchased in bond in Canada by a recognized sugar refiner for refining purposes only, under regulations by the minister, when exceeding 98 degrees, but not exceeding 99 degrees polarization, per one hundred pounds: British preferential tariff, 31-64 cents.


Mr. YOUNG:: Will the minister explain
this?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: This is the law as it stands today, unchanged in rate or in wording. It is merely placing as a specific item in the tariff that which is now the law.


Charles A. Stewart: My difficulty is this: it is in the tariff; just why is the government inserting it now in the tariff resolutions?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It was not in the tariff. It was done by order in council following the Australian treaty. It comes now into the tariff for the first time and is given a number.


Edward James Young: Will the minister explain
what is "16 Dutch standard"? We want to get at the bottom of this.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: There has been a debate
upon this every year. It is a colour standard. It is a highly technical matter and I am not in a position to give my hon. friend a correct technical description of this item. If he would go down to the Department of National Revenue, the officials there could show him the specimens and give him the technical explanation, but I cannot do so.


Edward James Young: I have an idea that the
"16 Dutch standard," which has been abandoned by nearly every country but Canada, has been very highly valued by Canadian sugar refiners for purposes of their own. But apart from that, item 135, which is the raw sugar item, quotes the rates on sugar above 16 Dutch standard at varying degrees of polarization. On sugar over 98 degrees the preferential rate is 35-6 cents and the general rate $1.47. In item 134, which is the refined sugar item, we find the corresponding rates: $1.09 under the preference and $1.89 under the general tariff. The difference between $1.09 and 35-6 cents would be the margin of preference which our Canadian importers enjoy. That is seventy-four and a fraction cents per 100 pounds. We find in italics a description of sugar, the same as in this item 135b. This is dated August 3, 1931, and in the item, as regards the duty on' sugar of that classification, that is between 98 and 100 degrees polarization, the preference was reduced from 35-6 cents to 31.64 cents, applying only to Australia. On August 22 of the same year we find the same thing applied to the British preference, that is a reduction in the duty that the refiner will pay on his raw sugar coming from those sources, but we find no corresponding reduction in, the consumers' item. The effect of this would be to increase the profits of the refiners by four and a fraction cents per 100 pounds on all sugar that they refine coming from the British Empire. I would like the minister to tell us, if he can, what further process of refining sugar above 98 degrees polarization requires.


Henry Herbert Stevens: This dissertation by my
hon. friend is one that we have of course heard before. There are those who take certain views regarding the process of estimating the standard of refinement, if I might say so, of sugar. I think this is the argument Mr. Deachman presented to the tariff board so very fully a year or two ago and I believe it would be most unwise to enter into an argument on it at the present time. May I reply to my hon. friend by saying this: This method has been accepted by the governments of Canada, the parliament of Canada and the trade for many years. It would be most unwise to enter into a discussion now as to whether some other process is better. This is our process and it has been in our statute for many years. So much for that phase of the question.
As regards Australia and the change that was made about a year and a half ago, that country, in the mills which treat the sugar cane, brings the standard of its refinement up a few degrees, I think it is two, higher than that normally accepted by Fiji, the West Indies and some other centres, I believe Cuba. So, in order to give Australia an opportunity to enter this market with some part of her sugar product, we adjusted the tariff item accordingly. That was most valuable on our part and to our trade, because we had an excess of trade going south to Australia to that which she was sending back. This gave Australia an opportunity for shipping some heavy and also valuable cargoes to this market.
The third point raised by the hon. gentleman was: What refinement was necessary beyond 98 degrees? It is very material. He has asked a technical question which, naturally, I cannot answer and I do not think the departmental officers who are here are qualified to answer it offhand. But I can assure my hon. friend that this sugar must be refined. Let him get that clearly in mind. The degree of refinement, however, is lessened by two degrees or, shall I say, two stages, if
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Imperial Conference-Trade Agreements
you like, to that of 96. It must be refined and the decolouring of the sugar-I cannot give the technical term at the moment-enters into the refining, and the sugar is produced in whatever form is desired, whether lump sugar or granulated or brown sugar. The hon. gentleman may take it from me that this is a raw sugar to all intents and purposes but refined to a little more than 96 degrees.


Edward James Young: Is not sugar above 98 degrees polarization marketable as refined sugar?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I remember when I was a boy in the old country they used to sell there a lot of sugar known as Demarara sugar, which is very similar to this. It is a sugar partially crystallized, still in its yellow state. It certainly could be used, but as a matter of practice it is not used in this country. I presume that anyone who wished to get the sugar in that form could do so if there was any demand for it in this country. It contains certain impurities which should be taken out.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-171. Books, printed, periodicals and pamphlets, or parts thereof, n.o.p., not to include blank account books, copy books or books to be written or drawn upon: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 10 per cent; general tariff, 10 per cent.
Mr. DUPUIS:: The other day I wished to discuss a question on this item and the minister said that we would have the opportunity when the item came up in the committee of ways and means. I should like to make a plea with the minister on behalf of those whose learning is acquired through French literature, French books and French culture. In this country we have two sources of learning, the French and English languages, and a large number of our citizens acquire their learning through French books, French literature and French culture; and not only those whose origin is French, but people of other races who also study French literature. I am making this plea in all sincerity in the hope that all the books and periodicals and articles covered by items 171, 171a, 178 and 178b shall have the same rates set out here when coming from France. Otherwise there would be a discrimination against those who study French literature and who derive their learning from the fountain head of French culture.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: My hon. friend is suggesting that by this item we are creating a discrimination against our friends in the province of Quebec and elsewhere who desire to purchase French books and French literature. May I point out to him that for many years

there has been such a discrimination. Under the old tariff these books came in at a rate of five per cent under the British preference, and 10 per cent under the intermediate and general tariffs. So no discrimination is being introduced by this legislation. If you will, you may say that we are perpetuating or accentuating a discrimination already existing.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: Accentuating, because the margin of preference is increased.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The most that can be said is that we have accentuated or increased the discrimination already existing; there can be no dispute about that. But inasmuch as the British agreement was entered into between Great Britain and Canada I must say to my hon. friend that we could not take cognizance in an agreement of that character of any arrangement to take care of the objection raised, because these books come from France and not from England. Notwithstanding that there has been this discrimination in the tariff for years, this is the first time so far as I personally am aware that the question has been raised in this house. If it has been raised before, I have not heard of it. Inasmuch as this is an agreement, we cannot alter it in this house without the consent of the British authorities, but I think there is much merit in the contention of my hon. friend in that these rates operate to the disadvantage of those who wish to buy French books, and so far as I am concerned I am quite content to take the matter up with the British authorities and see if we cannot make an adjustment which would be more in conformity with the equity of the case. It seems to me that that is as much as I can say under the circumstances.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have an amendment to propose, Mr. Chairman. There is an item in the tariff today, 178a, which provides for the prepayment of customs duties through the post office. Under this agreement we are admitting at a lower rate of duty the articles mentioned in item 178, but- we have not provided for a corresponding reduction on those articles which come in through the post. The amendment I have to suggest makes the rate upon the articles which come in by post the same as provided in the agreement for articles coming in under item 178.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I beg to move that
schedule A be amended to provide for the deletion from the said schedule of tariff item 178a, and for the substitution in lieu

United Kingdom
thereof in said schedule A of the following item enumeration and rates of duties of customs:
178a. Provided, that on the goods specified in item 178 and imported by mail on and after the first day of July, 1914. duties may be paid by customs revenue stamps, under regulations by the minister, at the rates specified in said item, except that on each separate package weighing not more than one ounce the duty shall be each:	British preferential tariff, 1
cent; intermediate tariff, 2 cents; gneral tariff, 2 cents.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Was the British government consulted in regard to this change?
Mr. RHODES; No, they were not, because it is a change downwards.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I am glad to hear that.
Mr. POWER; Did the minister get a reciprocal concession?


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: For
mutual advantage.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-210. Peroxide of soda; silicate of soda in crystals or in solutions; bichromate of soda; nitrate of soda or cubic nitre; sulphide of sodium; nitrite of soda; arseniate, binarwniate, chlorate, bisulphite and stannate of soda; prussiate of soda and sulphite of soda:	British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.
Mr. BOUCHARD:: I should like the minister to relieve my mind from a suspicion that this tariff was introduced to help Canadian manufacturers.
Mr. RHODES; I moved an amendment in committee on the bill which I propose to move very soon. The hon. member is just one step ahead of me. I have a motion to move which will meet the objection the hon. member has in mind. \\ e are not Quite to that point yet however, because it is an amendment to item 210.
Mr. MACKENZIE KING; We are discussing item 210.
Mr. RHODES; Inasmuch as we have taken a special item out of it, I wish to add the words "n.o.p." to it. I ask my colleague to move accordingly.
Mr. STEVENS; I beg to move;
That item 210 as detailed in resolution No. 1 of October 12. 1932, be amended by insertion of the letters n.o.p. immediately after the phrase "nitrate of soda or cubic nitre in line two thereof.


John Livingstone Brown: Does that put cubic nitre for agricultural purposes on the same ground 2S-


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I know what the hon. member is going to say, and I have another motion in connection therewith.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have before me an amendment which I moved in committee on the bill and which I am now asking my colleague to move.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I move:
That the following item enumeration and rates of customs be inserted in resolution No. 1 of October 12, 1932:	,	.
''210e. Nitrate of Soda or cubic nitre when imported for use as a fertilizer, or when imported by manufacturers of explosives for use exclusively in their own factories in the manufacture of explosives-Free, free, free."


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Is this agreed to by the British government?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I suppose it is also agreed to by the Irish government?


Joseph Georges Bouchard: Would it be in order to extend the same privilege to item 218, acid phosphate?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: If that chemical is used as a mixture for fertilizing purposes it is free today.


Joseph Georges Bouchard: But it is a poor mixture.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. member suggests it should be used in its natural state?


Joseph Georges Bouchard: Yes.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I am not particularly
familiar with the technical operation and application of various chemicals, but I say to my hon. friend that we will consider his representations and if we deem it advisable we will take up the matter with the British authorities. I will not however undertake to say it will be taken up unless in our judgment we decide we should do so, that is as far as I can go.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Is it
agreed to by the Irish Free State?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. member knows we do not have to communicate with them in this connection.


Joseph Georges Bouchard: When item 218 is called I have some further remarks to make.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
j538	COMMONS
Imperial Conference-Trade Agreements
Customs tariff-218. Acid phosphate, not medicinal:	British preferential tariff, free;
intermediate tariff, 25 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
Joseph Georges Bouchard: For the information of the minister I wish to add a few words to what I have already said. Acid phosphate cannot be mixed with many other ingredients entering into the manufacture of fertilizer. Therefore in my view it would be very necessary to have this material come in free. A large amount of it is being used by the farmers. Acid phosphate is very readily absorbed by plants. I am confident the minister will see to it that farmers are given all the advantage which could be derived from this item.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: There is nothing I can add to what I said a few minutes ago.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-229. Soap, common or laundry, per one hundred pounds:	British
preferential tariff, 50 cents; intermediate tariff, $1.50; general tariff, $1.50.
Mr. YOUN'G: We are opposed to item 229.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Will it be satisfactory if it is carried on division?


John Livingstone Brown: No.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We want a standing vote on this item.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Just a minute; I have a right to discuss this item. My reason for speaking is this: The other day when this matter was being discussed my right hon. friend was very clear in his statement that he was aware of the fact this agreement had to pass in toto, and that it was not subject to amendment. Under those circumstances we had every right to assume that these items, when we came to them, would not be challenged beyond an indication of the attitude of hon. members opposite. My right hon. friend was very clear in his statement that there could be no amendments to the agreement. To keep good faith it is necessary that we should pass these agreements in toto. Under those circumstances I submit he will have accomplished his purpose equally well by having the item carried on division.


Ernest Lapointe: That is for us to say.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: My right hon. friend is
taking an illogical position. By challenging this item and calling for a vote upon it he is flying in the face of the very position which he took at an earlier stage on this agreement. We understand perfectly well that many items in this agreement are not acceptable to hon. gentlemen opposite. I would go further 
and say that the whole agreement is not acceptable to them. But they understand the position, and in view of the statement of my right hon. friend it seems to me he is in fully as good a position if he takes the attitude of opposing the article to the extent of saying: Carried on division, which indicates that he and those who support him have voted against it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Chairman, what my hon. friend says is correct as to my agreeing that so far as the items in the agreement were concerned we could not change them. They had to be accepted or rejected in their entirety. We understood that, that the agreement had to be passed as a whole. But we are through with the agreement now. The house is at present in committee of ways and means, considering resolutions involving far reaching changes in the tariff to all intents and purposes making a new tariff. Certainly we on this side have not deprived ourselves of the right, which every House of Commons has in committee of ways and means, of asking that with respect to particular items members shall show by their actual standing up in the house, whether they support them or not. It only 'bears out what I was saying before, that in this committee of ways and means hon. members should have had the opportunity of registering their position first and to make first the provision necessary to implement any agreement. Then, when we came to the agreement, certainly if provision had been made for the tariff schedule being adopted in its entirety there would be something to be said for there 'being no occasion to alter it in any particular.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I must say I have been surprised by some attitudes taken by my right hon. friend, but the attitude he now takes amazes me. What he says is that the agreement itself, it is true, we cannot alter, we may be opposed to certain clauses but it must go through as a whole, but now we are in committee of ways and means. My hon. friend knows perfectly well the reason we are in committee of ways and means, it is one and one only, that is to implement what we have agreed to do in our United Kingdom agreement. My right hon. friend is in an illogical position, I think he is in an unethical position. He says: While we will agree to these items we have in the bill itself, when we come to put them into effect in committee of ways and means we can oppose them. That is the position that my right hon. friend is taking, but this item has been passed as part of the schedule to the bill.

United Kingdom


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Excuse me, it has. Now
my right hon. friend says he is going to oppose it.


Ernest Lapointe: Surely if any gentleman is illogical it is my hon. friend the Minister of Finance. Every item is called, and the chairman asks, "Is the item carried?" My hon. friend is willing that we should carry it on division. Surely if an item is to be carried on division we have the right to register our vote, a standing vote, the same procedure altogether. My hon. friend says, Yes, vote against it, but it will be on division. If you want to rise, no, that is not ethical, there is something wrong about it-


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No, excuse me-


Ernest Lapointe: My hon. friend knows
he is wrong, that is why he wants to prevent me speaking. Even if my right hon. friend had been willing to say, "We will not divide the committee", every member here has the right to ask that there be a division. I ask for one, as far as I am concerned, on that item of soap, and I will ask for one on two or three items.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: If my hon. friend will permit me, I did not wish to stop him from speaking, I merely wanted to rise to put him right. I never for one moment suggested that it was not the right of hon. gentlemen to have a vote on every item in this committee. Of course it is. It is equally their right to discuss ad libitum every single item. We have never called that in question. I was merely pointing out in the first place that the position taken iby my right hon. friend is that we cannot amend this agreement, and in the second place pointing out the illogical attitude he took on the schedule to the bills, and now when we come to the same item in committee of ways and means.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I said we expressly reserved the right to record our vote against certain of the items and intended to exercise that right.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: There is no question about the right.


Ernest Lapointe: My hon. friend is obstructing.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.
The committee resumed at three o'clock.


The CHAIRMAN:: Item 229 is under consideration. Shall the item carry?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Some question was raised
before luncheon in regard to this item and I would not wish to take advantage of the situation. Is it all right to pass the item?
Mr.	LAPOINTE: On division.
Mr.	RHODES:	Yes, all	the	items	arebeing	carried on	division.
Item agreed to on division.
Customs tariff-278b. Crude peanut oil, for refining for edible purposes, used as materials in Canadian manufactures: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 10 per cent; general tariff, 10 per cent.
Mr.	RHODES:	I have	an amendment
which I will ask my colleague the Minister of National Revenue to move. It deletes this item and puts it back on the free list across the board.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: We cannot object to that.
Amendment agreed to on division.
Customs tariff-401. Wire, of iron or steel:
(a)	barbed fencing, coated or not: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 10 per cent; general tariff, 10 per cent.
(b)	twisted, braided or stranded, including wire rope or cable, coated or not, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 25 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
(c)	drawn flat or cold rolled flat after drawing. coated or not, n.o.p., not more than -25 inch in width and less than -1875 inch in thickness: British preferential tariff, 74 per cent; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.
(d)	coated with zinc, or spelter, curved or not, in coils, -144, -104 or -092 inch in diameter, with tolerance not to exceed -004 inch, and not for use in telegraph or telephone lines: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 10 per cent; general tariff, 10 per cent.
(e)	coated with zinc or spelter, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 10 per cent; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.
(f)	single or several coated, n.o.p., covered with any material, including cable so covered: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent, intermediate tariff, 30 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
(g)	n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.


John Livingstone Brown: There are two or three
items on which we laid special emphasis when they were under consideration before. This item is one and item 409, cream separators, is another. From our standpoint, these are the worst things in the whole agreement. The government has already made a number
10	COMMONS
I nips rial Conference-Trade Agreements
of changes, one of which was referred to a little while ago. That item, peanut oil, was 10 per cent under the general and 10 per cent under the intermediate, and it has again been put on the free list. Possibly that was done through communication with the British government; I do not know. Might we not ask the government, however, to take up these two special items, barbed wire and cream separators, with the British government, with a view to seeing whether they will not agree to having them restored to the free list.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. member has made himself abundantly clear as to what his views are with respect to these two items, not only at the moment but also when we were discussing the item under the bill. May I say to him that if in practice it transpires that the fears expressed by himself and his associates are apt to be realized, we shall be only too willing to discuss the matter with the British authorities, in which event I have no doubt they would take the same reasonable attitude as they have taken with respect to other items already dealt with.


John Livingstone Brown: We do not like to have the burden imposed upon us of proving that our fears have been realized, because even though prices may not increase it does not necessarily follow that these duties will not eventually have an effect on prices.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I quite agree with my hon. friend. We will not take the attitude that it will be necessary for the hon. gentleman to prove his point. We will take judicial notice of it.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I thank the minister for his undertaking to take judicial notice of our objection, because this item outrages the conscience of everyone on this side of the house, so much so, Mr. Chairman, that I do not think we should let it go without a recorded vote. If the minister had made the same representations to the British government as he has made with respect to two or three other items, I think he might have been able to have this item free across the board, and I believe that there are support era of his who would like to see these duties abolished. I should like to record my vote in the most emphatic way permissible.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I may point out, with respect to these items, that the commodities are being manufactured in Britain. In .that respect this item is a little different from the item with regard to peanut oil. I hope my

hon. friend will not feel it necessary to divide the committee, but that of course is his privilege. I cannot add anything to what I have said in reply to the hon. member for Lisgar.


Ernest Lapointe: Let us vote.
Item agreed to: yeas, 53; nays, 31.
Customs tariff-409. Cream separators and complete parts therefor, including steel bowls: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 25 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I think
we should have a recorded vote on this item.
Item agreed to: Yeas, 57; nays, 35.
Customs tariff-412d. Offset presses; lithographic presses; printing presses anti typemaking accessories therefor, n.o.p.:	British
preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 10 per cent; general tariff, 15 per cent.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have an amendment to
propose to this item to add the words "complete parts of the foregoing, not to include saws, knives and motive power-."


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Has this been agreed to by the British government?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No, it has been offered by us as a still further concession.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Or by
the Irish government.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: If it goes to the British
government, it goes to the Irish government.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I move accordingly.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-422b. Trench and ditch excavating machines, round wheel or vertical or ladder boom, chain and bucket type, for digging vertical or sloping bank ditches: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 10 per cent; general tariff, 15 per cent.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I intend to suggest a similar amendment to this item, that the words "complete parts thereof" be added.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I move acordingly.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Has this
been agreed to by the British government?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: My statement with respect to the other item applies also to this one.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.

United Kingdom
Customs tariff-427c. Machinery, viz.: power churns, power milk coolers, power fillers anil cappers, power ice-cream mixers, power butter printers, power cream savers, power bottle sterilizers, power brine tanks, power milk bottle washers, power milk can washers, icebreaking machines, valveless or centrifugal milk pumps, sanitary milk and cream vats; none of the foregoing machinery to include motive power: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 27J per cent; general tariff, 35 per cent.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I am going to suggest an
amendment to this item to add the words "for dairying purposes" after the word "machinery" in the first line of this item. This is to make it absolutely clear that the machinery to be admitted is for dairying purposes.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I move accordingly.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-470. Surgical and dental instruments of any material; surgical needles; X-ray apparatus; microscopes valued at not less than $50 each by retail; and complete parts of all the foregoing:	British preferential tariff
free; intermediate tariff, 10 per cent; general tariff, 10 per cent.
Item agreed to: Yeas, 59; nays, 30.
Mr. ELLIOTT:: I thought the minister was going to give us some information in connection with this item.


Henry Herbert Stevens: We have just voted upon it.


John Campbell Elliott: I was referring to item
476a.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That item is free all across the board. We cannot do any more than that.
Customs tariff-523c. Woven fabrics wholly of cotton, composed of yarns of counts of 100 or more, including all such fabrics in which the average of the count of warp and weft yarns is 100 or more: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent: general tariff. 324 'per cent; and per pound: intermediate tariff, 3| cents; general tariff, 4 cents.


Charles A. Stewart: I object to this item as I object to all of them, but I think we should divide on this particular one as a protest against the whole of the cotton schedules.
Item agreed to: yeas, 59; nays, 30.


Mr. VERVILLE (Translation):: Mr. Chairman, could you not proceed with less rapidity? One must not overlook the fact that the people are called upon to pay the piper and we should like to understand what we are doing. You read too rapidly.


Mr.   CHAIRMAN@Translation: It is to save the people's money that I am dispatching the work.
Customs tariff-540.	(c) Towelling and glass
cloth of crash or huck, with or without lettering or monograms woven in, table cloths and napkins of crash with coloured borders, in the web. wholly of flax or hemp; woven fabrics, in the web, composed in part of flax or hemp, not containing silk, artificial silk nor wool: British preferential tariff. 25 per cent; intermediate tariff. 30 per cent: general tariff, 35 per cent; and per pound: British preferential tariff, 3 cents: intermediate tariff, 34 cents; general tariff, 4 cents.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have an amendment with respect to item 540 (c). The purpose of the amendment is to correct what was obviously a typographical error, because, if hon. members will look at the votes and proceedings they will see that the ad valorem was 224 per cent under the old British preferential tariff. It shows 25 per cent here. The purpose of the amendment is to reduce this to 224 per cent as was originally intended. I would ask my colleague kindly to move that amendment.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I move that.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: We are a;! for that.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-551a. Yarns and warps composed wholly or in part of wool or hair, imported by manufacturers for use exclusively in their own factories, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 10 per cent: intermediate tariff. 174 Per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent; and per pound: British preferential tariff, 7| cents; intermediate tariff, 15 cents; general tariff, 174 cents.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have an amendment to make to this. It is purely for the purpose of clarification. The amendment is to the effect that the words "of wool" be inserted immediately after the word "wholly" in line one of this item. I would ask my colleague to move that.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I move that.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-555. Clothing, wearing apparel and articles made from woven fabrics, and all textile manufactures, wholly or partially manufactured, composed wholly or in part of wool or similar animal fibres, but of which the component of chief value is not silk nor artificial silk, n.o.p.; fabrics, coated or impregnated, composed wholly or in part of yarns of wool or hair, but not containing silk nor artificial silk, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 30
1542	COMMONS
Imperial Conference-Trade Agreements
per cent; intermediate tariff, 40 per cent; general tariff, 40 per cent; and per pound: British preferential tariff, 18J cents; intermediate tariff, 32i cents; general tariff, 35 cents.
Mr. VALLANCE:: To this item which includes all woollen clothing, we object as being 30 per cent, 40 per cent and 40 per cent, and I think there ought to be a division on this.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: My hon. friend will realize that we are reducing the British preferential rate on this item and are not increasing either the intermediate or the general rate.


John Vallance: But we are objecting to the whole principle of this.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: My hon. friend then is taking the position that he is objecting to our reducing the duty on this commodity. We are not increasing the intermediate or general rate, and on the other hand we are reducing the British preferential rate.


John Vallance: We think it is too high.
Item agreed to on division.
Customs tariff-58G. Coal, anthracite, n.o.p. per ton: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 50 cents; general tariff, 50 cents.


Edward James Young: This is an increase. We shall have to vote on it.
Item agreed to on division.
Customs tariff-598a. Brass band instruments, of a class or kind not made in Canada; bagpipes: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 30 per cent; general tariff, 35 per cent.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: This is the Reid item. I have an amendment to propose which I think will be acceptable to the hon. member for New Westminster and also the hon. member for Vancouver Centre. This amendment admits free of duty complete parts for bagpipes..


Henry Herbert Stevens: I move that.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Customs tariff-599. Hides and skins, raw, whether dry, salted or pickled; and raw pelts: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
John Livingstone Brown: This is a most interesting item. I do not rise for the purpose of opposing it but to congratulate the government upon having had a change of heart. Those of us who were here during the last two parliaments will remember that the government of the day was continually being bombarded from this side to impose a duty on raw hides. I

remember very distinctly a speech made by the present Minister of Justice. Perhaps the house will also remember that last year this question came up and during the course of the discussion it transpired that a tariff had been imposed upon hides because of a verbal understanding which the government had had with New Zealand at the time of making the New Zealand treaty. I just want to congratulate the government upon having had this change of heart. I am curious to know what brought it about. We could hardly conceive that it was due to any arguments advanced from this side of the house. I would ask the minister what influences were brought to bear upon the government to make them reverse their decision, and whether this change is satisfactory to New Zealand.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Absolutely satisfactory to New Zealand.


John Livingstone Brown: What brought about the change of heart?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Oh, a little common sense.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-625. Caps, hats, muffs, tippets, capes, coats and cloaks of fur, and other manufactures of fur, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 30 per cent; general tariff, 35 per cent.
Edward James Young: This increases the intermediate and general tariffs on an article of necessity to the people, and I am opposed to it, Mr. Chairman.
Item agreed to: yeas, 64; nays, 35.
Resolution as amended, agreed to.
Resolution No. 2 agreed to.


Mr. VERVTLLE (Translation):: Mr. Chairman, would you kindly read this article in French.


Mr.   CHAIRMAN@Translation: I have just read it in French.


Joseph-Achille Verville: I was able to follow it well; however, I wish to have it read in French.


Mr.   CHAIRMAN@Translation: 
William Lyon Mackenzie King: We on this side are anxious to expedite matters, but we also wish to have an opportunity to discuss the question of farm relief. If the Prime Minister is in a position to give us an undertaking that we shall have that opportunity at a definite time there will be no objection to proceeding with this bill, though none of us have seen copies of it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Under those circumstances, as soon as this is through the question could be raised on the motion for supply or on second reading of the representation bill, whichever best suits the convenience of hon. gentlemen.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.
Mr. RHODES moved the second reading of the bill.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, on the second reading of this bill I desire to say that the objections which we have raised all along to the increases in the tariff we desire to make at the present time with added emphasis after having had the discussion we have had upon the resolutions in committee of ways and means today and seen more clearly than ever the extent and the effect of the increases. We on this side are entirely opposed to increasing the tariff as proposed in this bill and we are prepared to vote against the second reading. With this understanding it may perhaps be declared carried on division.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: That is quite satisfactory, Mr. Speaker, carried on division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, on division, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. LaVergne in the chair.
On section 1-Schedule A amended.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Is there a copy of the bill?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I think there are copies available for distribution, but if not I assure my hon. friend the bill contains the schedule as passed, with the amendments, and is in conformity with the resolutions.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have no hesitancy in accepting the word of the Minister of Finance with respect to what may be contained in the bill. In so doing however I should like to point out again that all of
this procedure should have been carried out stage by stage and in detail before we were asked to approve of the agreements based upon the changes in the tariff now being made.
Section 1 agreed to.
Section 2 agreed to.
Bill reported.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Does the right hon. gentleman opposite wash the bill to stand for third reading?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We might as well finish it.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Mr. Rhodes moves,
seconded by Mr. Stevens, that the said bill be read a third time. Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: On division.
Bill read the third time and passed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I shall proceed with the Representation bill, or with the motion to go into supply, whichever the right hon. gentleman wishes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should prefer supply. In order to regularize matters I believe the minister should make a motion.



SUPPLY-FARM RELIEF AMENDMENT TO MOTION OF MINISTER OF FINANCE

[Stage Direction]
Hon. E. N. RHODES (Minister of Finance) moved that the house go into committee of supply:
He said: Under the ordinary course I could not proceed today in supply, not having considered items on a day other than Thursday or Friday. I take it however that hon. members are content to accept the motion as if it had been moved on a Monday or Tuesday.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I intimated the other day that on going into committee of supply I should have a motion to bring forward which would have reference to farm or agricultural relief, and I intimated at the time that if the house had a statement from the Prime Minister as to the government's policy in the matter, and if we had an opportunity of discussing the government's policy whatever it might be, I would not move the motion. Up to the present time however we have had no statement from the Prime Minister as to the government's policy with respect
1544	COMMONS
Farm, Relief-Mr. Mackenzie King
to farm relief. We have not heard what it is or what it is to be from now until the time parliament reassembles. In the circumstances, so that we may have an opportunity of placing ourselves on record I beg to move, seconded by Mr. Casgrain:
That all the words after "that" to the end of the question be omitted and the following substituted therefor:
Whereas parliament has been in session since October 6, of the present year, and is shortly to adjourn until January 30, 1933;
And whereas, since parliament assembled the government has not made any statement of policy with respect to the relief of existing agricultural conditions;
And whereas, the position of agriculture in Canada has become increasingly deplorable and, unless relieved, will bring about a condition of distress hitherto unparalleled;
This house is of the opinion that the government should immediately announce what policy, if any, it has with respect to the relief of agricultural distress, and permit full consideration of the same before parliament adjourns over the months of December and January.
May I add, Mr. Speaker, that I have no desire to have the government consider this amendment as intended as being one in the nature of want of confidence. That is not its purpose at this time, if the Prime Minister has at this time a statement of government policy which he is prepared to make to the house, and if he is prepared to give us an opportunity to discuss this matter. If that course is adopted, I shall ask the consent of the house to be allowed to withdraw the amendment after the Prime Minister has spoken at any stage of the discussion hon. members of the house may wish. If we do not receive a satisfactory declaration from the Prime Minister, then I would ask that the amendment be put.


John Livingstone Brown: Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to speak at great length on this occasion, but there are some matters which I think ought to be brought to the attention of the house. Perhaps there is no need of emphasizing again and again the unfortunate position in which agriculture finds itself today. However recognizing as we do that the prosperity of Canada depends upon the stability of agriculture we feel we cannot give too much attention to that subject. About a year and a half ago I was compelled to move an amendment somewhat similar to the one to which we have just listened, and on that occasion I said there was grave danger of farmers losing their equities in their lands. In some quarters that statement was ridiculed. If not ridiculed, at least it was not accepted as a serious state-
ment of fact. There can be no question today however that the condition I described obtains. I hold in my hand a paper published in my constituency, and in it I find a list of lands to be sold for taxes. This is an old established community, a community that was settled fifty years ago. There have been tax sales at various times since then, but in very few cases was land put up for sale for taxes when the men were actually resident on the land. But today I find in looking over this list that some hundreds of farmers have their land put up for sale for taxes because it is simply impossible for them to pay those taxes. Again and again it has been brought to our notice that the low prices at which farm products are being sold make it impossible for farmers to meet their obligations. The time must come, be it sooner or later, when some steps must be taken to relieve the farmers from the obligations that have been incurred and have accumulated during the last few years. Some steps must be taken to secure that the farmers who are now on the land are enabled to remain upon it. What profit will it be if through the disposal of this land, whether it is taken over by the loan companies or the municipalities, men should be turned off land on which they have been living for many years, and then perhaps go and purchase another piece, perhaps one of these very parcels indicated in this list. Some steps must be taken by the dominion or by the provinces to ensure to farmers continued possession of their land; otherwise I do not see anything for it but a wholesale leaving of the land by those who are now on it.
These tax sales indicate one thing. There has been discussion as to the proper method of providing relief, and there are those who still strenuously advocate that relief should be given by way of work. I am inclined to think that we are driven to the necessity of providing relief by way of direct contribution. Ideallj' that does not commend itself to any of us. But so far as the municipalities are concerned at least it would be simply impossible for them to cany on any share of relief by way of work. Cases come to our notice from time to time that indicate the serious nature of the situation. Here is one, brought to my notice no longer ago than this morning. A certain man in a certain town was on direct relief. I was told that that man had securities in the way of mortgages on land, and land that he owned himself, worth at least S15.000. But he has not been able to collect a cent, and the result is that he is on direct relief. Now we could

Farm Relief-Mr. Brown
not hold that a man possessed of so much property should be allowed to starve, any more than a man who had nothing. But it could not be considered equitable that, in case times improve, he should be in a position to collect everything in the way of principal and interest on the mortgages that he holds. A lien of some kind should be taken on that man's holdings, he should not be allowed, if he so desired-we will hope he would not- to exercise his full rights without at least paying back the amount received by him for his immediate needs.
Let us consider another case that was brought to my notice, from the standpoint of the taxpayer. I was visiting in a certain town and there was brought to my notice the case of a young widow-


Ira Delbert Cotnam: Tell us about her.


John Livingstone Brown: I think the hon. member for North Renfrew (Mr. Cotnam) must have had it indicated to him quite frequently that if he wants to make a speech-


Ira Delbert Cotnam: If I could not make a
better speech than you I would not want to make one.


John Livingstone Brown: The house will be the judge as to the merits-


Ira Delbert Cotnam: We are the judges, we are judging all the time.


John Livingstone Brown: The case brought to my
notice is probably typical of a great many. A young widow of a soldier who was not able to secure a pension-


Ira Delbert Cotnam: Never mind the young
widow.


John Livingstone Brown: Does the hon. member not realize that this is a serious situation?


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Order. I ask the hon. member to desist from intervening in this irregular way.


John Livingstone Brown: This young widow's husband had only been able to leave her a small sum of money, with which she was able to build a house to live in. She has no other source of income. Yet because of that small property that she holds she is burdened with taxes, and compelled to pay a share to support those who are out of employment today. The consequence will shortly be that her property will be gone, and she and her family will also be on relief. That emphasizes the fact that a tremendous burden is being laid upon the taxpayers, and we may very well ask how long those who are at present able to pay will be able to continue payments for relief. 11 is sometimes said that there is too much 53719-98
tendency to look to governments for relief. That may be true, but I think we have a right to look to governments for relief in cases where restrictions have been put upon people by governments themselves.
I want to call attention to a certain matter with which I have had to deal. Perhaps I will be criticized by members of the government for bringing this matter to the attention of the house, but I feel I would not be doing my duty to my constituents or to the people generally if I did not state the facts as I know them to be. Governments frequently make the statement that they cannot do this or that because of limitations imposed upon them, it may be by the constitution or by the demands of expediency. But we should remember that just as in war time things were done which perhaps would not be done under ordinary circumstances, so in times like these we may reasonably expect that governments will not hold to the rigid rules which might properly obtain under ordinary circumstances; and it is because I feel that the particular case I want to mention is one of those where it would involve no harm or injury to anyone to depart from that method of procedure which might have been justified in normal times that I desire to bring this matter to the attention of the house.
In one part of my constituency the farmers have for two years suffered from a plague of grasshoppers. A year ago feed crops were completely destroyed, oats and barley being a complete failure. They did manage to salvage a little wheat. This year the situation is very much worse. They have no grain crops and their potato crop has been also completely destroyed by grasshoppers. Shortly after reaching Ottawa I received a number of communications from men in my constituency, asking me to interview the government to see whether they could not possibly be induced to allow potatoes to come in from across the border in Dakota. In Dakota, I might explain, they grow rather extensive acreages of potatoes. In normal times they have a fairly good market to the south and so they grow large acreages, whereas we, not having a market, in some cases grow only enough for our own use. It happened also that in the north part of the state of Dakota there were some local showers which gave them a fairly good potato crop.
It was brought to my notice that potatoes could be bought at 10 cents per bushel on that side of the line, and later it became known that they could be had for the digging. I approached the government on this matter, writing to the Prime Minister, the Minister

Farm Relief-Mr. Brown

of Agriculture and the Minister of National Revenue. An answer came to me from the Minister of National Revenue to the effect that 10 cents a bushel was a price that did not represent a fair market value, and so forth. I took that to mean-


Mr. RYCKMAN:: I think the hon. member will find that the reply was that there was a duty levied by parliament upon potatoes coming into this country. That was point 1. Point 2 was that we did not feel we had authority to make a regional tariff.


John Livingstone Brown: In that case I will read
the letter I received from the minister:
Ottawa, October 17, 1932.
Dear Sir,-
I have been giving careful consideration to the representations which you made to me in your letter of the 7th instant, relative to conditions in the vicinity of Morden and Winklet, where there apparently has been a severe plague of grasshoppers which has resulted in the destruction of garden crops.
When you suggest that wre admit potatoes free of duty when imported by the residents of this district, I dare say you have in mind the action which was taken some years ago in connection with the importation of hay. I do not feel that this is a proper remedy for the unfortunate conditions in which the residents of tills place find themselves. It practically means the establishment of a sectional tariflE which is unsound in principle.
I can scarcely believe that our producers of potatoes are taking advantage of the tariff to the extent which you indicate. Does the price of ten cents a bushel for potatoes just across the line in your opinion represent a fair market value? I am not familiar with the prices of garden produce in the district but ten cents a bushel for potatoes would seem to represent distress selling and unfair competition with Canadian farmers who are producing potatoes.
Yours faithfully,
E. B. Ryekman.
J. L. Brown, Esq., M.P.,
House of Commons,
Ottawa.
As you will see, emphasis is laid on distress selling. Now my whole objection to the attitude of the government is that they give attention to that particular phase of the matter rather than to the distressed condition in which some of our farmers find themselves. That was the first answer I received from the minister. I received a very urgent telegram from one of my constituents, as follows:
Potatoes are nine cents a bushel across the line today. Many in the ground to be had for the digging. Potatoes in Manitoba fifty-five cents a bushel. Request Ryekman once more to lift duty for relief-needing farmers.
That is signed by C. W. Wiebe, a member of the Manitoba legislature, and the date is November 1. Although I had received an answer to my former communication to the

Minister of National Revenue, I felt it my duty to take the matter up with him again and accordingly I wrote, sending him a copy of Dr. Wiebe'b telegram, and urging further consideration of the situation. I received this letter in reply:
Ottawa, November 3, 1932. Dear Mr. Brown,

I wish to acknowledge your letter of the 2nd instant, with enclosed telegram from Dr. C. W. Wiebe, ALL.A.
I do not feel that I can add anything to my letter of the 17th ultimo. There are better methods of relief than the creation of sectional tariffs.
Yours faithfully,
_ _	E. B. Ryekman.
J. L. Brown, Esq., M.P.,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, Canada.
I admit, Mr. Speaker, that under ordinary circumstances the course we advocated might not be justifiable. But take the situation as I have outlined it: starving men and women, and horses and cattle dying for feed, on one side of the line, and abundant potatoes on the other side-potatoes that could be had for the digging. Yet the laws of our country prevent these farmers having access to those potatoes. The result is that they have no potatoes at all. Since the minister says that there are better methods of relief than the creation of sectional tariffs, I wish to ask him now just what proposition he has to make to relieve these people. Under the circumstances I have a right to ask what method of relief is forthcoming. These people will have no potatoes for seed next year; they have no money with which to buy them. They have lost their crop for two years and are in dire need of relief. As I say, I admit that under ordinary circumstances the minister would have been quite right in the course he pursued. But, Mr. Speaker, these are not ordinary oircumstances. We are not living in normal times, and it may very well be that we shall be compelled to adopt, not only in a matter of this kind but in many other matters as well, a course of action which otherwise we would not advocate for a moment.
I wish therefore in dealing with this question of farm relief to know just rvhat proposition the government has for relieving the people whose situation I have brought to the attention of the house. Not only that, but still further west in my constituency, where the feed crop was also destroyed, horses and cattle are likely to die for want of proper feed. In this same local paper which was sent to me I read:
Horses will die on straw.
Many cases of sick horses are already reported, due to a steady diet of wheat straw. Lack of oats and barley, and prohibitive prices

Farm Relief-Point of Order
for bran and shorts, will account for the death of thousands of valuable horses over southern Manitoba during the next six months. At present prices of wheat a farmer could afford to pay, say $5 per ton for bran, but $16 is out of the question. Must the horses die?
As I said, Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to speak at any great length with regard to this matter. The situation is clearly before the house. We will admit that the government has done much to relieve the situation, but I do not believe it appreciates the full seriousness of the situation that confronts us. It is easy for a man sitting in a comfortable office in the city to look upon these matters with a degree of composure, but it is not easy for those of us who actually know the conditions and who, when we go home, will find ourselves face to face with our neighbours who are passing through the hardest of hard times. Can we wonder that there is a growing feeling throughout the country that the powers that be have but little to offer in the way of actually relieving the distress of the people?


Mr. R. B. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order. On October 12 the right hon. the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), seconded by the hon. member for Melville (Mr. Motherwell) moved an amendment to the address to his excellency. One of the fundamental matters covered by that amendment was agricultural distress. I find upon referring to the amendment now moved by the right hon. gentleman and seconded by his chief wThip that it covers identically the topic covered by the previous amendment. Under the rules of this house, as exemplified the other day in connection with an amendment moved by the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps), the present amendment would appear to be out of order.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker,
on the point of order, may I say that the amendment now before Your Honour relates not to the past but to the future. It asks what the policy of the government is with respect to agricultural relief and what it will be during the months of December and January, at which time this house will not be in session. This information is asked for in order that hon. members when they return to their constituencies may be able to state exactly the government's policy. The amendment moved to the address in reply to the speech from the throne was as follows:
Whilst reserving any expression of view upon the merits of the agreements concluded at the 53719-981
recent Imperial economic conference, this house is of the opinion that the tariff policies of the present administration have seriously injured the trade of Canada and have intensified the economic depression, and that the government has wholly failed to afford a remedy for unemployment and agricultural distress as pledged by the Prime Minister.
The house regrets that, except the dole, the government has no policy with respect to the relief of unemployment.
It also deplores the government's obvious endeavour, by postponing the revision of the Bank Act, to avoid immediate consideration by parliament of the all-important subjects of banking, credit and currency.
There is in that amendment a specific reference to the fact that the government has not had any policy with respect to the relief of unemployment, but there is no reference whatever to the government's present day or future policy with respect to farm relief. The essence of the amendment which I have now placed in Your Honour's hands is the government's present and future policy in this regard. The amendment to the address contains the following: "the government has wholly failed to afford a remedy for unemployment and agricultural distress as pledged by the Prime Minister." Those words relate to the past, they state that the government had failed up to that time to implement pledges given with respect to the relief of agricultural distress, but I hope this failure on the part of the administration is not going to follow the lines suggested by what the hon. member who raised this question has said and be continued as long as this parliament lasts. While the government has failed in the past we hope that in the future it will try to carry out the pledges which have been made; at all events that it has some policy to deal with conditions as they are at the present time and a definite policy as to the future.
Without re-reading the amendment offered today it must be perfectly clear that it covers conditions of distress as they affect agricultural communities at the present time. It is offered in an effort to' obtain from the government a declaration of policy which has not yet been made and which it is all-important should be made before this house adjourns over the months of December and January.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: There is only one point which I desire to emphasize in connection with the point of order, which I submit is well taken by the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson), and that is that the rule referred to is intended to limit the discussion upon any one
Farm Relief-Point of Order

subject to once in a session. The amendment to the address contained the words "the government has wholly failed to afford a remedy for unemployment and agricultural distress."


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Thus far.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I submit it is not competent for my right hon. friend to take the ground that he can project into the future and thus escape the rule. The rule is for the purpose of expediting the business of parliament, it states that there shall be but one discussion during one session upon one subject and if the interpretation were to be placed upon the rule which my right hon. friend seeks to place upon it, then it would be rendered null and of no effect. I submit that under the circumstances the point of order is well taken.
lion. IAN MACKENZIE (Vancouver): Mr. Speaker, on the point of order. It seems to me that the distinction drawn by my right hon. leader is very marked indeed. The amendment moved to the address and the one now presented are entirely different, the one was condemning or sought to condemn the government's policy in the past while the other contains not the slightest suggestion of condemnation, it asks only for a declaration of policy with regard to the future. The present amendment is constructive, asking as it does for a declaration of policy; the other one, which was disposed of by this house, was a condemnation of the previous administration of this government. Surely the Minister of Finance (Mr. Rhodes) must admit that the two are absolutely different and that this discussion would not necessarily revive the discussion which took place in the early part of the session. This amendment seeks only to induce the government to be frank enough with parliament and with the country to give a declaration of policy with regard to what we may expect before we reassemble on January 30.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: If I may be permitted to
reply to the hon. member for Vancouver (Mr. Mackenzie). I take no objection to his pointing out that the distinction in the two amendments as to what is sought to be done, but he forgets that the cardinal principle of the rule is that a particular subject can be discussed only once during the session. The rule cannot be affected by any variation in intent. This is the point which I endeavoured to make clear when I rose a moment ago. The rule has reference to a discussion twice upon the same subject in the same session.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As the minister has had an opportunity of further reply-!Mr. Rhodes.]
ing, perhaps I may be granted a like privilege. I would point out that as yet we have not discussed the present policy of the government with respect to agriculture. We don't know what the policy is, we want to know if the government has any policy and if so what it is: and that is the cardinal feature of my amendment.


Edmond Baird Ryckman: Mr. Speaker, I feel
it necessary to say but a word or two. I think the facts developed so far demonstrate that the present amendment is out of order. The amendment to the address contained these words: "the government has wholly failed to afford a remedy for unemployment and agricultural distress." All that the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) has said up to the present time is that the government has failed to appreciate the agricultural distress, of which he gives instances. So it is traversing in toto the objects as found in the amendment moved by the right hon. gentleman.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, when the amendment to the address was moved by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), I ventured to say to one of my colleagues that the effect of the amendment would be very greatly to shorten the session, for the discussion must necessarily be limited, because the opposition could not again traverse the same ground. If I expressed a little amazement at that time that the amendment covered so many subjects and so much matter, I thought it had some compensations, because they could not again be the subject matter of discussion. When the other evening I heard the amendment that we should tie the dollar to the pound, I saw at once the end of further monetary discussions in this house this session. When I heard the subamendment to the amendment moved by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) in the terms in which it was moved, and the vote taken upon it, I realize that if the rules were to have any effect at all, we had further greatly limited discussion in this house for this session. My colleague the Minister of Finance (Mr. Rhodes) has pointed out the rule. It is aimed at the prevention of duplication of discussion and as I ventured to point out the other day, once this house has taken a decision upon a matter, it is not competent to take another decision upon it during the same session. That looks reasonable. Otherwise the conduct of business in

Farm Relief-Point of Order
the house would be impossible and the protraction of the session interminable.
My hon. friends opposite saw fit, for reasons best known to themselves-and I am not complaining of their judgment-to risk many matters in one amendment and one subamendment. They risked, for instance, monetary reform, agricultural distress and other subjects of that character. They having risked them all in the amendment and the subamendment, the decision having been taken and the house having negatived in their entirety their proposals thus made, it would strike one as elementary under the terms of the rule that it is not competent to evade the rule by the suggestion now made. The amendment now before the house is palpably an effort to evade the operation of the rule. It is assumed you can say: I want to know what the policy of the government is going to be, and thereby evade the rule that prevents duplication of discussion. One might, if one were censorious, direct attention to the language of the amendment. One might observe it says that, whereas parliament has been assembled for a couple of months or, say forty-odd days, there has been no statement of policy. The answer might obviously be: Just look at Hansard. I do not wonder my hon. friend across the floor smiles. Every possible thing that could be said about everything under the sun will be found there, all the way from the Einstein theory down to the problem of the poverty of an individual in the most remote part of the country.


Ernest Lapointe: Is this on a point of
order?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes. The amendment
reads:
And whereas, since parliament assembled the government has not made any statement of policy with respect to the relief of existing agricultural conditions-
And agricultural distress has been, as I pointed out, discussed. The next recital is:
And whereas, the position of agriculture in Canada has become increasingly deplorable and, unless relieved, will bring about a condition of distress hitherto unparalleled.
It then demands a statement of what the government is going to do in the future. If there has not been a discussion on agricultural distress and the deplorable condition of agriculture, the English language is at fault in having recorded the opinions of hon. gentlemen opposite in the terms in which they are reported in Hansard. There can be no doubt that the government that made the motion and the opposition and other members who moved the amendments on which a decision has been challenged and taken, have exhausted the discussion this session on those matters. I did not view it as a matter that did not have its compensations. One of them is the operation of the rule which has just been invoked, because you cannot do indirectly chat which you cannot do directly. The discussion having taken place at length, further discussion on the same matter cannot go on. The speech of the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) was the best illustration of this. All you would have to do would be to compare that speech with those which will be found on Hansard since the house met on the question of agricultural distress. They will be found to be exactly the same except that the illustrations differ. If the question is one of monetary reform, all one has to do is to read Hansard. So far as this matter is concerned, I submit that what has been said by my colleague has been abundantly borne out by the rule and the amendment is out of order.


Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, I was not in the chamber when the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) raised the point of order, but I have listened to my right hon. friend (Mr. Bennett). Objection is based on the amendment which was moved to the address. The only part of that amendment which refers to agricultural conditions is as follows:
And that the government has wholly failed to afford a remedy for unemployment and agricultural distress as pledged by the Prime Minister.
That is, 'had failed at that time. That was the amendment moved to the address. This motion submitted by my leader wants the house to declare that in its opinion:
The government should immediately announce what policy, if any, it has with respect to the relief of agricultural distress, and permit full consideration of the same before parliament adjourns over the months of December and January.
That is a wholly different matter. I submit that the apparent contention of the Prime Minister that because a matter has been discussed in any way, a further discussion during the same session is prevented, is altogether wrong. My hon. friends opposite have only to remember the session prior to the last general election when the matter of unemployment was discussed in the house at least ten, twelve or fifteen times. The rules prevent the house from discussing a motion which has already been decided. When a question has been submitted and decided by the house, whether by way of a bill or a resolution, the

Farm Relief-Speaker's Ruling
same bill or the same resolution cannot be submitted again during the same session. But a discussion on agriculture or labour or unemployment or distress can surely be started in the house many times during the same session. I submit also what I submitted the other day that, according to Bourinot, even if the matter had been the subject of a motion, if it is only part of a former motion, it can be submitted again to the house.


Mr. C. G. POWER (Quebec South):: Mr. Speaker, just a word on the point of order. It seems to me if the theoiy as laid down by the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) is to be carried out, it would be very easy for any hon. member on the government side to move an amendment to the address covering all subjects which could possibly come up during the session. The result of that would be that we might as well pack up and go home.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That would mean the defeat of the government. That is all.


Charles Gavan Power: I do not conceive the rule was ever intended to cover any such action as that. I believe, if we accept the point laid down by my hon. friend, we are extending the rule too far.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Mr. Speaker, with the permission of the house I should like to give an additional reason. The motion now before the Chair is to go into supply. This is an amendment on a motion to go into supply. It is therefore a motion in the nature of a vote of -want of confidence on a topic on which the house has already voted confidence in the government this session. That is the crux of the matter.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) has spoken the second time on the subject, may I say that at no stage of this session has the house expressed confidence in the government's policy with respect to agriculture as it is to prevail during the months of December and January.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The motion before the
house is that the Speaker leave the chair for the house to resolve itself into committee of supply. An amendment concerning agricultural conditions in Canada and agricultural relief has been offered. The point of order has been raised that the amendment is out of order on the ground that it again introduces matter that was debated and disposed of when the right hon. leader of the opposition on October 10 moved an amendment to

the address including the words "the government has wholly failed to afford a remedy for agricultural distress." Whatever the object of the amendment may be and whether it concerns past, present or future policy of the government seems to me to be beside the point. The question for the Speaker to consider is: Has the matter raised by the amendment been discussed and debated? The subject matter of the amendment now proposed was undoubtedly discussed and debated upon a former occasion, and to allow a discussion of this question now would be simply to repeat the debate that has been held on agricultural conditions. The amendment moved has not been accepted by the government, and so is a motion of want of confidence. The house refused to condemn the government's policy on agriculture by rejecting the amendment to the address. In view, therefore, of that decision and in view of the precedents I find this amendment, which deals with the questions of agricultural conditions and agricultural relief, to be not in order.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker,
I very much regret that I shall have to appeal from your ruling.
Mr. Speaker put the question as follows:
The Speaker having decided that the amendment offered by Mr. Mackenzie King to the motion that the Speaker do now leave the chair is out of order, Mr. Mackenzie King appeals from that decision.


Mr. SPOTTON:: I was paired with the hon. member for West Elgin (Mr. Hepburn). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. CHARTERS:: I was paired with the hon. member for North Wellington (Mr. Blair). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. McLURE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Maclnnis). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. WHITE (London):: I was paired with the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Gershaw). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. SMITH (Cumberland):: I was paired with the hon. member for Antigonish-Guys-borough (Mr. Duff). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. ANDERSON (Halton):: I was paired with the hon. member for Toronto West Centre (Mr. Factor). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.
,552

Farm Relief-Speaker's Ruling


Mr. SPENCE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Northumberland (Mr. Fraser). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Murray MacLaren: I was paired with the hon. member for Rimouski (Sir Eugene Fiset). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. BUTCHER:: I was paired with the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Bums). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.
Mr. BE'LL (St. Antoine): I was paired with the hon. member for Beauharnois (Mr. Raymond). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. LENNOX:: I was paired with the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. HARRIS:: I was paired with the hon. member for Cartier (Mr. Jacobs). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. SMOKE:: I was paired with the hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Cayley). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. BOWMAN:: I was paired with the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Hanson). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. MERCIER (Laurier-Outremont):: I was paired with the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Geary). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.
Mr. ST.-PERE: I was paired with the hon. member for South Hastings (Mr. Tummon). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Edward James Young: I was paired with the hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Maloney). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Charles A. Stewart: I was paired with the hon. member for Neepawa (Mr. Murphy). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. McINTOSH:: I was paired with the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Kennedy). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. HEENAN:: I was paired with the hon. member for Digby-Annapolis (Mr. Short). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. BERTRAND:: I was paired with the hon. member for North East Toronto (Mr. Baker). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. MITCHELL:: I was paired with the hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr. Simpson) . Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. TAYLOR:: I was paired with the hon. member for Brantford City (Mr. Ryerson). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. LUCAS:: I was paired with the hon. member for Vietoria-Carleton (Mr. Smith). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. SPENCER:: I was paired with the hon. member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. Weese). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. COOTE:: I was paired with the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Stanley). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. MOTHERWELL:: I was paired with the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Weir). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. DESROCHERS (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for West Essex (Mr. Robinson). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. DUBOIS (Translation):: I was paired with the hen. member for Charlotte ('Mr. Ganong). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. FONTAINE (Translation):: I was
paired with the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Laurin). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. FERLAND (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. Solicitor-General (Mr. Dupre), the future representative of Canada in Paris. Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling, which is prejudicial to farming.


Mr. LAFLECHE (Translation):: I was
paired with the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Girouard). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.

Farm Finance-Mr. Irvine


Mr. DORION (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Latbiniere (Mr. Verville). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. LARUE (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Yamaska (Mr. Boucher). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.



SUPPLY-FARM FINANCE AND MARKETING

['Mr. Speaker, with the consent of the house I desire to move, seconded by Mr. Rhodes:\nThat the provisions of standing orders 92 and 93 with regard to time limits for receiving petitions for private bills be suspended, and the first day of the present session in relation thereto be deemed to be the 30th January, 1933, instead of the 6th October, 1932.']
William Irvine: Mr. Speaker, some very bright and noble ideas have been put forward during the last few days, but, unfortunately, all were lost before they arrived at the foot of the throne. Nevertheless, despite the casualties I make bold to send forth another to be slain if necessary. I beg to move seconded by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman) that all the words after the word " that " be stricken out and the following substituted therefor:
Whereas, the prices for farm products now prevailing are the lowest on record and do not bring returns to the farmer sufficient to meet the cost of the current year's operations; and
Whereas, farmers have in years past obligated themselves to pay large sums of money for goods and services and to repay loans advanced for the purchase of farm equipment and the carrying on of farming operations; and
Whereas, the principal sums of such debts had a relation to price the farmer was receiving for his products; and
Whereas, such debts are being greatly increased by unpaid interest charges and through the depreciated values of their products by which alone debt can be paid;
Therefore be it resolved; in the opinion of this house, the government, as emergency measures, should:-
(a)	take such action as will lead to the writing off of all accumulated interest charges outstanding and to effect a substantial reduction in interest charges for the future; and
(b)	bring the Canadian dollar at least to that point where Canada will have a parity of exchange with her chief competitors in the British market; and
(c)	immediately consider the advisability of again paying a bonus on wheat, either on a bushelage or acreage basis; and
(d)	that this house is further of the opinion that the government should create a "marketing board" competent to supervise and control the marketing of farm products.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I hope you will not look at that amendment until I get through speaking, because by that time it will probably be out of order. I am not going to speak very long, because last night when eleven o'clock came I had just about arrived at the point where I wanted to move the amendment which I have just moved. Then this afternoon when I was all primed up to make my motion I discovered that by the
rules of the house it could not be done. I am very glad that the motion of the right hon. leader of the opposition was ruled out of order, because it gives me the opportunity to move mine. Now I hope you will find that you have got one that is really in order. I suppose that objection may be taken to the first clause of the amendment, on the ground that it is too drastic for us to ask that all interest charges that are overdue should be cancelled. May I point out that the economic conditions prevailing in Canada have automatically cancelled the income of hundreds of thousands of our working people, and the same conditions have cancelled a very large percentage of the income of our agricultural population. But while economic conditions have cancelled the income of farmers and of people who are unemployed, and very materially reduced the income of those who are fortunate enough to be employed, still interest goes on. Interest charges go on like Tennyson's Brook, getting bigger all the time as it comes towards the sea, and nothing is done to prevent that accumulation. Let me point out to this house what was done in connection with the loan made to the Canadian Pacific Railway last year. I must be careful to say that I am not opposed to giving the Canadian Pacific Railway a loan, I hope the government will give a loan to any organization that requires it, provided the government is in a position to do so. The Canadian Pacific Railway obtained S 1,447,-222.71 from the government last year, and in return for that I presume they kept their shops open a month or so and thus gave employment to a number of people. But my point is that- in the order in council dealing with that loan it is plainly stated that as soon as the railway company shall resume payment of the dividends at more than the rate of five per cent per annum the loan may be repaid. And repaid without interest. Now that is a very good precedent. If the government can lend money to any organization, Canadian Pacific Railway or any other, and not require them to pay it back until they are able to pay over five per cent dividends, and then permit them to pay it back without interest, surely it is not too much to ask that the government take whatever action it can to cancel the accrued interest against the agricultural population of this country. Surely every hon. member of this house will agree that it is entirely unfair and absolutely unjustifiable that the calamity of this depression should be borne by one class only of the community. By what right should coupon clippers be exempt from their share of the
Farm Finance-Mr. Irvine


Mr. ALFRED SPEAKMAN (Red Deer):: In seconding the amendment which is now before the house, I find myself very happy in supporting something which I believe-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, is there an amendment before the house?


The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr. McDade):: The amendment reads:
Whereas, the prices for farm products now prevailing are the lowest on record and do not bring returns to the farmer sufficient to meet the cost of the current year's operations; and
Whereas, farmers have in years past obligated themselves to pay large sums of money for goods and services and to repay loans advanced for the purchase of farm equipment and the carrying on of farming operations; and
Whereas, the principal sums of such debts had a relation to price the farmer was receiving for his products; and
Whereas, such debts are being greatly increased by unpaid interest charges and through the depreciated values of their products by which alone debt can be paid;
Therefore be it resolved; in the opinion of this house, the government, as emergency measures, should:
(a)	take such action as will lead to the writing off of all accumulated interest charges outstanding and to effect a substantial reduction in interest charges for the future; and
(b)	bring the Canadian dollar at least to that point where Canada will have a parity of exchange with her chief competitors in the British markets; and
(c)	immediately consider the advisability of again paying a bonus on wheat, either on a bushelage or acreage basis; and
(d)	that this house is further of the opinion that the government should create a "marketing board" competent to supervise and control the marketing of farm products.


Mr. DENIS (St. Denis) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I think we should have the French version of this amendment, seeing that it is quite a copious one.


George Manning McDade: The amendment is now being translated by the official translators and will presently be available in French.


Joseph-Arthur Denis: I think the discussion should not take place until the French translation is available.


Mr. MACDOUGALL:: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I submit that it is entirely out of order for a private member to make any proposal involving the expenditure of public money, and the amendment which has been proposed involves such expenditure.


Richard Bedford Bennett: In the absence of the Speaker, I would suggest that decision on the point of order be reserved. Undoubtedly it is not competent for a private member to propose ithe expenditure of public money. I think that has been too often pointed out in this house to require discussion. It is equally true that it is not competent for this parliament to destroy contracts in provinces. And there are two other matters that have been discussed already, covered by the amendment. I will not express any opinion about it further, because the Speaker is not here, and I suggest that possibly speeches might be made on the motion to go into supply, without reference to the amendment, until the Speaker returns.


Alfred Speakman: The subject which has been again brought to the attention of the house is one that has been discussed from time to time. It was discussed last session and it had been discussed at sessions prior to that. It has been discussed from different angles during this session and undoubtedly it will be discussed again. But, Mr. Speaker, it is discussed so frequently and reiterated so often, not for the mere purpose of repetition. Take for example a body of men in this country who I assume are as keen and subtle students of human psychology as may be found-our expert and professional advertisers. Their campaign of advertising is carried on in the main upon one basis, and that is that it requires a constant repetition of undoubted truth, a constant repetition of fact, the hammering away like the constant dripping of water upon a stone until the facts are so registered upon the subconscious minds of the people that they are accepted almost automatically. For these reasons we have placed, and we shall continue to place before the house and the country, not only the conditions which require consideration but some of the sug-
155G

Farm Finance-Mr. Speakman
gestions which we believe if put into effect will, to some degree at least, remedy the conditions which exist.
I shall not at this time dwell at length upon the condition which faces agriculture. With every statement which has been made as to the deplorable situation, I fully agree; with the statements and arguments in connection with the calamitous price levels, I am fully in accord, as must be every man and woman who knows anything about the subject. The fact that this condition cannot be perpetuated indefinitely or for any great length of time without bringing bankruptcy and ruin upon not only the farming industry but the nation itself, is equally obvious. It is possible that there are men and women engaged in other businesses, merchants, professional and business men throughout Canada, who adopt an attitude of serene and detached sympathy towards this matter. They are acting somewhat like the man who, standing safe upon dry land watches the straggles of some poor wretch overwhelmed in the turbulent waters, and contrasts his position of safety with that of the drowning man. The man who looks upon the possible ruin facing the agricultural industry and considers it as being of no concern to him, is about as stupidly unintelligent as the man who happens to be comfortably ensconced in the top story of a great skyscraper and, looking down upon the crumbling foundations, pities the poor chap in the bottom story. He says: How sad it is that that poor fellow will be soon in such an uncomfortable situation; he feels safe and unconcerned because he is far above the foundations beneath him but does not perceive his own peril. Business in Canada of every kind and all branches of industry are much in the position of such a man.
I shall not press this point, but I should like to draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, and to the attention of the house, the fact that when we speak of possible ruin and bankruptcy, we are not simply using terms and expressions-we are stating facts. The facts are these: not only wheat, our chief commodity, but almost every product of the farm in western or eastern Canada, is being sold at a price far below that which will meet the legitimate costs of production and leave a profit. These prices will not meet the actual out-of-pocket expenses which are necessarily and inevitably incurred. Take wheat, for example. The price received is approximately twenty-five cents a bushel for No. 1 at local points in my province. That price fails to meet the cost of the seed, the cost of repairs, oil and gas for machinery, the cost of binder
[Mr. Speakman.)
twine, and other incidentals in respect to harvesting and the cost of threshing and hauling in the crop. These are actual out-ofpocket expenses; I am not considering the value of the land or any interest which the farmer should receive thereon. I am leaving out of consideration his year's work and the value of his labour and management; I am leaving out of consideration even his taxes, and the interest which he should pay but cannot pay upon any debts which he may have incurred. It requires no mathematical genius or professor of economics to come to the conclusion that no business or individual could carry on indefinitely in that way without becoming absolutely bankrupt and ruined. These facts have been reiterated so frequently, stressed so often and challenged never, that one would imagine there is no thoughtful citizen of Canada who is not aware of them and concerned in their solution. The question will be asked, and it frequently is asked: what do you suggest should be done about it? Why weary the house with vain repetition? Why reiterate the facts which are admitted and deplored by everyone? I do not intend to shelter behind that bulwark so often erected and say: it is the responsibility and the sole responsibility of the government to find a remedy. I might do this, not only because in the government and there alone lies the authority and power through which and by which any action can be taken, but because in the government lies the capacity and means of knowledge and study which are not at the service of private members. The government has at its disposal the services of skilled and experienced men who have spent years in the searching and compilation of facts. In the Department of Agriculture there is a small group dealing with economics. These men have been employed because of their aptitude for and knowledge of this work. They are given the time and the salaries to continue their endeavours and explorations. I might well suggest to the government that, having these avenues of information, the responsibility is theirs, not ours. However, I assume for myself and for every hon. member of parliament some share of the responsibility. I shall not take the attitude which was taken so often by the Prime Minister when he was leader of the opposition, when in reply to a similar challenge and question he said:	''It
is time enough to prescribe when the doctor is called in-we are not called in." In times like these, when the very foundations of our nation are shaking, when hundreds of thousands of men and women are suffering, one

Farm Finance-Speaker'it Riding
should not stand upon technicalities. This is not the time to shelter ourselves behind the bulwarks of partisanship or of the particular position which we occupy in the house. So we shall do what we have done in the past, and offer what we can by way of suggestion.
I think the whole house listened yesterday with interest, with admiration and with deep feeling to the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Stitt) when he described so eloquently and passionately the troubles and miseries of some of our unemployed and the magnificent heroism which they had displayed. I cannot say that I agree with all he said; I cannot associate myself with him in his individualism and denial and denouncement of cooperative action, but I can associate myself with him in that passionate plea which he uttered for humanity itself. I agree, as I think we all must agree, that wonderful heroism is to be found among those fathers and mothers who are unemployed and who are striving earnestly and sacrificing heroically to raise their children in decency and comfort. They are, as he said, the unsung heroes. But there is another body of men and women who might well be said to be unsung heroes. I refer to the farmers of this country, who, month by month and year by year, facing the inevitable, but fighting still; who, year by year, seeing the hope of profit from last year's work vanish, seeing in front of them an almost impenetrable wall of hopeless economic destitution, continue to do their best. Year by year, with hope unquenched, with courage amazing, they plough their fields, again sow their crops and carry on their farming operations. No wonder this is said to be a "next year" country. But even those men, willing to gamble against nature, to strive against odds, must ultimately reach the end of their resources. They are reaching it today and they call upon us for help.
What can we do? We cannot conquer nature; we cannot conquer drought or hail or tee vicissitudes of the weather or the climate. We cannot go forth into the world and raise the world price levels. We can do nothing of this. But we can do some of those things we have suggested and which I shall again suggest. As is pointed out in our amendment, the ruling upon which is suspended for the moment, one of the problems which presses more heavily upon the farmer than upon almost any other class is that of debt, that constantly increasing, pyramiding weight of interest bearing obligations. During these past years it is obvious that no average farmer, depending upon the product of his farm for all he earns, could pay the interest upon those obligations, let alone any portion of the principal. That interest, compounded every year, continues to mount up, and the debt, as has been stated in our amendment, has today reached an impossible point. In addition, the goods through which alone he may pay that debt-for he has no other source of income; he earns no wages-have so decreased in value that it takes an enormous and increasing quantity of them to discharge any portion of his obligation. Is that fair? What can be done? The Prime Minister very readily, and rightly, pointed out that it is not competent for parliament or the federal government to interfere in provincial contracts; in other words, that where contracts were made under provincial law, it was not possible for this government to interfere with or to alter their terms. I agree with him.


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: I do not wish to interrupt my hon. friend, but I rise to a point of order, in view of the original objection that I raised, and also in view of the fact that the subject matter of the amendment is to be found on today's order paper under notices of motion as number 6 standing in the name of the hon. member (Mr. Speakman) who has just been speaking so eloquently. May I ask for your ruling, Mr. Speaker?


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Does the hon. member
wish to speak to the point of order?


Alfred Speakman: I did not hear the
point of order.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. member raises
the point of order that the amendment is not in order. He implements his statement on the first objection and now asks for a ruling. If any other hon. member wishes to speak to the point of order, I shall hear it; otherwise I shall rule.
Mr .SPEAKMAN: Was the point of order based on the fact that a notice of motion stands in my name on the order paper, dealing with the question of debts and debt interest?


Mr. CASGRAIN:: In part.


Alfred Speakman: Your honour, unless
you wish to make a ruling now, I shall go on and not transgress the point of order raised.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I must give a ruling.
I cannot find that the amendment is not in order on the ground that it involves public expenditure. Subsection (c) is that the government-
-immediately consider the advisability of again paying a bonus on wheat, either on a bushelage or acreage basis.

Farm Finance-Mr. Speakman
That the house resolve that the government immediately consider the advisability of doing something does not involve public expenditure. But I do find that the amendment is not in order, first, because it entails discussion on the subject of agricultural distress and the relief of agriculture, which I have today ruled to be out of order, and, second, because it involves a matter of which notice has been given and which stands upon the orders of the day as it does under number 6 on today's order paper as a notice of motion standing in the name of Mr. Speakman, in which the matters raised in the amendment are set forth and similar remedies are proposed.
In support of that I would refer the house to Bourinot at page 420 in which it is set out:
The ordinary rules of debate are applicable on this occasion.
That is, the occasion on which a motion is before the house for the Speaker to leave the chair so that the house may resolve itself into committee of ways and means or of supply. In this instance it is supply.
The ordinary rules of debate are applicable on this occasion; for instance, a matter already decided by the house, or of which notice has been given, or which stands upon the orders of the day, cannot be discussed.
In my opinion, the matter which stands on the order paper of the day as number 6 in the name of Mr. Speakman is identical to that of the amendment now before the house. I therefore rule the amendment out of order.


Alfred Speakman: I thank you. I shall
not further transgress by dealing with the matters covered by the point raised or by the resolution which stands in my name.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. member is in
order in discussing the motion for the Speaker to leave the chair.


Alfred Speakman: Quite so. I was speaking at the moment on the question of the accumulation of debts. It was drawn to your attention that that part of my address was out of order. I understand, however, I may proceed in a general way. Therefore I shall leave that portion of it with this simple statement: The condition is obvious. In asking the government to take the lead in remedying this condition, we are not suggesting that it should transgress the law or should break provincial contracts or should interfere in provincial matters. We are asking this: In view of the fact that the situation has become impossible; in view of the tremendous potentialities that lie there and 
the effect upon the country as a whole, we ask that at the forthcoming interprovincial conference the federal government take the lead in setting forth the situation, and that in discussions with the provincial governments they together attack this problem; because unquestionably by a combination of the two authorities there will be sufficient power to deal with any matter affecting the welfare of our people. In respect of this debt we simply ask that the government take the lead in this matter; that they bring the provinces together in conference with the Dominion government, that each contribute its share of power and authority with a view to dealing with this matter courageously and frankly. The only way in which the end sought can be accomplished is, in my opinion, by a definite reduction of the amount involved. Is that fair? I think so, for after all when the money was loaned it had a certain value, and its value was what it would buy. Now any man who receives in return for his loan an equal amount of purchasing power, an equal value in commodities and goods, is being treated fairly and honestly, and is making a sacrifice which is slight in comparison with the sacrifice which is being made by many people in this country, including the agriculturists. Having said so much I shall leave that subject, in view of the ruling of Mr. Speaker, and shall proceed to other suggestions.
The second suggestion which is made, while it will not in itself cure the situation, is one upon which immediate action could be taken by the government in order at least in some degree to remedy the situation. The government, of course, cannot increase prices in the markets of the world. But the Dominion government has full power and authority to deal with our own currency and our own finance. While not suggesting that any change in our financial system or the amount of currency issued or the manner in which it is issued would meet all our problems and bring in the millennium, I do suggest that this is the most immediate and practical step which the government can take to partly remedy the situation which now exists. Other hon. members have mentioned Australia as an illustration, and pointed out the position of the farmers there. What Australia has done it seems to me that Canada can do. As a matter of fact, in other departments the government has recognized the situation and has taken action. Take, for instance, the question which has been discussed so frequently during the last few days in this house, the currency dump. Why is that applied? Because the government

Farm Finance-Mr. Speakman
recognizes that the manufacturers of Great Britain producing under a depreciated currency are able to do so at a price advantage as compared with the Canadian manufacturer, and therefore that advantage is in part removed by the imposition of a dumping duty. I think that that will be admitted by all to be the reason for the dumping duty; otherwise there would be no reason for the action that has been taken. It having been accepted then that the manufacturers of Great Britain are placed in an advantageous position in respect of their export trade by reason of their depreciated currency, by what reasoning can it be suggested that the same thing would not apply to this country? It is obvious from that very fact that depreciation or inflation, if you like to call it that, does not increase the cost of living or of production within the country to a degree equal to the advantage which it brings; otherwise the advantage would be taken away. So it is obvious that this is not only a practical suggestion which can be carried into effect by this government but one which, when put into application by Great Britain, Australia and other countries, has resulted in a definite and positive advantage to the producers of those countries. With the examples of those countries before us, this is no longer an untried experiment, no longer the fantastic dream of some theorist, but a practical matter which is being carried out in a businesslike way, and the results of which are obvious. Since it has reached that stage, not only do we not need to apologize for advancing the suggestion, but I think we are justified in urging the government to put into effect the same sort of measure here in order to give to Canadian producers the advantage which similar measures have already given to producers in other countries.
This question is of particular importance now to agriculture. In all the work that we have done in the last six weeks, in all the multiplicity of (argument and debate, we have had in view one thing-increasing trade within the empire, increasing the percentage of trade that we shall do with the mother country, increasing the percentage of our farmers' goods which shall be sold in Great Britain. And yet, as we have pointed out again and again so long as we refuse or neglect to deal with this money question, so long will all our efforts in that direction be in vain, and so long will our farmers be unable to take advantage of the very opportunities which we have been trying to give them through these agreements. There again we have a real and definite reason for urging
this government to try something of that sort in relation to our present agriculture.
_ May I suggest this? Even were there a risk involved, even were there some doubt and uncertainty as to the results, would it not be better to take action which offers a reasonable prospect of success than (to sit here in paralyzed inertia while agriculture goes bankrupt and is ruined before our very eyes? This is a serious question, Mr. Speaker. When I came down here from my constituency in Alberta I left the farmers there still hoping for results from their crops, still hoping that something would come from these agreements, still hoping that during the present session and before winter comes some action would be taken by the government that would enable them to carry on. We have almost reached the end of this part of the session and are preparing to go home, and what can I say to them when I go back? What hope can I offer to them? What can I tell them has been done during these two months to meet their situation or to provide against the future?
There have been the agreements, yes; but as we^ have indicated, unless the money question is settled, they offer nothing for the present. Only the other day, Mr. Speaker, I got word that less than half of the crop in my own district has been threshed, that throughout that whole countryside, on account of the inclemency of the season, more than fifty per cent of the crop was still in the stook, and that some of it had been stooked and restooked two or three times and would be left there for the winter. No bonus on wheat can help a man who has not- threshed his wheat, but in view of this calamity greater importance is being attached by our farmers to the smaller side issues. All they can hope for now is that they may get some revenue from their hogs and milk cows, their cattle and poultry. Their crop is a dead loss. Additional costs have also been piled up owing to the crop having to be handled over and over again, and the quality of the grain has deteriorated so that it is worth practically nothing; it will not be worth the trouble of threshing. That simply shows the increasing seriousness of the situation. The people there are waiting for something to be done-not simply waiting; they are doing all they can themselves, but they are hoping that something will be done by parliament which no body but parliament can do. So it is that we in this group suggest that parliament definitely and earnestly take action, whatever the risk, if any be involved, along

Farm Finance-Mr. Speakman
the lines which offer the most immediate prospect of relief by tackling this money question, and tackling it immediately.
There is another suggestion which we have offered and which we now offer again. As we go through Canada today, not only through our farms but through the large and small marketing centres, we cannot but be struck by the fact that the marketing situation is chaotic It would seem that everybody is doing what seems best in his own eyes. There is individual effort everywhere and no concerted effort anywhere. The whole situation, from a marketing point of view, is haphazard and chaotic. We suggest again, as has been suggested before, that to assist in this matter and to enable us to take advantage of the agreement, a law be passed which will appoint and organize a marketing board, a board which will have sufficient power and authority to bring order out of chaos and to direct and control channels of commerce so far as farm goods are concerned, not only for export but for the domestic market. Particularly should it operate in connection with our export goods.
As has been stated before and may well be repeated, we cannot take advantage of our opportunities in the British market unless we so organize as to control our exports, and to make absolutely certain that week by week and month by month quantities which can be absorbed are sent there. We should send no more and no less; the quality should be made uniform, and grading should be such as to be relied upon.
In short our suggestions are these: We suggest that the question of debt be tackled by the coming interprovincial conference, and that joint action be taken to reduce the amount of it. We urge that the government, with courage and intelligence, tackle the monetary problem, and at least give our farmers a chance by placing our money somewhat on a parity with our competitors, so that we shall not be labouring under a perpetual disadvantage. The difficulties connected with the monetary problem are just as effective as any customs tariff in keeping our goods from the markets of other countries. We suggest further that the government take the responsibility of appointing a marketing board so that the marketing of farmers' produce can be thoroughly organized, and so that they may receive full advantage of the best prices offering anywhere. Their exports should be so regulated that the right quality may be available in proper amounts in the proper market.
I am satisfied that if these three suggestions were carried out they would result in great

good to agriculture. I am satisfied, further, that if these measures were introduced the farmers would take new courage and new hope, and new life would be given to the farming communities. I am satisfied that if these improvements are carried out the good will be reflected in less unemployment, improved conditions and better business throughout all parts of Canada.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to prolong the session unduly without good cause, but in bringing before the house a resume of the needs of agriculture I feel that I am justified in taking at least a little time at the end of the session to discuss matters which have been spoken to by the two hon. members who preceded me, and which may be spoken to by others who will follow. Agriculture, although only one of the basic industries of Canada, is the chief one. If it is not carried on at a profit and in such a way as to enable those interested in it to stay on their farms and continue to produce the primary products, then there is a very bad outlook for the general industry of Canada.
It is most unfortunate that the matter of agriculture has not been placed before the house by the government previously in the course of this session. During the last six weeks we have dealt with tariff matters which benefit chiefly the manufacturing interests. Hon. members in this corner of the house, and I believe some hon. members who do not sit in this corner, would have been better pleased had the government of the day made a definite statement early in the session concerning its policy with reference to agriculture. The condition of that industry is so bad, as the two former speakers have said, that today it has become without a doubt the most serious problem that we in Canada have to face. The government has come forward to safeguard the interests of other industries. On various occasions it has stood behind the financial interests in respect to certain accounts so that they would not operate at a loss. I could cite one or two cases of that kind. Then, we hear that money is being loaned without cost to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company so that they may open their shops. As I have stated previously, many of the tariff changes which we have been discussing have been in the interests of manufacturers. Further, the exchange dumping duties have protected the manufacturing industry, and while the interests of that industry have been safeguarded, agriculture has suffered a double loss.

Farm Finance

Mr. Spencer
As other hon. members have pointed out, our chief competitors, such as the Argentine and Australia, in selling their products in the old country enjoy a distinct advantage over the producers of Canada.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is not what they say.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Without taking up too much time of the house, I should like to place on record the prices now received for some agricultural products. Today wheat is selling at a price lower than it has been in the last three hundred years. The situation is so serious that taxes cannot be paid, mortgages cannot be met, and bank loans cannot be wiped out. The banks consider agriculture to be such a bad risk that they will not make loans to the farmers. In that connection I should like to draw to the attention of the house an instance which came to my notice a few days ago-and may I say I could tell of many similar cases. A farmer applied for a loan of $50 with which to buy twine. He was reputed to be a first class farmer, had lived in one community for over twenty years, and had no debts against him with the exception of a mortgage on his property. He lives in very plain circumstances. However, when he applied for a loan of only $50 he found there was no response; not a dollar would be advanced for twine. The banks consider the outlook for agriculture so bad that they will make no loans. It takes seven bushels of wheat today to buy a 98 pound sack of flour. Oats have sold from five to ten cents per bushel. Ten bushels of No. 1 feed would buy ten pounds of rolled oats. Barley is fetching eight to eleven cents. Cream is about half the value it was in 1928. Hogs are selling at S2.40 a hundred pounds. I was informed the other day of a man who had sold a thousand pounds of pork and with the proceeds had bought the repairs for a couple of binders to do his harvesting. Beef is selling at from $1 to $2.75 per hundred pounds. Lambs are selling as low as $2.50 to $2.90; sheep can hardly be sold. Wool is selling at two to four cents a pound. As someone pointed out to me, it would take the value of two fleeces to buy a pair of socks. It would take a thousand pounds of wool to buy a decent suit of clothes. Hides cannot be sold. The other day in the south end of my constituency a farmer sent 52 yearling calves to market, and they brought him $460. At the same time eight beef cattle fetched $120. With such prices it is impossible for agriculture to carry on. It is regrettable to find that figures on the
cost side of farming have not been reduced. Interest rates, for instance, have not only been, kept up but are going higher, and freight rates the same. Such charges as commissions, elevator charges and so on are just what they were. I appreciate the act passed by this house a few days ago, brought forward by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) making it possible to cut elevator charges. They are being cut, I understand, very little, but it will help a bit. But up to the present time they have been either as high as or higher than in previous years.
To give some idea of the seriousness of the situation, particularly with respect to the farmers of the prairie provinces-I am not in a position to speak for those elsewhere-telephones, which are most necessary in the farm homes, are being taken out, I might say by the hundred, until a telephone is hardly of any use to those who have them because so many are off the rural line. Farm implements are selling at war-time prices, and repairs have actually gone up. Oil and gas are up; barbed wire is likely to go up, with the tariff increases on two tariff schedules considered the other day. Cream separators, as we have also beard, have been put up 25 per cent on two schedules.
The feeling is so intense in the prairie provinces that mass meetings are being held in many places. At a mass meeting held at Mannville, Alberta, in my constituency, a short time ago, no less than three hundred farmers were in attendance. When you get three hundred farmers gathered at any point it means that some of those farmers have come from a very great distance. I am going to read a resolution passed at that meeting:
Whereas, the present rate of exchange places the Canadian producer under a great disadvantage in the sale of his products, and whereas he is undersold on the world markets by competing countries, a situation only made possible by the exchange rate, therefore be it resolved that Canadian currency be immediately depreciated to the same extent as that of our competitors.
Another mass meeting is to be held in a couple of days at Kitscoty, Alberta, where I have no doubt that as great or a greater number of farmers will put in an appearance. In a manifesto that is to be presented to that gathering I read in part as follows:
The outstanding and major issue today is the relation existing between debtor and creditor. Creditors demanding payment and debtors unable to pay.
The creditor resorts to legal process, thereby compelling the unfortunate debtor to convert into cash any or all of his goods and chattels, regardless of the sacrifice frequently resulting.

Farm Finance-Mr. Spencer

If, as we submit, the present plight of farmers and others results from conditions over which they have no control, then they have not broken faith; are not shirking their responsibilities and have no desire to evade their obligations.
Then it goes on to say;
Therefore, be it resolved that as an emergency measure-
I will just give two items in this statement:
-the farmers be allowed to retain legally the proceeds realized from the sale of farm products:
1.	To the extent necessary to buy goods and services to continue their farming operations.-
Surely that is in the interest of the country at large. If anything is done to drive the farmers off the land it will have a direct detrimental effect on all business.
2.	That mortgage rights of foreclosure be
stayed unless deliberate negligence by the farmer is proven.	_
We approach this problem not "in humility and ignorance," but with understanding and courage, firmly resolved to secure Canadian economic reconstruction.
Those last lines, Mr. Speaker, seem to me to place the matter very clearly before this house, and to state in no uncertain terms exactly how the people, who are suffering as we have pointed out, feel in regard to this situation.
I was interested the other day in hearing the hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. Gordon), say, I think with a good deal of satisfaction, that a large number of unemployed had been placed on the land-I believe he said some 66,000.


Mr. GORDON:: No, I said that included
people absorbed on the land-men, women and children.


Henry Elvins Spencer: I stand corrected. I can only say that I wish the Minister of Labour every success in his undertaking; for if they can be absorbed on the land and are able to stay there and get a living, then there is hope that conditions will improve. But I have great fears of the result. I have lived on the prairies for the last twenty-four years. I know exactly the conditions. I know what people have gone through and what they are going through today, and I fear that we are going to have a problem on our hands somewhat similar, maybe, a little smaller, because of the smaller numbers concerned, to that which we had in regard to the returned soldiers.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Henry Elvins Spencer: When the house rose at
six o'clock I had just referred to a large mass meeting that was being called in my constituency to discuss agricultural conditions. They are directing attention in their manifesto to the big issue of the day, which is the relation existing between debtor and creditor, the creditor demanding payment and the debtor being unable to pay. They say that so long as this condition exists there can be no successful farmers' strike, no production control, influencing of prices, security of tenure, retention of homes, or even obtaining the necessities of life. It is therefore not surprising, in view of this situation, that they should use the language which I quoted before six o'clock and which I repeat now:
We approach this problem, not "in humility and ignorance," but with understanding and courage, firmly resolved to secure Canadian economic reconstruction.
These people are carrying on the great industry of agriculture and they feel that their backs are up against the wall. They realize, after twenty or thirty years' continuous struggle to make their homes and to improve them, that the day has come when they are holding them with the greatest difficulty, and many are being forced off their land simply because they cannot pay a dollar debt with a thirty-cent product. This has meant greater difficulty to the farmer than anything else, because in those parts of the country with which I am most familiar, I am thankful to say, the returns from the land, so far as produce is concerned, have been on the whole very fair indeed. But the frightfully low prices which I outlined this afternoon make it perfectly impossible for these people to meet their liabilities, and something will have to be done at least to relieve the situation.
Comparing the farmers of Canada with those of Australia, particularly the wheat farmers, we find that not only are the Canadian farmers handicapped in the selling of their wheat, on account of the exchange caused by the difference between the Canadian dollar and the British pound, but the Australian farmer, one of their chief competitors, has the benefit of a nine cents per bushel bonus.
The situation as I have outlined it has meant that the standard of living on the farm has been reduced, and if something is not done to stop the continued deflation that
[Mr. Spencer.J

Farm Finance-Mr. Spencer
standard will fall still lower and lower until it will reach the stage where we shall be ashamed to refer to it.
If one travels through the country at all today one must appreciate the fact that no building improvements are being made; that help on the land is being dispensed with on every possible occasion; and that sometimes children are being kept from school in order to assist their parents. The fact that labour is being dispensed with means that the people are trying to get along with too little help, the result being that weeds are increasing and farms deteriorating, and needless to say land generally is falling to an absurdly low price, though even at that price very little indeed is changing hands.
I wish to direct the attention of the house to a type of farmers we have who are putting up a courageous fight, men who, when they went on the land thought that they had at least a chance of making homes for themselves, even if they might not make money. I refer to our returned soldier settlers. I was delighted the other day to hear from the lips of the Minister of Labour, who has charge of the soldier settlement problem, that not in a single case would the government enforce collections in these difficult times if it meant bringing real hardship to debtors who were doing their best to make ends meet. I think I am quoting the minister correctly. I am rather afraid, however, that he is not as closely in touch with what some of the collecting officials are doing at this time as he might be. I am continually having brought to my attention cases of real hardship if the one-third per cent of the crop is collected from the soldier settlers, which is due from them to the board. I am not going to bother the house with many of these cases, but I will put two of them on record.
The first one comes from a man named J. A. Brown, of Westlock, Alberta. His total crop comprised 828 bushels of wheat and 870 bushels of oats. If one-third is deducted for the soldier settlement board he will have remaining 552 bushels of wheat and 580 bushels of oats. After deducting seed and elevator dockage, he will have remaining 480 bushels of wheat at 26 cents, or $124.80; 480 bushels of oats at 8 cents or $38.40, making a total of 8163.20. This man has school taxes to pay amounting to 854; municipal taxes, $22.45, and a threshing bill of $67.50, or a total of 8143.95, and if you deduct that from the larger amount it leaves him with a balance of $19.25. He has a family of four to keep until next year,
53719-99J
and he says in a footnote to the letter he has written me that ninety per cent of the other boys around there on soldier settlement farms are in a similar fix.


George Gordon: After the receipt of that
letter, did the hon. member forward it to the department?


Henry Elvins Spencer: I took the matter up with the department and they said that the official in charge was out west but that they would draw this man's case to his attention as soon as he came back. The next man is J. G. Adkins, Jr. His total crop amounted in value to $327, and if he deducts $109 for the board it leaves $218. His school and municipal taxes and threshing bill and binder twine amount to $201.36, leaving a balance of $16.64. This man has a family of seven. He tells me that his original debt in 1920 was $3,000. He has paid $2,000 and still owes $3,696. I thought I must be wrong in this figure and I looked up the record tonight; I have in my hand a statement from the soldier settlement branch at Edmonton showing the total debt outstanding to be $3,696.09.
I am quite sure that the minister, when he realizes the situation, will give this matter every consideration possible. I feel, however, from what he said in the house the other day, that he could not have been advised of some of these most difficult cases to which attention has been drawn by various members of the house. I am also quite sure the Prime Minister and his colleagues in the government must realize the serious situation of agriculture in this country, and that is one reason why I am surprised that a statement has not been made with regard to government policy, indicating how agriculture will be relieved.
I have here a clipping which is supposed to be a statement from a speech of the Prime Minister delivered in Calgary on December 30. Unfortunately I have not the year. This is what he said:
The marketing of the wheat crop will leave our agriculturists without a sufficient competence for the winter months, and will find them, when the spring comes, without the seed for next year's crop.
This being so, I am surprised that no results have been obtained from the efforts put forth from different pants of this house to have the Canadian dollar tied to the British pound so that we might have some chance of competing in the British market.
For the last few days we have been discussing the problem of unemployment. In my opinion this problem is largely one of
Farm. Finance-Mr. Spencer

purchasing power. None of us object to being what might be called unemployed, that is to have a little more leisure, if we have the wherewithal to spend while enjoying that leisure. The term "unemployment" is applied to those who are in enforced idleness with nothing to spend. If agriculture was put upon a paying basis, the unemployment problem would largely disappear, although perhaps not entirely. I am one of those who appreciate that if we make the proper use of science and invention, we will always have an unemployment problem unless we shorten the hours of labour. If agriculture was placed upon its feet employment would be given to several hundreds of thousands of people now out of work. There would be an increased purchasing power which' in turn would provide work in the factories for large numbers of unemployed.
I feel confident that more people have been driven off the land by the hard conditions they have had to face, than the number put back on the land, as mentioned the other day by the Minister of Labour. I am continually receiving letters from municipalities stating that more and more people are in such circumstances as to become cares upon the municipality in which they reside. I understand that those who become charges are liable to deportation. I should like to know how many have been deported on account of the position in which they found themselves. I have before me the total figures for 1930, which show that 4,205 were deported in that year at a cost to the country of SI 38.220. I have no doubt that because of the hard times during the past two years, the total number of deportations now would be still larger.	_
It is because of the serious situation of agriculture that I have thought it worth while even at this late hour of the session to take up the time of the house as I have. I have no doubt other hon. members will cover other phases of this matter which I have not had time to deal with, but within the time at my disposal I hope I have brought some information to the attention of the house which will make those hon. members who are not in position to understand our problems appreciate them and realize, as we who live in the agricultural sections do, that the problem of agriculture is the greatest to be faced by Canada today.
Mr. CAMERON R. McINTOSH (North Battleford): Mr. Speaker, if I am not mistaken, if I understand aright, there is a motion before the house to go into supply. Perhaps it is a good thing that we have

the motion to go into supply, the motion to go into committee of ways and means and the address in reply to the speech from the throne, because otherwise I would be at a loss to understand how we would find it possible to bring before this deliberative assembly the final analysis of public affairs with which we as hon. members of this chamber ought to deal. That is one impression I have received as an hon. member of this house, especially during the last year or two. As I have said, it is a splendid thing to have a motion before the house once in a while which will enable an ordinary member to take up the great questions and the great problems, financial and commercial, which concern this dominion at the present time. When we read our history we find that the Canadian parliament has sovereign powers in dealing with commercial treaties and with legislation. We have the competency now as a great assembly to pass the legislation we desire to pass in the interests of Canada. I think it is time that this house should reassert itself in connection with the freedom of discussion, the freedom of debate, and the freedom to take up any problem of paramount importance at any moment confronting the people of Canada.
There is no offending resolution on the order paper standing in my name; perhaps if there were it would be impossible for me to discuss what I want to discuss this evening. More than likely it would, I would be ruled out of order; I would not be allowed to say a word about the unemployment and farm relief problems which concern .my riding, my province and dominion. More than that, if I had a question standing in .my name on the order paper or if there were an amendment in my name before the house, presumably I would find it impossible to discuss what I am about to discuss. I am afraid the gag would be applied, I would be stopped and told that I was out of order. So far as discussing problems ,of special importance to my own riding and my own province is concerned, I would not have that opportunity. Because I have .rightfully forty minutes of the time of this house at my disposal and because it is impossible to rule me out of order, I am only .too happy to rise in this debate to say a few .words in connection with one or two matters of vital importance.
One matter with which I am concerned is the problem of unemployment, the biggest problem before this country today. Why should we not discuss it fully and completely? Another problem before Canada is the

Farm Finance-Mr. McIntosh
problem of farm relief. Why should any hon. member from western Canada or any other part of the dominion be stopped from discussing farm relief or unemployment? I cannot see any reason why he should, and as a member of this chamber I stand upon my nights when I say that so far as I am concerned I am going to do my duty to western Canada, to my own riding and to Canada as a whole by discussing these two important problems.


William Richard Motherwell: Give them a crack
about the Bright Fan.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Yes, I hope to say
something about the Bright Fan later on, and when I do I hope the Minister of Railways (Mr. Manion) and the Minister of Marine (Mr. Duranleau) will be in their places.


Mr. QUINN:: What about the flag?


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Apparently the hon. gentleman is a small Canadian and he does not believe in a distinctive national flag. I shall endeavour later to put him where he belongs on that question.


Felix Patrick Quinn: Can the hon. member spell "able"?


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Yes, and many other words that the hon. member cannot. If I may proceed, Mr. Speaker, in connection with the unemployment issue, we find on page 1455 of Hansard, in the address which the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) recently made to the house, the following words:
I shall only summarize the situation by saying that the government has in course of preparation what we believe will be an appropriate agenda to submit to an interprovincial conference.
He is coming to grips with the unemployment problem at last.
It is proposed to call that conference so that it may conclude its labours between now and January 30, when the house will reassemble. At that conference it is proposed to discuss all those matters that have engaged the attention of governments, both provincial and federal, with particular reference to the question referred to by myself on April 29, 1931, namely, the problem of unemployment and how it should be and may be dealt with under the divided jurisdiction which exists in Canada.
These are practically the concluding remarks of the Prime Minister on November 22. That brings me face to face with the problem of unemployment insurance, because that problem and kindred subjects the Prime Minister admits are to be discussed at a provincial-federal conference between now and the reassembling of parliament toward the end of January. Hon. members who have been members of this house for the last few years will realize that as far as the groundwork of unemployment insurance is concerned, that was done two years ago. It was done by the Liberal party when in power, in cooperation with our friends in the corner of this side of the house. We had an investigation before the industrial and international relations committee each year for two years, one in 1928 and another in 1929, and as a result of those two investigations that committee came to certain conclusions. One was that we accept and endorse the principle of compulsory social insurance, based upon compulsory contributions derived from the state, the employer and the employee. That is the backbone of any unemployment insurance policy. That conclusion was come to in 1928 under a Liberal administration.
Another conclusion arrived at was that as far as jurisdiction in the matter of unemployment insurance is concerned, it belonged exclusively to the legislatures of the different provinces. That was number two. Number three was that when the census should be taken in 1931, information in connection with unemployment insurance would be secured and action follow the securing of that information. Number four was that since unemployment insurance was a big problem, more than one province should go into the system. One province would not be enough; Bvo provinces would not be sufficient, and the idea was that as many provinces as possible should take up the principle, hammer out the legislation and adopt unemployment insurance as a principle in industrial affairs in Canada. These are only some of the conclusions of the 1928 report of the Industrial and International Relations Committee. I might continue and say that in 1929, the next year, the problem was reinvestigated and practically the same conclusions were reached. The point I want to drive home is this, that when the Liberal party were in power, all the discussion in conection with this great problem was undertaken and completed; the groundwork for an unemployment insurance system was laid, and all the present government has to do is to take up where the Liberal party left off, show a little bit of courage, leadership and constructive idealism, and go ahead and evolve,-hammer out something that will be for the benefit of the industrial workers of this country.
In regard to an analysis of this intricate problem of unemployment insurance, there was one principle adopted in Great Britain. Across the border in the United States they have practically committed themselves to an opposite principle. In Great Britain they
Farm Finance-Mr. McIntosh

adopted a national system of compulsory insurance, and across the line-where little has yet been done-the feeling is that every industry ought to be responsible for industrial economic stabilization within its own limits; that every industry should not only be responsible for the economic stabilization within its own limits, but should adopt a principle of unemployment insurance by itself, then every major industry could be linked up with the other industries of each state, have the state come in and cooperate with those coordinated industries and thus give to that state and gradually to the republic as a whole a coordinated system of unemployment insurance that would work out to the benefit of the entire nation. In Great Britain they have accepted the opposite method; they stand for a national system of unemployment insurance which is backed up in a public way and to which the public is committed. But in the republic to the south of us they believe industrial insurance is largely a problem of private industrialists and that by getting together and cooperating, they, as large employers of labour, can largely overcome the obstacles in the way and effect a solution of the unemployment difficulty.
I have not time here to go fully into the question of unemployment insurance. One could talk for an hour on that subject alone, because it is a highly complicated one. But may I 6ay that it is recognized as a preliminary principle of great importance to have a coordinated system of labour exchanges right ;across Canada, and by manning those exchanges by experts, by having no person appointed to them except on the basis of merit, fey having the state cooperate with those exchanges and by squaring away the question of jurisdiction provincially and nationally, I believe there ought to be no difficulty in Canada giving a splendid lead in regard to this very vexatious question. I hope when the conference meets between now and the first of January, the Prime Minister, as promised, will gather representatives of the provinces together, and by discussion, by conference and by analysis of the industrial situation facing the different provinces in regard to this matter, there will be arrived at some successful conclusion and as a result we shall see adopted in this country' at no distant date a scientifically sound system of unemployment insurance.
When that problem is being worked out, the greatest care should be taken to safeguard the interests of agriculture. A system of unemployment insurance must be largely for

the industrial employees of Canada. That system should be such as to secure for them an adequate livelihood, to get for them from month to month and year to year work, a job or relief, and not have them wrongfully on the dole as they are now from one ocean to the other. May I read at this point a letter showing the condition to which unemployment has brought many a citizen of Saskatchewan? This letter is from a man who taught school for many a year and then went into business. He went to British Columbia and is now back in Saskatchewan. This is his story. I think the letter will depict better than can the language of any hon. member, the situation as it exists today in that great wheat growing province of Saskatchewan. The letter, which is dated Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, November 15, 1932, reads:
Mr. Cameron R. McIntosh, M.P.,
Ottawa, Ontario.
Dear Mr. McIntosh:
I am writing to beg that you remember me if you know of, or should hear of any kind of position.
I have nine children to feed, clothe and educate. Their suffering and illness for lack of necessities prompts me to write to you. Their present environment and condition if not soon improved is bound to influence their future as Canadian citizens. We are now staying with relatives who cannot afford to keep us, but as the alternative is exposure on the road allowance-
Note that, Mr. Speaker:
-we are compelled to share their little. I was compelled to leave Spiritwood last summer because my wages were cut down to a point where I could no longer exist. I sold my household goods to obtain funds in an unsuccessful attempt to better my condition. This is the first time in twenty years that I have been out of work. This is my reward after twenty years of service in Saskatchewan. By your acquaintance with me you know that I did not waste my money, but all I could earn I spent on my family. If it has been unlawful to raise a family I have no reason for annoying anyone, but for the sake of my innocent children I must exert every means to obtain employment and only experience could make you realize the abominable horrors of unemployment, the demoralizing influence of its agonies.
Will you please advise me of any openings you may know or hear of anywhere in the province or in Canada?
There is a letter, Mr. Speaker, that shows exactly the condition of affairs of many a head of a family in the province of Saskatchewan. I drew to the attention of the house the other day the fact that those seeking relief in the city of Saskatoon, and I believe it is true of other cities in western Canada, have to sign a document mortgaging their little homes, for which they paid $300 or

Form Finance-Mr. McIntosh
8500 or 81,000, as the case may be, before they can get one dollar of relief. From the standpoint of the state, or the strictly legal standpoint, to take the best possible security you can get, may be a good proposition, but looked at from the standpoint of national justice and common decency to an individual citizen who has done his part in the building up of this dominion it is a very hard thing to endure. To show what is going on, I will quote from a telegram I received:
We are asked to sign a document that on demand we should give a mortgage on our homes and chattels, also all moneys that are earned except statutory exemptions; further that any relief commissioner or its officials can enter our homes at any time they see fit.
Commission officials can enter a home and pester the life out of any head of a family in the province before he is given a dollar of relief. My mind reverts to what makes the state. I realize that the home stands for the building up of character, that the church stands for upholding the principle of righteousness, that the school stands for the development of the mentality of every pupil, and if I read history aright any nation worthy of the name has always stood for justice. But what I have described is not justice. It is the sort of treatment, however, the poor people in Saskatoon and other Saskatchewan and western centres have to put up with before they can get one dollar of relief. If they must mortgage their homes before they can get relief they must do it, because after all life is sweet, and before a man will see his loved ones starve to death lie will mortgage his homie and everything he has in the world. If he does not he will find himself on the roadside.
May I say on behalf of all those people who are out of work in the province of Saskatchewan and on behalf of all those who find themselves in straitened circumstances that I fully appreciate their great difficulties, and so far as I am concerned I have taken this opportunity to put their situation clearly before the house in order to urge the government as strongly as possible to alleviate their distress and remove the conditions complained of. Of course, I know what the answer will be. It will be constitutional in its nature. We will be told, as the Prime Minister told us the other day, that this is a provincial problem, that the dominion which votes the money passes the administration on to the province, and that the province must work out the problem as it sees fit. But apart from all those intricacies of law and constitutional government I wish to emphasize that the cases
which I have put before the house tonight are of such a nature that it is imperative for the government to do something to encourage people in such a desperate situation so as to make their lot in life at least a little easier.
I have only time to touch the fringe of the farm relief problem. May I tell you what is going on in the province of Saskatchewan?
I do not want to find fault with my hon. friend the Minister of Labour because I know he has a very difficult problem. I must say that any time I have put before him a question dealing with farm relief and called to his attention the serious conditions in regard to unemployment, he has given consideration to the matter. I cannot say that in every case the grievance which I have presented has been redressed, but at least the department has interested itself in the case and taken certain action. The problem in northern Saskatchewan is this. Thousands of settlers have trekked from the southern part of the province to the northern part. They have gone north where there is water and bush and land and animal life. It is in the south that the dried out areas are and to-day we have in northern Saskatchewan hundreds of people who are finding it difficult to exist. They may have to go back to their lands and homes in the south because they are on a type of land and farm in the north upon which they will have some job to make a living and raise a family. May I draw the attention of the house to a meeting that was held at Medstead in my own riding early this fall. Here is how one of the reeves present at that meeting- there wotdd be fifteen or twice that number of reeves and councillors and secretaries at that meeting gathered to discuss farm relief and the movement of settlers from Moose Jaw, Saskatoon and Regina and the dried out areas in the south into this part of the province- sized up the situation. Reeve McDonald of Spiritwood had this to say:
He explained a number of settlers from the cities and the dried-out areas had come into the Spiritwood district. They were without crop this year and available cash worth mentioning.
No crop and no cash:
They were put on poor land, land so poor, rocky and bushy that store bills would have to be run up and sixty per cent of the taxes remain unpaid.
He says further:
I consider it was utterly impossible for many of these people to exist on the type of farms upon which they were placed. He also mentioned how last winter the provincial government sent to certain individual farmers in

Farm Finance-Mr. McIntosh
the district hired men and housekeepers for which the people of the province had to pay $10 a month and who were absolutely unnecessary, only causing an uncalled-for burden on the province. Every application for help should be scrutinized.
That is his idea of the back to the land movement in Spiritwood rural municipality.


George Gordon: May I say that Reeve
McDonald is just fifty per cent out in that last statement the hon. member read, because half of the ten dollars is paid by the Dominion government.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Whether or not he is
out on the amount is not the main point, I presume that he is striking at the principle, that these people were sent to farm homes by the provincial authorities and the municipality never asked to cooperate or have a word to say about any of these contracts.
Let me go a little further. We have the words of Reeve Charles Comerford, a man who has been in that country over twenty years. He says:
The municipality had asked for a $2,000 to
$3,000 grant, but the answer received was grant could not be given because Meeting Lake R.M. was not in the relief area. Notwithstanding this request and answer the "dumping" of families was going on. In one and a half years forty families had landed in the municipality and already these families had fifty children that had to be schooled. No help was forthcoming from Regina. Reeve Comer-ford said he objected to the principle of such land settlement schemes where men and women had not a chance to make good on land that should not be settled.
Then a little farther on I find the following:
Department of Education, Regina, promised $400 grant for new school providing settlers would erect walls but building remained unfinished and meanwhile fifty children have no school advantages like other children. Mr. Comerford said he repudiated municipally as far as his municipality was concerned any responsibility of cost of upkeep of all such people wrongfully unloaded upon Meeting Lake R.M. "Dump" families should be looked after by federal and provincial governments.
That was his analysis of the problem. Let me read a little more. What did Reeve Soder-berg of Medstead rural municipality have to say?
Reeve Soderberg at this juncture in the discussion gave it as his carefully arrived at opinion that families placed on the rough useless land complained of would find it impossible to succeed.
Note the expression "impossible to succeed". Then the article continues:
If experienced farmers could not make a living on these farms how can we expect families from the cities without money and experience to do anything else but fail.


Mr. MANION:: What is the hon. member quoting from?


Cameron Ross McIntosh: From the North Battle-ford News, a most reliable paper.


Robert James Manion: The hon. member owns that paper?


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Certainly. I was at the meeting myself, and therefore I know the report was correct.


James Houston Spence: The hon. member is reporter, editor and everything else.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Yes, variety is the spice of life. Next we will see what Reeve William Grimes had to say:
Reeve William Grimes, Parkdale R.M., was the next speaker. He said Parkdale R.M. of which he was head wanted good settlers-they are an important addition to the well being of any municipality. Up to the present Parkdale R.M. has had no trouble with the so-called "$300 land settlement class." The hospitalization of mothers, children and adults admittedly was a real problem costing money. The medical attention demanded by mothers, children and others outside the municipality and resident in the local improvement districts also presented another major difficulty. The Department of Municipal Affairs, Regina, had promised payment of all the medical costs defrayed by the R.M. of Parkdale for patients from the local improvement district contiguous to Parkdale R.M., but as yet no money had been remitted- the municipality being meanwhile out all moneys paid, an altogether unfair condition of things. Taxes in many cases have not been paid for five to ten years; tax collections are impracticable with costs unpaid if contracted; many other obligations are also piling up. Burial and cemetery costs (for a municipal cemetery) have had to be met. The settlement move of the last year in which settlers bought Canadian Pacific railway bush lots paying $25 cash and supposing to have in their possession certain stock and equipment has not worked satisfactorily. In many cases these settlers have not had the stock and equipment required yet have been placed on difficult lands with no real chance of success. Relief has been and in many cases will be requested. Without horses, wagons, stock and equipment how can these people get anywhere? They cannot. No taxes paid, nothing received in lieu of taxes, and no aetion for redress on the part of the Canadian Pacific railway. Department requested reeve and secretary to visit all families in predicament but this has and will not be done as municipality does not consider itself responsible for a land policy in which it was not invited to have any say.
There is the foundation for the grievances of many people in the north, namely that these people were unceremoniously dumped into the north country from the cities of Saskatoon, Regina and Moose Jaw. They were dumped without having the required amount of money, the required equipment or the required experience. They were placed

Farm Finance-Mr. McIntosh
in various municipalities, and received littte or no cooperation from the provincial authorities. They are on poor lands, and (these reeves say that their chances of success on the whole are nil.


George Gordon: I should like to ask a question. Does the hon. member know whether any of these people have been supplied relief by the municipalities?


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Relief?


George Gordon: Yes.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Yes, I understand they were supplied with some relief. In some cases they cut cordwood for practically nothing; they received hardly enough to exist on because they were poor axe-men. They were without the required money and were settled on land which did not offer them a chance in the world so far as making a decent living was concerned. The fundamental weakness of the policy behind the whole movement was that there was no cooperation between the department and the municipalities. Had they sat around a common conference table they could have, in half an hour, placed families at points where they would have had some chance to make good. In that way far-reaching action could have been taken.
Listen to the words of Percy Marks, the constable of Med stead village:
Percy Marks, Medstead constable, drew the attention of a unique case of settler "dumping" taking place in Medstead that afternoon when a mother and four children were left by the government relief officer in the Canadian National Railways station. The mother had fifty cents in her pocket to take care of herself and family till her husband somewhere nineteen miles away would turn up. Relief officer and mother same afternoon had searched for husband but could not find him, he being on some inaccessible farm on which it was said anyone could not be expected to do anything else but surely and slowly starve. The mother and family had to be taken care of by Constable Marks after relief officer had left her in station and directed his way to Saskatoon. The woman and family -were from Saskatoon *-one of the city's selected settler units for "the north." The meeting was astounded to her such a damning example of government inefficiency in regard to northern settlement and asked its secretary to act in behalf of mother and children without delay.
Mr. Speaker, I believe I have read enough to show what this much-heralded northern settlement means, what going back to the land means, what the movement back to the northern lands in Saskatchewan means, so far as northwestern Canada is concerned. Before the meeting I have described broke up
they appointed a resolutions committee which drew up resolutions concerning the wise settlement of these northern lands, financing of settlers, and a third one directed against dumping. I presume the fight is still being waged in these municipalities; no doubt they are still trying to get the provincial government to give the necessary relief, financial and otherwise, so that these families may have a chance to live.
In closing I should like to touch upon a point discussed by the hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Spencer), namely that of soldier settlers. Soldier settlers in North Battleford and Lloydminster are organizing. When we know that soldier settlers are organizing we realize that they have some reason for so doing, they are not organizing for fun. They are not organizing because it is a pleasure to hold public meetings; they are forming themselves into an organized body to get redress. They are organizing because they feel they must do that or later suffer. They are organizing because they feel if they did not they might be evicted from their farms. They are organizing so that they may demand justice and common sense action-justice from the department and common sense action on the part of the soldier settlement board. As far as their contracts with the department are concerned they feel that they have not been accorded by the soldier settlement board the treatment to which they are entitled; therefore they are dissatisfied. They feel that they bought farms at inflated prices, and apart from reductions, the amount owing is out of all proportion to the earning power of the land. They also feel that, as far as liquidation is possible, if their farms were liquidated today they would not pay their way. Debt piling upon debt, principal added to principal, interest added to interest. Moreover Mr. Speaker, the soldier settlers feel that they have done everything possible to pay their way. They do not think their present lot is their fault. They feel that they have a legitimate grievance, and they are going to do their utmost to have that grievance removed. They are not able to control the factors which .constitute the basis of their grievance. They have been told by the department that they must pay, and if they do not they must get out. Now it is impossible to pay, so they have organized, with two objectives, one immediate and the other secondary. They are organizing to meet the immediate problem of their debts, how to pay their way and stay on the land. The other reason for organization is that they feel that they have an objective to which they must drive on; if they
Farm Finance-Mr. McIntosh

do not they are going to be lost, because they feel that they cannot pay their principal and interest. They are faced with the threat of being evicted from their property and dumped on the roadside, and they feel that the only thing to be done is to have the whole situation investigated by the department and redress meted out in some satisfactory manner. I notice that the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. MacLaren), is not in his seat, if he were I would ask him if he intends investigating this soldier settlement question. Or the hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. Gordon), I think I did ask him that question recently on the orders of the day and he turned it down flat, said that there would be no investigation.


George Gordon: Mr. Speaker, I am so
sorry I did not hear the question.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: The question is, the
soldier settlers feel that, to stay on their land and pay their way there must be a reinvestigation, full and complete, of the soldier settlement problem, and they must be given redress. They must have revaluations and reductions, because at the present time what they owe for the land, principal and accrued interest, is out of all proportion to its earning power, and payment is impossible. The department is investigating the administration of the pension act, why not couple with that the administration of soldier settlement affairs across northwestern Canada? If there is anything wrong with soldier settlement, if these grievances are well founded, then in the name of Canada and Canada's honour,-we gave them our word of honour in 1914 that we would stand by them and their children and dependents,-I would say as a member of this house that we ought to get the report of a parliamentary committee, or any other committee that would get the facts, and then act upon those facts.
I would like to read about the lot of one soldier settler-I have time for only one. This man resides on section 16-45-14 west of the 3rd, has a half share.


George Gordon: What is his name?


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I will give it a little later. The man had 693 bushels of wheat as his half share. The soldier settlement board seized the whole of it and after it was hauled to Whitkow, to market a short distance off, they released all over two thirds of the crop. Their seizure was 462 bushels, he was left with 231. He sold it at 27 cents and realized S61.67. Then he had some Canadian Pacific land, section 17-45-14 west of the 3rd,

on which he harvested 947 bushels. The total proceeds were $284.10. From the soldier settlement board part he had $61.67, making a total of $345.77.
Here was his outlay: threshing, Canadian Pacific Railway section, $47.35; threshing, soldier settlement section, $34.65; loan from his son repaid, $27; insurance, $10; haulage, $40; grocery bill, $59; John Garland, $12; Bank of Commerce, interest on note $40; taxes, Canadian Pacific arrears only, $35.69; blankets, $15; hog, for meat, $7; and he paid miscellaneous bills, $6.50. These bills total S334.19. Subtract that from the $345.77, the proceeds of his wheat, this soldier settler has left the glorious sum of $11.58; "this is now spent" he says, and he has no seed, no grist, no winter clothing for wife and family of four children, and is short of bedding. The name of this soldier settler is A. G. Sibley, and he lives about 20 miles from North Battleford. I may say this man's case is under investigation now by the department I think. I understand General Ross and the commissioner of soldier settlement are out west now investigating a certain number of cases, and I think from what Mr. Sibley said in his last letter they were investigating his case. What, if anything, will be done for him I cannot say.


Mr. ROBERT McKENZIE (Assiniboia):: Farm Finance-Mr. McKenzie
in 1932, for the four months ending October, the figure was 81,235,599.
I quote these figures merely to show the effect of high tariffs on trade. Someone will say, of course, that we are not responsible for high tariffs in the United States, but it just shows that high tariffs do stifle trade. Let me give another glaring example. I have a return showing our trade with the Argentine, a country with which we did considerable business a few years ago. The hon. member for Argenteuil (Sir George Perley) visited the Argentine on behalf of Canada two years or so ago, I believe, and he spoke in glowing terms of the possibilities of trade with that country. I have here the imports from the Argentine in 1930 and 1931, and I have them .also for the ten months ending October, 1931 and 1932. In 1930 our total imports from that country were 87,641,000; in 1931 they had dropped to $3,205,430. Our exports to the Argentine in 1930 were valued at $12,417,486 and in 1931 at $4,575,497. It appears to me that this business should have been encouraged in some way, as was suggested to this house by the right hon. member when he made his report upon his return from that country. What is the result for this year? Our total imports for the ten months ended October 31 are valued at only $885,723 and our exports at $2,650,688. We cannot expect Canada to make progress if we put up such barriers that other countries cannot trade with us.
I have one or two other suggestions to make. The first is that this government should begin to realize that their high tariff policy is not only a failure but is proving disastrous to the trade of our country. There is another problem which confronts our farmers and the people of this country generally, that is the problem of the spread in prices between the raw products and the finished article. A year ago the Minister of Agriculture made the suggestion that there was a possibility that some board would be appointed to inquire into the spread in price between our raw and finished products. This afternoon the hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Spencer) gave some of these spreads, mentioning among others the spread in price in connection with leather and wool. Surely something could be done in this connection and I think the government would be well advised to appoint a board whose function it would be to inquire into these spreads in prices. Today our farmers are getting about one and a half to two cents per pound for their wool and they have to pay $2 per pound for the finished product. They are

hardly able to sell hides, but when they do they get about twenty-five cents apiece, yet they have to pay $6, $10 and $12 for a pair of shoes. Surely there is something the government could do to investigate these spreads, and if there is, I think it should be done immediately.
I should like to make another suggestion in connection with our trade commissioners and embassies located in the different countries. If it is the definite policy of this government to shut out the foreigner from trading with this country, why do we maintain commissioners at Washington, in Japan and in other parts of the world? Why does not the government recall these men until such time as we have a government in power willing to trade with the other countries? The expense of these offices would be saved. Unless something is done very soon for agriculture I am afraid that this industry, as far as western Canada is concerned, cannot survive.
In conclusion, I want to say this in connection with the tariff. I believe that any industry that cannot survive with a ten per cent tariff had better be allowed to disappear. Industries should not be maintained with the high tariffs which prevail at the present time. If they were allowed to disappear we would probably get reductions in the prices of clothing, machinery and a great many other necessities.


George Gibson Coote: Mr. Speaker, Canada has been going through the greatest crisis in her history. It has lasted three years and is now affecting three-quarters of her people. If Canada is to get out of this crisis, whatever action is taken must be initiated by this parliament. The problem has now become so difficult that the ordinary individual is unable to deal with it. So far as Canada is concerned, the principal cause of the depression is the low prices received for the products of our farms, forests, mines and fisheries.
The prices of farm products fall faster and further during a depression than the prices of any other products. These prices have now fallen so low that it takes twice as much produce to pay his taxes, interest and debts, and he can buy only about half as much as he could previously. The majority of our people are engaged in agriculture and the prices they receive for their products constitute the bulk of the money which goes into circulation for the promotion of trade, commerce and industry in Canada. The prices received by the producers in our primary in-

Farm Finance

Mr. Coote
dustries largely determine the amount of purchasing power which the people of Canada may have in their hands. I do not think I could describe the financial position of the farmer better than to quote very briefly from a recent issue of the Farmers' Sun. The article states that the price collapse has cost the Canadian farmer one billion dollars and that the condition of agriculture is a national crisis.
The article continues:
Unemployment, decline of business and national financial difficulties traceable to the drastic consequences of falling prices.
Farming is being destroyed by the price collapse.
Canada's basic industry, the industry which supports 46-29 per cent of the people, which produces 58-3 per cent of the exports abroad, is being steadily wiped out.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: The hon. member is out of order. I-t is clearly out of order to read from an article commenting upon any question before the house.


George Gibson Coote: If it were not so late in the session I would challenge your honour's ruling. I think what I have done is in accordance with the rules, as I understand them; however, I will be governed by your decision in this matter.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: The hon. member has the privilege of challenging my ruling.


George Gibson Coote: I suppose it would be useless, and in the present instance I bow to your ruling. However, I think I am permitted to give some facts and perhaps I could give them a little more accurately by occasional reference to the article in question.
The gross annual revenue of agriculture dropped S174,939,000 in the year 192S-29; it dropped $369,034,000 in 1929-30 and $381,806,000 in 1930-31. That is a total drop of $925,779,000 in three years. The indices of farm prices for the present year indicate a drop of S400.000.000, which would make a total drop of 81,250,000,000 in four years. To correct that situation, drastic action is necessary.
While farm products have dropped to one-half their former value, prices of other goods have not declined in proportion and I find that the farmer's dollar, in comparison with 1926 when it was worth 100, will buy only 75 per cent as much retail food, 65 per cent as much retail clothing and 55 per cent as much household furnishings. The cost of agricultural implements to the farmer shows that the price of implements has not dropped more than a fraction of the drop in the prices of farm products. We find that ploughs still have 100 per cent, drills, 98.4 per cent, wagons
97.1 per cent and binders 96.3 per cent of their 1926 values. In order to purchase any of these implements, it takes twice as many farm products at prevailing prices as it did in 1926. I was told this fall by one merchant in my home town that the price of binders which he handled had dropped 85. This was a 8300 binder and he said that that was the equivalent of a drop of eight cents in the price of a 85 pair of shoes.
To sum up again, I would say that the unequal fall in farm prices has doubled the farmer's debts, taxes, interest,' insurance premiums and all fixed charges. It has certainly cut the purchasing power of his products anywhere from 30 to 60 per cent, depending upon the class of goods he has to buy with his products. In fact, if he pays all these fixed charges, he will not have any purchasing power at all and he will have to live on what he produces on the farm. The women will have to go back to the spinning wheel, or the farmer's family will have to go without clothes. The result is that farm women today are canning their own vegetables; they are canning fruit, poultry, meat. They are doing their best to provide a living for their families off what they produce on the farm. In some cases they are taking old dresses out of the ragbag and mending them because they cannot buy new ones. The farmers are today buying very little. Most of them are down to the very minimum. The fact that they are not buying is not because they do noit want to buy, but because they have not the wherewithal. They are skimping and retrenching in every possible way; they are working harder and getting less than they ever did before. Because the farmers are able to buy so little, there is unemployment in retail and wholesale stores, in our factories and on our railways. One reason that there are idle canning factories in Ontario is that the western farmer is no longer able to buy canned goods. If he has any canned goods, the women have to can them themselves. One-fifth of our people are out of work. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Gordon) told us that 800,000 people were on relief, and I am sure another 1,000,000 are out of work and being kept by their relatives or living on what little they have left.


George Gordon: Where does the hon. gentleman get those figures?


George Gibson Coote: The figure of 800,000 was given by the minister. The other figures were given to me in one case by a professor of economics who made this estimate.


George Gordon: That is hopeless.
Farm Finance-Mr. Coote


George Gibson Coote: Well, those who are out of work and not on direct relief would, with their dependents, make that many.


George Gordon: The 800,000 include dependents.


George Gibson Coote: But those are only people who are on direct relief from municipalities, provincial governments or the federal government. There are hundreds of thousands who are out of work, who are still living on their means or being kept by their relatives. No doubt there are several hundred thousand young men and women who have finished their schooling and who want to go to work, but for whom there is no work. This number would be included in the million people that I suggested a few minutes ago as being out of work. All those people are existing on a reduced standard of living. Under such conditions they must reduce it.
The situation is becoming so bad that action must be taken at once. If not, the bonds of some of our municipalities, many of them in fact, to the extent of many millions of dollars are bound to go into default. The farmer's power to pay taxes to meet interest on bonds is not there. The investments of loan, trust and insurance companies is bound to be affected; it cannot be avoided. Even the investments of our governments are affected and in fact the whole financial structure of the country is affected by the low price of farm products. The situation demands prompt action and I am glad to hear that we are to have a conference of provincial premiers to be called probably in January. I would suggest that when this premiers' conference is called, they should consider action on similar lines to that which was taken in Australia a year and a half ago at what was known as the premiers' conference, when it was agreed that all the states should introduce legislation to reduce interest rates on existing mortgages and agreements of sale by 22i per cent of the existing rate. The banks also agreed to reduce interest on their loans by one per cent and interest on deposits by one per cent. It was agreed that a bonus on wheat amounting to
pence per bushel should be paid on last year's crop. It was also agreed at this conference that the exporter should be helped by depreciation in Australian currency. The conference also agreed to a conversion of the entire internal bonded indebtedness of the commonwealth and of the Australian states at a reduction of 224 per cent of the existing rates. This conversion was carried out shortly afterwards, 97 per cent of the bonds being voluntarily converted and the remaining three per cent being converted by legislation. That

effected a saving of $16,000,000 annually to the commonwealth and the various states. The greatest benefit has come to Australia through a depreciation of her currency. I know some people would immediately say that such a course would ruin the credit of Canada; that her bonds would not be saleable after such an operation as that. I find in the Commerce of the Nation, in a recent issue this dispatch:
New South Wales, Australia, conversion loan of some $50,000,000 launched under aegis of Commonwealth government was taken up in London market within half an hour.
That was a foreign loan.
Will reduce former interest of 5i per cent to nominal rate of 3J per cent though over-all yield of four per cent will be realized by investors. Saving estimated at over $2,000,000 per annum.
Canada's government has made great efforts to maintain her credit on a high standing with foreign countries, but I doubt very much whether after all this effort Canada could secure a bond issue in any foreign country at a net rate of four per cent and that is what the state of New South Wales has recently been able to do.
May I also mention this in passing:
British government announces new conversion loan involving $400,000,000, causing sharp rise in government securities. British treasury two per cent bonds totalling $200,000,000 undei'-written in record time in city of London.
Great Britain quite frankly abandoned the gold standard a year ago last September. The result is very low interest rates in that country, as evidenced by the fact that the British government is able to sell $200,000,000 of treasury notes at a rate of two per cent, while in Canada our government pays the banks four per cent on treasury notes.
Coming back to Australia and the depreciation of her currency which was agreed upon at that conference, I find in a recent issue of the Ottawa Journal a splendid editorial which is headed: "An Australian Recovery."
I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, that you will not allow me to read this editorial. I would just say that it goes on to make some very favourable comment on the Australian situation. It says that there is a certain amount of criticism in Australian papers about the action that has been taken, but that the criticism has arisen mainly on the part of party politicians. Perhaps on some later occasion I may be able to read it.
I have another editorial here from the Leader-Post of Regina, dated November 8, and headed "Australia Reports Recovery." It goes on to make some very complimentary remarks on the Australian situation and winds

Farm Finance-Mr. Coote
up by saying that business and trade in Australia are coming to life as a result of the policies put into operation, and says that this does not appear to be happening in Canada, and it asks: Have we been following the wrong path?
I read in a recent dispatch that Australia this year has set aside one and a quarter million pounds for the purpose of paying a bonus to wheat growers. They also propose to pay a bounty of one pound per acre-I give that figure subject to correction-for fertilizer. They also propose to make a reduction in the land tax in Australia.
At the present time the currency of Australia is depreciated sixty per cent as compared with that of Canada. Some bankers in Australia have advocated that that depreciation should be even more than sixty per cent so as to assist the Australian exporters to continue in business. I should like to say a word or two on the recent action of the Prime Minister by which he indulged in a small measure of inflation I refer to his action in regard to the sale of $35,000,000 of treasury notes to the Canadian banks at four per cent.


Henry Elvins Spencer: Three per cent.


George Gibson Coote: He was borrowing from the Canadian banks at four per cent. The Canadian banks then borrowed $35,000,000 from the Finance department at three per cent, using these treasury notes as security. This is unquestionably a measure of inflation, and I would ask the house to note that the basis of that inflation was money made by the printing press.


Mr. EDWARDS:: Does the hon. member say that commodity prices have risen since that action was taken?


George Gibson Coote: No, commodity prices have not risen. I was just going to bring out that point. There will be very little increase in commodity prices from this small measure of inflation. This $35,000,000 in the vaults of the banks does furnish a basis for issuing bank credit to the amount of $300,000,000 if the banks care to issue that amount of credit, and can find customers who will borrow from them and give them satisfactory security. The banks do not loan to a producer unless the price of the commodity he produces is at such a level that the banker can naturally expect his customer to secure the cost of production plus a profit equal to the interest charge on the loan. When the price of farm products is so low that the banker believes that the farmer cannot get sufficient for his products to repay the bank _oan with interest, he does
not make the loan. If the banks are to be able to use that $35,000,000 as a basis for issuing credit in Canada under our present system, we must do something to increase commodity prices. When commodity prices are increased to the point where the banks think that the producer can make a profit sufficient to pay the interest on the loan, the banks will again begin to loan to the producer. So the great problem facing us today is to raise commodity prices. I should like to quote a statement made by Sir William Beveridge, who is director of the London School of Economics. The statement is taken from The World's Economic Crisis and the Way of Escape, published in London last year. Speaking of prices, Sir William Beveridge says that there are three different movements of prices.
I shall not refer to the first two because my time is limited:
There may be, third, a general movement of prices initiated from the side of money. What we have in this crisis is a change of this third kind, a fall of prices representing deflation of money. That is what we are concerned with in the first instance.
I would direct the attention of the house to that statement of Sir William Beveridge, that what we have in this case is a fall in prices representing deflation of money. He says on the following page:
The fall of prices with which we are concerned is initiated from the side of money. It is a deflationary fall of unexampled violence.
Sir William Beveridge is an able and noted economist, and is generally regarded, I think, as orthodox. He is authority for the statement that the fall of prices with which we are concerned today is initiated from the side of money, and that it is a deflationary fall of unexampled violence. Every economist that I have read for the last year agrees that tjhe world today is suffering from a depression that has been caused by a deflation of prices, and there you have Sir William Beveridge's statement that the cause of the fall of prices was the deflation of money. If we are going to raise prices we must raise them through monetary action. If the fall in prices was caused by deflation, the way to raise prices is by inflation.


An hon. MEMBER:: Bringing prices back to normal?


George Gibson Coote: Yes. It is sometimes called reflation. Our prices are fifty per cent below normal, and the people who are depending on the price of their commodities to meet their debts and living costs are simply unable to meet them and are drifting fast into bankruptcy.
Farm Finance,-Mr. Coote

I was very sorry that the amendment moved by the hon. member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Irvine) today was ruled out of order because I think it was a good amendment. It referred first to the question of debts, to which I have made a very brief reference. Then he went on to deal with the question of a wheat bonus. I should like to say a few words on that matter.
First of all, why should there be a wheat bonus? Because wheat is the most important item in our whole national economy. It is our greatest item of export. It furnishes employment for more of our people than any other commodity. Next to minerals it furnishes the greatest amount of traffic and traffic earnings for our railways. We had a bonus on wheat last year. There must have been very good reasons for that, and the reasons that existed then are still in force today. As a matter of fact, there is more reason for the wheat bonus today than there was a year ago. One of our chief competitors is Australia. Last year the Australian farmer got a bonus of nine cents a bushel as compared with five cents a bushel in Canada. Australia has already set aside one and a quarter million pounds to bonus her farmers this year but this government is doing nothing to provide a bonus. I want to assure the house that our farmers are badly in need of the bonus. I have a telegram here which I received from some people in my constituency a short time ago. It says:
Large meeting of your constituents held at Blackie on Monday night strongly urge that price of grain and general conditions of the fanner necessitate this year a bonus on grain production by the Dominion government.
I should like to give hon. members some idea of the position in which many of our wheat growers find themselves. Any farmer who is able to produce No. 1 wheat can get today about 26 cents a bushel, a price which is much less than the cost of production. However all our wheat does not grade No. 1.
I have before me a clipping from a Calgary newspaper which was sent to me recently. It is sent from Cardston, Alberta, and is dated October 25:
A. W. Zeigler of Cardston, Friday took settlement for his good crop of fall wheat, which averaged 33 bushels to the acre over the whole field.
Wheat in Cardston was selling at 28J cents a bushel locally. The elevator people deducted C cents a bushel because it was fall wheat. Then they said it was smutty so took off another 6 cents a bushel. They then decided it was tough, and so extracted another 6 cents from the selling price.
It had already cost Mr. Zeigler 7 cents a bushel for twine and threshing, and it took 3 
cents a bushel for hauling to the elevator. This amounted to 28 cents a bushel, leaving Mr. Zeigler exactly J cent a bushel to cover his years work, his seed, ploughing, drilling, cultivating, and a long summer's anxiety about hail, drought and grasshoppers, with deductions for the herd of collectors who saw the field of wheat grow into maturity.
I would not like hon. members to think that all farmers in Alberta are receiving only one-half cent per bushel for their wheat. But even those who received 27 cents at the elevator, after paying for threshing and hauling, twine, stooking, groceries for feeding the stookers, and binder repairs, would have practically nothing left.
I have dealt with the question of wheat; may I for a few moments turn to another of the farmer's problems. I have before me a report of the Dominion live stock branch containing prices at Calgary for live stock which mixed farmers are now selling. In every case I have deducted 50 cents from the price quoted, because it costs 50 cents for freight and other charges to Calgary. These are the prices per hundredweight:
Choice steers. . ..	. . .. $2	25	to $2	50Common steers. . . .	.. .. 1	00	to 1	50Cows	. . . . 0	65	to 1	50Select hogs	.. .. 3	00	Bacon hogs	. . .. 2	50	Butcher hogs	.. . . 2	00	Lambs	.. .. 3	00	to 3	50I do not need to	argue wi	Lth	any	man
acquainted with farming as to the necessity of raising farm prices. Next we come to the question of how to raise them. As the prices of grain, cattle, hogs and I think poultry, are all on an export basis, the way to raise them is to allow our currency to depreciate in outside countries as was done by Australia. This creates a premium on foreign exchange, and as the exportable surplus of these products is sold for foreign exchange the prices will be raised in terms of Canadian currency. If the price of our exports is raised this will raise the price of that part consumed at home, because, unfortunately, the surplus exported fixes the price of practically all farm produce. Today the British pound is worth only about $3.78 in Canada, when it should be worth at least $4.87. We are losing $20 on every steer exported; $2.80 on a bacon hog; 7 cents a pound on turkeys; 7J cents a dozen on eggs and 19 cents a bushel on wheat. These figures are taken from the evidence given by exporters to a correspondent of the Country Guide. I do not think Canadian farmers will be getting a square deal even when the pound is worth $4.87 in Canada. The British pound is worth about $6.10 in Australia. I learn that

Farm Finance-Mr. Coote
definite action to raise the exchange rate is to be taken by New Zealand, so that the British pound may be worth as much in New Zealand as it is in Australia.
I put this question to hon. members in the house, and particularly hon. members opposite: How are our farmers going to ship butter to England to compete with New Zealand? Absolutely impossible. The countries with which we compete have a great exchange advantage over us. Australia, New Zealand, the Argentine, Denmark, Sweden and Norway enjoy this advantage. Compared with us they have depreciated their currency from 25 to 50 per cent. They can undersell us right in our own market. The depreciation, or, in other words, the premium they get on exchange would pay duty two or three times over. There are many hon. members in the house, and some people throughout the country who still hold to the theory that the rise in retail prices which would result if our currency were depreciated would completely offset the advantage we would receive by an increase in price brought about by a premium on exchange, or in other words by a depreciation in our currency.
We now have in the case of Australia an illustration of the effects of depreciated currency on internal price levels. Australia has been off the gold standard and has had a depreciated currency for approximately two years. During that time the depreciation of her currency compared with Canada has ranged from ten to fifty per cent. Figures recently obtained from the bureau of statistics at Ottawa, giving index numbers of different price levels, living costs and purchasing power of agricultural products in both these countries, show the following results, using the figure 100 to represent the pre-war price levels in every instance. The statement from the bureau shows averages of general wholesale prices as follows-I shall give the figures first for Australia and then for Canada for each of the years mentioned.
Australia	Canada
Average 1930	
146-7	135-3Average 1931	
131-3	112-6March, 1932	
132-2	107-9July, 1932	
128-4	104-0
Then we have the index figures for agricultural products:
Australia	Canada
Average 1930	 135-3	131-5
There was not much difference that year.
Australia	Canada
Average 1931	
102-2	90-0March, 1932	
113-5	82-2July, 1932	
114-1	76-7
53719-ICO
Hon. members will readily note the tremendous advantage Australian farmers have over us-38 points in agricultural products. Then we come to the figures in regard to the cost of living:
Australia	Canada
Average	1930-	
141-3	152-0"	1931	
126-7	137-1March,	1932	
122-8	128-4
The cost of living in Canada in March last was six points above the cost of living in Australia, although the price of farm products in Australia was very much higher. Then, the bureau of statistics have prepared the figures to show the purchasing power of farm products in terms of living costs. Using March 1930 as 100, we find the figures as follow's:
Australia	Canada
Average	1930	
99-6	92-2"	1931	
83-8	69-9March,	1932	
96-1	68-6
The bureau of statistics does not give the index figures to show the purchasing power of farm products in Canada for recent months, but their index figures for September show a drop of five points in the price of farm products since March 1932, while cost of living has dropped only two points. This, of course, shows a further decline in the purchasing power of farm products.
The figures shown in this statement are very significant. They show that the prices of farm products have been much higher in Australia than in Canada; that whereas in Australia in the last two years farm products have dropped 21 points they have dropped 55 points in Canada and that in spite of the big drop in the price of farm products in Canada the cost of living, or retail prices in Canada, stood six points above the cost of living in Australia. The purchasing power of farm products in Australia was 28 points higher than in Canada. In other words the purchasing power of agricultural products in [DOT]Australia in March last was 42 per cent more than the purchasing power of agricultural products in Canada. Does not that show a distinct advantage to the Australian farmer, not only in purchasing power but in debt paying power; of 50 to 100 per cent more than in Canada, yes, I would say in some cases 150 per cent more? This table also shows that whereas in the price of farm products in Canada there was a drop of 14 points from the average of 1931 to July 1932, during the same period there was a rise of 12 points in the price of farm products in Australia. These figures, which I have obtained from the bureau of statistics within the last week,

1S7S
Farm Finance-Mr. Coote

certainly disprove the contention that the apparent advantage which would come to Canadian farmers in cheaper currency would be offset by a rise in the prices of the things he would have to purchase.
Action such as I have suggested, that is depreciation of our currency to the level, I would suggest, of Australia, or whatever depreciation we may have, will put more money in circulation, which in turn will increase the purchasing power of the people, which will increase employment, increase trade, and as a result will increase the revenue of this government, increase railway earnings and decrease unemployment relief budgets for all our governments. I think it would enable our governments to balance their budgets. I notice in the New York Times recently that even Argentina has a balanced budget. There is a dispatch in the New York Times of October 15 from Buenos Aires saying that finance minister Hueyo announced that he would have a balanced budget ready for submission to congress this week. While we are struggling along here with high prices, "sound money", a country like Argentina with a smaller population and less natural wealth is able to balance its budget while we are faced with a deficit of probably $100,000,000 to $120,000,000. The measures which I suggest would, if adopted now before our situation becomes too desperate, save thousands of our farmers and others in Canada from bankruptcy. It would save many of our municipalities from default and would make many mortgages and bank loans and municipal debentures, which are now of very uncertain value, worth their face value.
This is a matter of interest to the whole nation. Any plans which this government may make for the employment of our people must necessitate some change in our monetary policy. I suggest to the government that when the interprovincial conference takes place, very concrete plans should be outlined for the employment of our people. I suggest that they gather the best practical men who can be found in Canada, together with some of our economists, and charge them with the duty of bringing before the government plans for the employment of our people. Unemployed people create no wealth. We have in Canada an abundance of material and natural resources, and we have people ready to work; it is simply a question of using our own credit, our own money, currency which is now printed and lying in the federal vaults, to put these people to work and produce real wealth. Let them at least produce something to provide for their own needs.

I just mention in passing the proposal which I made a year ago, that we should undertake a housing scheme, tearing down the slums in some of our big cities and building modern apartment houses. There is nothing impossible about dealing with this question of unemployment; it is just that we lack nerve to tackle it. The hon. member for East Algoma (Mr. Nicholson), I am sure, knows many lumbermen who have lumber to sell and who would be glad to sell it very cheaply; and there are many people in Canada who need houses, there are many carpenters who would be glad to do the work. Let us bring the men and the material together and build these houses.
May I make one other suggestion, with special relation to my own constituency. There is a great deal of unemployment in the coal districts. I do not think that employment can be given these people at this time of year, but I suggest that the government be a little more liberal in dealing with municipalities and provinces, at least in western Canada, and as far as I am concerned in eastern Canada also, so that they may take care of these people. This correspondent of mine says that there are quite a few working on provincial relief, road work, at 30 cents an hour. The married men get ten days per month at $2.40 a day; single men get five days.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: The hon. member has spoken for forty minutes.


George Gibson Coote: I should like, if I may be
allowed, to complete this statement. Some men with big families get an extra day in. Then he says the union and the town council are appointing a committee to canvass the town for money for the needy. The union men working at the mine pay five per cent from their wages, but working only two days in two weeks it does not amount to much. I would urge upon the government that they deal more liberally with some of these municipalities in the west that are finding it very difficult to handle the problem on the present basis of relief.


John Vallance: Mr. Speaker, I should not have found
it necessary to speak this evening if the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) had acceded to the request of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) and announced a definite policy regarding the subject now under discussion. In the Unemployment and Farm Relief bill introduced last session by the Prime Minister there is nothing definite as to what the policy of the government then was

Farm Finance-Mr. Vallance
in the matter of farm relief. As he was presenting the bill I asked him if it was the intention of the government to continue the five cents per bushel bonus on wheat, or if they had changed their mind and were now going to adopt an acreage basis. His reply was to the effect that they had not yet decided what the policy should be, but were taking power under the bill to do all things necessary regarding farm relief if an emergency should arise. It has been suggested to the government time and time again during this session that some pronouncement be made by them as to their relief policy. So far all we have been able to get from the Prime Minister is that he was spending money for the stabilization of the wheat market rather than paying the five cents per bushel bonus. He pointed out that it cost some $11,000,000 last year to pay the five cent bonus, and he thought that by taking that amount and stabilizing the market by the purchase of futures he would help the wheat grower more than he would by paying the bonus. There is one thing that puzzles those of us who are deeply interested in the wheat industry, and there are several on this side of the house, and some on the other side who are themselves in the industry. It is rather strange that at the very time that this government was supposed to be stabilizing the market, we find on more than one occasion that the Chicago market was higher than the Winnipeg market; and the Prime Minister said that had it not been for the intervention of the government in stabilizing the market, wheat would have gone below 40 cents per bushel. We have asked him on several occasions to tell the house and the country just how far the government has gone in this stabilizing, but we have been unable to get anything from him.
A good deal has been said to-night about the condition of western agriculture, but there is one particular condition that prevails to-day, especially in Saskatchewan, which has never been known to prevail 'before. In the old Northwest Territories we had an act that permitted the seizure of farm produce for taxes. That act has never been invoked during the twenty-seven years I have been privileged to live in that province, and I have been living on a farm throughout that entire period. The custom had always been, until this year, that when a farmer was one year delinquent in his taxes they sold a tax receipt. That is to say, they sold the land for the value of arrears of taxes and then the farmer had two years in which to redeem his land; but because of the inability of individuals or corporations to buy 53719-100J
tax receipts, the municipalities themselves found that they were the only purchasers of such receipts, and it came to the point where many municipalities were unable to carry on in this manner. They have this year had recourse to the old Northwest Territories Act and have created out of every secretary treasurer of a rural municipality a bailiff, and that official has been collecting taxes by seizing farm produce. For the first time in the twenty-seven years I have Lived in Saskatchewan we have witnessed such a procedure. That proves conclusively to those of us who are interested in the land that the land to-day has no value, simply because the produce of the land is itself without value.
I should like very briefly to outline the position of the individual who happens to live in that portion of western Canada and who had a crop this year, and to see where his money goes after he has got his crop. The first persons who have a claim on that crop are the Saskatchewan relief commission, provided that the farmer has received some relief from the commission. That comes before anything else, mortgage, interest or anything else. Following that come taxes, and the produce of the farm can be seized for taxes. After that come merchants, grocers, food mortgage. Now you have those three, and they come before even wages. What position does the farmer find himself in? The average bushelage for that portion of northern Saskatchewan that grew a crop this year was 16 bushels. I should say that the average price received by the grower was less than 30 cents-between 25 and 30 cents. To-day they are not receiving 25 cents in many parts of the west. Where there is a 26 cents freight rate per hundred pounds they are getting somewhere around 21i or 22 cents, and where there is a 24 cent rate, which is the rate in the division I live in, we are getting about 24 cents to-day.
Now, naturally the farmer who has not the equipment to thresh or to combine his crop must depend on someone else. When that someone else is approached and asked either to thresh the crop or to take it off with a combine, he naturally looks the crop over and estimates the bushelage. He may find that, after the relief commission have had their pound of flesh and the municipality has taken its taxes, and the merchant what is coming to him, there is not enough left to pay labour, and the result is that many farmers will conclude it is not worth while even taking off the crop. That is what has happened. Then the relief commission stepped in through the provincial government and announced that the

Farm Finance-Mr. Vallance
first hundred dollars' worth of crop that was taken off would be exempt from all seizure. There are a great many of these farmers today who are farming on land which they rent from the mortgage company and they deliver to the mortgage company one third of the crop, so that it is utterly impossible for these people to carry on in that part of Canada. That is why we have been impressing on this government the necessity for some definite policy, some statement as to how the government proposes to relieve agriculture, because the mental strain which is evident to-day throughout that western country is simply appalling. I think it is the duty of every member of this house to urge upon the government the absolute necessity for action, if for no other reason than to relieve the mental strain which these pioneers in western Canada are undergoing.
Let me draw a picture for you, Mr. Speaker. I said I lived in western Saskatchewan for twenty-seven years. I went there as a youth and at that time it was a wilderness, the nearest railway station being some 110 miles distant, and I have seen that country grow out of a wilderness. I have seen them build highways, railways, telegraphs, telephones, schools, towns, villages and hamlets. I have seen millions, yes billions of wealth roll out of that country in live stock and in all sorts of cereals, and in some manufactured goods; and the tragedy of the whole thing is that after twenty-seven years of effort not only on the part of the farmer himself but on the part of his wife and his family as well, he finds himself today with very little if any equity in the land which he wrested from the wilderness.
For these reasons I think this government tonight should give some ray of hope by a pronouncement of definite policy as to how they propose to relieve these people. I do not intend to read extracts from papers or letters. There is no member in this house who could not produce all manner of clippings from papers to support the argument I am putting forward. Hon. gentlemen could give all sorts of statistics from various sources. I could read letter after letter setting forth the very conditions I have depicted in the last few minutes. What I am concerned about is whether the government will take action and make some announcement which will give some ray of hope to these people.
I have been amazed that hon. gentlemen sitting behind the government, members from these western provinces, should apparently be so little interested in this matter. I listened to the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Murphy), delivering or reading an address 
some two or three weeks ago, but he had nothing concrete to put before the house. There was nothing in what he said that offered any solution of the problem. We have been waiting patiently to hear from the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir). He knows the conditions in western Canada; he knows what the western agriculturist has to face. And the Prime Minister knows it just as well as any of us, for he has lived in that country for thirty-five years; I have heard him say so himself. There are many out there tonight who do not know where the next hundred pounds of coal is coming from. The other day I received a letter from my wife telling me of a neighbour who had taken fifty bushels of barley to the village of Superb with which to buy some coal. That barley netted him exactly one dollar, and I ask the house to consider how much coal could be bought for a dollar. In many parts of that country it is now twenty ibelow zero; there are two feet of snow on the ground, and many of these people do not know how they are going to live through this winter. In spite of the Prime Minister's statement that we have threshed this matter over on previous occasions, nothing has been done. The reason why we do what we are doing tonight is to impress upon this government if at all possible the absolute necessity of definite action being taken immediately. And it should not be done surreptitiously, but should be announced so that these people may at least see a little ray of hope.
Miss AGNES C. MACPHAIL (Southeast Grey): Mr. Speaker, one almost feels like apologizing for saying again what has been said so many times in this house, but when one thinks of the condition of agriculture and the suffering of the people he welcomes an opportunity to say again and again those things which he knows to be so true. We know that the two great problems facing Canada today are the problems of unemployment and agricultural relief, and I believe there is a connection between these problems. If we can solve the problem of agriculture, if we could get agriculture into a healthy and thriving condition, it would in part solve the problem of unemployment.
May I be permitted once more to state the agricultural problem? It is this: there are three levels affecting the farmer. The first and lowest level is the level of his commodity prices. Above that is the level of the prices of the things which he must have, the things he needs in his daily life. There is a great disparity between these two. The farmer

Farm Finance-Miss Macphail
getting what he is getting at the moment for his commodities cannot buy any substantial amount of the things which are on the market and clamouring to be consumed. Above these two levels is the still higher level of debts. The farmer is required to meet his obligations and to consume goods, and if he cannot do these things, disaster faces the whole nation. As things are at the moment he simply cannot, and I think, we will have to keep repeating this fact over and over again. The farmer today cannot pay the interest upon his debts, and he cannot pay for the services and goods which he requires. It is impossible. It is certainly quite obvious that something must be done about it. Either the debt level must be scaled down closer to the commodity price level, or the commodity price level must be brought up nearer to the debt level; and also the disparity which exists today between the prices the farmer gets for the commodities he sells and the prices he has to pay for the goods which he needs must be lessened.
You can hardly take up any publication which comes into an agricultural community without finding these ideas emphasized. Just the other day the United Farmers of Ontario issued a manifesto dealing with agricultural conditions. This manifesto was sent to the clubs, the united farmers' organizations in Ontario, the municipal council and all agricultural bodies. The first paragraph reads as follows:
Ontario agriculture faces a crisis. The result of several generations of intelligent, self-sacrificing and unremitting toil is disappearing with ominous rapidity. Progressively exploited for some time past through the artificial stimulation of modern industrialism, it now faces the danger of rapid decay and general bankruptcy. Ordinarily the farmer faces a business depression, as he does other difficulties, with courage and confidence. But the situation is different today. The extent, duration and severity of the present economic breakdown have brought about a condition of hopelessness which is both a threat and a challenge to every citizen. The farmer's savings are being exhausted, and his capital is being depleted, at such a rate that the end is in sight. Municipal institutions cannot be maintained much longer on the present basis. Rural civilization is crumbling.
I should like to quote from the next paragraph as follows:
The collapse of prices destroyed the farmer's purchasing power. The inevitable result was a steady decline in merchants' sales, a falling off of wholesalers' orders, a curtailment of manufacturing output and a marked reduction in railway tonnage.
The manifesto then goes on to say that all along the line unemployment has been created. Very much the same thing is said in the Country Guide. If Mr. Speaker will
permit me I should like to read portions of an editorial which appeared in the November issue. The editorial starts off by saying that wheat prices have not been so low in fifty years, and goes on to say that other prices are also much lower. It states that with tax arrears, interest arrears and debts steadily mounting, the agricultural industry is in an extremely bad way. It then continues:
Not only is Canada's major industry facing ruin, but the lack of farm purchasing power is the direct cause of business stagnation throughout the country with a rising tide of unemployment and huge deficits being faced by municipalities, provincial governments and even by the federal government. This process of liquidation is continuing at an alarming rate with no relief in sight. It is no exaggeration to say that we are heading towards a national disaster in the midst of a world-wide disaster.
Before I came in to the chamber the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote) had given the declines which had occured in the annual revenue of agriculture from 1928-29 to 1930-31, but these figures will bear repeating. The loss during these three years amounted to $925,779,000. That being true one does not need to read any manifestos issued by any agricultural body or editorials written by agricultural editors to realize that such a loss in the purchasing power of the agricultural people will cripple the whole commercial community of Canada.
If we are desirous of raising the commodity price level to a point closer to the level of the prices the farmer must pay for the things he needs and to the debt level, we must find some way of doing it. I think many of us have come to the conclusion that one of the great reasons for this disparity is Canada's remaining on the gold standard while her chief customer and her chief competitor in agricultural products have long since dropped the gold standard and inflated their currency. I sometimes wonder just how long we are going to go on bleeding the agricultural and other primary industries of Canada. I quote again from the editorial in the Country Guide, which covers almost a whole page, as follows:
If the Canadian government were to abandon the gold standard temporarily and bring our currency to the basis of the British currency, the agricultural industry of Canada would receive a stimulus beyond what could be brought about by any other method now in sight. Practically all of our important competitors in agricultural products throughout the world, except the United States have gone off the gold standard.
Then again:
Our agricultural industry would benefit decidedly and immediately if our currency were placed upon a'parity with the British pound. It would help at once to reestablish the price

Farm Finance-Miss Macphail
level between agricultural products and other commodities in Canada and would bring immediate relief to the agricultural industry which would be felt throughout the whole commercial life of Canada.
When we in this corner of the house first started to advocate inflation, the rest of the members were certainly not impressed and thought it was very wild talk. One who has been here now for some years cannot help realizing that the house is gradually and possibly quite rapidly coming to see that inflation of our currency, the putting of more money into circulation, bringing the amount of money in circulation into relation to the goods in circulation and not out of relation as it is at the moment, is a sensible thing to do. May I presume to say that it is the thing that will be done and I would not be surprised to see this government do it. Two years ago I would have said that was impossible; a year ago I would have said it was impossible, but I do not say that now. It is possible that this government will do the very thing that we have for some time been advocating.


George Gibson Coote: The hon. member has a great deal of faith.


Miss MACPHAIL:: by increasing deposits and of our insurance and loan companies by the paying down of overdue mortgage interest.
7.	Such inflation would act as a stimulus to the security markets, and if Canadian internal high grade bonds were to sell on a four per cent basis, this would substantially increase values of securities and strengthen the reserves of our financial institutions.
8.	Certain industries, such as the newsprint industry, which sells a large part of its output in the United States, a gold standard country, would stand to benefit materially.
9.	It -would increase the premium receivable on gold production and thus stimulate this industry which, in turn, through the purchase of additional equipment, etc., would help the iron and steel and many other industries.
10.	Any improvement in the volume of business would be reflected in the traffic of our railroads, which are themselves another serious factor in the Canadian situation.
11.	The salutary effect in the Canadian west of an upward move in commodities would be of prime importance. It is impossible to procure full statistics on the western situation, but we understand that in Saskatchewan, for instance, over 46 per cent of all mortgages are at least one year in default of interest. It is estimated that an increase of 15 per cent in the price level of -wheat alone would net the western farmer from thirty to forty million dollars additional this year, and this extra return -would permit the paying down of mortgage and trade debts, as well as improving tax returns.
12.	It would provide added tariff protection to Canadian industry and prevent the dumping of goods by countries with depreciated currencies.
That is a very imposing list. It may impress even the hon. member for Weyburn.


Edward James Young: Not a bit.


Agnes Campbell Macphail: 
Alfred Speakman: It was a most extraordinary transaction.


Agnes Campbell Macphail: It was, and will be a very profitable one for the banks.
May I say to the Minister of Immigration (Mr. Gordon) that I appreciate his sincerity and sympathize with his earnestness in seeking to place on the land people who are destitute. I wish for his sake as well as for theirs that the scheme would prove success-

Farm Finance-Miss Macphail
ful, but I think it cannot succeed. It is not possible to put people on the land who have been off the land for some time, and for the most part putting them on poor land, with equipment not comparable to that of their neighbours, and expect them to succeed where those much better equipped in knowledge and otherwise have failed. I do not think it is possible. I was up at North Bay two or three weeks ago and the people in the township that runs right up to the city of North Bay told me the very same story that was told to this house to-night by the hon. member for North Battleford (Mr. McIntosh), of families brought there from southern Ontario in the spring, without any consultation with the municipality, people who were not in any way able to take care of themselves through the winter, and who only meant an added burden upon that municipality. I really think that that movement cannot succeed.
May I add this? I was astonished to hear the Minister of Immigration deplore "the hiving," as he called it, of people in the industrial centres. I had always thought that that was the very object of the smokestack policy that we have had in Canada for almost seventy years. We have done everything possible to drive people off the land and into the cities, so do not let us complain now if the thing has been successful. It is astonishing to hear anybody who during all these years has been advocating the pampering-I cannot think of a better word

of secondary industries express pity that people are now hiving in the industrial centres. We have done veiy well to keep anybody on the land in view of all the effort made to lure them away.
There is one other thing that I want to suggest as a method of relieving the present situation, and that is the lifting of federal taxation off the backs of the masses and putting it quite firmly on the .backs of the classes. I think that federal taxation should be applied pretty largely to incomes and inheritances. We all know that the difficulty of our age is the lack of distribution of goods. There are two groups in Canada and every other country which make the distribution of goods impossible. The one is the great mass of people, at the moment the unemployed and the underprivileged, whether on the land or in the cities, who wish to consume goods but have not the money ito pay for the goods they could quite easily consume. The other class consist of those people who, by the pampering of industry and finance which we have had for so long a time, have amassed more money than they can conveniently use. So we have these two classes, one with a 
capacity to buy but unable to consume sufficient to take the goods off the market, and the other with the capacity to consume but not the purchasing power. If we lifted the burden of federal taxation off the masses and put it on the people who have now too much money for our economic good, we would I think be helping very much to solve our present problems.
Then too, I think as time goes on, particularly if science and invention continue to make the strides in the next twenty-five years which they have made in the past, we must face the fact that hours of labour must be and will be lessened, while the purchasing power of the workers is sustained. One of the things that I deplore at the moment is that wages are being beaten down all over. Even people who do not need to lower wages are lowering them. The need of the people is being used as a club over their heads. In the long run that policy will hurt not only the people who are deprived of their purchasing power, but-those who have the goods which they wish to sell. I think anybody who is thinking about the problem sees quite clearly that if we are ever going to absorb our unemployed again we must lessen the hours of labour. I think that is sound. Possibly we have not got to the place where we like to think it, but at any rate I think we are going to get to that place. If we are going to continue to give special privileges to financial and industrial groups in this country-I am speaking now particularly of industrial groups-if we are going to continue to tax all the people for the sake of certain industrial enterprises which claim to be necessary to the national life of this country, we must see to it that the benefits which they receive are passed on down both to the general consumer who buys the goods and to the worker in the factory who produces the goods. We must see that wages are sustained and working hours lessened. I see no justification for continuing to give privilege to secondary industries in this country when the mass of the people are in the distress they are in today. I think it will not be long before this house will come to the conclusion that if industries are going to be pampered and petted the benefits they receive must be passed on down by them. Markets may be saved for them, but they must pay for the saving of those markets in reduced prices and sustained wages.


Alfred Speakman: The benefit of the machinery must be divided.


Agnes Campbell Macphail: 
An hon. MEMBER:: Will the hon. member do the same for the manufacturers?


Agnes Campbell Macphail: We have always done the same for the manufacturers, if my information is correct. Not only have we loaned money which will never be repaid, but we have pampered them all the days of my life, at any rate.
Now, for the remainder of the time at my disposal-and it is not very long-I wish to discuss the problem of unemployment. I feel that what I have so far advocated in my remarks up to this point would help to absorb the unemployed. But at the moment we are faced with a terrific problem of unemployment in Canada. We have to try to do something about it. There are certain classes of unemployed which cause me more concern than others. One of these is youth. When I think that in the last generation a- great many of the youth were killed or maimed beyond repair, and that this generation of youth in quite a different way are being injured beyond repair-


Mr. BOURASSA:: Morally and physically.


Agnes Campbell Macphail: Yes. Unless the despair *an be lifted from their hearts very shortly, many of them will never be the citizens they would otherwise have been. When you think that out of our schools and colleges there come about 100,000 a year, and that only a small percentage of them are finding real places in life, we come to realize the magnitude of this problem. These young people come out eager and more anxious then than at any other time to get into the adventure of life, and it is a very serious condition when they have not the opportunity to work.
We have heard lately a great deal about crime, criminals, penitentiaries, riots and that

Farm Finance-Miss Macphail
sort of thing. One of the difficulties is that we have overcrowding in our penitentiaries; there are many other things wrong. We have a penal system that is antiquated and that belongs to another age, not this one at all. But part of the trouble is due to overcrowding. The majority of people in our penitentiaries today are young people. The striving, eagerness and restlessness of youth will find an outlet, whether the policy of the government or the policy of the society in which we live will allow it a suitable outlet or not. They will find an outlet whether by quarrelling, thieving or whatever it may be. Anyone who has taught school knows you cannot have young, restless people doing nothing, and not have trouble result. It is unavoidable.
When I heard an hon. member deplore the fact that some young chap had held a gun under his nose, I concluded that such a condition was deplorable-especially if it was not the right nose. But on the other hand there is no use in blaming youth. There is no use in saying all we can do is to punish crime out of existence. That is nonsense; it cannot be done. While I believe there should be control and that there should be punishment as part of the process of reforming the individual, I believe also that punishment alone should not be resorted to. I know enough about youth to know that. Surely all of us who know young people know that the eagerness, the drive and the urge in youth will find an outlet, good or bad.
The second class that concerns me among the unemployed are the "young-o'ld" I named them myself-the people around fifty who with their experience and training and matured knowledge of life should be at the height of their usefulness. In far too many cases the unemployed are people around fifty, a disastrous age at which to make people feel useless and discouraged. Many such start the car in the garage and are found dead; or they jump into the river or take whatever seems [DOT] the best way out. At any rate they are despondent and despairing. I visited several shelters last winter, and it was one of the hardest things I have ever done, seeing people of all ages scurrying around to avoid saying a word to me, to avoid meeting me-I do not think it was just meeting me; I think it would have been the same with any hon. member who had gone there. They did not want to discuss their plight; they were ashamed, cowed, beaten. That is the worst possible thing that can happen to any group of citizens, and when it comes to the point that we must decide between the chances for youth, the

morale of great groups of our citizens, of the young-old, and finance, then it does not take me a moment to decide; I decide for humanity and human happiness, let it take what toll it will of accumulated wealth.
On motion of Mr. Ralston the debate was adjourned.



Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, with the consent of the house I desire to move, seconded by Mr. Rhodes:
That the provisions of standing orders 92 and 93 with regard to time limits for receiving petitions for private bills be suspended, and the first day of the present session in relation thereto be deemed to be the 30th January, 1933, instead of the 6th October, 1932.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Richard Bedford Bennett: I do not know whether it is the desire of the house that we should sit in the morning. Apparently it may not be possible to conclude the business this week, in view of the length of the discussions that have taken place. If it is the desire of the house that we should sit-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I move, seconded by Mr. Guthrie:
That when this house adjourns it stand adjourned until eleven o'clock tomorrow morning (Friday).


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I assume it is understood that the procedure with respect to supply will be the same tomorrow as it was on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Clearly, in view of the consent given today, it must be treated as being a day in which the motion has to be made for the Speaker to leave the chair. That is what I apprehend the right hon. gentleman means, and we shall treat it accordingly. If we get into supply we will have to proceed with some items at least. There are two bills left; one will be the second reading of the redistribution bill, which should not

15S7
Business oj the House
take long; the other may take longer. If we get into supply we might pass the non-contentious items, get through the other two bills, and then conclude with supply. I do not know whether it is possible for the house to conclude tomorrow or not. It would seem probable that it is not, in view of the discussions that have taken and will take place; but we will do our best in that regard, and meeting at eleven o'clock may assist to that end.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It is not for
me to make any suggestions to the Prime Minister-


Mr BENNETT:: I should be glad to hear them.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I imagine if we have the redistribution measure first, then the other bill, and then resume consideration of the motion for committee of supply, we would probably make more headway.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is what I gather, and I suggested that we should go into supply and pass some items first. In view of the present standing of the debate on the motion that the Speaker do now leave the chair, I assume lie will determine that we should proceed with that before we go to the bills. If not I am perfectly content to move the redistribution bill first.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Start with the redistribution bill.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I do not lmow whether we can or not, but if we can, we will.
On motion of Mr. Bennett the house adjourned at 10.58 p.m.
Friday, November 25, 1932