1932-10-21

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

Mr. DUFF:: 1.	Was any amount guaranteed to the chartered banks of Canada on account of the Beauharnois Light, Heat and Tower Company?
2.	If so, what amount?


Mr. RHODES:: 1.	Yes.
2.	$14,112,000, secured by first mortgage bonds of the company to a par value of twice the amount.


MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. PAUL MERCIER (St. Henri) moved:: For a copy of all correspondence, including petitions, letters, telegrams and all other documents exchanged between any member of the Dominion government or any official thereof and any member of parliament, provincial legislatures or municipal councils regarding the appointment of Mr. Thomas Maher as a member of the federal radio commission.


Mr. BENNETT:: Just what does the
motion mean? It reads:
. . . between any member of the Dominion government or any official thereof and any member of parliament, provincial legislatures or municipal councils . . .
Does it mean communications between members of parliament and the government? If that is what is meant, it is quite in order; otherwise, it is not.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I take it that is what it
means. Shall the resolution carry?


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. BRASSET:: For a copy of all the correspondence, letters, telegrams and other documents exchanged between Air. Francois Belanger, ex-lighthouse keeper, of Ste. Felicite. Matane county, and the lion. Minister of Marine and Fisheries, such documents to include copy of the inquiry, and the letter of Mr. William Russell, of Matane, county of Matane, dealing with the dismissal of Mr. Francois Belanger, as lighthouse keeper of Ste. Felicite, county of Matane, Quebec.
DUMPING DUTY ON GASOLINE On the orders of the day:


Mr. T. F. DONNELLY (Willow Bunch):: I wish to ask a question either of the Minister of National Revenue or of the Prime Minister. I notice in this morning's paper an article headed "Government Cancels Dumping Duty Imposed on United States Gasoline," which means about 2 cents a gallon. Is this report correct?


Hon. E. B. RYCKMAN (Minister of National Revenue):: Yes.
NEW GOVERNMENT LOAN On the orders of the day:


Hon. E. N. RHODES (Minister of Finance) :: Yesterday the hon. member for
North Waterloo (Mr. Euler) put a question to me which I was not able to answer fully at the time. I am now, however, in a position to make a definite answer. It has been decided to make a public issue, and it will be made as soon as the necessary preparations for a dominion-wide offering can be completed. It is proposed that it shall be handled by an organization similar to the one which did such excellent work in connection with the national service loan. That organization, which is being set up, I am happy to announce will be presided over by Sir Charles Gordon, president of the Bank of Montreal, who served so acceptably on the previous occasion. It would not be advisable at the moment to give a complete statement of details as to terms, rates and conditions, but the amount will be for the sum of $80,000,000, and the issue will be made probably on the 31st day of October. The contemplated financing will provide for the meeting of the balance at maturity amounting to the sum of $34,449,950, which is due on the first of November, being a residuum of the renewal of the old victory loan, which was renewed for a period of ten years in 1922. The balance will be used for purposes of the dominion, including Canadian
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National Railways financing which, as hon. gentlemen are aware, is now being made directly from the dominion treasury rather than through the form of guaranteed bonds which has obtained hitherto.


WHEAT BONUS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. CAMERON R. MoINTOSH (North Battlefordl:	May I direct a question to the
right hon. the Prime Minister? I have here six telegrams from six different parts of the North Battleford federal riding, the request in each telegram being for information from the government in connection with the wheat acreage or bushel bonus by way of compensating advantage to the wheat growers for 1932. The Prime Minister said the other day that the matter was under consideration by the government. May I ask him today whether he can give to- the house and the country an answer as to when he will make a definite statement one way or the other in regard to that question.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Early next week I shall probably make a statement.


LAKE FREIGHT RATES
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. ROBERT McKENZIE (Assiniboia):: 
Pierre Édouard Blondin: The first two questions
are not in order. As regards the next, it rests with the government whether it be answered.
Hon. II. H. STEVENS (Minister of Trade and Commerce):	Mr. Speaker, the rather
lengthy and rambling mixture of statement and question of my hon. friend cannot be answered in a moment. I may say that the whole question is under consideration, but I take this opportunity of saying that the government has not been a party to increasing rates, as implied in the hon. gentleman's statement.


IMPERIAL ECONOMIC CONFERENCE
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, October 20, consideration of the motion of Right Hon. R. B. Bennett (Prime Minister) for approval of the trade agreement entered into at Ottawa the 20th day of August, 1932, between representatives of His Majesty's government in Canada and of His Majesty's government in the United Kingdom, subject to the legislation required in order to give effect to the fiscal changes consequent thereon.
Mr. GROTE STIRLING (Yale):: When
adjournment intervened last evening I was referring to the duty imposed by the United Kingdom of four shillings and sixpence on apples, and I was suggesting that I could not understand the mentality of any fruit grower or of any spokesman of fruit growers who would be unable or unwilling to support the provisions of the treaty. I read with some interest the remarks of the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth (Mr. Ralston), the rather slighting remarks which he made yesterday, and I realized that he was but indulging once more in the hair-splitting which he so gloatingly enjoys. I wonder whether the apple grower in Nova Scotia would not be pleased and relieved if the hon. member in question would be man enough frankly to admit the benefit. Whoever suggested that Canada alone was going to benefit by these provisions? Are we not members of the empire, and was not the whole spirit of the conference, the intent which filled each delegate, that something would be accomplished which would be of benefit in its every part? All the time, ever since a suggested preference in the United Kingdom was mooted, we have known the attitude of the grower in the

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United Kingdom. He knows that he is not able to fulfil the needs of that market. He knows that South Africa, New Zealand and Australia ship their product at such times as will not conflict with his sale, and whilst he knows that the Canadian apple harvest synchronizes with his, and remembering that he is unable to supply the full quantity required, he would prefer to see the apples of Canada fill the need rather than those of the United States. I think it is generally known to hon. members that Canada exports her apples both in barrels and boxes. Canadian statistics are based on barrels, with a fraction of over three boxes being considered as one barrel. Nova Scotia exports in barrels while British Columbia exports in boxes, but these two methods of export do not conflict one with the other, on account of the fashions which rule the United Kingdom market.
During the negotiations prior to the adoption of this treaty the fruit representatives of the United Kingdom required to be shown to what extent the dominions could supply their needs. I should like to give the house a few figures based upon the average for the last five years and expressed in barrels. The United Kingdom approached the problem in this fashion: Our orchards vary in quality from those made up of old, gnarled trees which are not attended, pruned or sprayed to those grown under the most modern conditions; we produce 3,000,000 barrels and our imports amount to 4,333,000 barrels; if a duty is imposed on import apples, to what extent will the dominions be able to supply that required 4,333,000 barrels? It was found that Canada usually exported to England 1,500.000 barrels, Australia about 900,000 barrels, New Zealand about 200,000 barrels and a small quantity from South Africa. The plantings however, in the three latter countries in recent years, have been so extensive that an increased crop can be looked for which will find its most desirable market in the United Kingdom. The Unitedi Kingdom representatives became satisfied that, that increase, added to the increases which they expected in their own country and to that which Canada was able to persuade them would be forthcoming from this country, would largely supply their wants. That being the case, they were prepared to advise their government that they would not be opposed to the imposition of a duty of four shillings six pence per hundredweight, exemption being granted in favour of the empire.
Canada approached the problem in much the same fashion. Nova Scotia exports almost all her crop to the United Kingdom in barrels;
British Columbia exports a quantity varying from fifteen to thirty per cent of her crop in boxes; Ontario exports a lesser fraction while Quebec and New Brunswick largely sell in their own domestic markets. It was shown that the Canadian harvest synchronized with that in the United States and that there was great disability in marketing because of the fact that the quantity which they had to export to the United Kingdom came into competition upon the auction markets in that country with the large volume of apples coming from the United States. That country with its population of 120,000,000 has a very lucrative market of its own but it may astonish hon. members, as it did me, to know that thirty-seven states out of the forty-eight are commercial producers of apples. In an ordinary year that country has a surplus, in a year of abundant crops it has a great surplus and desiring to keep such surpluses off their own domestic markets producers have been accustomed to look to the English market as a place to dump their enormous surpluses. This dumping has been to the detriment of all other competitors in that market. In an effort to show that she would be able to increase her export quantity, Canada placed before the United Kingdom representatives the facts relating to her present production and what she saw in the immediate future. Without going into details as to marketing arrangement in British Columbia, I think it will be sufficient to say that so far as interior production is concerned, the shippers of ninety-five per cent of the crop have given an undertaking, backing their word with their bond, that each one will set aside a certain, definite proportion for the export market. In that wav it is anticipated that not only will the quantity be increased but that there will be considerable stability to the shipments.
There is another reason why British Columbia looks forward to the possibility of increasing her exports. In the past the demand in the United Kingdom has been for what we call a small apple, of which 163 are required to fill a box. It is true that that country has bought a certain number of carloads of 150's, the next size larger, but these purchases were usually made at a discount. However, early in the marketing season this year the dealers in the United Kingdom were offering to make firm purchases of both 163's and 150's at the same price, a thing which in my memory has never happened before. Before leaving home I was gratified to find that not only were they making firm purchases of 163's and 150's, but that they were also pur-
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chasing carloads of 138's, some 125's and even a few 113's. Up until this time the United Kingdom buyers would not look at an apple the size of a tennis ball but they are now not only accepting them but making further inquiries. These apples will not go on to the auction markets in the United Kingdom. How has that come about? They realized the effect of this treaty, they realized that if their ordinary chanels of trade were impeded they must immediately set up new channels. I venture to suggest that there has been no greater cause for the position which the British people have attained in the world than their readiness when convinced to make changes in their political, commercial and social life. They have not revolted, they have calmly faced facts and changed their processes.
The treaty now before the house has been conceived in a spirit of give and take. It might be likened to a foundation upon which a building is to be erected, but that foundation could not be laid so truly and properly if it were not for the spirit which fashioned the wish of every delegate. For the delegates assembled here in Ottawa met with one intent, but with a dual purpose: One purpose was that they would properly represent the country which sent them, and the other was that they should be representatives of the whole empire, so that if success is attained by the treaty, it may enable the British Empire to regain its commercial confidence and so influence the whole world.


Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I wish I had
the confidence in the agreements that was expressed by the last speaker (Mr. Stirling), but unfortunately my reading of the agreements does not permit me to believe the terms which we have had placed before us are sufficient to enable either Great Britain to regain the position which she held before the war or to enable us in this country to ma're any very substantial progress. There was one remark of the hon. member for Yale with which I heartily agree. He said that Great Britain was willing to make a change. It seems to me that it is that willingness which is essential at the present time in the very great crisis which the world faces, and yet I cannot see any indication that those in authority are willing to make changes sufficiently radical really to meet the needs.
In opening the conference the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) said:
We meet in days when the machinery of world commerce is out of gear. International finance has broken down; the old-fashioned industrial life to which we have grown accus-
IMr. Stirling.!
tomed has undergone a change. We move toward a n ew economic order of things. Our part in fashioning it depends in large measure upon the outcome of this conference.
Those words uttered by the Prime Minister as chairman of the conference contained profound truths; they expressed high hopes, but judged by the standards held out by the Prime Minister, the conference was a dismal failure. No one will doubt that world commerce is out of gear. In an article in the August number of the International Labour Review on world economic reconstruction, Mr. P. W. Martin writes:
The decline in the total volume of world trade during the last three years is without precedent in time of peace. Since 1929 the physical volume of international trade has fallen by a full third, the value by more than a half. There can be little question that the exchange and tariff barriers which have been imposed during recent months, while not wholly responsible, have certainly contributed to a large extent to bring about this situation. It is equally certain that, if these barriers continue to exist at anything like their present elevation, general economic recovery is practically impossible for many years to come. . . .
There is no indication in the agreements that the British Empire is lowering these barriers. What the agreement would tend to show is that the barriers are being maintained if not in many cases raised.
Sir Arthur Salter, who has been frequently quoted in this house, has placed the alternatives clearly before us. I think this passage was quoted by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), but it cannot be too strongly emphasized. Sir Arthur Salter said:
The world as a whole will either move toward a system in wdiich each country can exchange the products which it is best qualified to produce for those in respect of which other countries have corresponding advantages, or it will move toward an organization, national, imperial or regional, in which each unit will pursue the ideal of self-sufficiency, with their standard of living poorer for the loss of world trade. . . . We shall move as a whole to a world order in which each national unit will be a unit in the general commonwealth, or to a system of closed and, it may be feared, increasingly hostile units which will add immensely and incalculably to the risk of further wars.
I submit that the conference is a move in the direction of an organization, national, imperial or regional; that we are still pursuing the ideal of self-sufficiency, and that, in the words of Sir Arthur Salter, this will inevitably involve lower standards of living and it will develop hostile groups with undoubtedly war at the end of the road. Who can read history and believe there can be a continued

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increase of tariff walls and of alliances such as we are making without these leading inevitably to war?
In 1929, the group in this corner moved an amendment to the budget, urging that there should be a substantial increase in the British preference as a step towards freer trade relations between Canada and other nations. This agreement is not a step in that direction. It is a step backwards, towards less free intercourse between Canada and other nations. No one will doubt this. The Prime Minister himself said in his Calgary speech:
Nations outside of the empire would be asked to pay some tribute for the privilege of trading within the empire.
Such then is the great imperial policy of this government. In the Prime Minister's opening speech he admitted that international finance had broken down. I ask: Did the conference do anything to rehabilitate international finance or imperial finance or even national finance? Nothing whatever. There was issued by the committee on monetary and financial questions a report which was a tightrope performance and meant little or nothing. It was about as enlightening as the communiques issued to the press during the conference by the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Manion). It meant that we simply stalled on this question which is one of the most vital questions before the country at the present time, and the fact that the conference took no action and that an international conference has been called, is made a reason for our refusing to take any action now towards setting our own domestic monetary affairs in order.
We still face the enormous burden of debts, public and private, which are sinking us ever and ever deeper. I cannot think we can go on very much longer pyramiding these debts without coming to a very serious impasse. At this time our governments, whether federal or provincial, can think of no better way out of our difficulties than to cut down on wages and services and in this way reduce even further the consuming power of the people. Let me point out that such reductions, however disastrous from the economic standpoint, work a very great and unequal hardship upon the people of this country. We heard a good deal last session about equality of sacrifice. I remember seeing a cartoon in an English paper which depicted a ladder reaching up out of a deep morass, and people having different ranges of income were represented as standing on different rungs of the ladder. The man at the top was in perfect safety, but the poor man on the bottom rung had his chin
just above the water, and then the government in the name of equality said, "Equal sacrifice: everybody one step down!" One step down for the man at the top did not mean very much, but for the poor man on the bottom rung it meant that he was absolutely submerged. That is the kind of equality of sacrifice that at the present time we are being asked to make.
As has been said, again and again, we are experiencing poverty in the midst of plenty. It seems to me that this idea of saving has become almost a mania with us. We have brought it rlown from the early pioneer days when there was a lack of abundant production, but the idea of saving, which may have been a good policy in those days, is suicidal today. It is something like rationing out fresh water when the drinking supply is running low on the high seas, and the captain hands out in a parsimonious way a cup of water a day to each man on board. In the meantime his boat approaches a shore from which run out great rivers of fresh water, so that he is in reality sailing in fresh water. He might allow the sailors to let down buckets and draw up fresh water to any extent they like, but instead of drawing on the abundant supply around him he still maintains this well established policy of rationing out fresh water in small cupfuls. In this age, with an abundance of production, it seems to me absolute stupidity to condemn people to hardship by continuing this policy of cutting down instead of adopting the other policy of spending generously. Particularly is this absurd when by a policy of more generous spending we would solve the economic problem.
The Prime Minister in his opening remarks said, "We move towards a new economic order of things." I believe that thoroughly. We do move towards a new economic order in spite of the efforts, I would say, of the Prime Minister and the representatives of the old order at the imperial conference. It is just barely possible that an agreement such as this may hasten the process because it is so very bad. If that is true we might be justified in voting in favour of it in order to hasten the process! There is nothing to indicate that those who drew up the agreement are definitely and consciously moving in the direction of a new economic order of things.
The conference offers no solution of any one of our major problems. Take the question of unemployment. So far as we can learn, it was not even discussed at the conference. The people have been fed on promises for some years past. We all know the old trick of
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dangling a carrot before a donkey's nose. Several years ago the Prime Minister said that if he were elected the unemployment question would be solved. He was elected and unemployment was not solved. Then it was said that if we had higher tariffs, unemployment was to be solved. We had higher tariffs and nothing happened. Then it was promised that if we could only have an imperial conference everything would go right. But there has been no material change since the conference except perhaps in a few individual articles. I should be very happy if the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling) were right and the apple growers in British Columbia are in a better position, but on the whole there has been no material change, and it is admitted that unemployment today is greater than it has ever been before.
This imperial conference which was played up so much and on which such large sums of money were spent has come and gone, and the promises which were held forth do not seem to be in the way of fulfilment. Indeed, so far as I can read the schedules, advantage has been taken of the conference to stabilize higher tariffs, and that at the expense, of course, of the consumers.
In the twenty-first report of the Imperial economic committee on imperial industrial cooperation it is stated:
We consider that the scrutiny by governments of agreements which involve tariff adjustments, would protect the unorganized body of consumers. Nor do we imagine that there is any fear of agreements being made of such a kind as to block natural and economic lines of development.
That was the hope expressed before the conference. As a matter of fact, so far as one can see, the consumers have no safeguards whatever, and there is nothing to prevent the blocking of natural and economic lines of development.
Article 11 of the agreement reads:
His Majesty's government in Canada undertake that during the currency of this agreement the tariff shall be based on the principle that protective duties shall not exceed such a level as will give United Kingdom producers full opportunity of reasonable competition on the basis of the relative cost of economical and efficient production, provided that in the application of such principle special consideration shall be given to the case of industries not fully established.
We in Canada have heard much about infant industries for a great many years, and we know how long these infant industries persist in remaining infants. With regard to the first clause of the article, I would suggest 
that this principle of reasonable competition based on relative cost of economical and efficient production is wholly illusory. The principle was dealt with in a most devastating fashion by Sir Arthur Salter, and as the Prime Minister has quoted him as one who, in his own words, ranks "as one of the foremost authorities in the world at the moment" and as the Conservative party is evidently giving considerable attention to his statements, I should like to quote a few paragraphs from his book, Recovery. He says:
A so-called scientific tariff usually means one which is based on the principle of compensating for differences in costs of production. This either represents a mere fallacy, or it is a policy destructive of international trade in anything except the few things that cannot be produced at home at any cost however exorbitant-such as rubber in England or America. For why does any one ever buy anything from abroad if it is not because he gets a given article at a lower price-or a better article at a given price? Abolish this advantage and why should any one buy from abroad at all?
Indeed, if we believe in international trade, the only mitigating circumstance about what are usually called "scientific tariffs" is that they never are in fact scientifically framed and applied, for if they were trade would disappear. But if this is not their principle, what is? Let us face frankly the fact that the operative principle underlying the flexible, varied and changing system is usually just this, and nothing more; that those interests which are so organized as to exercise the strongest political pressure get protection, or the highest rates of protection, at the expense of the rest of the community.
I think that the tariff schedules will bear out what Sir Arthur Salter so well said. He goes on:
The evil consequences are illimitable. Time, energy, attention, money that should be devoted to improving processes, are devoted to persuading politicians. The system offers the highest rewards, the richest spoils, to those who can most successfully corrupt the government. The machine of government itself-in the widest sense, including the ministry, the civil service, the parliament, and the electorate -cannot under these conditions, and does not, remain honest and competent enough to perform its primary tasks. So long as our system is based at all upon competition, the first task of government is to determine and enforce the rules under which that competition takes place. It is a task of a policeman who maintains an equal law, or of an umpire in charge of the ring. But if the policeman is to spend half his time in dexterously transferring money from one citizen's pocket to another, if the umpire is expected on sufficient persuasion to jump the ropes and administer a stimulant to one of the contestants and a sudden blow or kick to the other, he will have neither the time-nor the character-nor the public respect, which he needs for his primary duties. And the complexity of the essential tasks of government under modern conditions strains to the utmost

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the limited resources of man's regulative wisdom, competence, and public honesty; there is no margin to spare. . . .
Of course this agreement must be ratified by parliament. But, I ask, has parliament any real power? As we go through these formalities I am reminded of an article which appeared last year in the Ottawa Journal under the heading "The Holy Show ef Parliament." We are becoming what might very well be termed a holy show; parliament is becoming a farcical affair. At the Imperial economic conference the governments stood revealed as the servants, the functionaries of big business. As I read the reports from day to day I could not but think the Imperial economic conference was little more than a glorified board of trade. There were no Canadian labour men represented; there were no farmers; the public generally was not represented at the conference. The corridors of the Chateau Laurier were crowded with business men, lobbyists. Possibly the general public could take a peep in at the windows-at least at the social functions, but they had very little part to play in the agreements arrived at. Essentially it was an arrangement between business men and those who represented primarily the interests of business men.
I fear that the economic conference was not altogether the beautiful idealistic love-feast portrayed by the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling). I wish it could be truthfully said that everyone was there in the interests of all the people. I think, rather, that to a considerable extent it was an attempt to exploit national or imperial sentiment in the interests of certain favoured industries. Possibly some would think that such action was justified, since Canadian industries were concerned. Even on that basis however may I point out to the house that a very large number of American interests were represented at Ottawa at the time of the Imperial conference. We all know that some of the strongest advocates of the so-called British preference are managers of American branch firms anxious to get in under preferential rates so that they may make more money for their American principals.
On November 19, 1931, I happened to be in the British House of Commons, and was very much interested to read the following question appearing on the order paper for that day:
To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he proposes to take powers, if necessary, to stop foreign firms coming to this country to manufacture goods so as to evade the imposition of duties by the Board of Trade
on imports, and thus render it impossible for such foreign firms to take moneys out of this country in the nature of profits made by them.
If we were to carry out a policy such as there suggested, where would Canada be today? If we prohibited foreign firms coming in here to exploit our Canadian national resources and to send the profits to the other side of the line, what would be the result? There is a great deal of hyprocrisy in this so-called patriotism and imperialism,-hypocrisy that ought to be exposed. Further, even the interests of certain Canadian firms do not by any means represent those of their employees or the public generally.
Coming to the present time, when the agreements are being considered by parliament, I ask whether there is any reality to our deliberations. The Prime Minister is perfectly sure of his followers; he has a sufficiently large majority to see to it that the agreements are put through, no matter what the vocal opposition of hon. members opposite may be. His followers may have their doubts; I am quite sure a great many at least from the west have doubts. They may grumble, but what else can they do? They are going to support the Prime Minister. And so we have the curious spectacle of an agreement made by a comparatively small number of individuals foisted upon the people of Canada without any real opportunity for the people generally to express themselves. The agreement is to stand for a period of five years during which time there may readily be a change in parliament, or very great disapprobation expressed by the people. Yet such changes or disapprobation would not affect the situation.
I take it at the present time we are witnessing the transformation of a great political institution. Under the American constitution, as originally drafted, the people were supposed to elect an electoral college of wise men, and these men were to select a president. As a matter of fact that indirect form of election did not work out, and today the electoral college does not amount to anything. It simply registers the result of the big fight between rival political machines. I think anyone will admit that. The electoral college, an integral part of the constitution of the United States as originally drafted, became simply a useless bit of machinery. We know that it is the fight throughout the country waged by the political parties that determines who is to be president.
In our British institutions I think we are witnessing much the same transformation;
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certainly that is so in so far as parliamentary procedure in Canada is concerned. With us, parliamentary elections are becoming simply a means of deciding who for the next five years will be the big boss. Is that not true? It is an almost humiliating position for us members to be in, as elected representatives of the people of Canada. Very soon some of us, if we are to maintain our self-respect, will have to tel! our constituents that it is practically useless to send us here. We have before us an agreement which no doubt the promoters sincerely believe to be of advantage to the country, but the members of parliament have not one chance in ten thousand of making any change in it. The Conservative followers are committed to support their leader.


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: Whether
they like it or not.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes, whether they like it or not they are practically committed to support their leader. During the eleven years I have sat in the house I can recall of only three men who, on major questions, broke with their parties-only three. Not one of those men was allowed to remain in the house. That is a rather serious situation. No matter how we may talk about the freedom of members of parliament-and I am not particularly blaming the followers of the present administration-I must point out that the practice I have described, one which has fastened itself upon this country, is becoming almost part of our constitution and this is subversive of anything like democracy. Men are elected by machine methods. There are great campaign funds which, if not supplied by great corporations, are supplied by private individuals. So when members come into parliament they are almost honour bound to stick by those who secured their election. Everyone knows perfectly well that it is as much as any man's political life is worth for anyone from the government side of the house to oppose this measure or any part of it.
Let me say further that when the present administration was elected it was on other questions than those which are before the house at present. They were not elected to deal with this agreement; they were elected on questions such as unemployment, yet advantage has been taken of the fact that a Conservative, high tariff government is in power and that a high tariff party has come into power in the old country to put

over on the people of this country a high tariff program with which it is proposed to saddle the country for the next five years and, in some instances, possibly for ten years. What can the official opposition and the members of the independent groups do to alter matters ? We can talk; we can plead, but that is all. I think the leader of the opposition is right that the schedules should be discussed in committee in order that the public generally may be advised as to what really is inherent in them. But supposing we do discuss these schedules in committee; supposing we spend three weeks discussing them. At the end of that time the agreement will go through, because as we all know the government has staked its life on it. Hence there is an unreality about any discussion of the agreements from which no one can very well get away. I wonder how long the people of Canada will be content with shadow-boxing of this kind, with sending representatives here, as they imagine, for deliberative purposes when in reality we come here simply to go through an elaborate stage performance, and then go home again with nothing in reality accomplished. I submit that if parliamentary elections are held only as a very costly and elaborate method of selecting a dictator, the people should know it. There is a very much easier way of attaining that end. For example, we could cut down the number of members of this electoral college to about ten per cent of the present membership of parliament. We could accomplish the same end in a great many different ways.
Surely we can get no further with the solution of the problems that confront us until men come here who in reality are free to vote in accordance with their convictions not only with regard to general policies but with regard to the particular issues that com>
before this house from time to time. I come back to those words of the Prime Minister, who, said, "We move towards a new economic order of things." It does seem as though we have come to the birth and there is not power to bring forth; as if at the present time all over the country men in dire circumstances, greatly embarrassed by the conditions in which they find themselves, are turning for relief this way and that way and finding none; longing for a new order, yet unable to achieve it. They have a right to look to members of parliament for some help

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but parliament is impotent at this time of great crisis.
There are people all over the country who are saying that we will have to resort to other than parliamentary means. Can you very much blame them when year after year things drift along this way? I may say very frankly, Mr. Speaker, that I have had the opportunity of addressing a great many labour audiences across the country, and at the conclusion of almost every meeting, when there is opportunity given for questions, I am asked, "What are we to do about it?" If I suggest parliamentary action they simply laugh and say, "Can you expect us to starve for another four, five or six years until there is a change of government, when possibly something may be done for us?" That is their attitude.
I do urge that this economic conference was called in the hope that it would solve some of the great problems confronting the empire today, but I repeat that it has not solved any of them. It has made it more difficult for us to secure international trade; it has made it less likely that any sort of international arrangements may be worked out which will re-establish a better economic condition throughout the world. What is more immediately important to us, it has left domestic affairs even more complicated and less hopeful than they were before the conference met.
That is the situation as I see it, and I come particularly to those whom I primarily represent, the labour people. What is there for them in the result of the economic conference? It may be that one or two factories may employ a few more men; it may be that a few apple growers will sell a little more fruit, and to that extent I suppose this agreement is an advantage, but those are very small matters especially when we consider that those who benefit are doing so largely through other arrangements which are loading an even heavier burden upon the consumers of this country. I revert to the primary matter of which I spoke. It was hoped that the conference would help in the solution of one of our great economic problems, unemployment-but at present we are facing unemployment to a very serious extent, and apparently nothing is ahead of us in the nature of a solution. We cannot very well support an agreement of this kind when it makes no provision for bettering the lot of the common people of this country. We are not voting against every particular item in it; let no one make that statement. We 53719-28
are forced to say yes or no, and looking at the matter in a large way, from a'Canadian standpoint, we must say no; looking at the matter from the international standpoint, we must say no.
Let me conclude, Mr. Speaker, with the appeal that this house must not dissolve or adjourn until these great problems facing us at home, the problems of debt, of unemployment and of how our people are to get through this coming winter, receive adequate consideration.
Hon. RAYMOND D. MORAND (East Essex):	Mr. Speaker, I wish to preface the
few remarks I propose to make today with a word of appreciation of the great work and study that were devoted to the task with which this government were faced when the conference met in Ottawa. One cannot but marvel at the quiet, efficient manner in which preparations were made to secure the necessary data and information with which to meet the trained experts and negotiators from the other parts of the empire. I also wish to congratulate the government upon that wholesome, friendly hospitality shown those who were visiting in this city. I am sure the unostentatious, quiet and dignified way in which that hospitality was extended reflected the culture and manners of this country.
We have just heard another of the speeches with which we have now become quite familiar, from my hon. friend from Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth). It seems that in his makeup he has a great deal of that well known quality of anti-ism. I have sat here for a few sessions and have searched my memory in vain to recall a single proposition brought into the house with which he could agree. Everyone is out of step but the hon. gentleman. In particular I find him labouring under a positive hatred for, an obsession against political parties; yet no man has devoted more time during the last summer than he has done parading from one end of the country to the other-doing what? Organizing a political party. He does not hesitate to look across the floor of the house and accuse us of being party-bound; he says that we dare not vote according to our conscience and conviction. I resent that and resent it most thoroughly. Speaking for myself, and I think that in this I speak for the run of Conservatives, yes, and Liberal member# as well, the convictions of members of parliament far transcend any party, and any government that would dare to fly in the face of the general policy laid down, by which its

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members are elected, would find its supporters strong enough to express their views and vote as their conscience dictated.
One would fancy that every little question that came up in the house must be settled by referendum-parliament by referendum. We had a taste of that sort of thing in Ontario and we do not want any more of it. Surely when this party was returned to parliament with a majority there was no question in the minds of the people that it was a protectionist party, and as such it has undoubtedly fulfilled that which it said it would do, when it has maintained protection as protection and not as a sham.
Yesterday I listened with a great deal of interest to the excellent speech made by the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Moore), a measured, serious, [DOT]well-thought-out speech, and I could not help thinking as I heard him that he could have made it much better from this side of the house, much more freely and under much less restraint.


Mr. YOUNG:: How did you like the conclusion?


Mr. MORAND:: But there are one or two little items in his speech to which I wish to refer. At. page 402 of yesterday's Hansard-*


Mr. McINTOSH:: He did some pretty good batting there.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: -the hon. gentleman said:
An lion, member the other day said that this side of the house welcomed all the free items in the proposed agreements. I, for one do not welcome all of them, and I am quite sure that there are many members on both sides of this house who do not welcome them. Let me give a few illustrations. Here is the new item 438a, b, e, motor vehicles, free. . . . Then 438b, motor cycles, free. I am opposed to that also and 1 will tell you why. Turn back to old tariff item 420 and you will find that bicycles are 20 per cent. Now, that is unfair taxation. If you are a rich man and can afford a motor ear or a motor cycle, you can bring them in free of customs duty. If you are a poor lad and cannot afford even a motor cycle but must do your own pedalling, you have to pay 20 per cent.
The hon, gentleman, in making that statement, strove to fashion a two-edged sword. First he wished to create a doubt in the minds of his own constituents that quite .possibly importations of automobiles would hurt employment in his own city; secondly, in an appeal which we hear very often now from the other 3ide of the house, an appeal to class, he hoped to use the other edge of the sword, to have the poor man who would have to do his own pedalling understand that he would have to pay 20 per cent on his bicycle. In order to

fashion that two-edged sword, it was necessary for him to draw upon an item that was never mentioned in the agreement-420. And the strange part of it is that the pedaller will keep on pedalling his bicycle at exactly the same rate of duty that- he pedalled under the freedom of trade Liberal government on the other side. There is not a particle of difference. But the hon. gentleman might have gone a little further. He might have pointed out that the automobile manufacturers got a preference in England under the McKenna duties-20 per cent ad valorem-preference in Ceylon, Hongkong, Malta, Straits Settlements, and the lowest rate to any country in South Africa, also preference in the other dominions, all of which will have the effect of giving more work in his own city and more work in my city, as well as in every city that is dependent today upon the manufacture of automobiles. But, further, he might have pointed out that it will provide the possibility cf manufacturing more units and will reduce the price of automobiles to consumers within the empire.
This treaty deals with trade. Now, much is said today about trade, and catchwords are just as effective today as possibly they ever were. And our hon. friends opposite are very apt in coining catch phrases. They talk about the freedom of trade. I believe that much of the talk today about trade has become more or less a fetish with the peoples of the world. Trade for the sake of trade, trade in goods which we can manufacture or grow in our own country, is trade only for the purpose of motion, and the only ones who profit by such trade are the transportation companies, the brokers and the money changers. On the other hand, trade between countries in those products that cannot be prcperly manufactured or grown or developed at home is the only trade that has any value, and that, I believe, is the type of trade that has been furthered by this agreement.
The leader of the opposition, in his speech the other day, defined the policy of his own party, and incidentally of the Conservative party, when he said:
The Liberal party has always advocated greater freedom of trade. When it has advocated a tariff, it has been a tariff for revenue, protection being only incidental. The Liberal party has never advocated protection. Hon. gentiemen opposite have always advocated a policy of protection.
The right ben. gentleman, in giving his definition, undoubtedly gives it as he sees the position and as his party sees it; but in its application it is quite different. He can smile

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with the same smile of approval at the free trade tirades of our friend from Weyburn (Mr. Young) and also smile approvingly at the cautious and well-studied protectionist speech of our friend from Ontario. We have no quarrel with the leader of the apposition as regards his definition of the policies of the Conservative party. That policy has been definitely endorsed by the people of Canada. It is a policy of protection and even the least among its followers without difficulty can explain it, adhere to it and fight for it.
However, protection is a relative matter. Protection, like everything else must be sufficient only to perform that duty which it is intended to perform-protection must protect. Protection beyond the point where it protects becomes licence, but that is not the way the protective policy of this party has been applied. Time and time again we hear from the other side of the house the statement that the tariff policy of this party is the cause of the conditions under which we are now labouring.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Mr.   MORAYD@: Hear, hear! From that same side and likely from the same hon. members I have heard it said that we got into power upon unemployment and the miseries of the people.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: Hear, hear!


Edward James Young: You traded on it.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: It has been said that that is the way we got into power, because of unemployment, because of misery and because of poverty, and yet in the next breath they say that we are responsible for present conditions.


Mr. HEAPS:: Have conditions improved
during the past two years as a result of your policy?


Raymond Ducharme Morand: They would have been much worse under the jurisdiction either of my hon. friend or hon. members opposite. Everything possible to be done has been done.


Edward James Young: Answer the question.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: I have answered the
question.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Have	conditions become
better or worse?
Mr. MORAY7D: When I listen to the hon. gentleman I often wonder how circumscribed is his reading. I wonder if he has ever heard of the food riots in Belfast and of the conditions in the United States?


Edward James Young: Answer the question.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: I am answering the question. I wonder if the hon. gentleman ever has heard of conditions in free trade England and in Germany?


Edward James Young: Answer the question.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: Surely our party is not to be held responsible for conditions throughout the entire world. I live quite close to the United States border and I know that our condition, bad as it is, is far better than that of the United States. Our people have been taken care of. possibly not in the way they would have been in prosperous times, and I know that in our city, probably the worst hit, no one has suffered from actual want or hunger.
I wonder if those hon. gentlemen who are so prone to ascribe these conditions to the high tariff policy ever try to visualize what conditions would be if a policy of protection had not been in force in this country?


Edward James Young: Much better.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: What would be the effect of the dumping of distress goods and cheap labour goods upon this market?


Edward James Young: The people would get the
things they need.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: The hon. gentleman has
divided his world into two very definite parts; on the one side he has a wheat field with a toll gate and then on the other he has the rest of the world. Unfortunately Canada is not made up entirely of wheat fields and she is not the only wheat field in the world. If we grew nothing else but wheat it would be very easy to abolish the toll gate, but we produce other things. There are other people in this country besides wheat growers who must live by means other than the growing of wheat.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: That is pretty well
answered.


Edward James Young: No, he has not answered
at all.


James Dew Chaplin: He never will answer you.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: I have not yet arrived at that state of international feeling where I believe that a country such as Canada with ten millions of population can force the rest of the world to amend its tariffs.


Edward James Young: We can show a little common sense in our own affairs.


Mr. STEVENS:: Order.
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Raymond Ducharme Morand: I suggest to my hon.
friend that his volubility might have been better used upon his own leader during the time he was in power. During that period country after country built up tariff walls which closed their markets to Canada. The United States, Germany, France, Italy and even England closed their markets to Canada.


Edward James Young: Did they get rich by that
action?


Raymond Ducharme Morand: In the face of such action are we to open our markets? Are we to sacrifice our people upon the altar of example to the rest of the world? I have not yet reached that spirit of international idealism, nor do I believe have the people of Canada.
The best that could be done under present conditions was done by this government, and I believe when the conference was held all these different matters were taken into consideration. I believe that the results of that conference, though they may not cover completely the entire field of trade, though they may not be the final word in accomplishments yet to come, have been well worth while. In my own constituency I can see many improvements; I can see much that will help and much that will stabilize conditions. I can see the tomato growers with a greater opportunity to get rid of their products; I can see the tobacco growers with an assured market for ten years; I can see the fruit growers with a greater chance to dispose of their fruit and I can see the automobile manufacturers with an opportunity not only to supply Canada but, because of the fact that trade outlets have been opened below the equator, so to diversify their manufacturing as to provide work over a greater period of the year.


Edward James Young: You cannot see the consumers at all.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: I should like to know who are the consumers my learned friend always talks about?


Edward James Young: The ten million people in
Canada.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: Those ten million are not made up of wheat growers only. As a matter of fact there are far more engaged in other pursuits than that to which my hon. friend apparently has circumscribed his entire attention.


Edward James Young: They are all suffering from this policy.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: This government has
stood at the gates day and night to see that this country was not flooded with the distress goods from other highly protected countries. I am thankful that this government has taken upon itself a full knowledge of the trust given to it by the people, to protect and look after the Canadian people. I believe that it is the duty of all governments, first of all, to look after the people they are elected to govern and then after the Canadian people have been fully safeguarded, by cooperation, coordination or otherwise to help the other parts of the empire or other countries in the world. I believe this government has well fulfilled that duty. I again express my appreciation of their wisdom and fidelity and, to use words similar to those uttered by the Prime Minister, I say: You have done well.


Mr. WILLIAM DUFF (Antigonish-Guys-borough):: Mr. Speaker, the people of Canada always regard imperial conferences as events of vital interest, because at those meetings representatives from all parts of the British Empire meet to discuss matters of primary concern to the dominions and to the empire as a whole. When Sir Wilfrid Laurier, as Prime Minister of this country, represented Canada at the imperial conference at London, it was conceded by everyone, no matter what his political persuasions might be, that he represented Canada truly and well. The same thing also applies to the occasion when Sir Robert Borden, as Prime Minister of this country, W'ent to London on similar business. It also applies to the time when the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen was Prime Minister of this country in 1920-21 and when he attended the imperial conference in one of those years. I believe my good friends on the other side of the house and the Canadian people as a whole will also agree with me that when my leader, the present leader of the opposition, the leader of the Liberal party (Mr. Mackenzie King), was chosen Prime Minister of Canada and attended several imperial conferences at London, Canada was proud of him and his action at those conferences.
Then in 1930 we had a general election. Before the election was called, it was known that an imperial conference was to take place in the fall of that self-same year. The Canadian people decided, as they had a perfect right to do, to change governments, and the Liberal government, which had been in power for eight years, was overthrown, and the Conservative government put into power under the leadership of the present Prime

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Minister (Mr. Bennett). Knowing that the Imperial conference was to be called, and knowing that it was quite possible or within the probabilities that he might have to go to London and represent Canada at that conference, the present Prime Minister went on the different platforms from the Pacific to the Atlantic preaching a policjr, not entirely of protection, but of higher and higher tariffs. Within a month after he was elected and his party came into power, a special session of parliament was called. Knowing, as I said a moment ago, that within a very few weeks he would have to attend an imperial conference at London, he asked us at that session to increase the tariff, and due of course to the fact that he was elected on that policy and that he had behind him a majority in this house, the tariff was raised to a very considerable extent. My right hon. friend proceeded to the conference and we know exactly what happened there. He made his proposal to the British government or to the delegates of the British government assembled at that conference. His proposition was turned down and he came back to Canada without any result from the conference.
This year another conference was summoned, which met in the capital city of our fair country. During the debate since these agreements have been laid on the table of the house, and since the Prime Minister has moved his motion asking us to approve or disapprove them, the discussion to a certain extent has been a fair one. I have no objection in the world to the Prime Minister taking credit to himself for what he thinks he has got out of those agreements, because we are all human, we are all perhaps a little egotistical, and I do not mind my right hon. friend in his speech, although it may not have been quite fair to say, as reported on page 110 of Hansard:
"And despite the unpatriotic efforts made by some to create the impression that the primary interests of each of the delegations was to benefit its own empire state. . .
I do not think those words are quite fair. It makes no difference what our political leanings are, whether we are Conservative or Liberal or belong to any other party in this country, whilst we may once in a while sneer at one another or say something which we would not say in personal conversation, yet I think, sir, you will agree with me when I say that every man or woman in Canada is patriotic and believes in the British Empire. As I said a moment ago, as regards the remark made by the Prime Minister in his speech
"that he had succeeded where the Liberals had failed," I have no objection to that; if you or I, sir, had been in his place we might have used similar words. In the course of the debate when my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) and my hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Manion) spoke and when they were replied to by the ex-Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) and the exMinister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), I think all will agree that the debate was carried on in a very gentlemanly manner.
But the Prime Minister was called to accept a degree in the university of New York, a degree to which I am sure he was fully entitled. I think it was a good idea for the Prime Minister to get away from the worries of office for a day or two, because "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." But before taking his departure, I think he should have left word with some of his subordinates in the cabinet that they should be very careful how they spoke in his absence, because practically before the Prime Minister had boarded his train for Albany, New York, we noticed that my hon. friend the Solicitor General (Mr. Dupre) rose in the house and made a speech. As I said a moment ago, before the Solicitor General made his speech, the debate was being carried on in a very gentlemanly and proper manner, but what were the first words of the Solicitor General? He sneered at the fact that the ex-Minister of Justice had made the remark that he had wanted to see the conference a success. Oh, no, he said, that was not true at all; the exMinister of Justice and other Liberals in this country did not want the conference that met at Ottawa in July to be a success. He quoted from several newspapers, Liberal newspapers he called them, and no doubt he was correct in that assumption. One was Le Soleil and the other, if I am not mistaken, was Le Canada of Montreal. Of course, "when the cat's away, the mice will play," but the mice should be very careful when they come out of their holes, how they play. I regret exceedingly that the Solicitor General made that speech and referred to the remarks contained in those two Liberal newspapers. I think hon. members will agree with me that those are not the only two newspapers in Canada that published remarks and editorials regarding the Imperial conference either before it met or while it was in session. If I quote from other newspapers I do so because the Solicitor General has given the lead. Nobody
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Imperial Conference-Trade Agreements
will accuse the Montreal Gazette of being a Liberal newspaper. What does the Gazette say about the Imperial conference:
Among those most competent to judge the position, the impasse which has been reached is attributable very largely to the Canadian Prime Minister's disposition to keep the preparation of Canada's case and the actual negotiations wholly in his own hands, the only exceptions to this rule being such assistance as he accepts from a single departmental adviser.
I wonder who that might be. There were rumours around Ottawa that the Prime Minister did not even consult his departmental advisers and that some members of his cabinet were not at all pleased at the Prime Minister receiving advice from a particular person. The Gazette goes on:
Such a course lends itself easily to the commission of mistakes, and it is an open secret that mistakes have been made.
This is from the Montreal Gazette, not from Le Soleil or Le Canada. It goes on:
The Prime Minister has acted, no doubt, with the best of intentions. He called the conference. It is his habit to centralize all government business in his own office, and he has endeavoured to apply to the Imperial economic conference the same method which he has follow'ed in the conduct of domestic affairs.
What does the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) or the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Sutherland) say to that? The Gazette gees on:
With all Mr. Bennett's ability and energy, the task is too great, and the results have shown that participation by other ministers, and by industrial and financial leaders outside the government, would have prevented in large measure the errors which have occurred. The situation is an anxious one. If it is not remedied, the conference will close with the two empire units chiefly concerned, namely, Great Britain and Canada, sharing only in its lesser achievements.


Mr. SHAVER:: May I ask if the hon. gentleman has read the editorial in the Gazette of Wednesday last which commends very highly the work done by the representatives of Canada at the Imperial conference and its results?


William Duff: Yes, I did read that editorial, but I am referring now to what the Gazette said during the conference and what the Solicitor General said, and I think what my hon. friend had better do is to get the Solicitor General by the ear and keep him out in the corridors. Perhaps my hon. friend who has just interrupted with a pertinent question knows of a paper called the Winnipeg Tribune. It is a Conservative paper. What does it say?

Mr. Bennett's position is distinctly vulnerable. The public will soon realize that the vanity and egotism of the Premier, and his weakness in trying to run a one-man show are a menace to Canada, not only at the conference but everywhere else.
Let me go a little further since the Solicitor General has brought newspapers into this debate. The conference is over. We were hoping that something would be done at that conference. What does the Ottawa Journal say of it? Here is an English view of the Imperial conference, taken from the Ottawa Journal:
Mr. A. J. Cummings, the worthy representative of the News-Chronicle, of London, does seem to have had a bad time during his recent visit to Ottawa covering the Imperial economic conference. "As long as I live," he wrote in a recent issue of his paper, "I shall never forget the disgust and loathing revealed on the faces of exhausted delegates at the final plenary session in parliament house. In less than a week all the beautiful imperial talk of imperial unity and imperial sacrifice had been wiped off the slate with a dirty sponge."
Those are not the words of Le Soleil or Le Canada, but of Mr. Cummings of the News-Chronicle.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: I have allowed the hon. member latitude to answer the Solicitor General, but the house will realize the necessity of the rule being observed that editorials are not to be quoted. Members, of course, can express their own opinions, but must not quote editorials.


William Duff: I cannot agree with you, Mr. Speaker. It has been the rule for years in this house that speakers can quote from newspapers. That has been done for the last twenty years, and I submit that I am perfectly in order in reading from newspapers. I know, of course, that I am dealing with a very delicate subject, Mr. Speaker, but the quarrel is really not with mo but with you and the Solicitor General for bringing it up in the first instance.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: That is why
I gave the hon. member latitude.


William Duff: I resent, and every Liberal
in Canada resents, any insinuation that the Liberal party did not want to see this conference a success. Anybody who says that any Liberal in Canada did not want to see the conference a success is not in his right mind, and I as a Liberal resent anybody saying that I or any other Liberal in this country did not want to see this conference which was attended by delegates from all over the empire made a success. I think you will agree with me, sir, that the Liberals in this country are just as anxious for trade as the

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Conservatives, and that they are just as much interested in the trade of this country and of the empire as are the Conservatives. In the great war from 1914 to 1918 the Liberals did their part just as well as the Conservatives, and why should we now be told because we criticize the agreement that was made at that great empire conference that we did not want the conference to be a success?
I had hoped, sir, that I could support this agreement. I cannot deal with all the articles in it, but there are some to which I should like to refer for a few moments. I notice in the Prime Minister's speech-it is taken almost verbatim from the articles in the agreement-that the public are led to believe that under this agreement there is a preference on certain fish products. Since reading the agreement and the Prime Minister's speech I have been wondering what is the difference between a duty and a preference, or when a duty becomes a preference. If I understand the agreement correctly, under the schedule which will be found at page 136 of the Prime Minister's speech, there are certain rates of duty on fish imported into Great Britain from foreign countries. I have gone into this very carefully and have tried to convince myself that perhaps there was some merit in this part of the agreement. Up to last March all fish entering Great Britain, not only from other parts of the empire but from foreign countries as well, entered duty free. Empire fish still enter Great Britain duty free under this agreement, while fish from foreign countries are taxed certain rates of duty. The first item in the schedule on page 136 is "fish, fresh, sea," and the preferential rate is free and the general tariff ten per cent ad valorem. Two or three items further down is the item "codfish." Perhaps other people may give a different interpretation to that word, and can show what the difference is between "fish, fresh, sea" and "codfish." I have always thought that they were one and the same thing, but under this schedule they are treated as two different things. Let us deal with that item for a moment. We are separated by the Atlantic ocean from Great Britain, a distance of some 2,500 miles. At the present time and for a great many years Great Britain has been getting her supply of codfish from the North sea, from Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. These fish enter Great Britain in large quantities. At the outside they are within 1,000 miles of the markets of London, Grimsby, Hull, Liverpool, and other centres in Great Britain. In Canada we have our fisheries on the eastern coast and on the western coast. Surely no one will argue that you could ship codfish from the Pacific coast of Canada and expect them to compete in Great Britain with codfish from Norway and Sweden caught by the trawlers of these countries and landed in Great Britain. What about fresh fish on the Atlantic coast? As everybody knows, on that coast the fishermen are spread out in small hamlets, and it would be impossible for them to catch fish, send them to a central point for exportation to Great Britain, and ship them overseas so as to arrive in a condition fit for human consumption. But supposing that could be done; let us admit for the sake of argument that wc could do that. With, what, then, are we faced? We are faced with the fact that the price of fish is not made in Halifax, Nova Scotia, or Vancouver. It is made in London, Grimsby, Hull or some of the other fishing ports of Great Britain. The result is that even if we could ship fresh codfish from Halifax or Vancouver we would have to accept the world price.
I am backed up in this statement by the Prime Minister. Of course he was not referring to fish, but speaking of wheat he had the following to say:
. . . being able and willing to offer them a first sale in the United Kingdom at prices not exceeding the world prices and in quantities sufficient to supply the requirements of the United Kingdom consumers. I have never at any time represented to the wheat growers of this country that the effect of a preference would be to set up in their favour a price differential in world markets and at the expense of the British consumer.
That is absolutely right, Mr. Speaker. Not only is it correct in regard to wheat, but it applies also to fish and a grdat many other articles named in the schedules.
There is a worse feature however with regard to the duty on fish going into Great Britain. In the first place we cannot ship them	in; in	the	second	place	if we	didship them in we would have to compete with world	prices,	and	in the	third	place	theNorwegians, Swedes, Icelanders, Greenlanders and	all the	rest	who ship fish	to GreatBritain today, are not going to be driven out of the British market by a ten per cent	or any	other duty.	Why	do I	say
that? They must market their products. If they must go into the British market with a ten per cent differential against them, a ten per cent duty-because it is not a preference at all-they will go in. But they may not do that, because there is another phase to this matter. Because of the ten per cent duty they may not put their fresh fish
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Imperial Conference-Trade Agreements
on the British market. What will they do? Will they lie down and not catch fish at all? No. On the contrary, they will salt and dry those fish they cannot sell whilst fresh in Great Britain. They will compete with our Gaspe fish in Brazil; they will compete with our north-shore-of-Quebec and Labrador fish, in Italy; they will compete with our Nova Scotia fish in the West Indies, and drive us out of the market. Which horn of the dilemma do you choose, Mr. Speaker?
I say the ten per cent duty is all nonsense, because in the first place the present agreement gives no advantage; fish always entered the British market free. If the Norwegians continue to send their fish to Great Britain, they will have to suffer by taking ten per cent less. They are the ones who will suffer; we will not receive a cent more. That statement applies to those other products affected, whether they be apples, copper, zinc, wheat or anything else.
Let me go farther. The same thing applies to salmon, chilled or frozen. At the present time they are free, but foreign salmon can only enter Great Britain at one and one-half per cent duty. If one surveys the statistics he will find that, last year about 14,000,000 pounds of fresh or frozen salmon went to the British market. A very small part came from Canada, the bulk coming from Sweden, Norway, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, Labrador and the United States. The price of this fish averaged 211 cents per pound. These figures would show conclusively that the market for frozen salmon is very small, because very few people in the old country can afford to pay 21^ cents for it.
Do hon. members mean to tell me that Norway and Sweden will be driven from the frozen salmon market in Great Britain, or that our sales will be increased? I do not believe that they will be. We will find that just as great a quantity will come in from Norway; they will pay the one and one-half cents differential. I d'o not know very much about the theory of economics.


Mr. COWAN (Long Lake):: Nor do I.


William Duff: I admit that, and my hon. friend from Long Lake agrees with me. Of course that is not much of a compliment either to me or to him. However during the past forty years I have had some business experience. I have imported goods into Canada and paid the duty and have exported goods and paid duty on them in other countries. My experience is that when world prices have to be met, the person shipping free of duty does not receive one cent more, but he who pays the duty receives less. If there is a

surplus it must be shipped into some market, and that is exactly what is going to happen in the fish, the apple or any other business.
I need not deal further with fish, but I should like to draw the attention of the house to another danger. If Norway and Sweden, countries having a large fish business with Great Britain, if the United States, having an extensive apple business with Great Britain, or if the Argentine or other countries selling wheat and other commodities to Great Britain must submit to duties on their produce, what are they going to do about it? Are they going to lie down and let Great Britain impose taxes on their products; are they going to say nothing about it? I say if such duties are imposed retaliatory measures will be taken. Ever since the United States began it, we have had a tariff war. Countries throughout the world have had economic war with each other.
Let us take the United States as an example. Certainly that country will not lie down and without saying anything, allow the British government to impose a prohibitive duty on a barrel of apples. They will not stand for any such nonsense, but will treat us accordingly. The result will be that our products going to the United States will be subjected to duties heavier than those now existing. What effect will that have on the fish business? At the present time about 35,000,000 pounds of halibut is being shipped yearly from Prince Rupert to various points in the United States. Some years ago when I first came to this house I had the idea that I would have some influence, and with that in mind suggested that the duty be taken off fish coming from the United States to Canada. Yearly only about 500,000 pounds of fish come from across the boundary line. They send us fish only when their own market becomes glutted, which happens only four or five times a year. But some of my good friends said to me, "That will never do; if you take the one cent duty off fish coming from the United States to Canada you will glut the market and hurt our eastern fishermen." I did not agree. However, leaving for a moment the Atlantic coast line, let us go to Prince Rupert from which point 35,000,000 pounds of halibut are shipped yearly to the United States. About 20,000,000 pounds of that total quantity consists of Alaskan or American fish going through the port of Prince Rupert, and the remaining 15,000,000 pounds are Canadian fish. What happens? Those fish are sold on the Chicago market. We will suppose, Mr. Speaker, that you are a Canadian offering 100,000 pounds

United Kingdom
of fish for sale, and that I am a United States citizen offering the same quantity. I hope I may be excused for placing the proposition in this manner. The price in Chicago is 12 cents. You get 12 cents and I get the same, less the duty. If I ship my fish in free, without having to pay that duty of 2 cents per pound, I receive exactly the same as you receive; you do not get any more. I know that sometimes we are not very friendly to one another; we like to see the other fellow go down and out, but if you cannot get any more for your apples, wheat, fish or bacon in the English market how does it help you to compel other people to take less. Do you not thereby run the risk of having them start a trade war with you? Do you want the United States government to raise the duty on fish to three or four cents instead of two cents. For instance, on apples we have this duty of 4s. 6d. Let us suppose the United States government comes to the Canadian government and says, "Look here; we ship a good many apples into the English market and we do not like the idea of paying this duty. We would like to make a new trade arrangement with you." I have read this trade agreement, but I am not sure whether what I am about to suggest could happen, though a greater man than I am says it could be done in spite of this agreement and all this ballyhoo about a ten per cent preference on fish, 4s. 6d. on apples, so much on wheat and bacon and so on. Sir John Simon is reported as having said the other day that Great Britain could make an agreement with the United States. If that should be done, and the United States should stipulate that the first thing to be done was to remove the duty on apples going into Great Britain, or we will increase the duty on fish from two to four cents, how then can our friends opposite say that this duty is a preference as far as apples are concerned and would not the inferential result be futile? The Montreal Star of September 23, 1932, states:
The reports which have disturbed Ottawa statesmen are to the effect that the British government takes the view that-it is free to extend to foreign countries the general free entry into the British market which the dominions now enjoy under the Import Duties Act.
That is pretty clear. As I said a moment ago, I am not an economist and I do not pretend to know anything about economics, but according to the Montreal Star and Sir John Simon this may mean that the United States could go to Great Britain and make a new bargain, and that one of the provisions
of that bargain could be the reduction of duty, whether on frozen salmon from Seattle or on apples from Virginia. Therefore I say, sir, that this agreement is not worth the paper on which it is written until people see what it really means and agree that it means a benefit to the producer.
Why do I say that? It is a well known fact, Mr. Speaker, that this agreement was drawn up during the last twenty-four hours the conference sat. No agreement of this importance could be drawn up properly in that very short time. It will be noticed that in the speech from the throne a number of matters are mentioned, such as redistribution, the Railway Act, unemployment, the Bank Act and other important measures, and it is suggested that we should leave those matters until we assemble in January. Let me suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that this agreement is just as important as these other matters, if not more so, and if seems to me that in order to give the country a chance to express its opinion this house shall not be asked to pass the motion of the Prime Minister at this time. I think we should discuss the question in parliament and then adjourn, in order to give our constituents a chance to study the agreement and instruct us as to how we should vote.
Lumber is another commodity that has been mentioned; some people think the government did a great thing when they secured a ten per cent preference on lumber under this agreement. Where does Great Britain get her lumber? It is true that Canada supplies a certain proportion of her requirements, but the United States sends lumber there also. If the United States shippers of lumber have to pay a ten per cent duty do you mean to tell me that they will not approach the government of the United States and raise a howd about it. What kind of howl will they raise? They will say to the government of the United States, "If the British government, aided and abetted by the Canadian government, intends to continue this ten per cent duty on lumber we want you to further raise the duty on all goods coming from Canada to the United States." That is what probably will happen.


Mr. JONES:: They have.


William Duff: That is what I said half an
hour ago; of course they have raised their duties, and that is the whole trouble. They will make those duties even higher, though my good friend the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Manion) said not long ago
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that it made no difference how high we raised the duty on goods coming from the United States, that they were still friendly to us, and as proof he mentioned the fact that some United States colleges were conferring degrees upon the Prime Minister. I suppose that so long as the Prime Minister gets degrees there we can sit back and do nothing.


Mr. MANION:: Why didn't you do something in the way of putting up duties when you were in power?


William Duff: Because we are opposed to
duties. I think the greatest mistake the British government ever made was when I hey tried to tax the food of the people in Bcston some one hundred and fifty years ago, with the result that they lost the United States. If it had not been for that action Canada and the United States would have been one big country today, and we would not have a tariff wall along the international border. At all events I am glad the Minister of Railways agrees that for the moment the United States will not do anything to provoke us.
Now, sir, if these duties go into effect and foreign countries, such as Norway and Sweden, which ship lumber to Great Britain, put up a retaliatory tariff against both Great Britain and Canada, will we derive any benefit under the agreement? Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that the ten per cent duty on fish will be of some benefit, though of course I say it will not. If these other countries raise their tariffs against us what will be the good of the ten per cent preference on fish? We will take it out of one pocket and put it in the other, that is all, I say, therefore, that in addition to the concessions which we are supposed to give-and most of them are very small-the consumer in this country is only being fooled when he is told that he will get a preference on fish, lumber or anything else.
I noticed that in London a few days ago Mr. A. T. Atkinson, Conservative member of the House of Commons, was reported as follows:
He remarked that a provision in the treaty with Canada regarding sale of products at world prices was omitted in the Australian pact. This he hoped was an oversight which would be put right. Such provisions, he held, were of great value when taxes were being placed on goods and raw materials.
He admits that natural products must accept world prices. Consequently, as I said a moment ago, any goods we ship to the mother country must accept world prices also, and we will not get a cent more than anyone else will get. Instead, we will have to take the

world price, while the foreigner will get the same price less the duty.
Now, Mr. Speaker, you tell me my time is about up. In my opinion, most of the trouble in the world today is in regard to trade. There are so many trade restrictions, regulations and tariffs everywhere, that countries are not doing business. Whether you get a high price or not for the article you produce, if as a producer you are obliged to pay high prices for the things you have to buy, you are just as well off if you receive a low price for your products. Personally, I had hoped that when the conference met in Ottawa the British government, realizing conditions in regard to trade throughout the world, and realizing that not only Canada but Great Britain as well must have, besides empire trade, trade with the rest of the world, would have said to the Canadian and other delegates that in order to stabilize conditions in the world, in order to emerge from the depression, it would be necessary to lower tariffs so that trade would flow more freely from one part of the empire to the other and also between foreign countries and the countries within the empire. Unless that is brought about, we shall never get out of the morass of despair in which we are today.
It is quite possible that conditions will improve a little, but it is my candid opinion that if tariffs were lowered in regard to goods coming both from foreign countries and from empire countries, Canada would be better off and the empire and the world would stand to gain. Indeed, the consumer and the producer would get the advantage of such an arrangement and would be in a far better position than they are at the present time.
One word more and I am through. I notice that in a speech which he made recently Mr. Neville Chamberlain was reported as follows:
"The ties of the empire have been wearing dangerously thin," he said. "Canada had become to a great extent dependent upon United States finance and in the absence of any preferential arrangement with the United Kingdom, she might have found it extremely different to refuse a new offer of reciprocity from her great neighbour to the south which would definitely link their fortunes together to such an extent as would cause a divergence between Canada and Great Britain.
Let me say to Mr. Neville Chamberlain or to anyone else who talks that way that the ties of empire are not wearing thin. In spite of the fact that I should like to see this dominion do ten times as much business with the United States as it is doing at the present time, in spite of the fact that I should like

United Kingdom
to see tariff walls broken down between different countries, I throw Mr. Chamberlain's words in his teeth. When he says that unless this agreement is accepted the empire is in danger and that Canada is likely to be annexed to the United States, I resent such a suggestion. We have always sung:
Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves:
Britons never shall be slaves.
Britons, Mr. Speaker, will never be slaves either in tariff, trade or other matters. You and I, sir, are Canadians notwithstanding all that Mr. Neville Chamberlain and others may say to the contrary, or what threats, based on fear were made to him when attending the conference; notwithstanding all the conspiracies and propaganda that may be spread abroad; we are Canadians and British, and though we are willing to trade with any foreign country, the United States, Germany, France or any other country, we will remain Canadians and keep the flag flying at the top of the mast and over our schoolhouses and public buildings.
Mr. ERRICK F. WILLIS (Souris): I am very happy to have the opportunity of following the hon. member for Antigonish-Guys-borough (Mr. Duff), who has just taken his seat, for I have always admired the fighting spirit of the "Admiral" and find it entirely admirable. It is net my intention, however, to discuss at great length the question of fish, but rather to discuss those matters that concern the people whom I happen to represent.
May I say, firstly, that in this country no matter what government has been in power, the industrial structure of Canada has always been protected. In the past there have been variations in the tariff, but these variations have been small. Let me refer, for instance, to an address delivered in this house in 1925 by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Kennedy), in which he proved that the variations in tariffs as between the two major parties had been up to that time less than two per cent. Again, I would refer to a speech made by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Kennedy), who in 1927 proved that up to that time the variations in the tariffs as between the two major parties had been less than 2 per cent. I would refer also to an address in 1930 by the hon. member for Southeast Grey (Miss Macphail), who refused to vote for the Dunning budget on the ground that it was partly protection and partly free trade. The hon. member for Southeast Grey, in this house last year, referring to the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe)
said that she admired his free trade speech but she would much rather have heard such a speech from him while he was on the government benches than while he was in opposition. And the situation was very succinctly put the other day by the hon. member forLabelle (Mr. Bourassa), who said that, from a close association with the Liberal party during the last forty years, he had come to the confirmed opinion that the Liberal party in power was for protection, while in opposition it talked free trade. May I say, in addition to that, that the very makeup of the Liberal government which went out in 1930 served to prove my point. You had there as one of the key-men the hon. member for North Bruce (Mr. Malcolm), then Minister of Trade and Commerce, who in his speech during the present debate said, "No one can accuse me of being a free trader." In the other key position, that of the Minister of National Revenue, you had an industrialist from North Waterloo (Mr. Euler). Both these hon. gentlemen are for protection for the industries in the constituencies which they represent. This is so because in Canada we have in the St. Lawrence basin 240,000 square miles, containing 55 per cent of the population, 45 per cent of power development and 70 per cent of industrial output. So that in the past tariffs in this country have been largely a matter of geography. That is to say, those in western Canada tend towards lower tariffs while those in eastern Canada tend towards higher tariffs.
The hon. member for North Bruce (Mr. Malcolm), in his speech the other day, said, "No one can accuse me of being a free trader." Again, a matter of geography, I say to the house that no one can accuse me of being a high protectionist. As a matter of geography, we can turn again to the tariff question in this country by pointing out that inasmuch as we are a people of 10,000,000 alongside a highly industrialized nation of 120,000,000 people, geography plays an important part and we must protect ourselves.
In 1930 the Prime Minister, in introducing his budget changes, indicated that they were to serve special conditions, in regard to the United States. This is well understood when we realize that in 1930 the tariff against our wheat was, in France, 85 cents per bushel, in Germany 97i cents, and in Italy 86i cents. That was before the present government came into power. May I also refer to the remarks of the Prime Minister, in the present session, covering that period in 1930. He said, as rt ported at page 114 :
Special measures which we then took to protect the financial integrity of this country
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Imperial Conference-Trade Agreements
against the wholesale dumping of goods at distressed prices by foreign industrial concerns facing or going into bankruptcy, will be maintained so long only as world conditions justify their existence.
I emphasize there the words, "so long only." Then, when the Prime Minister was introducing the present Imperial conference agreements, referring to cattle, he had these words to say, which also were very relevant. He said, as reported at page 125:
I give these figures because it becomes important to understand just what is the potential market with respect to even live cattle since our exports to the United States have been practically prohibited under the Fordney MeCumber tariff and lately the Ilawley-Smoot tariff.
And then on page 126:
The Hawley-Smoot tariff of 1930 practically dosed the United States market.
Under the provisions of the present agreement we find a new use for tariffs-we obtain a market in Great Britain for our natural products by admitting into this country their manufactured products. May I refer again to the speech of the Prime Minister to be found at page 110 of Hansard. He said:
In brief, I proposed that we should secure tariff preferences in empire markets for our natural products, as well as wider markets for our manufactured products, by granting in the home market tariff concessions to empire manufacturers. In other words, we desired to secure wider empire markets for our producers of natural and manufactured products, having regard to the relative importance to them of export trade.
I draw this statement to the attention of the house because it is in direct contradiction of the policy of the previous government as demonstrated by the New Zealand treaty. Under that treaty they permitted entry into this country of certain natural products but agriculture had to pay the full toll on any manufactured products we were able to sell abroad. Under the present agreements we obtain an increased preference on 223 items, and I think it would be well to put on Hansard what is known as the guaranteed list. On the following western agricultural items the United Kingdom has guaranteed free entry to Canada and has undertaken to impose against such goods imported from foreign countries the duties shown opposite:
Butter, 15s. per hundredweight.
Cheese, 15 per cent.
Eggs in shell:
(a)	Not exceeding 14 pounds in weight- per great hundred-Is.
(b)	Over 14 pounds, but not exceeding 17 pounds-per great hundred-Is. 6d.

(c)	Over 17 pounds-per great hundred-* Is. 9d.
Milk, condensed, whole, sweetened, 5s. per hundredweight in addition to the duty in respect of sugar content.
Wheat, 2s. per quarter (about 6 cents per
bushel).
On the following western agricultural items preferences are obtained under treaties with other dominions through whose agreements with the United Kingdom Canada benefits by a guaranteed preference:
Barley (Australia and India), 10 per cent.
Flour, wheat (Australia), 10 per cent.
Honey (Australia and New Zealand), 7s. per hundredweight.
Milk, condensed, whole not sweetened (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa), 6s. per hundredweight.
Milk powder and other preserved milk not sweetened (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa), 6s. (?) per hundredweight.
Meat, canned (Australia and New Zealand), 10 per cent.
Meat extracts and essences (Australia and New Zealand), 10 per cent.
Potatoes (South Africa and Southern Rhodesia), 10 per cent.
Poultry, dressed (Australia and New Zealand), 10 per cent.
Seeds, grass and clover (New Zealand), 10 per cent.
Preferences are given on the following agricultural items other than those that refer particularly to western agriculture:
Apples, canned (Canada), 3s. 6d. per hundredweight in addition to the duty in respect to sugar content.
Apples, raw (Canada), 4s. 6d. per hundredweight.
Beans (India), 10 per cent.
Bran and pollards (Canada), 10 per cent.
Casein (Australia and New Zealand), 10 per cent.
Fruits, canned, other than canned apples (Australia and South Africa), 15 per cent in addition to the duty in respect of sugar content.
Fruits, dried, other than currants and other than dried fruits now dutiable at 7s. (Australia and South Africa), 10 per cent.
Fruits, preserved by chemicals or artificial heat, other than fruit preserved in sugar (South Africa), 10 per cent.
Fruit juices (South Africa), 10 per cent.
Goatskins (Australia, South Africa, India), 10 per cent.
Ground nuts (South Africa, India, South Rhodesia), 10 per cent.
Linseed (India), 10 per cent.
Lucerne seed (South Africa), 10 per cent.
Macaroni (Australia), 10 per cent.
Maize, flat, white (South Africa and South Rhodesia), 10 per cent.
Maize, products (South Africa), 10 per cent.
Manures (India), 10 per cent.
Millets (India), 10 per cent.
Oils, non-essential vegetable (India), 10 per cent.
Oil seed cake and meal (India), 10 per cent.

United Kingdom
Pears, raw (Canada), 4s. 6d. per hundredweight.
Peas, dried (Australia and New Zealand, India), 10 per cent.
Sausage casings (Australia and South
Africa), 10 per cent.
Sugar of milk (Australia and New Zealand), 10 per cent.
Wines (Australia and South Africa), a margin of preference amounting to 2s. per gallon.
Preferences are given on the following fishery items:
Canned salmon (Canada), 10 per cent.
Canned fish, other (Canada), 10 per cent.
Cod liver oil (Newfoundland), Is. 4d. per
gallon.
Crayfish (South Africa), 10 per cent.
Fish, fresh, sea (Canada), 10 per cent.
Fish, cod (Newfoundland), 10 per cent.
Hake, fresh (South Africa), 10 per cent.
Marine shell (Newfoundland), 10 per cent.
Oyster shell grit (South Africa), 10 per cent.
Salmon, chilled or frozen (Canada), l^d. per pound.
Whale oil and whale oil products (South Africa), 10 per cent.
The following are the mineral items given preference:
Asbestos (Canada), 10 per cent.
Copper, unwrought, whether refined or not, in ingots, bars, blocks, slabs, cakes, and rods (Canada), 2d. per pound.
Lead (Canada), 10 per cent.
Magnesite (India), 10 per cent.
Magnesium chloride (India), 10 per cent.
Zinc (Canada), 10 per cent.
Timber of all kinds imported into the United Kingdom in substantial quantities from Canada, except wooden pit props, certain roundwood logs of pine, spruce and aspen, and timber imported under prescribed conditions for shipbuilding, all of which are now free from all countries, shall be subject to a duty of ten per cent. The preferences on manufactured and miscellaneous articles are as follows:
Jute manufactures (India), 20 per cent.
Leather (Australia and New Zealand), 10 per cent.
Tanned hides and tanned skins (India), 10 per cent.
I undertake the tedious work of reading these items because I want to emphasize the fact that Canada obtained only a few of her preferences under the United Kingdom-Canada agreement, the major portion coming from the other agreements entered into by the United Kingdom. I should like to refer to article t of the agreement, which deals with the question of free entry, and I do this in order to lead up to other matters in which the people whom I happen to represent are interested. Article 1 reads:
His Majesty's government in the United Kingdom undertake that orders shall be made
in accordance with the provisions of section 4 of the Import Duties Act, 1932, which -will ensure the continuance after the 15th November, 1932, of entry free of duty into the United Kingdom of goods consigned from any part, of the British Empire and grown, produced or manufactured in Canada which by virtue of that act are now free of duty subject, however, to the reservations set forth in schedule A appended hereto.
Considerable discussion has taken place as to the meaning of schedule A, which reads as follows:
As regards eggs, poultry, butter, cheese and other milk products, free entry for Canadian produce will be continued for three years certain. His Majesty's government in the United Kingdom, however, reserve to themselves the right, after the expiration of the three years, if they consider it necessary in the interests of the United Kingdom producer to do so, to review the basis of preference so far as relates to the articles above enumerated and, after notifying His Majesty's government in Canada either to impose a preferential duty on Canadian produce whilst maintaining preferential margins, or in consultation with the Canadian government to bring such produce within any system which may be put into operation for the quantitative regulation of supplies from all sources in the United Kingdom market.
Much of the discussion in this house has centred around the four words "whilst maintaining preferential margins" which appear in this schedule. That is to say, it is permitted that duties may be levied, but the preferential margins given to us under this agreement are, by that section, guaranteed to us. It has been stated that in the past we have had free entry into that market and that we are now getting only that which we had before. I would point out the vast difference 'between these two positions. Previously we had free entry into a free market in equal competition with the world, whereas now we have free entry into a market which is protected. The important and only point in which we are interested at this stage is the fact that foreign competition shall be blocked.
There is a vast opening in the markets of Great Britain for the items covered by schedule A. Let us consider first eggs in shell. The Prime Minister gave certain figures, which appear on page 130 of Hansard. He showed that the United Kingdom imports of this commodity in 1930 amounted to 26,560,914 long hundredweights and that Canada's maximum exports in the largest year, namely, 1888 were only 14,170,859 dozen. Those figures indicate that so long as the preferential margin continues there will be an ample market in the United Kingdom for everything we have to sell in the line of eggs.
Coming then to the question of butter, may I quote just a paragraph from the Prime
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Minister's address as reported on page 127 of Hansard. From the figures he gave we find, in regard to creamery butter, that United Kingdom imports in 1931 were 903,970,704 pounds, whereas Canada's maximum exports were only slightly over 34,000,000 pounds. As regards cheese we find that United Kingdom imports in 1931 were, in round figures, 323.000,000 pounds, and that Canada's production in that year was only, in round figures, 113,000,000 pounds and that Canada's maximum exports were, in round figures, only 233,000,000 pounds. The figures in regard to creamery butter and cheese indicate the tremendous spread which is left there for our products. We do not care therefore whether the British producer is protected or not. If he is protected, there is still that market left to us which we cannot even begin to fill.
The same thing is true of concentrated milks. United Kingdom imports in 1931 amounted, in round figures, to 313,000,000 pounds, while our total exports in that year in round figures were only 20,000,000 pounds and our production in that year was in round figures only 63,000,000 pounds as compared with British imports of 313,000,000 pounds. Let us remember, as regards British imports, this means that after they have consumed the production of their own producers, they start introducing those imports. That is the position in which we are placed-we get steady and increasing markets for those things which we have to sell because those preferences are guaranteed to us, and that is the most important part of the whole matter.
May I refer for a moment to the question of November 15, which has been discussed in the house. In my opinion one of the greatest triumphs of the conference was in regard to the date of November 15, after which in all probability the duties would have been levied against us. We were given, under an eight months' agreement which terminates on November 15, 1932, that free entry. May I quote now the opinion of the Prime Minister of Australia, speaking in their house, as reported m the Australian parliamentary debates of August 31, 1932. He made this significant statement which also applies to the United Kingdom-Canada agreement:
After more than three generations the British free trade policy was changed this year, and the Import Duties Act imposed duties of ten per cent upon all imported goods including foodstuffs other than wheat and meat, but excepting the principal raw materials. Empire were exempted from these duties until the 15th of November next

This is the part I desire to emphasize:
-but failing an agreement to the contrary before that date, the duties would automatically have been imposed upon them also.

That is why I say to the house that one o*f the greatest triumphs of the Imperial conference was that we avoided having duties imposed against us on November 15, and if the conference had failed, we can be assured that those duties would have been imposed.
While I am on the question of Australia, I might also quote from Mr. Beasley who is apparently one of the leaders there. In the discussion in Australia only four men took part, of whom Mr. Beasley was one. He had this to say, as reported on page 34 of the debates in the Australian house, in regard to the negotiations at the conference:
The tactics of the Australian delegates were neither discreet nor businesslike. The Canadian delegates displayed greater capacity for negotiation, and did not disclose their hand until they knew what the British delegates had to offer. The result was that Canada emerged from that conference with greater benefits than were gained by Australia.
That is the opinion of one Australian gentleman in regard to the result of the conference.
I wish to pass on now to a matter in which I am particularly interested, namely, the question of markets for our wheat. May I point out first, in regard to wheat markets, that the United States, France and the United Kingdom are the only large solvent markets which we have left, and that the United Kingdom market is the largest one in the world and also the most competitive. When I tell you that we obtain a preference of six cents a bushel on wheat, may I put it in this way: If we loaded for the British market a vessel of 300,000 bushels, which would be a normal load, and we pulled into the dock at Great Britain with a wheat ship, say from Russia, the Russian ship would have to pay to the British government $18,000 in tolls before it could be unloaded, whereas our wheat would go in free of tolls. When you realize th-at position and the handicap which is now placed upon those shippers from Russia and Argentina, you must appreciate the great preference and benefit which we are to receive in the British market. It places Canada in a preferred position in the greatest market in the world.
Another fact which I desire to point out more particularly is that this will discourage wheat production in foreign countries. I have heard many arguments in regard to the effect which this will have upon our trade, but may I point out that through the difficulties which foreign countries will now encounter in trying to get into the British market, they will be discouraged in finding markets with the natural result that they will be producing less wheat. On the other hand, we in Canada

United Kingdom
have a product which is a quality product, and is therefore needed in the markets outside the United Kingdom for the purpose of mixing. That is to say, Canadian wheat is the best in quality in the world. Next to that there is the Russian wheat which comes in second position; third, we have the hard red winter wheat of the United States; fourth we have the Plate wheat of Argentine, and, fifth, we have the Australian wheat. Therefore, given an even chance in any market, our wheat is bound to be bought. Price depends to a degree upon quality as it has done in the past and will do in the future. Price also depends to a degree on carry-over. Wider markets will, in my opinion, reduce the carryover and will have either one effect or the other; it will either decrease the world acreage, or raise the price, and it may very well do both. May I point out that Great Britaiu uses twice as much wheat as any other European country. It will be surprising to you, as it is to me, when, quoting the figures for the fiscal year 1931. I say that the total imports of wheat into the United Kingdom market during that year amounted to 222,000,000 bushels and that our total exports to the United Kingdom were only 63,000,000 bushels. Canada's total exports during the same period were only 186,000,000 bushels or, in other words, Canada's total exports were 36,000,000 bushels less than the imports into Great Britain. That is to say, if we had exported to Great Britain all the wheat which we exported during the fiscal year 1931, there would still be a margin of 36,000,000 bushels to be obtained by them elsewhere. I do not argue that we will get all of that market, but it indicates on the basis of the 1931 figures the possibility of an increased sale of our wheat in that market amounting to 159,000,000 bushels. Our foreign sales that year were only 123,000,000 bushels. Those are what are known as the adjusted figures given to me by the Bureau of Statistics. It indicates some of the possibilities of the British market for our wheat with a six cent preference, particularly in view of the fact that we bring to that market a quality product. We know very well the attitude of the previous government in regard to wheat, and that the former Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Malcolm) is on record in Hansard as giving his opinion that wheat found its own market and that his department was interested only in finding markets for manufactured goods. This government since it came into power has appointed fifteen junior trade commissioners with a view to pressing for further markets, where possible, for our wheat.
Under the. Imperial conference agreement we also receive a ten per cent preference for our flour. May I say to you that once we get that ten per cent preference, once we get the United Kingdom bread eaters using our flour for their bread, we shall have a larger share of their market which will continue and which will enlarge because our wheat makes the best bread in the world, and if we can get into that market for five years, as we shall under the agreement, we shall create there an appetite for our bread which will not put up with poorer bread at the termination of the agreement, if it is ever terminated.
May I also point out that one of the great advantages in regard to these products is that under article 21 of the agreement we are protected against dumping in the market of Great Britain by Russia and other countries, and so we find that the greatest menace we had in regard to our wheat-Russia itself-appears to have practically vanished. We also find that almost immediately after the signing of this agreement the British government abrogated its treaty with Soviet Russia, a treaty which some people had the audacity to say the British government dare not abrogate.
In regard to bacon and ham we are given a quota of 2| .million hundredweight. The idea of the quota is simply this: If we did not have a quota for ham and bacon it might very well be that in spite of the small preference which we might obtain on these products, the Scandinavian countries, due to their experience, would be able to overcome that preference and enter the British market. But now we are in the position where that market is divided and we have an opportunity in the British market for as much quality bacon and ham as we care to produce. I need not quote (lie figures in regard to that. Perhaps I might merely say that the United Kingdom imports in 1931 were 1,340,000,000 pounds, and Canada's exports to the United Kingdom were 10,000,000 pounds as compared with our total export of only 12,000,000 pounds. That indicates the vast opportunity we have there. It is a tendency in world trade to buy where there is an unlimited supply. That was the case in regard to the Scandinavian countries. Now we have that tendency checked in regard to bacon and ham. Canada has the additional advantage that it is the only large producer of bacon and ham of all the dominions of the empire.
I need only say in regard to cattle that the restrictions which we have fought for thirty or forty years have now been removed, and we are now able subject to very slight regulations to get our cattle into the United Kingdom market.
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I should like to refer for a moment to the tariff board, because it seems to be of importance. Articles 12 and 13 cover the question of the tariff board. Perhaps I should quote them to be accurate. Article 12 reads:
His Majesty's government in Canada undertake forthwith to constitute the tariff board for which provision is made in the Tariff Board Act. 1931.
Article 13 reads:
His Majesty's government in Canada undertake that on the request of His Majesty's government in the United Kingdom they will cause a review to be made by the tariff board as soon as practicable of the duties charged on any *commodities specified in such request in accordance with the principles laid down in article 11 hereof and that after the receipt of the report of the tariff board thereon such report shall be laid before parliament and parliament shall be invited to vary wherever necessary the tariff -on such commodities of United Kingdom origin in such manner as to give effect to such principles.
That means really the first attempt in this *country at a scientific tariff as it affects the United Kingdom and this dominion. It gives to the tariff board a judicial function, and in effect, so far as the United Kingdom and Canada are concerned, they are able to fix our tariffs on these commodities. The report of the board is tabled in parliament, and the government must then implement the report and must at the same time satisfy parliament in regard to the board's recommendations.
Certain comments have been made here in regard to bargaining. May I say that you are -on better terms with your storekeeper if you buy from him. If you buy from him, you bargain with him, and therefore I say that bargaining brings Great Britain and the different dominions closer together. If we cannot bargain, then the speeches of the right hon. leader of the opposition in regard to autonomy are completely lost because if we cannot bargain we have no autonomy. I say that bargaining will itself increase the sentiment as between this country and Great Britain.
May I in the few moments which are left to me express my regret that the hon. member for West Elgin (Mr. Hepburn) is not present? I was very much delighted to hear his address in this house last Tuesday night when he regaled the multitude with merry quip and jest. The hon. member received his early education in my province. I regret that he left it, because if he had not-I am delighted to see him now present in the house-I feel sure that in that province he might have become the leader of the Liberal party even as he is the leader of the Liberal 
party in Ontario. In our province we now have two leaders of the Liberal party, a leader of what is known as the Liberal party, and a leader of what is known as the continuing Liberals; so another Liberal leader would do no harm, and I can pay the hon. gentleman the compliment of saying that he would be a better leader than either one of them. I do not wish to refer to his remarks except in regard to the twelve-mile fence on his farm which he spoke about the other evening. At times the fence got into disrepair, he said, and he had to patch it with barbed wire. I was reminded by analogy of the Liberal fence which all will admit is in a great state of disrepair. May I suggest that this state of disrepair is in reality necessary because, first, the party must increase its numbers, and, second, it must leave great gaps in the fence so that those who are high protectionists and those who are free traders may go in and out freely. In addition, I see in this Liberal fence one gate on the west labelled "Free trade," and on that gate I see these cryptic words, "Abandon tariffs all ye who enter here." I see there the hon. member for Weybum (Mr. Young) on the ballyhoo, and I see there also the hon. member for West Edmonton (Mr. Stewart) tolling a bell. There is a smaller gate on the east end, so small that one can scarcely see it, and on it I find this inscription, "Protection guaranteed. Arrangements confidential. No publicity." Hon. members may ask me why a fence is necessary. I say a fence is necessary because we have in the party what are known as fence sitters, and by fence sitters I mean those who believe in tariffs for revenue. We find in the field also, abandoned machinery, machinery known as Senate Reform which has never been used, but has been sitting out in the sun for five or six years. We have also there the technicians who were supposed to operate that machinery, but we find that they are in the valley. We find them within the fence in the valley of humiliation; we find some of them in the quicksand; one of them has sunk below the level of the ground, seeking gold.
Then, outside this fence we see a man walking up and down. He is thinking carefully. That is Hon. Charles Dunning, wondering whether the fence can, in effect, be repaired, and he is calculating as to the cost and as to the advisability of attempting repairs. Then we find within the fence the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King). He is preparing some wires for the fence. The right hon. gentleman can be

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said to be in fairly good health, but is suffering slightly from Beauharnitis and constitutional disorders. He is there preparing to set up two wires, in particular. One of the wires is known as Proportional Representation and the other is Central Bank. And so there he is with these wires, stringing the fence and stringing the public.
Then, finally, the wires are set up. The right hon. gentleman stands back to admire them from the inside of the fence from a Liberal point of view. Then he walks to the outside to view them from the public point of view. Finally he draws from his pocket the old lucky coin, the five cent piece which has never been given away, tosses it in the air and it comes down obverse uppermost. Then he says, "Yes; the answer is Yes! It may not look too well, but like the price of barbed wire at present it is very very cheap."
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. J. A. BRADETTE (North Tirnis-karning):: Mr. Speaker, I have no reluctance whatever in addressing this house on an occasion such as this, for the very simple reason that I realize the duty I have to perform towards my constituents. Some newspapers have said that these agreements should be passed without discussion. That reminds me of a personal experience I had the first time I had the honour of sitting in this assembly, which was in the fall of 1926. At that time I asked myself why there were so many representatives in this House of Commons, but it did not take me very long to realize that it was quite necessary to have this number in order that every section of the country might be properly represented here. This country is so large, geographically, and so many different interests are represented that I believe every member should express the views of his constituents on questions such as this. If I did not speak on these agreements I do not think I would be fulfilling my duty towards that section of northern Ontario which I have the honour to represent.
I am not going to be absolutely critical of these agreements. Sometimes within the walls of this chamber, as well as in many different sections of the country, when we try to couple the word "politics" with any discussion on national, imperial or international matters, such a connection seems to be something of a slur. This, however, is a matter which 53719-29
should be brought forward in this house in order that every angle of these treaties may be discussed and the viewpoint of every section of the country presented. I will go further, Mr. Speaker. I maintain that it is the bounden duty of every member of this house to present the viewpoint of his constituents. Ever since these treaties were made public they have been the subject of discussion throughout Canada. I have received letters and several telegrams giving me different points of view which may be of interest to this house and to the country at large. Really we on this side should not be criticized for discussing these questions. In 1930 it was known that this conference would be held in Ottawa; a great many men whom I will call statesmen, because I believe they are worthy of that appellation, together with experts on economics, finance and commerce, not only as they concern their respective countries and the empire but as they concern the world, met here and deliberated for thirty days. Who, therefore, will begrudge the few days or weeks that we may spend here working for the welfare and advancement of Canada and the empire?
I greatly resented one statement made by the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) in his remarks on the address in reply to the speech from the throne. The right hon. gentleman did his best to reflect on the attitude of the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) in connection with the conference. Attacks of this kind have been made in the press as well, and they are absolutely unwarranted. Every citizen worthy of the name appreciated and admired the fine attitude taken by the right hon. leader of the opposition during that conference. I have in my hand a telegram which my right hon. leader sent to Right Hon. Stanley Baldwin. It Was sent in care of the Empress of Britain on July 18, 1932, and was reported in the Ottawa Citizen of the following day:
On behalf of the Liberal opposition in the Canadian parliament I desire to join in the welcome being extended today by all Canada to yourself and colleagues of the British and all other delegations to the Imperial economic conference, and to express our good wishes for the success which we hope may attend its deliberations. Personally I am looking forward with the greatest pleasure to seeing again Mrs. Baldwin and yourself, and to the renewal of many old friendships.
This message does not show any spirit of partisanship; it simply shows that my right hon. leader, on behalf of himself and the Liberal party, hoped that the conference would be successful. His personal conduct before and during the conference also has been com-

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mended by the Canadian people, and I was very sorry indeed to hear the right hon. Prime Minister insinuate that he attempted in any way to interfere with that meeting. Personally I had the pleasure of holding over forty meetings in my own constituency before and during the sessions of the conference, and I always made it a point to tell the people of North Timiskaming that no doubt some good would come from the conference, that it would be impossible for so many men of high standing to meet together not for days but for weeks without some good resulting.
I maintain that attitude today, and let me repeat that I think it is the duty of all members of this House of Commons to bring forward as forcibly as possible all the problems arising in the different sections of the country which may have a bearing on this question. After all, the different parts make up the whole of Canada, and it is not easy for those residing in one part to become acquainted with the needs of those residing in another part. I know there are members here from the maritime provinces who have never visited British Columbia, and even in my own riding, which I believe is one of the largest in Canada, many people living in the town of Timmins do not know how many people live in the town of Hearst. Some people maintain that these treaties should be regarded almost as though they were sacred. I repeat that these are national matters, and I believe they should be discussed very fully in this house. I said a few moments ago that no doubt some good came from the conference, but there are other matters on which people do not agree, and it is the duty of this house to have those matters properly aired here.
The conference is now a thing of the past, but we always learn in the school of experience. As a man living in this young country I firmly believe that even in connection with a conference such as this there should have been much greater publicity. Matters touching the whole empire were dealt with, and f believe the people of this country should have been given the fullest possible information. I have in my hand an article which appeared in the Ottawa Journal of July 7, 1932:
Give The Public The Facts
Isn't there altogether too much secrecy, and, consequently, too much pessimism and suspicion over the Imperial economic conference? On all sides these days one hears people say, "the conference, of course, will be a great show, but it won't get anywhere." Nine times out of ten the people who talk this way are blurred about what the conference really aims to get at, about its possibilities. Yet such talk does harm.

In the circumstances, wouldn't it be a good idea if we could have a series of public meetings to be addressed by conference delegates for the benefit of the public? Buildings for such meetings could be secured, and it is reasonable to believe that the spirit which could be aroused in this way would greatly help in mutual cooperation, so necessary for success.
Confederation could hardly have been brought about were it not for the platform campaign carried on by men like D'Arcy McGee, Charles Tupper, and others. They explained the issue to the people, broke down opposition, made union possible.
The cause being what it is, so much being at stake, no reason exists why something similar should not take place in the case of this conference. It could do no harm; and it might do a vast deal of good.
The views expressed in this editorial should be taken into consideration by subsequent governments in relation to any conferences that may be held in the future. What is contained in this article with regard to the evil of secret diplomacy applies to the last conference, and the editorial is warranted in its attitude; it will cause people to realize that matters of public importance should be considered in a public 'way. There was a feeling at the time of the conference that some English newspapers were not taking the proper attitude to the proceedings. They might have received reports and despatches based not upon fact but upon mere hearsay and rumour, but those who represented these newspapers could not do otherwise in view of the absolute secrecy that surrounded the conference.
One thing I deeply resent, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that the Conservative party in Canada is trying now, as it has always tried, to make the people of this country believe that Conservatives are the only citizens who are loyal to British ideals and principles. Let me assure you that in the newer section of the country which 1 have the honour to represent there are hardworking men who are pushing back the frontiers of Canada, opening up a new land to cultivation and civilization. We have miners digging down into the entrails of the earth, bringing forth wealth which has lain there from the foundation of the world; men toiling in our forests, and producing still more wealth to enrich this country; men who, although they do not stand up and sing the praises of Canada in sonorous phrases are in reality loyal citizens of Canada, loyal to their native land, to the British Empire and to British ideals. Hon. members opposite had better realize that no party in this house has any monopoly of loyalty to British institutions. We are all loyal to the empire, and I

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venture to suggest that I can speak all the more feelingly on this topic inasmuch as I am of French descent. I can say quite frankly that I shall always remain loyal to British principles and ideals, and this without constraint or pressure.
I was astonished yesterday to hear the Solicitor General (Mr. Dupre) introducing into this discussion questions from the past which we had supposed were forgotten. I appeal to him to examine his conscience and to look back on those days in the election of 1911 when the naval question was under consideration in this country and in the province of Quebec. It would be well for him if he did this; it would convince him, I think, that it does not lie with anyone on the opposite side to cast any reflections on the party over here so far as the question of loyalty is concerned. The loyalty of the Canadian people is irreproachable. Suppose a man found it necessary to discuss financial matters with his father: does it follow that he is undutiful if he happens not to agree in every respect with his father? Absolutely not. Similarly, we may have our differences, but the ties of loyalty in the empire are just as strong as they ever were. They do not depend on economics; it is a matter of the mind and heart. If I speak feelingly on this subject it is because I do not think that the question of loyalty should be dragged into political discussions.
Now, as to the method of approach, a good deal has been said with regard to the imperial conference of 1930. I will not try to cover that ground, but I might observe that this afternoon the eloquent member who preceded me before six o'clock compared the imperial conference to a poker game. I agree with him, being a business man, that in business transactions bargaining is sometimes necessary; but why compare the conference to a poker game? That, I suggest, is why there was so much resentment in the empire to the proceedings of the conference. It was stated in some English newspapers that the Prime Minister approached the conference as though he were sitting in to a poker game. I have played poker myself-not on any very extensive scale-and I know enough about it to understand that the object is to get the other fellow; get all you can out of him, and the more you make the more you want, while the more you lose the more eager you are to get after him. In corroboration of the statement that the conference was regarded in
53719-29J
some quarters as a poker game, I have here an extract from one British newspaper. Let me read it:
Guardian Critical Of Bennett Offer
Says His Cards Are On Table, But Face Downward
London, Aug. 4.-"Mr. Bennett has a name for putting his cards on the table," said the Manchester Guardian in an editorial today. "He has lost no time in putting them on the table at Ottawa, but face downward, where they have stayed, while every other delegation explained itself in a less spectacular and distinctly speedier way.
"It may be," observed the Guardian, "that Mr. Bennett still does not know any more than the world what his cards are. Meanwhile other dominions have gone about their business in a fairly workmanlike fashion. More has been said about the Canadian proposals than any. and less done, yet there are people who would have us turn to Mr. Bennett as the leader of the British Empire."
Three-Stage Tariffs
The Daily Mail asserts the needs of the dominions and the United Kingdom would be met best by a system of three-stage tariffs, "of which the lowest would be for empire goods to which free entry could not be given; the intermediate stage for foreign countries conceding us favourable terms; and the highest for foreign states refusing us any concession."
The News-Chronicle describes the situation at Ottawa as extremely disturbing. "Mr. Bennett is still refusing to disclose the details of his offer made with such solemnity at the opening of the conference. Australia has definitely tabled her proposals, under which Great Britain would be committed to a whole series of food taxes. The prospects of such a tax in a country so dependent as ours upon overseas supplies, with a vast army of unemployed, cannot be contemplated without the gravest concern. Against the taxation of meat particularly both the Premier and Mr. Runciman have given the most specific pledges. We are frankly much more concerned by the prospect of an Australian agreement than by the spectacle of Mr. Bennett shuffling uneasily on a box which the Canadian manufacturers apparently refuse to allow him to open."
Not Ready, Is Claim
The Star, evening companion to the News-Chronicle, while not disposed to be critical because things are going slowly at Ottawa, says the blame cannot be thrown on Great Britain. "Mr. Bennett, according to the empire food taxers, not Mr. Baldwin, was the genius we were invited to follow. The gaff has blown, and the man of iron will and cast-iron decision is really not Quite so ready for his mission as we had been told to believe. The empire food taxers here can hardly expect us to have faith in Mr. Bennett as a man of action and decision.
There is another comment which I should like to read. It is taken from the British press, and I do not think the house is familiar with it:
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Bennett's Flippant Tone Jarred on Overseas Ears, Says British Journalist But Political Editor of London News-Chronicle Denies He Penned Word "Buffoon," and Blames Heading Writer-Explains That Some Newspapermen Thought Canada Needed Speeding Up
Ottawa, Aug. 4.-"Buffoon" was not the word, but to quote other words used memorably upon another occasion, A. J. Cummings, political editor of the London News-Chronicle, was "thinking along those lines."
The English editor, whose despatch to the London Evening Star has stirred several dovecotes on parliament hill, told the Globe about it today.
"Many people here," he said, "imagine that I called the Prime Minister of Canada a buffoon, merely because the Star chose to use the word in heading a despatch from me. I am not responsible for the editing of the Star, and the word was not one I had. written. I did, however, in my cable published by the Star, express quite strongly the resentment which a large number of my colleagues felt at the exceedingly flippant tone which Mr. Bennett chose to adopt in discussing with 100 press representatives invited to meet him the questions being decided at this historic conference.
Bennett's "Cheap Way"
"Frankly, I myself was astonished to find our meeting with Mr. Bennett in danger of degenerating into a low-grade comic entertainment. I objected very strongly to the cheap way in which Mr. Bennett tried to make talking points out of serious questions addressed to him by responsible journalists, and I was not alone. A number of representative journalists have since said to me that, but for their sense of the courtesy due to their hosts, the Canadian people, they would have made a public protest and walked out of the press conference room.
"As far as I am concerned," Mr. Cummings said "the episode is past. I felt that some protest should be made, and I realized that it was easier for a visitor to Ottawa to make it than for a Canadian. I have great personal respect for Mr. Bennett. I regard him as a man of courage and capacity, and obviously a leading personality. But as Prime Minister of Canada, he missed a unique opportunity to create a tremendous impression when he had before him, as he had Tuesday afternoon, the press of the whole world."
Charge of "Stalling"
A charge that Canadian delegation delays had been holding back the work of the conference was included in the same despatch to the London Star. In making the charge, Mr. Cummings said, he had only expressed an opinion held and expressed by many other correspondents.	_
"Among the representatives of the United Kingdom press the feeling was that a little pressure brought to bear, a little speeding up, would not do any harm. And I think it has succeeded, you know, succeeded admirably.
"Canada is in this case the keystone of the arch of trade," the English editor went on. "England is the big customer. England could not make her picture complete, could not say what she was able to offer each, until she had before her the proposals of all, Canada as well [Mr. Bradette.l	*
as the other dominions. I know for a fact that Canada alone among the dominions refused to give preliminary information regarding her position and proposals when London asked for it by cable four months ago. So that really the United Kingdom delegation came here in complete ignorance of Canada's position. Naturally, that would cause delay."
Mr. Cummings vigorously rejected the theory that, as a representative of the last of London's great Liberal journals and an inheritor of the Manchester attitude toward things Imperial, his views of empire politicians or empire trade might be tinged with prejudice.
As I said in the beginning, more publicity should be given to such matters so that the public may become familiar with what is to take place at such conferences.
There are two matters with which I believe the people of Canada as a whole thought that this conference would deal in a very thorough manner. The first was the monetary question, considered from an empire as well as an international point of view. A great many of the economists and financiers of this country were disappointed at this matter having been put in the background. I believe the government would be in a better position today if this matter had been dealt with at the conference. A special committee should have been appointed to deal with this intricate matter, not only from the point of view of Canada but of the empire as a whole and then the government would have been better prepared for the international conference which is to take place next December or January.
The next matter is the question of unemployment. It has been stated in this house, not only by the Prime Minister but by other hon. members, that it is becoming an international question. It affects every section of the world, and I believe a step would have been taken in the right direction had this matter been discussed. No doubt many of the delegates thought that an increase in the British preference would provide more work, but the conference did not get to the root of the question. It endeavoured to raise tariffs against the rest of the world, but the fact is that our present condition is due to the tariff walls which have been erected during the last forty years. We are suffering from overproduction and underconsumption; that is the problem which we have to face. I repeat that I do not believe the conference achieved all it could have achieved had it discussed this all-important problem.
I do not think I can be accused of being parochial or narrow in my statements but I feel it my duty to discuss the Imperial conference as it affects northern Ontario as a

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whole and more particularly my own section of the country. The population here is made up largely of primary producers and consumers. The tariff always works a detriment to the newer sections of population. I do not want to be misunderstood-I am not a free trader but neither am I a high tariff man. The previous speaker (Mr. Willis) has tried to throw the mantle of free trade upon his section of the house, 'but such an attempt is not justified. Some of us believe in a national tariff, but we contend that it should be an elastic tariff, applicable to present requirements. My hon. friends opposite have apparently changed since the convention in Winnipeg four years ago. High tariffs were not even mentioned during that convention, but now they are being advocated with a vengeance and no consideration is being given to certain sections of Canada. An increased tariff is bound to work a detriment to the rural sections of this country, especially in northern Ontario and in the three western provinces.
The tariff was originated in order to give assistance to new bom industry. Similar policies have helped to build great nations such as Great Britain and the United States and to a certain degree, France. The purpose was to allow those nations to become industrialized, but conditions today have changed from what they were twenty or thirty years ago. Because so many countries have become highly industrialized we are faced with a condition of overproduction and underconsumption. If high tariffs are continued the people in the rural sections will not be able to buy the shoes produced by our manufacturers, or the automobiles or other manufactured articles. Until the primary producer is made prosperous there cannot be prosperity in this country as a whole. Such a policy may prove helpful to large industrial centres like Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Hamilton and other places, but it will always be a detriment to the rural sections of northern Ontario and the other provinces.
During the past twenty years Canada was primarily an agricultural country but due to an increased industrialization there has been a trend of population from the rural centres to the larger industrial areas. Agricultural life has been almost disrupted. I am not very old but I can remember the time when our rural communities were almost self-contained. I used to live on a farm in Quebec not very far from parliament hill and in those days a thousand people on the farm could maintain almost a like number in the
rural villages. There were located in those villages small industries; there was generally a tannery, a saw mill, a grist mill and three or four general stores employing dozens of employees. But this is all changed because of the development of highly concentrated and centralized industrial communities. I am dealing particularly with my own section of the country, but I am sure my remarks would apply equally as well to rural Canada as a whole. The people in the rural sections around Cochrane, Hearst and other towns in northern Ontario buy only a portion of their food and clothing in those towns; they send to Toronto, Montreal or Winnipeg. This is an anomaly which should be cured; the government should cease its policy of higher tariffs which is bringing about an increase in population in the urban centres to the detriment of the rural communities. In the past we could always look forward and picture the future happiness of our people, but I believe our rural poulation thirty and even twenty years ago was much happier than it is at the present time. We cannot any longer cultivate in the rural centres of population the community spirit, because the new social and economic order has been drawing the people more and more to the big centres of population and producing an agglomeration such as Montreal, which comprises almost forty per cent of the population of Quebec. On that score I believe the house should realize the seriousness of the situation, and again I repeat that no matter how high the government may put the tariff, this will never go to the root of the problem we have to face at the present time. It will never help to keep our rural population on the farm; they will continue and accelerate the procession to the larger centres when conditions return to normal.
There is one matter that I want to point out to the industrial section of this country. From the statistics of the domestic market it will be seen that the best customers they have in the country are within our own borders. What would happen if tomorrow the rural sections of northern Ontario and of the three western provinces were to be suddenly depopulated? The urban population would by that fact have to decrease at least fifty per cent. What would happen to Toronto if the farming population in northern Ontario were to disappear? The industrialists have in northern Ontario a potential market of at least $100,000,000 or perhaps $150,000,000 per annum, and the same thing applies to all the newer sections of the country. As regards the
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social order the nations are now beginning to realize that the so-called civilized countries are too highly industrialized. With the stagnation in population, for instance in countries like France, even in Great Britain and to some degree in the United States, they realize that industry cannot prosper unless outside markets can be found. Here in Canada we have the market within our own borders. We have this unlimited new territory that can be opened up to civilization and cultivation. We have numberless hills and mountains on the sides of which is untold potential wealth awaiting the prospector and miner to bring about the development of it. But we must realize that consideration should be given to the population there.
We often speak in glowing terms of what our forefathers did on the shores of the St. Lawrence, what the Loyalists did in Ontario and the hardships they had to endure. It is true that in these days we are not subject to the same dangers that they had to face; it is true that conditions are not identical, but in the rural sections of the country, to open up new land to cultivation and civilization is just as much a hardship as that which our forefathers endured two or three hundred years ago, because we have to face a different situation, a new social order which is working to the detriment of the country. We must realize that in the agricultural section that is opened up for colonization purposes we have to face obstacles which our forefathers did not have to face. For example, we have to face severer climatic conditions as we go northward. We are also getting further away from centres of population. It was stated this afternoon by a western member that any change made in the freight rate on wheat affects the price of that commodity. The same thing applies to the products of northern Ontario, because we are getting away from the large centres of population, and that fact alone should make the house realize that it is necessary for the government to study the conditions of the farmers and miners in that northern section.
I was one who attended many sittings of the former tariff board and I was sorry that the present government did not find it possible to establish a tariff board two years ago. It might be said, and perhaps rightly, that the Prime Minister and his government want to work for the benefit of the farmer and the working man, but the fact remains that for nearly three years the rural class, the consuming class, the working class, has had practically no opportunity of having its voice heard before the Department of National Revenue. This is an anomaly, and if nothing

in these treaties is implemented except the establishment of a tariff board, that would be a good thing in itself. I hope the government will find it possible to have the consumers represented on that board. I remember the jeers, Laughs and sneers at the mention of the Consumers' League of Canada. I belonged to the Consumers' League and I received valuable information from it. In fact it was necessary for me to belong to it in order properly to represent my constituency. I also was present at one meeting in the fall of 1930, prior to the previous conference, when a man representing the Consumers' League was not even given a hearing, when ministers who occupy portfolios in the present cabinet laughed at him-laughed and tried to ridicule one, who was representing nearly eighty per cent of the population of Canada! That happened in 1930, and I repeat, if nothing comes out of this treaty other than the establishment of the tariff board-and the government will find that it will pay to have every interest fairly represented-something will be well done so far as the conference is concerned.
A good deal has been said about lumber. I believe my colleague from northern Ontario, the hon. member for East Algoma (Mr. Nicholson) has done and tried to do good work for the lumbermen, work which will be of benefit to northern Ontario and to every section of Canada. Unluckily for our (population the lumbering activities are not as active as they might be. In our over-optimism we thought that through these agreements big contracts would be coming to Canada, but unluckily that has not yet been the case. There is one problem I want to deal with and it is that of pulpwood. In these agreements there may be some benefit to the pulpwood producers on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, but so far as central Canada, northern Ontario, is concerned, I do not see any benefit. If, as has been so well proved here during the present discussion, by building an economic unit, by surrounding an economic empire with great artificial economic walls, we are precluded to a large extent from markets outside the empire, northern Ontario will certainly suffer from such a situation. I know whereof I speak because I have cut pulpwood myself and I have sold some of it to local mills, but the settlers in large sections of northern Ontario must find an outside market, and the settler in our section of the country with his pulpwood is in the same position as the farmer with his wheat or his grain. He cannot go any longer into the process of manufacture and the only logical

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market, when our domestic market is saturated, is the United States. I am sorry to state that that market is closed to us at the present time, by what action I do not know, but I know at the last general election it was included in the Conservative platform that if they were returned to power, they would put an export tax on pulpwood going to the United States. 1 am not a sob-sister artist by a long shot, but I say that our settlers are near starvation because they cannot sell their primary crop, which is pulpwood. The crop in the first year of colonization is purely and simply pulpwood, and once our domestic market is saturated, we must necessarily sell in some outside market. The British market is too far away from us. No doubt the maritime provinces and eastern Quebec and British Columbia will benefit by these agreements, but northern Ontario will receive no benefit whatever.
Very soon, if Mr. Hoover is returned to power, we are going to deal with the United States in connection with the St. Lawrence waterway agreement, and I hope, if the government is really sincere in the matter of helping any section of the country they will make an effort in the bargaining to widen our pulpwood market and not restrict it. I spoke to members of the Ontario cabinet about the matter and most of them have the same view as I have, for the simple reason that you cannot have settlers unless they find it possible to sell, at a reasonable, I do not say an exorbitant price, the first crop they have in the timbered section, which crop is pulpwood and which is practically their only means of subsistence for many years. I am going to speak of that situation as long as I have the honour to represent that constituency because it is causing hardship to ninety-five per cent of our rural population. There is another very important matter. The troublous times in the history of France in the days of Joan of Arc was referred to as "la grande pitie de France." At present in Canada we have "la grande pitie de l'agrieul-ture et la grande pitie de l'industrie du papier a journal." Our great newsprint and sulphite industry in this country is practically on its last legs. It is one of the largest enterprises in Canada, one in which Canadian and foreign investors have placed hundreds of millions of dollars. The preferred stocks of these great companies are now selling for about only two per cent of their original value, and the common stocks are worth practically nothing. It is an industry which is a necessity in our national life, and one which all governments have combined and should continue to combine to help. Some of these companies are now in a receivership and others are next to bankruptcy, perhaps through fault of their own and perhaps not; this is not the time or the place to elaborate such a matter. The fact remains that we must do something to relieve the present situation.
As my time is about up, I will take advantage of the opportunity to discuss this question further when the appropiate item comes before the committee.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: The hon. gentleman's time has expired.


Mr. A. U. G. BURY (East Edmonton):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion and the treaty. My reasons for doing so are few and can be briefly stated, although I may take somewhat more time to elaborate the last of them.
I am moved in the first instance by confidence in the personnel, in the capacity and ability of the members of the delegations representing the United Kingdom on the one hand and Canada on the other. I am not ashamed to avow this as one of the grounds of my action. The business of government of countries is becoming more and more important and more and more difficult; it is becoming increasingly very big business. Without reflecting in any way upon the powers of parliament or upon the ability of individual members to grapple with the problems that present themselves to parliament, I may say that we are gradually coming to understand that in the solution of the very numerous and very complicated problems that arise in a national government we are wise to call in the services of the best experts available to us. I cannot think that there are in the political public life of the United Kingdom or connected with its commercial and industrial life any men who more adequately and satisfactorily could represent the interests of their nation than the gentlemen who formed the United Kingdom delegation. There was Mr. Baldwin, perhaps the most distinctively and characteristically English of any prime minister who has occupied that high position in the history of England for many years, and also a man well versed in large affairs of business; and, to mention only one other, Mr. Walter Runciman, perhaps one of the keenest minds in trade and commerce and finance in England. Then as far as the Canadian delegation is concerned I am perfectly confident that the interests of this great dominion did not suffer by reason of any want of capacity or ability on the part of those who represented us.
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My second reason is that I find in the treaty those principles which have for long commended themselves to me and which I believe to be in the interests of Canada and of the empire. Not merely are they my own personal opinions-that is a matter of importance to me

but they are opinions and principles which have been endorsed by the people of Canada in the 1930 election. I am not asking the house to take my ipse dixit for that statement. I have a very much higher authority before which no doubt my hon. friends on the other side of the chamber will more readily bow than they would to me. In the very fine speech to which we listened on Tuesday from the hon. member for North Bruce- (Mr. Malcolm)-who, if it be not impertinent for me to pay him this compliment, always addresses the house on matters with which he is absolutely conversant and always raises the level of debate to a platform and standard from which too often it drops, and who shows that he can approach these subjects and debate them, although a member of a party in this house, in no spirit of partisanship-the hon. member said:
Although that is so the government presents to us the draft of a treaty based on the protective principle. Again still greater consistency is exhibited than has been exhibited before, as evidenced in the fact that every clause of the treaty, every item in it, consistently holds to the policy advocated by the Prime Minister during the election campaign of 1930.
If that be so, Mr. Speaker, then I am correct when I say that this treaty embodies not merely the principles which I believe in and which I personally think are to the advantage of Canada, England and the empire, but the principles upon which the people of Canada expressed their voice in no uncertain manner a little over two years ago.
The third reason why I am taking my position in support of the motion and treaty is that in all the speeches which I have either heard or read from the opposite side of the chamber I have not heard or read anything to shake the conviction which I have already expressed. I was greatly influenced and greatly taken with the speech of the hon. member for North Bruce, as I have already stated, but we have as a house and as a party to accept the pronouncements of the right hon. leader of the opposition as being the fullest and most authoritative declaration of the reasons why he and his party, if they do not support the treaty, do not support it. When I come to examine those reasons I find that they are distinguishable in two ways: First, those criticisms that are levelled against matters 
that are wholly outside the treaty itself, and secondly, criticisms that are levelled against the subject matter of the treaty, its provisions and its terms. The right hon. gentleman, who in a very exhaustive speech, perhaps exhaustive in more senses than one, with the most meticulous care traversed the ground which he himself had chosen with, if I might use the expression, a fine tooth comb, a magnifying glass and tweezers to find and extract any possible objections which there might be against the treaty, levelled his objections in the first place against matters that were outside of the treaty. He criticized the Prime Minister for having departed from the course followed by Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1902. The actions, speeches, sentiments and principles of Sir Wilfrid are quite properly the law and the testimony for the right hon. gentleman and those who follow him. But if we strip of everything extraneous all the statements which have been made on this matter and get down to the skeleton and bones, if we strip from them all the artifices of special pleading, what are the facts?
The facts are that Sir Wilfrid Laurier went to England in-well, I thought the conference was fixed for the year 1903, but I may be wrong. Anyway, before he went to England a duty had been placed on all grain and flour imported into England from every country, and an agitation arose in this country for a 'Canadian preference which should take the form of a removal of or reduction in the duty. Sir Wilfrid Laurier went to England and atsked the British government for a Canadian preference. He asked for it in the only possible way in which he could expect to get it, namely through the removal or the reduction of the existing tax. The present Prime Minister met delegations this year from England and other parts of the empire. So far as he was concerned he found no tax on certain commodities entering England upon which he wished a Canadian preference. He asked for that preference in the only possible way he could expect to get it, namely the imposition of a tax. Probably I should not say he asked, but rather that he suggested that if a preference were to be given it should be given through the imposition of a tax on such articles. That suggestion was made as one of the possible ways, and in fact the only way in which Canadian preference could be given on the particular articles not already taxed. The methods of procedure I have outlined constitute the fundamental and mountainous difference between the action of Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1902 and that of our Prime Min-

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ister in 1932. Both of them asked for a preference, and both asked it *n the only way possible, so far as the particular commodities involved were concerned.
Let us go back a little bit farther. In the year 1897 Sir Wilfrid Laurier visited London, and upon his return to Canada was subjected to considerable criticism because he had not obtained for Canada a preference on her agricultural products or grain. His speech delivered in Toronto was later quoted by Sir Robert Borden, then Mr. Borden, at that time member for Halifax. I have not the newspaper before me containing the report of the original speech by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, but hon. members who are sufficiently interested will find the quotation to which I refer in the debates for the year 1902. Mr. Borden, as he then was, read the following report of Sir Wilfrid's speech:
If I had thought I could have obtained for the products of Canada preferential treatment in the markets of Great Britain, not only would I have been wanting in patriotism but I would have been wanting in reason, I would have been simply an idiot if I had not obtained such preference for the products of Canada.
Therefore, as Mr. Borden pointed out, the only reason no positive, aggressive approach was made by Sir Wilfrid to obtain preferences for Canada was not because he did not think it was diplomatically proper, not because he supposed it was an improper meddling with the domestic affairs and fiscal policy of Great Britain-no; but because he knew that at that particular time the government and people of Great Britain would not have dreamed of putting a tax upon grain. Sir Wilfrid Laurier said so in the following words:
The position I took then was this: I acted like a reasonable man. I saw at once that it could not be possible, so great is the free trade sentiment in England to have a mutuality of preference so long as we continued to levy customs duties upon English goods.
And, knowing that it was impossible to get what he desired, like a reasonable man he refrained from asking; that is all. In the same parliament another Liberal leader, perhaps one of the most astute political leaders the Liberal party has ever had-I mean Sir Clifford Sifton, or as he then was, the Hon. Mr. Sifton-in the course of debate in this house on April 15, 1902, had this to say:
If Great Britain finds itself on account of its revenue necessities in a position to consider an idea which Lord Salisbury would not entertain two years ago-
Oh, then, somebody put it up to Lord Salisbury; somebody mooted this question, and he said, "No, we are sorry we cannot do it."
-we say that we have been favoured by fortune and shall be most happy to take advantage of the opportunity thus presented.
And so Sir Wilfrid did. He asked for the remission or removal of the tax, but was refused. Will any hon. member in the house say there is one scintilla of difference between the attitude of Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1902, in view of his statement in 1897, and the attitude of our Prime Minister in 1930 and 1932? There is not one particle of difference.
The right hon. gentleman opposite tells us the history of his relations with the British government. He tells us that in 1923, having received an invitation, he went to London. We will recall that Sir Wilfrid went to London on the invitation of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. He had told the house in Canada that inasmuch as the invitation came from Mr. Chamberlain no doubt the British government was going to make some proposals. And so, in like manner, in 1923 the right hon. gentleman opposite went to London to attend a conference at which the Canadian preference wias a subject for discussion. When the British ministers approached him and said, "Will you give us a list of the articles upon which you would like us to place a tax," this Bayard of interimperial diplomacy refused to mention a single item.
There is in my native city a furniture mover who happens to be Scotch by birth, and who gives the lie to the old fallacy that Scotchmen have no sense of humour. He may, of course, only establish the rule by proving that there is an exception to it. Because as the badge or crest of his furniture moving business he has chosen a checker board, and under it has printed the legend: "Your move next." The right hon. leader of the opposition went to London, and that was his motto. When the government of Great Britain approached him and asked for a list of the articles on which he thought they might put a duty, in order that they might consider such articles, my right hon. friend bowed' and said, "Gentlemen, your move first." Then, of course, they had to say, "Well, if you are so very punctilious about interimperial diplomacy"-though surely at a time like that, in the words of Kipling, a nation might speak to a nation without all those trimmings and delays-"Will you give us a list on the express, declared understanding that there is no obligation on us to put a tax on anything?" I can imagine their thinking that such understanding went without saying, that neither side was bound to do anything in such a case; they would take that for granted. But suppose they had not asked that question; suppose they had adopted the suggestion of
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the right hon. gentleman and made out a list of articles which they thought might be taxed. Suppose, when he received that list, there was not one article contained in it that would benefit Canada at all. What would have happened? He would have handed the list back and said, "I cannot discuss these things. They are no good to me. Can you make out another list?" Another list would have been made out and solemnly handed to the right hon. gentleman, and the same thing might have happened again.
In 1930 and 1932, however, like a sensible business man the Prime Minister, anticipating what the government of Great Britain would want, handed them his list and said, "These are the articles on which we would like a preference if you can give it to us. We are not forcing or binding you; you are as free as a bird of the air to give or not to give. This list is for ycur information so that you may know where we stand in these matters." And in leaving this point let me say that to me it seems that if anyone fell from grace in departing from the Laurier method it was the right hon. leader of the opposition rather than the Prime Minister.
The next criticism is taken on the ground that this treaty attempts to force our fiscal policy upon Great Britain. Later the utterly gratuitous suggestion was made that there is in the treaty an attempt to force the selfgoverning colonies to do something. There is no such thing in the treaty, of course, as everyone knows. That criticism, it seems to me, is a poor compliment to those gentlemen who came here from England, who have been skilled for years in the government of their country, and who have -been trained almost from the nursery in matters of this kind. It is a poor compliment that any member of this house, and particularly the right hon. leader of the opposition, should believe for one moment that Mr. Baldwin and his associates would allow any fiscal or other policy to be forced down their throats, which they in turn were to force down the throat of their government, which their government in turn was to force down the throat of parliament, and which parliament in turn was to force down the throat of the nation. We have had thundered from the leader of the opposition the statement that no executive can bind a nation. That is an unimpeachable principle, but I cannot quite see the relevancy of it. What executive is going to try to bind what nation? This treaty has -been brought down in this house and laid on the table for free discussion. If the parliament of Canada chooses to reject it the treaty will be rejected; fMr. Bury.]
if the British parliament chooses to reject it the same thing will happen; but parliament is not an executive; parliament is the people.
The right hon. gentleman levelled one other criticism quite apart from the treaty. It was that he cannot be expected to accept this treaty because the Prime Minister has declared that it represents adequate protection. Would any other kind of protection do? Is it suggested that the right hon. gentleman would have had less objection to the treaty if the Prime Minister had declared that it contained inadequate protection? Because the Prime Minister made that statement; because he has said the treaty represents the platform on which he stood in 1930, the right hon. gentleman says he cannot be expected to approve of it, and he wants his followers to take the same view. This is an amazing situation. One would have thought that a treaty was good or bad in itself, and that it would be rejected or accepted on its own inherent merits. In this the right hon. gentleman is of the same mind as the mad prince of Denmark that-
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
The right hon. gentleman, however, has narrowed the application a little to-
There is nothing either good or bad in political arrangements, treaties or policies but the thinking of the Prime Minister makes it so.
So we have for the entertainment of men and gods the strange spectacle of the leader of the opposition playing Katharina to the Prime Minister's Petruchio, and saying:
.... Be it moon, or sun, or what you please:
An you please to call it a rush-candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.
Certain criticisms have been levelled by the leader of the opposition against the subject matter of the treaty itself. He says it is protective. Of course it is protective. If the Prime Minister and the delegates who represented this country at the conference had not tried to make it protective they would have been false to their principles, to their pledges and to the mandate which the country gave them in 1930. Of course it is protective; it coidd not be anything else. The hon. member for North Bruce (Mr. Malcolm) recognized the fact that it must be protective. Without being drawn into the alluring field of discussion as to protection may I just remind hon. members of the house that we are all protectionists, where our public or private property is concerned at least. We have police. We resent and regret the necessity for protection. We resent the possibility that someone may knock

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us down at the street corner and take our watch, if we have one. None the less, though we resent the necessity for protection, we are not quite so foolish as to do without it. Sometimes the greatest pacifists have 'been the greatest protectionists. May I remind the house of that scene from the story which enchanted us in our childhood, where Legree, the slave hunter, is following Eliza. She and her party have escaped to a position on the rock separated from their pursuers only by a narrow chasm. Legree mounts to a position on the other side of the chasm and prepares to leap across. He does leap; but suddenly a long arm shoots out and meets him squarely on the chest in mid-air, and a coldly dispassionate voice declares, "Thee is not wanted here, friend." That was protection. It was protection from a Quaker; it was the protection offered by Phineas. The most pacific people in the world may sometimes have to fall back on the doctrine and practice of protection. Some of us are protectionists not because we love protection for its owm sake or for its own value or virtue, any more than we love policemen merely qua policemen, or for any value or virtue except as an effective force to see to it that our rights of person and of property are recognized and respected.


Edward James Young: But you are protecting the spoilers.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: I do not know what my hon. friend is saying, but -if he will put his question after my forty minutes are up, I shall be glad to answer him.
Another criticism levelled against the treaty is this: it has not enough British preference in it. It may be that that will improve with age; it may be that more British preference will be given. I sincerely hope so. But when the leader of the opposition was giving the figures dealing with that matter he was hardly fair. He said in his speech that in 139 items, which were general items, the result was brought about by increases in the duty. That is not quite accurate; brought about in part, yes. But what will go out to the country-because the newspapers will not give and the people will not. get the schedules, and will not be able to check up the right hon. gentleman's statements for themselves

what will go out to the country, I say, is the 'bare bald statement that in 139 out of 223 items the result is brought about solely by the raising of the intermediate and general duties. In point of fact, the British rate is reduced in 133 general items, and in 89 items while the rate itself remains unchanged the British preference is increased by increases in the other rates. So
that in 222 out of the 223 there is a considerable advantage for -the British producer and exporter.
Let me deal rapidly with another criticism. The right 'lion, gentleman decries and disparages the benefits that will accrue to this country by reason of the suspension of the Import Duties Act; -and what does he say? Two things. First, he asks, can anyone suppose for a moment that Great Britain will impose these taxes? And his second statement is that for -her to impose these taxes would be .to proclaim an economic war. That is truculent language to come from the right hon. gentleman. It might come from this side without causing any .particular surprise; but from the leader of the opposition it is rather surprising. She won't impose these taxes? The answer to that is that unfortunately she has imposed them. The tax is there; it is only suspended. The Import Duties Act is there, the tax being suspended until November 15, and there is no need for her to do anything. Effluxion of time will do it, and at the end of the period of suspension the tax will descend. What would the right hon. gentleman have done if, filing in the days of Damocles, he had seen him sitting with the sword suspended over his head by a hair, and had been told that the hair could last only ten minutes? The right hon. gentleman would have patted him on the shoulder and said, " Don't be at all uneasy, Damocles; who can suppose tor a moment that this sword will be .allowed to fall?" Damocles might very well have replied, " But it is going to fall in ten minutes' time. It is easy for you to be confident, blit you would not be so confident if cur places were reversed and I were tapping you on t.he shoulder, reassuring you." Well, that is exactly the position here. The tax is suspended over the heads of the Canadian producers, suspended until November 15, and the British government and parliament need not do one single thing except let time flow, when the tax will become operative. Yet the right lion, gentleman tall^s about the necessity for the British parliament imposing taxes. They are imposed, with suspension. Is not a man who is sentenced to a term of imprisonment. equally sentenced though the sentence is suspended? Is it not still a sentence?
Now I come to another criticism. The right hon. gentleman finds that we have absolutely nothing to congratulate ourselves upon; but before I go on to that there is one word more I should like to add on the question of these taxes. He says it is impossible to suppose that the British government will impose taxes. Did they not impose taxes in
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1902? And have they not imposed this tax? Have I not heard the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Mullins) speak sometime, somewhere, about a thing called the cattle embargo? It is perfectly true that it was not a tax, but it was the expression of the power and desire and intention of the British government to protect the industries of their own country first. What is the meaning of the three-year reservation in respect of eggs and other farm products? That brings me to what I want to say in that regard. The right hon. gentleman declares that while there is absolutely no danger from the position we are in in relation to the Import Duties Act, there is very grave danger in relation to that three-year reservation clause. But the fact is that there is no tax imposed there at all; it is purely hypothetical, purely supposititious, a figment of the right hon. gentleman's imagination, a possibility not yet brought to birth, and one that cannot be brought to birth for three years; yet even now he can hear the gates of the British market closing against Canadian trade three years hence. According to his own predictions, however, the right hon. gentleman will no doubt be in power before the three years are up, and he can stop the gates from closing; he may therefore rest in peace so far as the possibility of those purely hypothetical taxes coming into being is concerned. He tells us that there is no significance in a tax that has been actually imposed, though suspended; that has an actual existence. But there is a monumental, a terrible significance in a tax that may be imposed three years hence should the British government choose to impose it. We are endorsing a tax on food if we pass the treaty with that clause in, he says. We are doing no such thing, and the right hon. gentleman knows it. What we are endorsing is the right of Great Britain to say, "We will give you an exemption for one or two or three or four or five or ten years, just according to our own wish and determination." We are endorsing the right of Great Britain to manage her own affairs; and if she says she will give us a guarantee against the imposition of the tax for three years, we say that is good. But to say that we are endorsing the taxation of food because we admit the right of Great Britain at the end of three years to do what she can do now, tax food-that is absolutely absurd.
May I now refer briefly to one or two other matters that have been criticized? I will take the question of "first sale" of wheat. I will not deal with that extensively; the Minister of Railways dealt with it. Accord-

ing to the right hon. gentleman the effect of the "first sale" provision is this: that the markets of the world are going to be flooded w'ith the wheat from countries other than Canada and with the surplus wheat from Canada. They will find it very difficult to answer the question of the hon. member for Long Lake (Mr. Cowan)-What markets? But leaving that aside, it is claimed that the markets of the world are to be flooded, the world price is to be depressed and, therefore, the price which the Canadian farmer will obtain in the British market will also be depressed and the farmer will be ruined. That is the first trouble. But before these words have died on our ears, another argument is presented which absolutely destroys them. It is that the result of these measures will be that food prices in Great Britain will be taxed, the price of food will go up and the poor labouring man will not be able to support himself. One fly is thrown out to the farmer and another to the labouring man in the hope that two fish may be caught. Unfortunately for those who make it, that argument is self-destructive.
The right hon. gentleman also disparaged the benefits expected to accrue from the preference on tobacco. He claimed that the duty on tobacco might be lowered to the vanishing point, and then he asked: Where does your preference go? Of course, it goes nowhere; I admit that.


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


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: In that case I must drop the question of the tobacco concession, though it is extremely interesting, and beg the indulgence of the house for a minute or two longer to conclude.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: In conclusion I may say that the right hon. gentleman seems to be so obsessed with what he conceives to be the evil origin of this measure, the circumstances of its begetting and birth, that he thinks nothing good can be in it. He reminds me of the words of King Henry V when he was courting Katharine of France:
Now, beshrew my father's ambition! he was thinking of civil wars when he got me: Therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies I fright them.
In the view of the right hon. gentleman the Prime Minister, who was the father of this measure, must at its begetting have been thinking of economic wars, so that the hard

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features of economic conflict stamped and impressed themselves upon it. But that is not the end of the king's speech. There is hope in the future:
But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax the better I shall appear: . . . and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better.
That is the hope of those of us who sit on this side of the house regarding the treaty which has been submitted. There is an old Latin saying, solvitur ambulando. The great problems involved in imperial preference will be solved as we go forward.


Mr. L. DUBOIS (Nicolet) (Translation):: 
Mr. POULIOT (Temiscouata) (Translation) :: May I put a question to the hon.
member? I have been listening to his speech with much interest, and since the hon. member is a farmer, would he be kind enough to inform us whether butter sells today at 45 cents per pound, as the Conservatives, previous to the election, assured us it would?


Mr. LAFLECHE (Riehmond-Wolfe) (Translation) :: He is no more a farmer than the
hon. member for Temiscouata is.


Lucien Dubois: It is unnecessary to make a lengthy reply to my hon. friend. Let me simply inform him that there is not only the promise of a better price on butter which was not fulfilled, but that practically none of the pledges made in 1930 were carried out. I further note that by these Imperial conference agreements the farming class, which is very deserving, seem to have been greatly neglected. This class of toilers, who silently, and sometimes unthought of, accomplishes its worthy task, should, I think, be given more consideration by our legislators.
Perhaps the farmer, generally speaking, has not the education, the culture of certain city folks, of certain big gentlemen; he has perhaps not the pleasing manner of Lord Rotber-mere, nevertheless, when a group of farmers request an interview from the Prime Minister of a country, I cannot understand by what feelings one can be moved to dismiss these people as rudely as was the delegation of farmers, in July last. By this attitude, the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) leads us to believe that he harbours thoughts which I would beg of him to dispel. It is absolutely necessary that the leaders of a country, those who are blessed with an education, culture and are influential in society, should, if they do

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not wish to regret it later, help the toiler of the soil, the " habitant," the farmer.
Back to the land has been advocated. The government has somewhat helped in this movement. Not perhaps as I would personally have wished, because, at present, we should endeavour to help, especially those who are already on the land, to maintain themselves there, and, should funds still be available, help the city workers, who have had some farm training, to return to the land. More working hands on the farm have been advocated. Yes, the land must have more hands, but one cannot become a farmer by simply wishing to be one, a special training is necessary. Let us work to give the land as many useful hands as it is possible, but what is also needed, is that one's whole heart, mind and soul must also be on the land. If the right hon. Prime Minister had well understood the importance of the part played by the farmer, if he had felt in his heart the respect due to the ploughman, he would have made it a point to meet this group of farmers who requested an interview. He preferred to stay away, he preferred to meet Lord Rother-mere. That was his own private affair, however, he must know, he must understand and especially realize that the farming class of this country is more useful to Canada than Lord Rothermere can possibly be. The farming class seems to be neglected, the farmer seems to be looked upon as a being, I shall not say useless, but one who can be fooled so easily that he may be considered of no account. Yet, the Prime Minister, as well as the leaders of society, must be aware that it is the Canadian farmer who was and is still the pioneer of this country.


Mr. LAPOINTE (Translation):: Hear,
hear.


Joseph-François Laflèche: This is
no news.


Jean-François Pouliot: It is no
news, but it is a fact, one must not forget it.
Mr. DUBO'IS (Translation):	And it is
only after these leaders have turned their efforts to improve the land that they will be able to boast of having accomplished a worthy act. Look at the nations who have weathered the present crisis; are they not those who turned to the soil, the land? Let me point out, as examples, France, Belgium and Denmark.
If we really wish to perform durable work in this country we must at all cost help tin farming class, in all possible waj'S. One of
these would be to lower the tariff so that the farmers can purchase at low cost what they require. Not only has the tariff not been sufficiently lowered, but on the contrary, it was increased in many instances, thus rendered more burdensome to farmers. I can state that from this viewpoint the last July Imperial conference has been a failure.
Secondly, I also deem, it my duty to oppose the agreements entered into at the Imperial conference, because these agreements tie our hands for five years, thus preventing us to negotiate treaties with other countries which might, in the meantime, offer us more advantageous terms. I do not wish anyone to cast doubt on my loyalty and patriotism, and to that end I shall inform those who might be tempted to do so, that I am one of the descendants of those who, in 1812, defended Quebec and Canada, while another group of brave men-brave in their own eyes-hid on the island of Orleans. I am one of the sons of those who saved Canada for the British crown, but one must not be made the scapegoat for all this. Truth and common sense, I think, are worth listening to.
As 'the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) stated the other day, there are outside the British Commonwealth, countries with whom we could trade advantageously. There is, for instance, if my knowledge of geography is not at fault, France, Italy, Japan, South America, the United States and many others. And we could trade advantageously with those countries, should I judge by the profits we have made in the past. In our trade with Italy from 1916 to 1931, we imported $37,543,477 worth of goods and exported, during the same period, $272,398,678 worth, thus giving us a favourable balance of $234,855,201. Our trade with Japan was also profitable to us. In 1929, we imported from that country $13,000,000 worth of goods and exported $12,000,000 giving Canada a favourable balance of $29,000,000. In 1930. we imported from Japan $12,500,000 of goods and exported $30,500,000 worth; there, again, we had a balance of $18,000,000 in our favour. Our trade with Brazil was also profitable. In 1929. the value of our imports from Brazil amounted to $1,700,000, and that of our exports $5,900,000, giving us a favourable balance of $4,200,000.
In 1930, we imported from Brazil goods to the value of $1,650,000 and exported $4,300,000, thus obtaining a favourable balance of $2,650,000. The New Zealand treaty so highly criticized during the 1930 election brought our country a net profit of $71,000,000. The Australian treaty which was used as a
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battle horse, during .the same election, brought us a profit of $122,000,000

and at that time butter did not sell cheaper than today, if I am not mistaken.
I realize that the ,party on your right, sir, prides itself on being a business government, of having as Prime Minister a business man. I am willing to admit that the Prime Minister has a knowledge of business, but he has a better knowledge of his affairs than of those of the country. My leader and my party do not lay .olaim to such attainments, yet, when in power, find it possible to bring prosperity to this country. Is it attributable to good luck or is it evidence of good management? You are aware that between. 1896 and 1911, we enjoyed an era of prosperity such as was unknown until then. From 1911 to 1921, the Conservative party assumed power, and Heaven knows in what distress and chasm it left the country's affairs! The Liberal government then returned to power and until 1930, we again enjoyed prosperity. I wonder whether this is luck or the evidence of a good management.
Let me again repeat that I do no.t think it wise to be tied up by treaties siuch as were agreed upon at the Imperial conference. It is to our advantage to trade with the entire world but especially with the United States. At .the risk of shocking the great sponsors of Imperialism, and since I gave proof, just now, of my love for country, I can well maintain that our natural trade channels point to the United States. Each time we traded, on a large scale, with our neighbours, our profits were equally on a large scale. We do not know what .the future has in store for us. Perhaps, our neighbours will not always be under a regime of high protection as it has been until now, it would therefore be advantageous for our country, I think, to have our hands free then so as to negotiate a treaty which might be profitable .to us. However, by article 22, we are tied down. We are bound by this treaty, we have no right to trade outside the commonwealth without England's consent. It is no more nor less than economic imperialism. But economic imperialism is just as dangerous and fatal, if not more so, as political and military imperialism.


Joseph-François Laflèche: It will
bring on conscription.
Mr, DUBOIS (Translation) : This is why I am opposed to the enactment of the Imperial conference trade agreements. I think that the time has come to shake off this harmful jingoism, not only to Canada, but to the empire,
[Hr. Dubois.]
Why step backward, when, for the last fifty years, we have been moving forward towards autonomy with all the tenacity which char. acterizes Canadians? What would the Conference of 1926 have served, if, .today, we are to return to the colonialism of fifty years ago? What benefit will accrue from this autonomy that we won through sacrifices, if we sacrifice it on the alter of an exaggerated imperialism? This article which binds us thus has no justification, Both from a political and economic viewpoint, I state that the Conference of 1932 has been, a notable failure and a step backward of fifty years.
The third1 reason which forces me to oppose the enactment of these pacts, is that it isolates us from the rest of the world to the benefit of whom, I wonder, sir? These agreements between the nations included in the commonwealth, this wall erected around the British Empire, creates an economic whole isolated from the rest of the world. By this isolation this government has accomplished something entirely contrary to wfaat wise economists have advised and quite .contrary to what the Manchester Guardian of London published on July 7 last, as regards the Ottawa Conference:
The conference at Ottawa has something in common with	Versailles,-"the	newspaper
states." It is called, if not to end a war, at least to arrange a truce on one particular battlefield.
Let us agree. If the conference sought to make of the commonwealth a closed economic whole, independent of others, it would be bound to fail. First, all the component parts of the empire are not economically complementary, on the contrary, since the best customer of industrial England is still continental Europe, and the latter will not be long in using reprisals against the tariff bloc as constituted, finally bust especially, the world economic responsibility is such that, only measures giving to the world trade the widest markets can possibly remedy crisis. It will require imagination, insight. courage if the conference is to arrive at this dual result for which every one hopes; pull down the tariff walls between the nations of the commonwealth and adjust the preferential tariff, thus established, to present conditions of world trade. If the example given by the commonwealth is followed by Europe and the United States, if national protectionism is replaced by a true economic cooperation aniong the nations, the Ottawa conference will give happy results.
The Imperial conference will only bear fruit inasmuch as it will sponsor a spirit of cooperation among the nations of the world. Another English economist wrote as follows:
No group of nations can detach itself from the rest of the world. Canada and Australia cannot forsake the world markets for their wheat. South Africa and New Zealand cannot forsake the world markets for their wool. The United Kingdom itself has need of the world markets for its manufactured products.

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Instead of heeding these warnings, it was preferred to form a separate economic entity, such as is seen in the agreements entered into at the last Imperial conference. A tariff wall was erected, a fence around the British Empire, and the teachings of economists as to economic nationalism were totally ignored.
Let me quote from a lecture given recently in Montreal, by a French economist, Mr. Lucien Romier. Speaking of economic nationalism, he says:
If we persist in following the present policy and becoming deeper involved, we shall not only have a greater crisis, but catastrophies and wars in the years to come. For nations as for individuals, the way to success is to walk straight to one's neighbour, look at him in the face and say: let us exchange thoughts, and the products of our labours. But let us not barricade ourselves behind walls, because closed walls by complete protection, is a jail and no one cares to enter there.
With nations, as with individuals, a propaganda of Christian spirit and charity is a necessity, and it is only when nations, groups and individuals will be entirely imbued with such a spirit and charity that they will bring to a happy issue the future of their respective countries.


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


Lucien Dubois: I shall, sir,
close my remarks by stating another reason for which I am opposed to this tariff wall, to this isolation of the empire in the midst of the nations of the world, it is that the last Imperial conference, in setting up this isolation, has entirely ignored the recommendations of the Lauzanne conference. At that conference an agreement was reached on the following points: that the world needed a revival of trust between nations; that the nations needed more goodwill in their mutual intercourse. The results of the Lauzanne conference were of such importance, so encouraging for the whole world that His Holiness Pope Pius XI could not help thanking God for this first ray of dawn which seemed to dissipate the dark clouds hanging on the horizon. But, sir, the very next day which followed this first ray of hope, this first sign of good omen, at the Imperial conference of 1932, Canada with the entire British Empire isolate themselves from the rest of the world. The British Commonwealth wishes to do business alone, independently of other nations. From that point of view, I state that the Imperial conference of 1932 is an incitement to disorder, because we cannot isolate ourselves from the other 53719-30
nations, without creating an unfavourable reaction. Moreover, the Imperial Conference is a denial of the recommendations of the Lausanne conference. For these reasons I deem it my duty to register my vote against the present agreements.


Mr. G. M. McDADE (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, before proceeding to a brief discussion of the resolution before the house may I be permitted to express my regret at the absence through illness from his place in this house of the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Veniot). I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that I voice the feeling of all hon. members when I express the hope that he will be fully restored to good health shortly and be able to resume his seat in this house.
Respecting the important resolution under discussion at the moment, I do not wish to be charged with being in any sense extravagant in my statements, but I do say that the treaties concluded at the Imperial economic conference represent the greatest achievement since confederation. To us in the maritime provinces the treaties afford the prospect of increased traffic through the great ports of Saint John and Halifax, in common with increased traffic through the other large ports of this country. For a great many years there has been carried on in this house and in the country an agitation which has become commonly known as the maritime rights agitation, and which has been received sometimes with considerable sympathy from hon. members representing other constituencies, but on other occasions not with that wholehearted sympathy that we from the maritime would have liked to see. When the full advantages in trade have been realized under the treaties which have just recently been concluded, there will of necessity be a great expansion in the ports of Saint John and Halifax.
Dealing for a moment particularly with the argument of my hon. friends opposite against the duration of the treaty for a five-year term, may I express the belief that it would be in the interests of Canadian industry and of Canadian workmen that we have a permanent tariff as far as possible subject to the application of dumping duties as necessity might arise, and I believe that since this administration came into power we have had tariff stability to a much greater degree than before. Certainly this feature of the agreement is praiseworthy rather than condemnatory.
The treaty concluded with the United Kingdom should of necessity lead within a reasonable time to increased prosperity for the people of the maritime provinces. Take for instance, lumber, apples, bacon, butter, cheese,

466	COMMONS
Imperial Conference-Trade Agreements
fish, eggs and other commodities. Under the terms of the treaty the people of the maritime provinces will 'be able to ship these commodities in much larger quantities. To the fruit growers of the maritime provinces the treaty means larger markets. I am credibly informed that the fruit growers of the Annapolis valley, as a result of this treaty, will make increased shipments to the amount of at least $1,000,000 annually and will further increase as time goes on. I invite my hon. friends from Nova Scotia to interpret the feeling obtaining in that province concerning the preference, and to support this resolution on that ground alone. The preference on apples will also mean a great deal to the apple growing industry in the Saint John river valley, where, within the past ten years, under capable assistance from the Departments of Agriculture at Fred-erictoq and Ottawa, a large industry has been developed.
I should like to deal somewhat more extensively with the continuance for five years of the ten per cent preference on lumber. That preference will have a stabilizing effect upon the lumber industry, and will prove valuable to eastern Canada, particularly the province of New Brunswick where lumbering is unquestionably one of the basic industries. Prior to the agreement now before us what privileges were enjoyed by those engaged in lumbering? We all know that the high tariffs imposed by our friends in the United States, tariffs which have existed many years and were made higher in the year 1932, had practically eliminated the market for Canadian lumber in the United States. We know further that due to unfair competition from Russia, to which the Canadian shipper was subjected, we were not able, except to a very limited extent, to reach the old country market. Therefore our sales were practically limited to the domestic market. To such an extent had this condition of affairs affected the industry that whereas previously thousands of men were employed in lumbering throughout the province, scarcely more than 300 or 400 are now so employed. This indicates the state of the lumbering industry throughout the maritime provinces-indeed, throughout the dominion-prior to the passage of the treaty with the United Kingdom.
To what extent did Canadians suffer through exclusion from the markets of the old country? May I point out that annually the normal imports of lumber into Great Britain are between 3,000,000,000 and 3,500,000,000 board feet. In the year 1931 the imports were a little in excess of 3,000,000,000 board feet. In the same year there were imported
'Mr. McDade.]
from Russia approximately 1,200,000,000 board feet or 36-7 per cent of the total import. May I say to my hon. friend from Shelburne-Yarmouth (Mr. Ralston) that when he states the Canadian lumber industry was not affected by the imports of lumber from Russia, he is sadly mistaken. In the last year while Great Britain imported 36-7 per cent of her lumber from Russia, she imported only 4-4 per cent from Canada. In other words, while the import from Russia amounted to 1,200,000,000 board feet, from Canada she imported only 139,000,000 board feet. Yet my hon. friend will say that the treaty has done nothing and is of no advantage to Canadian lumbermen because, according to his contention, little if any lumber was imported from Russia. He did admit that lumber was imported from other Baltic countries. Surely he must know that no country living under normal social and economic conditions could have met the Russian competition. He must know, further, that the Russian competition forced many Finnish and Swedish mills into liquidation.
On Monday last, discussing article 21 of the agreement, the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) expressed some doubt as to whether or not action would be taken by the government of Great Britain under the provisions of that section. Hon. members realize that article 21 was inserted so that action could be taken against any country where state controlled labour brought about conditions with which Canada could not compete. My right hon. friend could not have been in the confidence of the administration in the old country. It rvould not seem that the Right Hon. J. H. Thomas, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, could have consulted him with regard to the advisability of abrogating a treaty with a country in which conditions existed such as described in section 21 of the treaty.
On Monday the right hon. leader of the opposition attempted to throw some monkey wrenches into machinery by stating that the necessary six months' notice of cancellation of the treaty with Russia would probably not be given. At page 287 of Hansard, after quoting the provisions of section 21 of the treaty between the United Kingdom and Canada, the remarks of the right hon. gentleman are reported as follows:
With respect to that particular article, however worthy may have been the intention of whoever is responsible for it, I venture to say that by the time an effort is made to have it carried out, there will be a degree of dissension between the different parts of the British empire the like of which has never before been known.

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On Tuesday announcement was made in the British House of Commons that steps had been taken towards the abrogation of the treaty, and I should like to inquire from the right hon. gentleman where he is able to find " a degree of dissension between the different parts of the British empire the like of which has never before been known." The right hon. gentleman continues:
Who is going to state when state-aided competition has reached a point which will render it necessary for the British government to declare an embargo against the country in question.
I do not think there was any intention of declaring an embargo. I believe the intention was that action should be taken which would serve to ensure that Canada would receive the full benefit of the preferences extended under the treaty. He continues:
Will anyone say that any government from any part of the British empire should be compelled to act at the instance of some other part to the extent of declaring an embargo upon trade? If this clause means anything, it meanB that in a matter of this kind the British government will be moved into action at the instance of the Canadian government.
I really do not know' what actuated the British government to take steps to conclude the Russian treaty, but I do say if it was at the instance of the administration in Canada, credit certainly redounds to that government.
Within two short years after having received the confidence of the people this government brought together in this capital city representatives of all parts of the empire, who have agreed upon policies which, to my mind, will bring prosperity not only to this country but to every section of the empire as well. I agree that a contract must be based upon consideration; we give something in return for what we get. I believe Canada will receive immeasurable advantages under the treaty, but we have not lost sight of the fact that to be successful the treaty must also work to the advantage of the other sections of the empire; in other words, its advantages must be mutual.
While I am on this point may I be permitted to say that the impression obtaining among many thoughtful people throughout the country is that prosperity in the various parts of the British Empire will mean increased trade throughout the world. No less eminent an authority than Mr. Schwab has stated that while these agreements will hit the United States to a considerable degree, when they are fully in operation their effect will mean prosperity within the British Empire and increased trade throughout the world. I think it is only reasonable to expect that if 53719-301
the British Empire is prosperous, as I submit it will be if this treaty is given a fair chance, that prosperity will be felt generally.
I do not intend to discuss at length local matters particularly affecting the community which I have the honour and privilege to represent in this house. I think at least members of the government will agree that my constant importunities with regard to unemployment on the Miramichi are proof positive that any treaty which will help rehabilitate the great lumber industry that once was ours certainly merits the hearty en-dorsation not only of myself but of all hon. members from the maritime provinces. On the north shore of the province of New Brunswick we have waited hopefully for the results of the imperial conference. Lumber is our basic industry, and it is an important industry also in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and to a smaller extent in Nova Scotia. In reasonably good times this industry affords employment to approximately a quarter of a million people, and if we assume the average family of five we see that more than a million people will be affected. So I appeal to hon. members opposite to endorse this phase of the treaty particularly. If some of our hon. friends in the corner feel that they must vote against the resolution 1 trust that when the bill is in committee this house will unanimously approve of the action of the government with regard to lumber. I do not wish to be understood as expressing undue optimism, Mr. Speaker, so far as the lumber situation is conoerned, but I do believe that in due time Canada will receive a sufficient preference in the old country to enable us to ship approximately 1,300,000,000 feet to that market annually. I think that was the opinion voiced at the conference.
It would not be fair for me to conclude my remarks on this subject without expressing my personal appreciation of the able work performed by the hon. member for East Algoma (Mr. Nicholson) in connection with this question of lumber. The hon. member was acting in his capacity as chairman of the executive committee of the Canadian Lumbermen's Association; throughout the conference he worked assiduously in preparing and submitting the case on behalf of Canada, and his efforts were continued until a happy solution was found. I believe Canadian lumbermen may look forward confidently to larger markets within the British Empire, but proper advantage must be taken of the agreements. The ten per cent preference has been initiated for a definite period of five years, and certainly Great Britain kept faith with
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Imperial Conference-Trade Agreements
Canada by giving notice of the abrogation of the treaty with Russia. It is true that a new treaty is invited, but the British government is pledged that no treaty which may subsequently replace the present treaty with Russia will interfere with the preferences extended to Canada under the terms of the conference agreement. I would direct attention also to the very satisfactory bilateral agreements with the other dominions, which will mean increased business with South Africa, the Irish Free State and Southern Rhodesia.
It is not my intention, Mr. Speaker, to dwell at much greater length on this subject, but before closing may I place on record the opinion of the Saint John Board of Trade, which is not a partisan organization in any way. The monthly bulletin of that board, issued last month, stated:
It is still the respectful conviction of our board that as the outcome of the Imperial economic conference-when it shall have been fully revealed-the situation for the lumber industry in this province will be decidedly improved; in fact, we are quite hopeful.
I do not wish to take up the time of the house quoting clippings from newspapers. I take it that the newspapers are widely circulated and inasmuch as the public reads and is thoughtful, it has an intelligent grasp of the proposals. I submit that we, as members of the House of Commons, are afforded one of the greatest opportunities that have come to members of parliament in a great many years. We are given a chance to build bigger the great British Empire of which we are all proud to form a part. I share the sentiments voiced by both sides of the house as to the greatness of British institutions, as to British ideals and as to the glories of the British people. I listened tonight to remarks from an hon. gentleman opposite, and I am glad to say that I concur in what he has said as to the unquestioned loyalty of our French Canadian friends.
This conference represents the considered thought of the brightest minds in the governments of the empire. Agreements have been satisfactorily concluded, and they are being received wholeheartedly by the vast majority of the peoples of the empire. With the greatest respect and deference, I submit that the leader of the opposition and his colleagues have misinterpreted the feeling of the people of Canada relative to the agreements. When they have opposed them on the floor of this house, they have not represented the feeling of the people, for the overwhelming considered judgment of the people of Canada, throughout the length and breadth of the

country, is in support of the agreements. I say this with all due deference to the leader of a great political party, but the people of Canada, in my humble opinion-and I say this not only fr .m personal observation but from endorsements received from various sections of the country

are wholeheartedly in support of the agreements. Therefore it is with great pleasure that I have made these few observations.
While I may be pardoned for having dealt only with the lumber situation, it is of vital importance to the community of Miramichi, where there is unquestionably a great deal of distress and misery and suffering. All this existed under the regime of my hon. friends opposite, but owing to worldwide conditions it is unfortunately still with us. I appeal to the house for a fair trial of the treaty. So far as lumber is concerned, it will undoubtedly serve to improve the conditions that exist not only with hundreds but with thousands of people on the north shore of the province of New Brunswick, and, indeed, in other lumbering communities throughout Canada. On that ground I ask hon. gentlemen to support the concessions granted.


Mr. EUSEBE ROBERGE (Megantic) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to this agreement with Great Britain which i3 before the house, because, while containing certain clauses which are favourable to my constituents, others in greater number are contrary to their interests and will react injuriously in many cases on the cost of living. That agreement will certainly not have the effect of fulfilling the promises made by this government in the course of the election of 1930. Our opponents stated at the time that they would put a stop to unemployment; they pledged themselves to secure for the farmers better prices for their products and those prices have fallen 50 per cent, since their assuming power. Farmers find themselves today in a worse position than they were in 1896. The returns coming to them from the sale of their milk and other farm products, since the advent of this administration, are not sufficient to meet their municipal and school taxes and maintenance charges. Some of them in order to carry on are constrained to spend the moneys they had managed to save under the liberal regime, while the others run into debt. And now this government, under the stipulations of the treaty, is binding them to pay higher prices for living expenses and necessary improvements on their farms.
I shall point out the rates of duty which the farmers had to pay under the liberal

Questions
regime and those which	they will	be calledupon to pay in the future:	Former	NewTariff	TariffSeparators	Free	25%Barbed wire	Free	10%Wool, piece goods	24i%	59%Suitings	244%	63%Cotton fabrics	18 %	50%Window' glass	Free	15%Aluminum wares	15 %	30%Cutlery of iron or steel. .	15 %	30%Scissors, razors	Free	30%Electrical apparatus.. . .	Free	25%Flanellette	15 %	48%Overcoatings	25 %	91%Fertilizers	Free	74%
I am content with quoting only a few items in support of my statement; they are too numerous to quote them all.
Mir. Speaker, on October 19, at page 369 of Hansard, the hon. Postmaster General (Mr. Sauve) stated:
Our opponents speak as if, for the last two years the government had refused to trade with other countries and as if had the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) been in power he would have found markets abroad to sell our products at advantageous prices. Does this contention rest on facts or past achievements.
Mr. Speaker, that contention is based on facts and history as I shall show. The hon. Postmaster General has forgotten, I think, that this government since coming into power has refused an order from Russia for $5,000,000 worth of manufactured goods for the most part, an order which would have ensured a good deal of employment for our labouring classes, who were in great need of it. Instead of allowing this order to be filled, the government put an embargo on all Russian products, wishing thereby to set an example for all countries the world over. To show to what extent Great Britain proposes to cease trading with Russia, I may read to the house an excerpt from an article which appeared in Le Droit, on October 18, 1932:
On giving the six months' notice required under the treaty, the Russian charge d'affaires was advised that the British government was anxious to increase its trade with Russia and was ready to open negotiations.
In that way did Great Britain put an embargo on Russian products. If I mention Russia, it is because since the putting of that embargo into force, Russia has doubled its output of asbestos and lowered the price of that commodity 50 per cent. As the constituency which I represent produces two-thirds of Canada's output in that line, I should point out that this embargo has been most
injurious to such mining centres as Thetford Mines and Black Lake, the later especially, which, under the liberal regime was one of the most flourishing towns in the Eastern townships. Black Lake then had a population of 4,000 souls which today is cut down to less than 3,000. All the asbestos mines at Black Lake have been closed for the last twenty-two months and without hope of resuming operations in spite of the government pledges to procure work for all. That is a striking example of the way the government settled the unemployment problem and lived up to its promises in the county of Megantic. At Thetford Mines one-third of the men only are employed since this government has taken the reins. Mr. Speaker, as you may see from the state of things in the county of Megantic, the electorate have good reason to complain and clamour for a change of government.
On motion of Mr. Casgrain the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Stevens the house adjourned at 10.45 p.m.
Monday, October 24, 1932