1934-06-07

[Stage Direction]
Fourth report of the select standing committee on agriculture and colonization.-Mr. Senn.
Seventh report of the select standing committee on banking and commerce.-Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury).

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. D. CHAPLIN (Lincoln) presented the fourth report of the special committee on railways and shipping owned, operated and
controlled by the government, and moved that the third and fourth reports be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.

Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Prime Minister):: I beg to lay on the table three copies of the report of the international commission appointed to investigate the probable effects of the damming of Passamaquoddy and Cobscook bays on the fisheries of that region. The -three copies are in English; the French copy will be completed probably by Monday.
I deferred laying this report on the table until the French copy was ready, but in view of the observations made by the hon. member
for Gloucester (Mr. Veniot), I table this report to-day, of which I am sending him a copy.



ST. CLAIR TRANSIT COMPANY

Mr. R. W. GRAY (West Lambton) moved:: That the petition of St. Clair Transit Company, presented on June 6, praying for the passing of an act to extend the time for construction and completion of a bridge, together with the report of the clerk of petitions thereon, be referred to the select standing committee on standing orders for the purpose of considering the suspension of standing orders 92, 93 (3) (a) and (c), and 95 in relation thereto, and of standing order 93 (1) as regards the penalty charge incurred for late filing of the bill.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

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

Mr. CASGRAIN:: 1.	Is the government aware that the corporation of the city of Calgary has repudiated payments of the exchange upon its bonded indebtedness payable in New York?
2.	Has the federal government made good the difference on the exchange?
3.	If so, what amount has the government paid on such account?


Mr. RHODES:: The answer to question No.
1 is no information. The answer to question No. 2 is no, and No. 3 is answered by No. 2.


TAX FREE BONDS
Mr. MITCHELL:: 1.	What is the amount of dominion tax free bonds outstanding: (a) registered; (b) bearer?
2.	How many persons are holders of bonds
of $1,000 and less?	.
3.	What number of persons are holding such bonds of $1,000 and up to $5,000?
4.	How many persons are holding such bonds over $5,000 and under $10,000?
5.	What number of persons are holding such bonds to the value of $10,000 and over?


Mr. RHODES:: 1.	(a) $115,887,200; (b) $211,073,700.
2,	3, 4 and 5.-Not of record.
(Note.-The Department of Finance has no information as t-o -the distribution of bearer bonds among individual holders. Assuming that parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 refer to holders of tax-free bonds and not all dominion bonds, a compilation could be made as to the distribution of bonds that are registered, but this
Privilege-Mr. Weir (Meljort)

would be only a partial answer and it would involve considerable clerical work, approximately 12 clerks for four or five days. If the inquiry relates to all bonds, the work involved would be almost twenty times as great.)



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS

[Stage Direction]
unemployment relief-Windsor, ont. area Mr. MORAND:
1.	What is th2 total amount spent on unemployment relief during the years 1930, 1931, 1932, and 1933, in the following municipalities in the province of Ontario: Windsor, Sandwich, Walkerville. East Windsor, Riverside, Tecumseh, Sandwich East, Sandwich West?
2.	What was the total amount spent from the grade crossing fund in those municipalities?
['Return tabled herewith.']
Mr. CAHAN:: Return tabled herewith.



[Stage Direction]
Mr. LaVERGNE :
1.	Did the Quebec harbour commission call for tenders in connection with the reconstruction of sheds 25. 26, or 27?
2.	If so. on what date, through what advertising media, and what were the stipulations?
3.	What persons tendered and what was the amount of each such persons's tender?
4.	Was any such tender accepted, and if so, what tender and what was the amount?
5.	If not, why?
6.	Have any representations been made to the government or the Department of Marine with respect to the expediency and necessity of such works?
7.	Will the Department of Marine call for new tenders or, in this case, accept the lowest tender submitted?
8.	Have the rights and powers of the Quebec harbour commission to grant contracts covering works of the description mentioned in question
(1)	been questioned?
9.	If so, by whom, what is the basis of the objections and what action has been taken by the Department of Marine?

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. ROBERT WEIR (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question
of privilege. It is reported in Hansard of June 1, 1934, at page 3613, that the hon. member for North Battleford (Mr. McIntosh), referring to a speech of mine delivered on May 22, 1933, stated:
Last year the minister contended that the Anglo-Saxons were the only people in the north; he suggested that the Mennonites, the French, the Belgians, the Scotch and the Welsh and others were not people, but merely political cattle.

This statement is absolutely untrue, and I ask that it be stricken from the records of Hansard.
Mr. CAMERON R. McINTOSH (North Battleford):	Mr. Speaker, a question of
privilege. I have heard the statement made by the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Weir), the Minister of Agriculture, with regard to a statement by myself growing out of the debate we had in this house last Friday night. I desire to make answer to it. I think the hon. member has been badly advised to bring this question before the House of Commons again.	.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Mr. SPEAKER:: The hon. member is
speaking to a question of privilege, and he should proceed. This is not the time for debate.


Mr. McINTOSH:: I am not debating; I
am making a statement.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The fact as to whether
or not the hon. member for Melfort has been correctly advised is not a matter to be brought up here.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: It is a question of
privilege, as far as I am concerned, and I am entitled to make it. Now, the hon. gentleman had a question of privilege before the house on June 4, last Monday. He was very anxious to have that question of privilege put before the house.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: What is the hon. member's question of privilege which he is now raising?


Cameron Ross McIntosh: If you will give me a
little time I will soon come to it.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No, no.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I think I am entitled
to make a statement.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes,-but make it.


Mr. DUPUIS:: You are afraid of the truth, that is all.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: When I replied to him on Tuesday, June 5, I thought the matter had been settled. I noticed the hon. member was quite restive.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: And I administered the medicine I thought necessary.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.

Privilege-Mr. Weir (Meljort)


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. member should speak to the question of privilege. But, as I said before, this is not the proper time for Speeches of that kind.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: If I had a drop or two of hemlock in it I did not mean to make the medicine too strong. I wanted to be fair about it. Now, then, Mr. Speaker, I welcome the further discussion of this matter in the House of Commons. I am willing to meet the Minister of Agriculture anywhere he likes to discuss this question.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Order.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: May I just refer-


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. member is
not in order in making the remarks he is now making. The Minister of Agriculture has called attention to certain words which were used which he says were untrue, and he has asked to have them expunged from Hansard. I think the hon. member for Battle-ford is not addressing himself to that.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: You mean North Battle-ford.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: And the matter is mot a
subject for discussion. If it is the wish of the house, I shall order that these words be struck out of Hansard.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I wish to explain the
reason why-I wish to explain my position to the house in making the statement, and then I am quite prepared to accept the minister's statement, if it is necessary. May I say now to my hon. friend-


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. member-


Cameron Ross McIntosh: If you are not going to let me make a statement of fact it . is a nice state of affairs.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. gentleman is
out of order.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Then I will move the
adjournment of the house to have this matter settled.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That cannot be done.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. member may
move the adjournment of the house, if he chooses, but it is not a motion upon which any debate can take place.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: All right, I will move
the adjournment of the house, then, to have the matter discussed and brought to a point. It is a matter of national importance, this question. If you desire me to make a statement on a matter of-


An hon. MEMBER:: No, we don't.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: -on a matter of national importance of recent occurrence, let me make it. On page 5280 of Hansard for May 22-


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. gentleman persists. He has not raised a question of privilege. His privilege is not being encroached upon, nor are the privileges of the house.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I h,ave said that I
desired to move the adjournment of the house with regard to this matter. I wish the house to decide upon it, if you will not allow me to make a statement.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I ask the hon. member
to resume his seat. We will proceed with the business of the house.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I wish to continue the
discussion and put my statement on Hansard.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Sit down.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: If the hon. member is
determined to force the hand of the Speaker I shall have no alternative but to name him, and ask the house to take proper action, which I have no desire whatever to do.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I am not a bit alarmed by words of that kind.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I just wish fair play in
the house; that is all I require.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: Nothing but fair play
has been meted out to the hon. gentleman so far.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Will Your Honour allow me to make my statement?


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The Minister of Agriculture has referred to certain words and has asked to have them struck out of Hansard. I say if it is the desire of the house that they be struck out, I shall give that order. There the matter ends.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. With great respect, I must say that I understand the hon. member for North Battleford (Mr. McIntosh)
Privilege-Mr. Weir (Meljort)

is going to quote from a previous debate, and I think he is quite right in raising a question of privilege in his own defence, in regard to the previous record.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: He quoted nothing and made no attempt to quote anything.
Mr. MoINTOSH: I made an attempt to quote it, but you would not allow me.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I wish to raise a point of order. Standing order No. 31 in Beauehesne's parliamentary rules and forms is as follows:
31. (1) Leave to make a motion for the adjournment of the house (when made for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance) must be asked after the ordinary daily routine of -business has been concluded and before notices of motions or orders of the day are entered' upon.
(2)	The member desiring to make such a motion rises in his place, asks leave to move the adjournment of the house for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, and states the matter.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: He has not yet been allowed to do that.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It continues:
(3)	He then hands a written statement of the matter proposed to be discussed to Mr. Speaker, who, if he thinks it in order, and of urgent public importance, reads it out and asks whether the member has the leave of the house. If objection is taken, Mr. Speaker, requests those members who support the motion to rise in their places and, if more than twenty members rise accordingly, Mr. Speaker calls upon the member who has asked for leave.
And so on.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I think there has been a misunderstanding. I think the hon. member for North Battleford was speaking to a question of privilege and I do still submit, with all respect, that permission should be granted to him, on the question of privilege, to make the quotation which he desires to make to substantiate his statement. I do not think the question of the adjournment of the house arises until Your Honour decides it is not a question of privilege.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, the motion to
adjourn was not seconded and the steps taken were not for the purpose of having the adjournment of the house. The question was a question of privilege. The hon. gentleman has a right to speak to the question of privilege. He was not doing so when the Speaker asked him to desist from making the observations he was making. He was

attributing motives and other designs to the member who had raised the question, the member for Melfort (Mr. Weir).


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I had just come to my' main statement when I was stopped.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There should have been no preliminary; that was the difficulty. The position at the moment is this. Under our rules a member is bound to accept the statement of another member, and the member for Melfort has stated that he did not hear a portion of the statement of the hon. gentleman, that had he heard it he would have at once objected to it as being incorrect. He says, " I desire to state that that statement attributed to me is untrue, that I did not make the statement in question." Our rules provide that when an hon. member of the house makes a statement of that kind it shall be accepted by the house, and we have heretofore followed that course. If, however, the hon. member for North Battleford (Mr. McIntosh) challenges the accuracy of that statement, I am not certain but I think he would have the right to have the matter disposed of by a committee, either a standing or special committee of this house; but it is obvious that for the conduct of business in this house we are bound to accept the denial of those to whom we have attributed statements which they say are incorrect, and we have followed that practice. If a statement is made by my hon. friend from Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) and I disagree with it, I can say to him that he has attributed to me a statement I did not make, or which is incorrect, and he then is bound for the purposes of debate to accept my statement. That is the position of the hon. member for Melfort and of the hon. member for North Battleford, as I read the rules.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I thoroughly agree with most that the Prime Minister has said, but the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) went further, and asked that a certain statement be expunged from the records of Hansard. That does affect the privileges of the hon. member for North Battleford. I agree with everything the Prime Minister has said so far, but as to what the Minister of Agriculture asked in regard to expunging the words in question from the official record of this house, that is a matter of privilege affecting the hon. member for North Battleford, and he has a right to explain why that statement was made in his address.

Australian Wheat


Richard Bedford Bennett: Speaking for only a
moment more to the question of order, I think it is quite correct as Your Honour intimated a moment ago that to expunge the remarks in question from Hansard can only be done as Your Honour said with the approval of the house, and it would require a motion to that effect, which motion the hon. member for Melfort was proceeding, as I understood him, to make.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The Speaker was so treating it; that is a fair way to put it. Under the circumstances I suggest that the hon. member for Melfort give notice that he will move to have the words expunged from the record. That will be a debatable motion.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: He will have to give
notice.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He will give notice.



AUSTRALIAN WHEAT AND FLOUR

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. G. SANDERSON (South Perth):: I have a question to direct to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Yesterday I asked him in regard to the importation of Australian wheat and flour into Canada. I asked if those shipments of wheat and flour were subsidized. I quote from the Hansard of yesterday what the minister said in regard to the subsidy:
Mr. Stevens:	No, not to my knowledge.
Without looking into the matter I cannot answer that question, because the Australian system in regard to many products is very complicated, and I cannot answer it offhand. So far as I know, however, the answer would be in the negative.
I take from that Mr. Speaker, that the minister said that these shipments were not subsidized. With all due respect to the minister I want to say that he is wrong, that, these shipments of flour to Canada have been subsidized.


Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: 3742	COMMONS
Trade Agreement with United States


Frederick George Sanderson: Do I understand that the minister states that the recent shipments of flour from Australia and those which are now en route are not subsidized by the Australian government?


Henry Herbert Stevens: As far as I know and as far as my officials can ascertain, they are not.


Frederick George Sanderson: With all due respect to the minister, I think he is wrong.
FIRST NARROWS BRIDGE On the orders of the day:


Mr. A. E. MUNN (North Vancouver):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the government in connection with the First Narrows bridge at Vancouver. The contractors are ready to start work, financial arrangements have been made and all that is necessary now is the consent of the federal government. I should like to know if the government has arrived at a decision or is likely to arrive at one in the near future in connection with this matter.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, on more than one
occasion since this session began I have answered questions with respect to the so-called First Narrows bridge. The fairway or entrance to the harbour of Vancouver is very narrow and the effect of placing a bridge over that entrance is a matter of grave public concern. The fact that the city of Vancouver desires that money should be expended to construct the bridge, the fact that private interests are willing to provide capital and the fact that certain points will become more closely connected are all matters of private and semi-public concern. The government has been asked to express approval of the construction of a bridge and the considerations which the government will have to have in mind when arriving at a conclusion are not those affecting private interests, they are those affecting public interests solely. With so narrow a fairway, with water so shoal, with some ships having only eighteen inches of water under their keels when going to sea, the house will readily understand that there are matters of grave public concern that must be considered when determining the particular type of bridge that should be constructed. The Minister of Public Works (Mr. Stewart) is primarily responsible and I can only say that he has not yet submitted any recommendation to council with respect 
to the matter. Many questions are involved in this matter, not the least of which is the effect of a single bomb dropped by an aeroplane upon the structure and blocking up the harbour of Vancouver and the results which might follow in certain eventualities with respect to our obligations of neutrality or other obligations which may rest upon the state. The government must consider all these problems and the minister who is charged with responsibility is submitting the .matter to council at an early date. In the meantime, I cannot express any opinion as to what action may or will be taken. All I can say is that every consideration which affects the public interest from the standpoint of the Dominion of Canada as distinct from private interests will be considered.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Is the right hon. gentleman aware that the eminent authority, Sir Alexander Gibb, has endorsed this bridge from an engineering point of view?


Richard Bedford Bennett: His report has been sent to the Minister of Public Works. He deals with the structure as such, its size and character and so on, but he does not undertake to deal with certain other problems with which the government necessarily has to deal.



TRADE AGREEMENT WITH UNITED STATES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Leader of the Opposition):: The press dispatches from Washington make reference to the powers recently given by congress to the President of the United States either to increase or decrease duties to the extent of fifty per cent. They mention that it is understood that different countries have made overtures to the government of the United States with respect to the negotiation of reciprocal treaties under this power. They state further that it is understood that Canada is among the countries which have made overtures. I should like to ask the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) if it is a fact that the government has made overtures to the president in connection with the negotiations of a reciprocal treaty under the powers granted to the president and, if not, is it the intention of the government to do so immediately?


Richard Bedford Bennett: It will be perhaps within the

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell
memory of most hon. members of this house that some few weeks ago I read the joint statement which had been given out by the President of the United States and myself after I had visited Washington. The sense of that statement was that we would continue to explore the possibilities of being able to arrive at a trade agreement. The difficulties which the president experienced in securing the passing of the legislation to which reference has just been made have disappeared, the legislation having been enacted. During the interim since I last spoke and up to to-day we have been exploring the possibilities of being able to arrive at some agreement with respect to trade matters. We will continue to do so and if such an agreement can be arrived at, of course we shall submit it to this house.



MARKETING ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, June 6, consideration of the motion of Mr. Weir (Melfort) for the third reading of Bill No. 51, to improve the methods and practices of marketing of natural products in Canada and in export trade, and to make further provisions in connection therewith.
Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Melville):: Mr. Speaker, when I was speaking last evening before six o'clock I indicated that I thought I would be able to spend a short time in dealing with one of the statements made by the hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull). I intended to do this not because it was anv different from any other statement but because he seemed to have fallen into the error into which most hon. members have fallen, that is, he believed there was no outstanding relationship between the standardization of farm products and the marketing thereof. This is a very common error. I do not suppose half of the hon. members knew there was such a close relationship between standardization and marketing. At the risk of repeating what a very good authority has said on this subject, I should like to read again the quotations I gave the other day from Major Elliot, the Minister of Agriculture for Great Britain. He said:
Standardization is a fundamental principle of our modern commercial system.
And again:
The commercial advantages of standardization are well known and need not be repeated
here. In this country, as elsewhere, legislation has proved to be necessary to put the standardization of farm produce on a national basis. Here, it has taken the form of the Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marketing) Acts, 1928 and 1931.
I pointed out that when the Liberal government went out of power we were almost through with the process of standardization and grading of those commodities which were exported. Here is Major Elliot's last statement:
So the time has come to develop further the policy to which successive governments have already contributed and prepare to rebuild the whole organizational structure of our agricultural marketing.
That makes it quite plain, even to a doubting Thomas, that there is a very close relationship indeed. I dealt with this question in my remarks of Tuesday, and I shall not weary the house by repeating. I want to state that the establishment of this central marketing board plus the standardization of farm products which had taken place up to 1929 is one of the most important features of this marketing bill. Over one thousand cooperatives and other farmer organizations were in existence in this dominion and I should like to show the house what might have been the final different results of these organizations and activities had we had such a body as the central board to collect information and to supply counsel and advice to such farm bodies. If there had been such a body I am sure the disappointing results of many of our farm organizations would have been quite different and much more successful. I referred to the great work done in the early days of the inception of the grange movement. I should like to quote from A History of Farmers' Movements in Canada, by Mr. Wood. If any hon. gentleman would like to extend his knowledge on these matters he could not do better than read this book. He says:
The things for which the grange movement has stood in Canada were set forth in what was entitled its "declaration of principles." This document was a compound from two main sources. Its introductory clauses or preamble-was taken from a general preamble explaining the objects of the Patrons of Husbandry, adopted at the sixth annual convention of the National Grange held at Washington, I).C., in January, 1873. The bulk of the document, however, was formed of selections made from the declaration of purposes of the National Grange, accepted at its St. Louis sessions, February 4-12, 1874, and of which J. W. A. Wright, a California granger, was the leading author.
The preamble to the declaration of principles states that instruction in the art and science of husbandry is to be above all the aim of the

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell
Grange in Canada. " The products of the earth," it asserts, "are subject to the influence of natural laws, invariable and indisputable; the amount produced will consequently be in proportion to the intelligence of the producer, and success will depend upon his knowledge of the action of these laws and the proper application of their principles. Hence knowledge is the foundation of happiness." Membership in the grange gives the farmer an opportunity to combine in order to attain his ends. " Unity of action," continues the preamble, "cannot be acquired without discipline and discipline cannot be enforced without significant organization; hence we have a ceremony of initiation which binds us in mutual fraternity as with a band of iron; but, although its influence is so powerful, its application is as gentle as that of the silken threads that bind a wreath of flowers."
Heading the declaration proper is found the motto of the order, to wit: "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity." Canadian grangers' ideas on the economics of agriculture are therewith outlined in pithy language. They plan to give added attention to the diversification of crops, and in general to make their farm lands more selfsustaining. With the object of reducing the weight of their exports, grangers will adopt the policy of selling "less in the bushel, and more on hoof and fleece." Knowing too the value of foresight in their industry, they intend to "calculate intelligently on probabilities."
That expression to-day would be "economic planning" under the new order.
And to avoid the influences that have militated against the success of agriculture in the past, the order will "discountenance the credit system, the mortgage system, the fashion system, and every other system tending to prodigality and bankruptcy."
If we had had a central board with the status and importance of government supervision during these intervening years, I wonder how many of all these sound principles would have been preserved to this day. I think there would have been a whole lot of them. But with no guiding hand over them, these bodies scattered all over the face of Canada, exploited by every adventurer who chose to make use of them for his own political and other ends, languished and died on the political reefs and rocks as they have done on other occasions since, as I pointed out on Tuesday last. A great many of the business and social virtues indicated here have been lost sight of not only in Canada but in many other countries, though they might have been retained if we had had a central board such as that established under this bill. Let me repeat this sentence:
And to avoid the influences that have militated against the success of agriculture in the 
past, the order will "discountenance the credit system, the mortgage system, the fashion system, and every other system tending to prodigality and bankruptcy."
The disregard of these prime virtues pointed out in this grange platform has largely been responsible for the economic condition in which the world finds itself to-day.
My right hon. leader reminded us yesterday that the present world situation is nothing new but possibly more world wide. After every great war business depression has existed in great intensity, possibly not on such a large scale as at the present time; but we have always had these depressions after great tragedies like war. Here is an organization which has as the basis of its declaration of principles what I have just read, and I want to read a little more from this fine work:
Upon the question of the business relations of Canadian grangers, the declaration is very explicit. The order holds no enmity to capital; legitimate business must obtain; transportation companies are necessary to agricultural development. On the other hand the grange in Canada is firmly determined to bring producer and consumer more closely together. "We must dispense with a surplus of middlemen,"-
This will be interesting to the Minister of Trade and Commerce in connection with the mass buying and price spreads investigation now going on.
-contends the document, "not that we are unfriendly to them, but we do not need them1-[DOT] their exactions diminish our profits." Any "tyranny of monopolies" would be distasteful to the granger just as he would be "opposed to excessive salaries, high rates of interest, and exorbitant per cent profits in trade."
No hesitancy is shown in repudiating the idea that the grange in Canada has in any sense been established for political purposes.
Every farmers' organization I know of, of a special character like this, for the last sixty years has had in the forefront of its platform the declaration that it had no intention whatever of going into politics, and I believe that at the outset no organization of the kind has had any such intention. In the course of a number of successful years however they begin to feel their oats, if I may say so; they begin to realize their power, having had access as advisers to governments and their advice having been taken and well taken. And there is no objection to political action if it did not put their commercial activities *invariably on the hummer. But finally such organizations plunge into politics, possibly led by only one or two clever platform performers, and that is the beginning of the

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell
end. I dealt with that the other day and I will not repeat now what I said then. I would point out however that we have now one most hopeful-looking young people's organization, one of whose slogans is, "Save Canada -save agriculture;" and they would be horrified if anyone suggested to them that they were laying the foundation of another political party. They have no idea of such a thing now. But the fact is that farm organizations nearly always start out like that and end in political action. I am satisfied that all these well-meaning organizations would be *most helpful to governments in an advisory way if they had some central rendezvous or friendly place of concourse in this capital to which they could ask for sound advice. If such organizations had had a retreat of that kind to advise them they would have been saved many a tragedy and disaster. Let me quote still further:
"No grange, if true to its obligations," is the emphatic statement, "can discuss partisan or sectarian questions." It might not call political conventions, nominate candidates, or permit of the discussion of questions on which its members stood divided on party lines. At the same time, the granger must perforce take a deep interest in political issues. It must be his business to do everything in his power to put down "bribery, corruption and trickery" in connection with public affairs. The principles of the order, it was thought, should be of great value in the realm of government, because those principles "underlie all true politics, all true statesmanship."
The declaration states quite candidly that the grange movement in Canada is meant exclusively for the farming population. A barrier must be imposed to the admission of the non-agriculturist, since he has "not a sufficient direct interest in tilling the soil, or may have some interest in conflict with our purposes." But sex distinctions are wholly eliminated within the order; more than that its aim is "to inculcate a proper appreciation of the abilities and sphere of women." While an advocacy of better agricultural education is considered a watchword among Canadian grangers, they desire to obtain better facilities for education all round. "We shall advance the cause of education," is emphatically promised. "among ourselves, and for our children, by all just means within our power."
In the west, in the old Grain Growers' Association, we had an organization almost identically the same as this, and for years the government of Saskatchewan were advised by them on many public issues of the day and took that advice and enacted it into law. But once any such organization goes into politics it becomes a political party like the others after which governments and parties will not be so much disposed to take their advice because they do not know whether such
advice is merely political or quite disinterested as formerly. Let me now turn to another phase of the question.
The central board provided for in this bill plus the farm economics branch established by the previous government is from my standpoint the most important part of this whole legislation. It will supply a continuity, a rendezvous, a clearinghouse, a registration bureau, if you like, of all these bodies from the Atlantic to the Pacific and protect them from the ravages of the twolegged wolves that, as I previously indicated, tear them asunder on occasions by beguiling them into politics.
I come now to a more recent date than back in 1872. It will be noticed that in the bill wheat is specifically provided for, and I think the government should make it quite clear that under present international wheat conditions and agreements this measure cannot very well apply (to local boards in regard to wheat. When the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) closes the debate, as I understand he will, he should give a frank expression of opinion on that if he looks upon it from that standpoint. I feel those representing the wheat pools in the west are quite well aware of that, but on the other hand many in the west are under the impression that this legislation will work a miracle so far as our wheat is concerned, that there is going to be a sudden transformation, something springing up like the old wheat board of 1919, that will give them continually rising prices. It would be in the interest of the bill, the government and the farmers tc. disillusionize them on that point because it is generally understood that under present economic conditions and international wheat agreements the government must keep close control of the marketing of that product. I express the wish that the Prime Minister, if I am wrong, will make it quite clear what the bill intends in that respect.
A year ago last February I put on the order paper a resolution which I am about to read. Before I did that, the same subject had been dealt with by the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown). I gave him some support and when this resolution of mine was put on the order paper he gave it some support. In February, 1933, I made the following motion:
Whereas, unemployment, scanty clothing and hunger throughout the land continue to be all too prevalent, and
Whereas, this persistent economic depression not only adds to the growing relief requirements in many centres, but also suhstracts from the number of voluntary contributors, many of

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell
whom are now feeling these social efforts growing more and more beyond their capacity to carry,
Therefore, be it resolved-That, in the opinion of this parliament the government of Canada should place a sufficient quantity of our surplus wheat stocks, at the disposal of the Red Cross, welfare bureaus and other similar organizations, to supplement and more fully take care of the food requirements of the unemployed, the poor and the hungry throughout Canada.
And be it further resolved-
This is the more important part of the resolution:
That the government of Canada take such steps as are necessary and expedient to explore the possibility and practicability of selling on long term credits a substantial quantity of our embarrassing wheat carry-over to China, or any other available country where poverty, hunger and misery prevail.
This government for some strange reason seems to have taken it for granted because we are being gradually squeezed out of Great Britain and the European continent by one cause and another, the policy of self-sufficiency on their part being the principal cause,-and the others I do not care to mention now-there was no other market elsewhere. The Prime Minister on the occasion of discussing this resolution made some very nice and I might also say complimentary remarks to the author of it, but he indicated-and possibly this was a fortunate way out-that China was now at war with Japan and under those conditions we could not play favourites. But when the resolution was put on the order paper my recollection is that they were not at war and besides the resolution applies not to China alone but to all the oriental countries where poverty prevails. Then the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) made a brief reply; at that time he did not think it was necessary to fuss up about this thing; there was not any market there anyway; it was filled; it was described quite graphically how what are usually called commission houses would gobble it all up if we tried to do anything along the lines of barter trading, and anyhow the whole cloud was going to lift soon and things would resume their normal swing in the wheat and other markets of the world. But conditions have been and are getting worse as to wheat carryovers. Has any hon. member during the interim heard anything of this government seeking markets anywhere? They are simply sitting there apathetically and putting the brakes on production instead of doing anything in the nature of trying to merchandise production. I do not want to be too harsh at this time; I have tried to carry through the debate on

this bill in a moderate tone of voice and moderately as to substance so as not unnecessarily to ruffle anybody's feelings, and I intend to continue that course. But if I were in the other humour to-day as I sometimes am, I could pound the stuffing out of the government with respect to their ghastly apathy in the matter of possible oriental markets. I remember in the year 1909 or 1910 when the late Sir William White packed his kit and went off to Japan to see what could be done there to develop our wheat and flour trade, and later on the late Sir George Poster did the same thing. Japan has since become a great wheat flour eating country; and with those millions of people in China who are gradually learning to eat more wheat, instead of selling more we have lost our trade almost altogether with that country. I would like to hear anybody contradict that statement because I was rather hoping they would as I would then have an opportunity of giving the information gently to them. I will put my best ear to my hon. friends to see if they cannot dissent from my statement.


Mr. HACKETT:: Tell us about it just the same.


William Richard Motherwell: Well, I will tell my hon. friends about it and I think we should all take cognizance of it. For fear, however, I forget this when I finish my present remarks -and I shall not be very much longer-I would be glad if the Prime Minister would consider the advisability of discussing with the house the international wheat agreement, that is set a day apart, or at least if he would tell us why he did not ask our concurrence in it. When a comparatively unimportant matter like silver, because important as it is it is relatively unimportant in comparison with wheat, was discussed and concurred in at the tail end of a resolution, tacked rather adroitly on to the motion of the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid), surely a farreaching proposal like this international wheat agreement should have had the concurrence and support of the house before it was put into operation. I just mention this now for fear I might forget it, this being my last chance on this bill to discuss the China situation from the point of view of a wheat importing country.
Unfortunately I shall have to read, again. This is a review of China's wheat trade in 1933 by B. A. Macdonald, assistant trade commissioner. I think it would be nice if somebody would ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce to come into the chamber because he may not have seen this.

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell


Richard Bedford Bennett: He is in committee.


William Richard Motherwell: Well, officials sometimes put out some funny stuff that their ministers may know nothing about.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is the hon. member reading from?


William Richard Motherwell: From the Commercial Intelligence Journal of May 5, 1934. It would be well for all of us to get copies of it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: By whom is it issued?


William Richard Motherwell: Issued every
Saturday by the Department of Trade and Commerce: Minister H. H. Stevens, M.P.; Deputy Minister; James T. Parmelee. I will read it without comments because it may be capable of explanation; there may be an alibi.
Shanghai, March 16, 1934.-China's imports of wheat in 1933 amounted to 1,181,000 short tons or 39,367,000 bushels valued at roughly Canadian $23,500,000. This is the largest import for any year since the trade first began in 1921, with the exception of the record year 1931 when 1,518,000 tons were brought in. As a result wheat has become the third greatest single import, ranking after rice and raw cotton, and it now represents 6-47 per cent of all imports as compared with 4-87 per cent in 1932 and 6T1 per cent in 1931. The 1933 percentage is the highest yet recorded. Since the London wheat conference estimated world import requirements for the 1933-34 crop year to be 560,000,000 bushels and since China took 39,000,000 bushels in the calendar year 1933, it would appear that this country is now absorbing somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent of world imports, and must constitute therefore one of the foremost of the wheat markets.
The principal features of the year's trade were briefly as follows:
(1)	Australia's continued and increased dominance.
(2)	Argentina's notable participation.
(3)	New Zealand's participation for the first time.
(4)	The complete absence of American and Russian wheat.
(5)	Canada's decreased participation due to the low prices and depreciated exchange of Australian and Argentine supplies.
(6)	The imposition of a duty on wheat and flour for the first time.
(7)	The wheat credit arrangement effected between the United States and China.
And we disappeared off the map, although we had both good wheat and low grade wheat, whichever they desired. Now I should like to read a further brief reference:
The fact that Canada's position declined so greatly in the past three years, just when China's imports increased so greatly, has perhaps partly obscured the potential importance of this market. It is worth noting that if
Canada had in this latter period maintained the average share which she held from 1922 to 1930 inclusive-
Mark that period, 1922 to 1930 inclusive.
-namely, about fifty per cent-she would have sold to China 750,000 tons or 25,000,000 bushels in 1931, 500,000 tons or 15,000,000 bushels in 1932, and 590,000 tons or 20,000,000 bushels in 1933; and in each of those years China would have been the dominion's second or third greatest wheat market.
That is very significant. Where have all the ministers disappeared to? There must be something important in that return that was brought down to-day. It was represented to us by the government that we could not get a look into that market at all, but I am afraid we have been humbugged by this government on this question, though I do not know why. Were they so busy at home looking after price spreads, mass buying and what not, the natural by-products of high tariffs, that they [DOT]could not attend to the maintenance of the Chinese wheat market? They did not need much of a periscope to see that we were losing rapidly this oriental market. What we wanted was new wheat markets abroad, but apparently the government were entirely oblivious to the fact that this market was disappearing from under their noses. I continue reading:
As it was, China was Canada's sixth largest wheat market in fiscal year ended March 31, 1933 (the last year for which statistics are available here), being exceeded by the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany. The figures for fiscal year 1934-
Listen to this.
-will, of course, show a reduced importance, reflecting the fact that Australian and Argentine wheat almost shut out Canada from the market during that period.
And here they are sitting complacently as though everything was well and there were no more markets to be sought or obtained; as though the only thing to do was to reduce exports, which automatically means a reduction in production. And, if the production should keep up, their only resort in addition to these restricted exports under the wheat agreement is to keep the surplus production at home in the granaries. What a wonderful solution for a number of supposedly sane gentlemen familiar with the requirements of the country. That is what has been done. These wheat agreements have been entered into by the three western provinces, and this government has not seen fit to bring them before this house for concurrence. I am satisfied that the Prime Minister is not strongly behind them; I am sure his knowl-

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell
edge of business and of the hunger throughout the world makes this program of lessened exports abhorrent to him. It is a strange thing that the government cannot do better than that, though after much tribulation they were able to work out a marketing bill, the first we have had. In spite of their blundering they have brought about an advance by providing marketing facilities for local requirements, though in my opinion there is going to be great disappointment in this marketing' bill unless the government elucidate a little more as to how it is going to affect our wheat sales. It is not going to do veiy much for wheat under present international agreements. It will help our cattle, I think, but it has its limitations even there unless export markets are secured.
We want access to these markets, any markets, wherever we can make the best bargains in order to dispose of our surplus products. From the government's own figures, if the percentage of total wheat sales to China that existed between 1922 and 1930 had been maintained we would have sold nearly 50,000,000 bushels of wheat more than we did sell. That would have made a big hole in our carry-over. Then, if we had bartered or had sold on long term credits as the United States did we could have sold another fifty million bushels easily, if I know anything about conditions in that country. That would have meant a total of 100.000.000 bushels, practically our entire above normal carry-over by next August.


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


William Richard Motherwell: You have been very indulgent, Mr. Speaker, so perhaps you will allow me to say just a word or two in conclusion. Just watch how this act will glide into operation in respect to those commodities and those growers that are ready for it. First there will be the dairy products of the Fraser valley and elsewhere, already organized for years; then the fruit of the Okanagan valley, and then the cattle of the prairies, also organized. With those three well under way the act will be well launched. My only regret is that all hon. members could not have seen it in the same way and so reduced to a minimum the friction that always extends into the highways and byways of the country when a government and an opposition engage in deadly combat over the merits or demerits of such agricultural legislation. Such controversy unfortunately always hampers very much the general acceptance and subsequent administration of the act.


Mr. A. W. NEILL (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, to some extent I find myself in the same position as the hon. member for Melville (Mr. Motherwell). At any rate, on second reading we both started from scratch. We both proclaimed our intention to vote for the second reading, because we believed a principle was involved in the bill, and we hoped that the measure might be amended in committee. I believe both of us took the stand that if it were not amended in the direction we each desired-and we were not a unit on what we wanted-we would feel justified in voting against it on third reading. The hon. member for Melville has since announced his intention of voting for the third reading. I find that two days ago he described the bill, as reported at page 3669 of Hansard, as a "Tory distortion of Liberal principles and contrary to what the farmers asked for" and so on. So I assume that he thinks there have been substantial amendments introduced which would justify his intention of voting for it. With that, of course, I have no complaint, because I,have no responsibility for his actions. So far as I am concerned, however, this question arises: Has the bill been changed in any material degree which would require any change of view on my part? In moving the third reading, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) went to considerable trouble and into some detail to point out that the changes were immaterial, and entirely a matter of detail. I do not propose to be guided wholly by his advice or by-


William Richard Motherwell: I do not think I advised anybody.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: He is speaking about the minister.


William Richard Motherwell: Oh, I beg the hon. member's pardon.


Alan Webster Neill: I do not intend to follow the advice of the Minister of Agriculture or the somewhat involved reasoning of the hon. member for Melville through which he has arrived at his conclusion. I propose to examine for myself the bill as amended, and to ascertain whether or not the conditions I wished have been obtained.
More than once the Minister of Agriculture [DOT]asked for cooperation in the handling of this measure. The bill had not been long in committee before he accused hon. members on this side of the house of deliberately obstructing, an action on his part which I think was a mistake. Possibly he may have thought we were obstructing, but I am of the opinion that

Marketing Act-Mr. Neill
much of what he thought was obstruction was really a genuine and desperate attempt to find out what the bill actually meant. There were a great many hon. members on this side of the house-and I was one of them-who had the greatest difficulty in trying to find out what the bill really meant. After having served some considerable time in this House of Commons I must say that I do not think I have ever seen a bill so comparatively short which has been so involved in meaning and reaction, and which appeared to be so difficult of explanation or defence by the hon. gentleman in charge of it.
I believe some justification for the criticism offered by hon. members on this side of the house is to be found in the unusually large number of amendments which were somewhat *reluctantly introduced by the minister in charge. Certainly he did not exhibit any disposition to meet the opposition, unless it was a case of absolute necessity. And, with regard to obstruction, I think that if any members or any body of members in this house had been really opposed to the ultimate success of the bill they could not have done better than to let it go through in the form in which it was originally introduced, because, had they done so and simply thrown the responsibility on the government and said, "There is your baby; carry it to its ultimate destination," it would have been the shortest way to effect the death of that unhappy infant. It certainly would not have proved a monument but would be an epitaph on the gravestone of their reputation. However, the fact remains that the opposition did suggest changes, a number of which the minister accepted.
Moving the third reading the minister said he regretted the fact that he could not follow the precedent, laid down in Great Britain and in one or two other British countries where somewhat similar legislation has been adopted. Again and again he used the argument, the argument which he used so often in committee-in fact it was an answer to almost every inquiry1-that it was necessary to have the bill flexible. If a man is going to climb a mountain as fast as he would like, he does not choose a flexible staff to aid his faltering footsteps, and I am afraid that when the minister comes to defend the bill in the courts of law-as undoubtedly he will have to do, and perhaps before the privy council, because his pride will not allow him to accept defeat in a lower court-I am afraid he will find that his desire to have flexibility in the bill will be but a weak reed upon which to rest.
He has said he cannot support the principles involved in the British legislation. Nobody has asked him to follow the British bill, in detail. But there are certain main principles which apply just as much in one country as in another. The hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) told us yesterday that truth is not eternal. I differ from him, and I say that there are some main principles of common sense which are equally applicable whether they apply to the British Empire, .to the United Kingdom or to Canada. I am not talking about the details involved in the different conditions existing as to size and area. But there are certain main principles of what I might term common sense which, I suggest, could most certainly be applied.
Of the changes introduced by the minister, I take it that the principal one is in regard to pooling. The hon. member for Yale in British Columbia (Mr. Stirling), a strong supporter of the bill, speaking in the early stages of the debate, in fact he was one of the first to speak, said that he saw-and he must have seen it with the eye of faith -that there was some provision in the bill for pooling. Certain words he indicated he thought would provide for pooling. But he could not find, nor could I find any lawyer who would undertake to risk his reputation by saying that that was what was really meant, nor could it be inferred. I protested and my protest is indicated at page 2257 ol Hansard. Later on an amendment was brought in, but it consisted only of the introduction of one word, " pooling," in the middle of a long and obscure paragraph-so obscure, in fact, that it did not appear to be good English, .and was hardly intelligible. I pointed out that fact, as did other hon. members, and as a result the minister withdrew the amendment, and now subsection 6 of section 4 gives power to conduct a pool, and that only.
The minister refused to listen to suggestions made by me that he accept, at least in some part, the provisions made in the British legislation, whereby pooled money should be earmarked, how it should be paid out; that certain expenses should be paid, reasonable advances made, and finally that the balance should be paid to those who had supplied the product. He refused to do anything of that kind, an improvement which I think would have made the bill noticeably better.
I come now to some of the features which *he refused to correct. I find that in subsection (b) of section 4 provision is made to exempt from any determination or order- and it should not be "determination," because
Marketing Act-Mr. Neill

that is simply superfluous-to exempt from any determination or order any person or class of persons engaged in the production or marketing of the regulated product or any *class, variety or grade of such product. I protested strongly against that-and I protest again-that it is absolutely wrong for us to take such action. This is an instance where we could have followed Great Britain. What did Great Britain do? They have said that in their scheme, as it stands, certain small producers would be exempt not from orders to be issued day by day, but from the whole scheme. They do not have to sit up day and *night because of their two cows or eight hens, to see if they come under the shadow of the law. They know they are exempt from the scheme, and I suggest that that is the way exemption should be made in this bill. Instead of that the minister insisted-and the minister alone knows why-upon leaving the exemption to be placed on each individual order. Under these schemes orders may be *issued once a week or once a day; every man has to sit up nights and wonder whether he is exempt from this order or -that order, and the body issuing the order has to exempt him each time. That is an absurd situation. *Relief should have been given by exempting him from the whole scheme, thereby avoiding trouble and confusion. There is the suggestion-and I do not charge the minister with it, but subsequent ministers may be charged -that favouritism may be shown, because it would be so fatally easy just to happen to forget to exempt some political exporter friend from one of these orders, and it might mean a small fortune to him. This cannot be done under the British style.
We now come to section 4 (c) which deals with compensation for loss. I do not think that section was improved by the amendment introduced later on. This is one of the features dangled before the poor man in the street who says, "I think this bill is a step in the right direction." He is told, "You see, *here it states that if you wish to ship stuff to a market and you are forbidden to ship it, you may be compensated." But the amendment kills it. Of course those people are not *told about the amendment which provides that under ordinary circumstances they could not get any compensation at all. If it goes to a country where a quota has been put on and there is reason for the prohibition of export he gets no compensation. There is another clause the wording of which might

be used to prevent him being given compensation under any circumstances whatever.
There was no provision made for what I might call the odd producer with a grievance and a proper grievance, because in a scheme like this there are always bound to be injustices, and the British people very properly provided for a board of arbiters to which an individual producer who felt he had been wronged or suffered an injustice could appeal and get satisfaction. There is no reason in the world why we should not have a system like that here. And the same with regard to the protection of the consumer. Britain has two boards; we have none. Does the difference in the shape or area of Britain compared to Canada make it undesirable to protect the consumer here and highly desirable to protect the consumer in Britain?
The same thing about contracts. Business lives by contracts made far ahead, but the minister would not listen to me when I suggested that as in the British act there should be a clause in this bill protecting contracts legally entered into in good faith before the scheme comes into effect. The minister would not even allow the word "forthwith" to be inserted. As the bill now reads, when these schemes are formulated, they must be published in the Gazette. I suggested that they should be published "forthwith" in the Gazette because I know of cases and I could cite them here, but they are known to members of the house, where a nefarious order in council was put through and not published for weeks afterwards. The minister agreed that it would not do any harm, and I got the support of the Minister of Justice to word the amendment correctly, and then the minister used his majority to vote it down. But these are smaller matters.
There are three special features which I consider of major importance, and on which I shall base my decision to vote or not for the third reading They are these: Section 5 subsection 1, says:
A representative number of persons engaged in the production and marketing or the production or marketing of a natural product-
That is entirely contrary to the British system. The British act does not say anything about marketers. In their scheme it must be the producers. This subsection is open to the widest abuses. The right hon. leader of the opposition yesterday dwelt very fully on that phase of it. He said it was putting into the hands of an occupational group too much arbitrary power to control. He might have gone further and pointed out that under this

Marketing Act-Mr. Neill
section not only might that arbitrary power be used possibly unfairly by the occupational group, but it might be so used by the people who are engaged in the marketing end only of that group. I was willing when the bill was in committee to have the words inserted "production and marketing" to take them both in, but no, the minister insisted upon putting this clause in. It says, and that is what it means, that the control of an industry may be put in the hands of a mere handful of middlemen, wholesalers, brokers, and men of that type who, by a little judicious manipulating of an order, or under section 9, simply with the consent of the minister in charge of the bill, may get complete control of an industry in the hands of half a dozen men who have no more interest in it than that of moneymaking by handling its produce. You can hunt the British act far and near before you will find authority for anything of that kind.
Next with regard to the taking of a poll, which is provided for in section 5, subsection 3. The minister, after considerable pressure, allowed the introduction, of permissive polling, but the British act from beginning to end is full of safeguards and insists that a poll "shall" be taken. It is not left to half a dozen middlemen, nor to the minister to decide under section 9, but it is very fully safeguarded in the British act, so much so that the polling is surrounded with all the safeguards and solemnities, I was going to say, at all events all the formalities that attach to taking a vote at a general election. Just the same care and attention is to be taken in taking a poll of all the people interested in any scheme under the British act. While the minister has recognized the need for the principle by conceding that there "may" be a poll, he leaves it entirely open to the will of the man who happens to be at the head of the department at the moment.
Then we come to section 9. To put it in a sentence, section 9 takes all the powers of all the other sections of this bill together and combines them into one, and gives the whole power to the minister. It means that, and it means nothing less. It even gives the governor in council or the board appointed by the government power, as I brought out by a query in the committee, to buy and sell. They can go into wholesale marketing, and there is no polling about that. The poll is only held out as a little window dressing in these other sections, but is a poll compulsory under section 9? No. Would the spirit of the British people tolerate anything like that for a moment, I wonder?
Those, Mr. Speaker, are three of the worst features of the bill. If they had been amended I would have gone a long way to vote for the bill in spite of other minor objections, but these three are fundamental objections to my mind, and the bill has not been changed, and will not be changed, in these respects.
The minister in introducing the bill said that there were three fundamental principles urgent and necessary for the success of this act, that it should be simple, sound and practical. Simple? Anyone who has tried to wade through this act will know whether it is simple or not. The only sense in which the word simple could be applied to it is that in which my Scotch fellow-members know it is used in Scotland when they say charitably of a poor fellow whose mental progress has been arrested, "Oh well, the poor fellow is simple." In that sense this bill may be called simple.
Sound? It is not sound. Practical? Time will show whether it is practical or not.
I voted for the second reading of the bill with the fond and foolish hope that it would be improved in committee. I did not turn my ears to my friends to my right who were attacking it possibly because they were prejudiced, but rather inclined my ears to my friends to my left and opposite who were supporting it. I was going to listen to them and hear the arguments they advanced. I did listen to them attentively. I have heard or read very carefully practically every one of their speeches, and with possibly one exception, through them all ran the thread of damning and double-damning the bill with the very faintest of praise. Here is a sentence that you find in almost all of them: Well anyhow it is a step in the right direction A step in the right direction, and perhaps two in the wrong direction. Is all this trouble and turmoil worth while if we are only going to take one step in the right direction? Anyway, let us take a chance on it, they say. Well, lots of people have got into trouble by taking a chance, and if we are only taking one step in the right direction; if we are going to take a chance anyway, let us fill up the gaps and minimize the risks.
I would like to quote my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Speakman) speaking at page 3968 of Hansard. The hon. gentleman is known to be one of the best speakers in the party to which he belongs, and I always listen with interest to his speeches. They are always carefully prepared and couched in the most appropriate language to make his meaning very clear. I think I can say without
Marketing Act-Mr. Neill

any disrespect

I do not think he will object -that he is also known to be a very loyal and strong supporter of any measure the government brings down. I listened to his remarks very carefully, feeling sure I would get support for the step I was inclined to take. One of his remarks was (that it was a step in the right direction, and I have already alluded to that. Then later on he states that the amendments cleared up many points introduced in so vague a manner as to be capable of complete misapprehension and complete misinterpretation. That does not agree with the minister who says that the changes have been immaterial. Then we find the hon. member saying that he does not expect this bill to be a perfect bill. That is quite all right, as none of them are.
He then draws a parallel between the bill and the results which he expects from it and a new born child as compared with a man able to go out and do a day's work in the hayfield. He said that it requires development, the child must grow up. I want it understood that that is his illustration, not mine, but perhaps I may follow it up. Perhaps we might inquire into the origin of this baby. Possibly some beautiful daughter of Pharaoh, disguised as the present Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir)

I do not know a more complete disguise which she could assume-wandered down and found this marketing Moses in the bullrushes of Winnipeg North Centre. At least that is a charitable suggestion. If you do not accept that, then I am afraid that I must submit thaft this is an offspring of illicit relations between, shall we say, high reactionary influences, on the one hand, and thinly disguised communism, on the other. This is a hybrid offspring and those who have studied biology say that where the parents of an offspring are members of races entirely divergent, the offspring seldom makes a desirable citizen. He is apt to have the vices of both races and the virtues of neither. I should like to know w}io is going to assume responsibility for the suckling of this legislative foundling. Shall we have to wait until it grows up and see what is going to happen then? I suggest that the offspring had better be put in a lethal chamber and the parents sterilized to prevent any more such unfortunate accidents.
The hon. gentleman then states that in his opinion this bill offers some hope. He is a gentleman of ability with the facility of expressing himself. He was determined to find good in this bill but the best he can say of it is that it provides a hope. Have hon. mem-
[Mr. Neill.1
bers ever seen a man who has tried to live on hope? I did once and I must say that he was a sorry looking spectacle, be looked like a clothesline in an advanced stage of disintegration. I do not think I would like to live on hope and I should like to see this bill offer something more immediately profitable than hope.
I shall come back to the remarks of my hon. friend later on, but I would like to turn for a moment to the remarks of the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland), which appear on page 3689 of Hansard. I say with absolute sincerity that he is one of the finest speakers in his party. He is a man of almost nationwide reputation and possesses the facility of expressing himself and making the best out of any situation. I shall quote only a remark here and there as I have not time to do more. He says:
I am supporting this measure not because it is a particularly good one-there are many weakneses in it

And again he says:
I am in favour of the bill, but I still object to certain bureaucratic features which are embodied in section 9.
I thank him for those good words because they show that he realizes along with myself some of the obligations of section 9.
Then again:
It will be wasteful and will likely lead to a good deal of confusion and conflict later on.
Confusion and conflict in these matters means litigation, and while these things are being threshed out in the courts, the people who are trying to sell tomatoes will be waiting for a decision. Then in his closing remarks he says:
But we have to take what we can get under existing conditions; a slice of bread is better than no bread.
I suppose under some conditions that is true but if you have paid a high price for a loaf of bread, if the people have been told they are going to get a loaf of bread, is it not our duty, we who are informed, to point out that the public is not going to get the loaf of bread which has been dangled before them but is going to get only a slice? In the opinion of the hon. member for Bow River, a slice of bread is all that we are going to get. I hope we do get a slice but I have my doubts about that. If these were the remarks of some ordinary backbencher they might be considered as mere figures of speech,

Marketing Act-Mr. Neill
but it is a different thing when they are said by someone of the ability of the hon. member. He then concludes by saying:
For what merit it may have I am willing to accept the bill and shall vote for the third reading.
For what merit it "may" have, notice-may have-he will vote for the bill. Is that the best this bill offers us? I am not a bridge expert but I seem to remember having heard of a partner apologizing for what seemed like a dumb lead by saying, "I am sorry, partner, but I was leading out of weakness."
I should like to return to the remarks of the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Speak-man), which appear on page 3675 of Hansard. He was asked by the hon. member for South Battleford (Mr. Vallance) whether he thought this bill would bring about the result he hoped for, namely, to raise the price level of the product, say, of the wheat farmer. He replied that he thought it would not, that he doubted whether any action taken by this country could raise the price of wheat very materially above what would be world prices. We find him saying however on the previous page that:
Assuming that the bill does all that we hope it will do; assuming that we succeed in the coming years in raising prices to a reasonable level-
Mr. VALLAN'CE: It was that statement which prompted my question.


Alan Webster Neill: He does not think it will make any difference. He then said that it would be better to leave wheat out of the control of this board, that he thought it should be dealt with by a separate bill or board. He was speaking as a farmer and for a large body of farmers on the prairies. When we think of farmers in connection with wheat our thoughts swing to the prairies. The expressed opinion of the hon. member was that it would have been better if wheat had been left out of this bill and handled by a separate board or separate bill.


Mr. SPEAKMAN:: I am sure the hon. member does not wish to misrepresent what I said. I said that while I believed that wheat should be handled under a separate federal board, so long as we could not have that I thought it wise to have it remain in this bill and under this board.


Alan Webster Neill: That is exactly what I said. The hon. member is willing to take the slice of bread which his hon. friend talks about, but he thinks it would have been better to have wheat under a separate board.


Alfred Speakman: Hear, hear.


Alan Webster Neill: He agrees with me. I ask any body of farmers, or any individual member from the prairies who speaks solely from the point of view of the wheat grower and who believes it would be better if wheat were left out of this bill, this question: Have you any right to come to British Columbia and insist that the people in the fish business, the people in the lumber business, the people in the sawmill business, in the shingle business, in reduction plants, in the dairying business, in paper manufacturing and so on, all of whom did not want to be brought under this bill, should be brought under the provisions of the bill? Have they the right to come to British Columbia or to any portion of the dominion and ask that? Is that not logical and is that not a fair question? Should they seek to force someone to take something for which they have not asked and which they do not want when they themselves are not willing to submit to it except as a last resort?
We have heard a good deal about the support which should be given to this bill, but I have not received any letters asking me to vote for the measure. I think much of this so-called support for the bill is due to ignorance of what it really means. Unfortunately we have got into the habit of believing in shibboleths, slogans and headlines. I suppose it is the present unrest and discontent that make us grasp at anything that comes along. We merely look at headlines, taking no time to read what is printed underneath, and so very often we do not know just what is contained under such headlines; we fail ,to get the meaning. I saw an article the other day in regard to a certain bill-I will not mention the bill; it was not this one at any rate. But under a large headline there was a statement something like this, "Commend Bennett" on a certain measure, and the article went on to say that that legislation had been warmly received by the Saskatchewan and Alberta premiers; that information appeared in smaller headlines. Now what does the man in the street say when he comes across something like that in the newspapers, when he sees that Premier Brownlee is reported as being in favour of certain legislation? That particular piece of legislation, I may say in passing, is all right; but the point is that all such large headlines, like the one to which I am referring-"Commend Bennett", and so on,-do not convey the precise facts. In this particular instance there
Marketing Act-Mr. Neill

appears this statement at the bottom of the article, giving the views of Mr. Brownlee:
So far as I can judge from the press report, I am pleased with the legislation. Until I have had an opportunity of studying its actual working it will be impossible for me to pass a final opinion.
But what do the headlines say? "Glory to God in the highest; we are all for the bill; that is what we want." The man in the street says, in connection, with the bill now before us, "I am in favour of this measure; I am all for it." Of course; everybody wants it. But let us first see just what it means. The Minister of National Health has before the house a bill to prevent people from peddling cure-alls for certain fatal diseases like tuberculosis and cancer, without a doctor's prescription, because such a practice is said to be unfair; and a year or two ago he passed a bill to compel anyone selling quack remedies, or even genuine remedies, to put the formula on the bottle so that the purchaser would know, or would be able to have someone tell him, just what the contents were. Well, I wish the government would introduce something like that in connection with legislation, forbidding bills being described as cure-alls, making it compulsory to put the formula on the bottle, so to speak, so that people might know precisely what any particular measure meant, instead of having it dangled before their eyes as a cure-all, and being told that everybody is in favour of it.
I have here a letter from a friend to whom I sent a copy of this bill with a request for his opinion, and the pertinent part of the reply is this:
I have not had time to follow all the changes in the bill but it seems to me to be a step in the right direction. I would have liked to have seen it modelled closely on the British act.
I am afraid he will wait a long time to see it modelled on that act, because he does not realize what the bill really means. When he does-and I will make it my business to inform him-I doubt whether he will go even as far as he does in this letter.
As regards the amendment, I am glad to see it although I do not agree entirely with some of its conditions; but I should certainly like to see the bill referred back to the committee, and there is no reason why the government should not accept that suggestion, because it would not mean their defeat. If the bill were referred back to the committee it is possible that some of the amendments I have suggested would be considered.
As to how I shall vote, I am not ashamed of the vote I cast on the second reading, and

I hope not to be ashamed of my attitude towards the third reading. I believe in marketing control; we need it badly, first, for regulating quality of production going overseas, and secondly for regulating quantity. And if the minister had begun as the Minister of Justice suggested quite properly with respect to one of the proposed amendments, there would be no difficulty now. The Minister of Justice suggested in regard to that particular amendment that we should walk before we run, but here we are galloping. If we had begun with exports only there would have been no trouble in relation to jurisdiction to hamper us, and time would have shown us how the scheme worked out. It worked well in New Zealand and probably it would work well with us. But the control should be democratic. If you look at the introduction to the British act, 1931, you will find the statement that the bill is founded on the principle of democratic control. Does anyone suggest that that principle is found here? This bill allows control to pass into the hands of possibly a few marketers or people appointed by politicians, or by government-appointed boards. The scheme will be under the control of men not elected by the producers, not elected by anyone.
I refuse to be cowed by the threat that the people whom I represent want this bill and that I shall therefore find myself in disrepute if I vote against the third reading of it, as I will. Some of the people may have been stampeded with the idea of a cure-all as a marketing bill, but I have studied the measure day and night very carefully and have compared it with both the New Zealand bill and the British act, and surely there is not much wrong or unpatriotic or undemocratic in following the British and the New Zealand way. I cannot see that there is sufficient resemblance between those measures and the bill now before us to justify my voting for the third reading. I may be taking my political future in my hands in making this statement, but that is my duty, what I am sent for, what I am paid for. But, after studying the bill carefully, I am of the opinion that in the long run this bill will prove prejudicial to the producers of the country.


Mr. HENRI BOURASSA (Labelle):: On the second reading I stated positively that unless the bill were amended substantially I would vote against the third reading. I have read carefully the amendments that have been proposed by the Minister of Agriculture <Mr. Weir) and most of the speeches made

Marketing Act-Mr. Bourassa
in committee, and I have no hesitation in concluding, as my deskmate has done, that I must vote against the third reading of this bill.
On the second reading I dwelt only upon two features of this piece of legislation: the constitution of the federal board and the basic principle upon which the local boards were to be established. I adhere to the idea that, *whether we like it or not, we must establish some machinery to control the exchange of trade between Canada and foreign countries. In this respect I cannot follow my good old friend from Ontario (Mr. Moore), though I enjoyed immensely the speech he made the other day to the tune of Old Liberalism. A policy of control is imposed upon us by circumstances as they exist the world over, and for that reason I voted for the second reading of the bill. The establishment of a federal board calling for the expenditure of public money could not be introduced in this house except as a government measure. Therefore, in common with other members of the house, I had no choice but to vote for or against *the second reading of the bill. But I then expressed my strong opposition to the manner in which it was proposed to constitute the local boards.
Amendments have been brought forward and accepted, the main one being the amendment which enables the government-not forces upon the government but enables the government-to call for a poll, that is, for a vote of the people concerned in each locality where such a local board will be proposed. I have already expressed the view, which I now repeat, that I am not a strong believer in the supreme wisdom of majorities any more than in that of minorities. My opposition to the composition of local boards is not based on the fact that they are either majority or minority boards. I am strongly convinced *that, given the conditions that exist in this country, geographical, ethnical and social, if we permit the creation of these small local units in every centre of each province of the dominion, we shall have chaos in matters of production and marketing and in all matters which are supposed to be adjusted by this legislation.
I have compared those local boards with the collective farms in Russia, the Kolkoczi. The more I have studied this legislation and compared it with the establishment of those organizations in Russia, the more I feel I am justified in calling this portion of the bill the sovietic part of it. The hon. member for
Regina (Mr. Turnbull), to whom I always listen with pleasure because he has the rare faculty of expressing his thoughts clearly and concisely, said that there was nothing socialistic in this legislation. In a sense that is true because there is nothing so antagonistic to modern socialism, as it is understood and practised in England or in Germany, as communism in Russia. As a matter of fact, after the communists in Russia did away with the old monarchical system, the first obstacle which they removed was that of the moderate socialists. I do not think there can be any doubt that the basic principle of this second part of the bill is that upon which those local bodies have been recognized in Russia. It is the acknowledgment, as the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) has said, that the basis of social and economic conditions is no longer that of population or of community interest but of certain occupations. Tomato growers, poultry raisers, dairy producers form a small combine in a locality; they put up a scheme and they get approval in Ottawa. They immediately become masters of the production, indirectly if you like. I will admit that production is not mentioned here; but the minute they control the manner in which the product will be raised and put on the market, they really control production. What is the use of a man growing tomatoes if he is not allowed to sell them unless he puts himself under the iron-set regulations of the local board approved by the central board? Therefore the board indirectly controls production; it controls marketing and the disposition of the goods that will be produced in each locality controlled by a board. For that reason alone I am staunchly opposed to the bill as it stands. No amendment has been proposed and adapted by the committee to remove that obnoxious feature of the legislation. So much for that.
But the point I want to stress now is one which I left aside altogether on the second reading of this bill; I mean, the last portion of the legislation, clause 12. At least I call it the last portion because it comes before the investigation which is another piece of legislation in itself. As a matter of fact this is a combination of three bills in one. I refer to that clause upon which the leader of the opposition dwelt concerning restriction of imports and exports. I was rather surprised, not to hear because I was not present, but to read the observation made by my excellent young friend the Solicitor General (Mr. Dupre) with regard to this part of the bill. He said that those extraordinary powers

Marketing Act-Mr. Bourassa
which we are asked to grant to the governor in council enabling it to restrict at its will imports and exports of all the natural products as defined in this legislation-and the scope of natural products involved is very large-cannot be exercised unless upon recommendation by some local board or the federal board. It -may appear pretentious on my part to contradict the Solicitor General, who is a distinguished lawyer while I am not; the only title I have is that I am the dean of law students in Canada. I entered the study of law some forty years ago and I quitted it because, as old Paul Playdell said in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, of the less honourable parts of the profession. Therefore I did not take my degree. But during my twenty-five years of parliamentary life I have acquired some habit of studying statutes. I remember a minister of justice who used to send me bills with this rather queer kind of compliment: " Bourassa, you are no lawyer; you know nothing about the law, but I have some reliance on your common sense and especially your aptitude to tell me what you think. Therefore I will consult you rather than any of my legal advisers." I thereby acquired the habit of construing statutes.
The first thing which strikes one with any experience of legislation is that clause 12 stands by itself without any connection whatever with the rest of the legislation. It reminds one of certain pieces of legislation introduced in the English parliament at a time the House of Lords still exercised its powers. When the Commons wanted the Lords to swallow a piece of legislation they did not like, they tacked it on to a money bill; and the House of Lords, not having power to amend money bills, were obliged to either swallow the whole thing or to reject it wholesale. This looks very much as if the government wanted to get from the house powers similar to those which President Roosevelt secured from congress, and they are trying to get them in this way instead of asking the house for the granting of those powers, a discussable, debatable question. I am not now so much enamoured-perhaps because I am older and the power of love may have decreased in me-as the leader of the opposition is of the goddess of parliamentary liberty. That goddess has been so unfaithful to her worshippers and lovers in the last twenty-five years that in my opinion we must show a little independence toward her; but at the same time I do not believe in deceit; I do not believe in roundabout ways. I may have admiration for a man like Mussolini taking his opponents by the throat, throwing them out of parliament and

telling them: "I do not want any opposition, because an opposition is an impediment to efficient government." That is his principle and, I repeat, it is a debatable one. In times of crises there is not the slightest doubt that a good autocrat is preferable to any debating house such as we are; and that many things such as the present Prime Minister has in mind would be better executed if he had no cabinet around him and no house of commons to discuss his views. But I repeat what I said three or four years ago: so long as we have a parliament and form part of it, we must at least have a certain degree of apparent respect for what we are supposed to represent. Being a member of this house I refuse to be stampeded into accepting, under the guise of legislation to regulate the marketing of products, a law which, without any reference to marketing, without any reference to the rights of the producers and consumers or to their interests, individual or collective, grants to the governor in council the power, in any manner, way, shape or form, to restrict the import or export of any natural product, such as it is defined by this legislation. It means a great deal-the foodstuffs derived from natural products, the products of the forests, the products of the fisheries, and so forth. Once this legislation is passed, the governor in council, with or without the advice of its central board, or of any local board, may decide one morning to close the door to the importation of Russian coal as it did, for what purpose I do not know, but the result was the commencement of the most damnable monopoly which now exists in the Dominion of Canada. It may order to-morrow the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Howard) or the hon. member for Beauce (Mr. Lacroix) or anyone concerned in the lumbering trade, that he has no right to ship lumber to the United States; that in order to favour imperial policies he must sell it in London at whatever price he can get. All that can be done by order in council under clause 12 without any reference to the opinion of any local board or of the central board. How could my good friend the Solicitor General say that those powers cannot be exercised unless upon the advice of a board? Clause 12 is quite clear; it states:
The governor in council may by order or regulation, notice whereof shall be published forthwith in the Canada Gazette-
(a)	regulate or restrict the importation into Canada of any natural product which enters Canada in competition with a regulated product;
(b)	regulate or restrict the exportation from Canada of any natural product;

Marketing Act-Mr. Bourassa
And so on. I refer only to those two subclauses. What is the title of this bill?
An act to improve the methods and practices of marketing of natural products in Canada and in export trade, and to make further provision in connection therewith.
That does not contain the slightest indication that there will be any restriction on imports and exports. In all the clauses dealing with the composition of the federal and local boards and the powers assigned to them there is not the slightest indication with regard to imports. Then, under one single clause which stands by itself, granting extraordinary powers to the governor in council without relation to the rest of the law, to the powers of the central board or the requests of the local boards, the governor in council is authorized to do whatever it likes in matters of import and export. It may establish new tariffs. It may suppress certain commodities. It may establish quotas. To-morrow it may tell the apple growers of Nova Scotia:	"This year
you will not send a barrel of apples to England, because we want to favour British Columbia." It may tell the eheesemakers of Quebec that Ontario must have a chance, and that no Quebec cheese may be sent to England until Ontario has disposed of its product. I do not say it will do that sort of thing, but I say this legislation authorizes the governor in council to do anything it pleases, either by way of tariffs or by most arbitrary restrictions with regard to imports and exports. It may upset the whole trade of the country without any indication of the will of parliament or the desire or interest of the people for whose benefit this legislation is supposed to be adopted.


Mr. RALSTON:: And the producers may be fined or imprisoned if they do not obey the regulations.


Joseph Henri Napoléon Bourassa: I leave that aside. I want to impress those who take the trouble to read my few remarks with the bearing of this one clause.
Now connect this with the extraordinary powers we have granted the government under the guise of peace, order and good government. Take those two laws together, and if thereby and thereunder you have not the amplest form of fascism that can exist, I want to know where it can be found.
In this bill you have this extraordinary feature of a moderate form of state socialism in the first part, which I think is a necessity. You have a disguised form of sovietism in the second part, and you have a most striking form of fascism in the third part. That is 74726-23S
too much for me to swallow at once. I can stand a good deal. I have been taken to task by some virtuous people in my province for having expressed myself as prepared to stand a good deal of socialism, not as a doctrine but as a necessity. For example, I stand the extremely socialist law enacted by the Quebec government in the matter of sale of liquor. That is state socialism, pure and simple. I have submitted under protest to the so-called assistance law of the Quebec government, which is socialized charity. I do not approve of that, but we have it. I am amused when my good liberal friends stand so strongly against socialism here, though they go through the rural districts of Quebec praising Mr. Taschereau and his government for their kindness to the poor since they adopted the most socialistic law with regard to the sustenance of charitable institutions. So, as I say, I am prepared to stand a good deal but I am not prepared to stand sovietism in any shape or form. That is what I denounced on the second reading; that is what I still denounce. No remedy has been proposed; nothing has been done to correct it. I denounce it not only because of the obnoxious principle at the base of that portion of the law; I denounce it in the interests of the small people, the small producers and especially the consumers.
In that regard I agree entirely with the right lion, leader of the opposition, and I support his amendment which states that nothing has been done and something should be done to protect the consumer. I am also concerned about the fate of the numerous producers who will be dominated by these local boards whether, as I repeat for the third or fourth time, they are majority or minority boards; that does not concern me for the present. I am concerned about the liberty of action of the producers in the cultivation of their land for the production of whatever they think it can produce, which they know far better than any board in Ottawa or even any local board can know. I object to any group of individuals engaged in raising poultry or in producing tomatoes or potatoes imposing their manner of cultivation and their system of production upon people who may have good reason for producing something else in a different way
My reason for supporting the second reading of this bill was my feeling that a body should be created to direct the economic activities of our farmers, to make them understand that if they produce too much of one commodity the price will fall, and that they should produce something else or some other quality of fruit, of vegetables or of



Marketing Act-Mr. Bourassa
live stock. But I object to a local board more than I object to a federal board imposing its ways upon its neighbours or upon any minority in any locality. We must tell the whole truth. In this country there is less social spirit and public spirit than in the old countries, where traditions have been established, where for years people have been forced, so to speak, to be considerate of each other. In all new countries, but especially in the United States and 'Canada, the prevailing law of economics is the law of selfishness, the law of getting all the money you can by any means you can. The moment you permit small groups of individuals all through the land to impose their views, to protect their selfish interests, they will impose them in such a way that not only will they antagonize the minority; not only will they impose upon the public sacrifices which they find hard enough to make to-day in being forced to pay twice as much as they should for what they buy; at the same time this will upset the economic life of this country under the pretence of organizing it.
The Minister of Agriculture is a right thinking man; I believe he wants to do the right thing, but I am afraid he has listened to too much advice of various kinds. In times of trouble and crisis all sorts of quack doctors rise up, in universities, in farm districts and in labour organizations. Each has his own remedy, and they come to the government. When governments give way and take a little of the medicine of each they are apt to compound a mixture that will poison the whole body, politic and social. It would have been better to start humbly; but unfortunately, as one great French writer has said, we have lost the sense of the great political virtue of humility. Every one imagines he is bound to be a big man, to produce big things all of a sudden, with a big piece of law which will cure all. I am afraid that is the wrong way. For a number of years we have been going down hill. For at least twenty-five years back we have gone crazy,-and in that statement I do not except myself, because, as an old friend of mine, a specialist in mental diseases, once said to me, "You know, we have certain theories; we put a certain number of people in asylums 'because we believe they are suffering from this or that kind of mental disease, but, to be perfectly truthful I believe everyone is crazy; it is only a question of degree and manner. I know that every day in business and social circles I meet people who are far more crazy than those people in the asylum of which I am superintendent."

I am afraid that for the last twenty-five years, and especially in economic methods, we have all gone crazy. We have built up everything on credit, indebtedness, extravagance, legislation,-laws, laws, laws, laws- without reflection before they have been passed, without seriousness when they are applied, and without any moral sanction to get the people to agree to their application. What is the use of passing laws which are inapplicable? I am sure the Minister of Agriculture, and I am still more sure-because I know him better-the Prime Minister knows that this law cannot be applied as it is. He knows that if it were applied as it is, or rather if in its application there was an endeavour to meet all the requirements and exigencies of the people who have asked for it, it would simply upset the whole economic life of this country. It would raise community against community, class against class, country against city, and advance the progress of social or economic revolution far more than the extremest revolutionary party could do; they would do it by bad legislation and by improper administration.
For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I vote heartily for the amendment moved by the right hon. leader of the opposition, and still more heartily against the third reading, of the bill.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Question.


Mr. MURPHY:: I was paired with the hon. member for West Edmonton (Mr. Stewart). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. JOHNSTONE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Willow Bunch (Mr. Don-elly). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. WHITE (London):: I was paired with the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Gershaw). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. RENNIE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Toronto Northwest (Mr. Mac-Nicol). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. GEARY:: I was paired with the hon. member for Laurier-Outremont (Mr. Mercier). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. YOUNG:: I was paired with the hon. member for South Renfrew (Mr. Maloney). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. McGIBBON:: I was paired with the hon, member for Quebec South (Mr. Power). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.
Marketing Act-Pairs


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I was paired with the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Kennedy). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. HANBURY:: I was paired with the hon. member for West Kootenay (Mr. Esling). Had I voted, I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. BO YES:: I was paired with the hon. member for West Elgin (Mr. Hepburn). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. THOMPSON (Simcoe):: I was paired with the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Jean). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. GARLAND (Carleton):: I was paired with the hon. member for Russell (Mr. Goulet) . Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. SMOKE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot). Had I voted, I would have voted against the amendment.


Frederick George Sanderson: I was paired with the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. BOTHWELL:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Hastings-Peterborough (Mr. Embury). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Albert Edward Munn: I was paired with the hon.
member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Perley). Had 1 voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. HOWARD:: I was paired with the hon. member for Grenville-Dundas (Mr. Cassel-man). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. HALL:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Victoria, Ontario (Mr. Stinson). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. DUPRE (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Joliette (Mr. Fer-land). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. LARUE (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Vaudreuil-Soulan-ges (Mr. Thauvette). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. LACROIX (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Dufferin-Simeoe (Mr. Rowe). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. ROBERGE (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Kingston (Mr. Ross). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. DUBOIS (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for St. John-Albert (Mr. Bell). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. DESLAURIERS (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Bourgeois). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.
Mr.	RHEAUME	(Translation):	I	was
paired with the hon. member for Berthier-Maskinonge (Mr. Barrette). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.
Mr.	FOURNIER	(Translation) :	I	was
paired with the hon. member for South York (Mr. McGregor). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.
Mr.	MICHAUD	(Translation):	I	was
paired with the hon. member for Charlotte (Mr. Ganong). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. DUBUC (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Black). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.
Mr. ST-PEiRE (Translation): I was paired with the hon. member for South Hastings (Mr. Tummon). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. BOUCHARD (Translation):: I was
paired with the hon. member for Welland (Mr. Pettit). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. FAFARD (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Levis (Mr. Fortin). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The question is on the
main motion.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, that the debate upon this measure should have taken a very considerable length of time is not surprising. That it should have generated some heat without much light is somewhat amazing, and that it should have wandered over many fields of discussion is not strange for the motion now before the house is for the third reading of the so called marketing bill.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: So called!


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is somewhat interesting to realize that it was so called by the hon. gentlemen opposite yesterday. Their recognition of its real value is something that should not pass without comment.

Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
I think perhaps the most interesting thing that has developed during the debate of yesterday and to-day and the day before is the difference of opinion between those who united unsuccessfully to vote for the amendment that has just been negatived.
The veteran former Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) has expressed himself in that firm and determined manner that has characterized his life's conduct in matters political. He has always had strong convictions and expressed them with a fervour and determination worthy of his race. I have heard him cheered and cheered and cheered by hon. gentlemen opposite, but there was a rare silence yesterday when he was concluding his observations. Whether or not that marked his colleagues' disapproval of his observations I cannot say.
Then there was the member for Quebec East, the former Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). When you compare his attitude towards this bill with that of many other members who have spoken from his side, you have a very great cleavage of opinion. Then when you compare the speech of the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Moore) with that of some of those who have spoken you begin to realize that after all there still remains in this house some vestige of the opinion that was held during the early Victorian days.
The Iaissez faire doctrines have not disappeared entirely. There are those who believe that the only way in which progress can be made is to watch the procession pass by but there are also those who believe that changed times and changed conditions must be met with new policies. Fortunately, the Conservative party belongs to the latter class.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is new.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I should judge that in the mind of the hon. gentleman anything would be new. The fact is that we still believe in the truth of that statement made by Tennyson:
That man's the true Conservative
Who lops the moulder'd branch away.
We offer no apology for standing where we do with respect to a matter of this kind. I was somewhat amazed in following the very excellent historical review made yesterday by the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), when he was dealing with certain phases of economic history, that he should not have observed that we have here in these days-I remind the hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Moore)-a situation not unlike that which prevailed in England in the early days of Queen Victoria's reign, in fact up until
the middle of the nineteenth century. The Iaissez faire doctrine developed to a point never before reached. It was declared that contracts were sacred and that governments must not interfere with business, that the father could rent the services of his child at the age of six and that he should work until he was twelve. We find factories where girls and boys of five, six, seven, eight and nine years of age were working.
If those who are interested will take the trouble to look up the Register for 1847 they will find the history of that bill which was introduced in the English House of Commons by Mr. Fielden and supported by Lord Ashley, afterwards Lord Shaftesbury. They will then realize the extent to which under the development of that doctrine business could not be touched by legislation. They will see the extent to which child labour was exploited, that contracts must be maintained and there should be no interference or regulation of the business world. If hon. members of this house are interested they can look this up as I shall not take the time this afternoon to read the rather interesting developments of that doctrine. One must not change the hours of labour from the twelve hours contracted for alike by father and child. They will find how the suggestion that these hours should be reduced to eleven hours per day met with disapproval. They will find how the suggestion that they should be reduced to ten hours met with strong opposition on the ground that it would reduce the productive power of the factories by twenty-five per cent. These things are matters of history.
There were those who felt that the Iaissez faire doctrine had been carried to extremes in the early part of the nineteenth century. Mr. Fielden from Lancashire compared the death rate of children between one and ten years in Manchester with those in London. Just why there has been interference with that doctrine was admirably presented yesterday by the hon. member for Ontario. We can realize that interference by legislatures and by parliaments has been in the interests of the state itself, its people, its population and the lives of the people. Interference has been against child labour, against long hours of labour. The endeavour has been to secure conditions for those who labour which will enable them to have at least a little leisure. Within my memory there stood in this house an hon. gentleman who came from the old county of Northumberland in England and who recalled the times of the election of John Morley in Newcastle.
Morley declared that any interference with the hours of labour was contrary to the
3762	COMMONS
Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
doctrine of his party, that laissez faire meant that there should be no interference by the state with respect to contractual obligations entered into by citizens. That is the doctrine which is preached to-day in this house. It is the doctrine which was preached yesterday by the hon. member for Ontario but neither he nor the leader of the opposition dared say in this house that he did not believe the state should interfere in the regulation of business with respect to hours of labour, with respect to factory conditions, with respect to child labour and with respect to health and sanitation. Certainly, business must be interfered with and regulated, there must be interference by the state on behalf of those who unless they can speak collectively cannot care for themselves.
We now have the application to agriculture of that same principle which they dare not disapprove and those who are unable to organize themselves even as the trade unions have organized in Great Britain. When such legislation is presented, we are told that it is despotic and that it means tyrannical interference with the rights of the people of this country to do as they please. There is a time in the history of every country when voices have arisen. Let me remind this house of the circumstances under which the state in Great Britain regulated the hours of labour and so on. It will be recalled that Mr. Fielden, a distinguished manufacturer from Lancashire, and Lord Ashley found it difficult to interest the great masses of the people who had been brought up on the doctrine of laissez faire to take any action with respect to these matters. Year in and year out Samuel Plimsoll demanded that the load mark should be placed upon ships but he met with powerful opposition from the shipowners. But he was persistent and insistent and in the end every ship that leaves an English port must bear upon her side the Plimsoll mark, an eternal memorial to the persistency of one man for his cause. Because of the impotency of individuals and their inability to bring about the reforms they desired, we finally had the creation of the great trade unions in Great Britain. Who were their opponents? The exponents of laissez-faire. Their opponents said: We will not tolerate this, these institutions must not be permitted to say how contracts shall be made, what the hours of labour shall be and what shall be the conditions under which men and women work. But the trade unions triumphed. Why? Because the rights of humanity prevailed over the rights of dividends. In the ultimate analysis that will be found to be the real reason and nothing else.

Can agriculture organize? Yesterday and to-day the veteran former Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) gave the long story of the efforts of agriculture towards organization. He told the story of the granges and the patrons of industry, he told of the struggles for organization on the part of agriculture and of the failures brought about by certain circumstances. I realize that their position is not that of the trade unionists. They have not the voice which the trade unions have to make themselves effective in the constituencies in order that laissez faire may not prevail against them. The time has come when the natural products of this country shall be marketed under conditions which will ensure to those who produce them some measure of return for their efforts, a measure of return relative to that which the trade unions have been able to secure by organization for those whom they represent.
There you have the analogy. If any of you desire to take the trouble to read carefully the economic history of the period to which I have referred you will find the continued opposition that was made against this combination of effort, this desire to organize for the purpose I have mentioned. If any of you are interested, I suggest that you take the trouble to secure in yonder library one of these volumes and read it. To-day you have the parallel in this house. All those who have consistently followed the doctrine of laissez faire, as the right hon. gentleman opposite, the hon. member for Ontario, and others do, are banded together against this legislation. Just as in the days of the trade union effort all those who held that property rights and the rights of contract must be supreme over every other consideration in the world, were banded together for that purpose, so to-day, to the left of the Speaker, with one or two exceptions we find banded together those who say, "Let well enough alone. Let there be no interference with business or with the right of contract; let there be no interference to improve the conditions under which the farmer shall market his products; let there be no interference by the state, by legislation, to ensure for him a larger part of the consumer's dollar; let us blind the issue by talking about the rights of consumers, about the constitutional history of the past; let us call up Magna Charta so that we may remember what John did at Bunnymede, let us concern ourselves with all these things, but let us ensure that the end sought here shall not be attained."

Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
That is the story. It is just as it was in the middle of the nineteenth century-the sacred rights of contract and of property, the sacred rights of those who must be permitted to maintain the foreign trade of England. I was reading the other day one of the speeches of this sort insisting upon the maintenance of that condition at any cost. Was it to cut down the hours of labour? No, but to maintain foreign trade. To improve the condition of the agrarian, to assist him in marketing his products, to provide for a cooperative effort on the part of local communities, created by themselves, and assisted by the state? No; that must not be. Let us maintain the doctrines of the past-that is the attitude. Let us remember the sacred name of Morley, nor let us forget Hume; so that by and by, if we are long enough at it, we shall drift back to the days of the barons at Runnymede.
Now I do challenge one observation among others made by the right hon. gentleman yesterday. He asserted that the world is the same to-day as it was in days gone by; that there is nothing new under the sun; that the great conflict of the ages has made no great structural change; but that, if you look at the end of the reign of George IV, you will find a fitting similarity to the conditions that exist to-day.
I have too much respect for the intellectual powers of the right hon. gentleman to believe for a single moment that he had given any thought to that statement before he made it. Just think of the conditions through which the world has passed. Why is it that the world will never again be as it was before 1914? Not the youngest man in this house, not the youngest page here will ever see a return to the conditions that existed before 1914. Why? It is so obvious that it is hardly necessary to state the reason. First of all, not merely thousands and hundreds of thousands but millions of the finest lives in all the world have gone out for the cause of war, not in one part of the world but practically in every part. Secondly, on the purely material side, the debts that have been incurred on so vast a scale were incurred not for the construction of productive and useful undertakings but in the destruction of the very things which were bought with the money that paid for them. In cotton, in powder, in explosives, in everything that goes to the maintenance of war, millions and hundreds of millions, nay, thousands of millions were destroyed, and as a result there was no productive return for the money thus expended. But it did not end there. At
the close of the war there was this condition -and I commend the thought to this house.
The figures produced by the Secretary of Agriculture for the United States indicate that at the end of the war the combatant nations had reduced by fifty million acres the land which they had had under cultivation -fifty million acres. WThy? Because, unlike the Napoleonic wars, unlike the wars in which the armies of Wellington and of Marlborough participated, the belligerents did not look to the communities through which they passed to provide them with food. The food came from overseas, from remote parts of the world. Transports were carrying food, meat, flour, grain, from the remotest parts of the world during the war, and what happened? Fifty million acres of land, in the warring countries, went out' of cultivation. In the United States alone, forty million acres were put under cultivation during the war-forty million acres that had not previously been cultivated-to meet the wants of those who were warring, and who had abandoned fifty million acres of farm land. And what was the position in Canada? Between the outbreak of the war and the end there were put under cultivation in this country over twenty million more acres. The result was that there were over sixty million additional acres under cultivation in Canada and the United States between the outbreak of hostilities and the end and shortly thereafter, to provide food, to provide the various requirements of the people who had abandoned lands because compulsory service had made it necessary for them to fight.
With peace, what happened? With peace there was an effort to bring back a return of pre-war conditions. Those who survived went back to their farms and endeavoured to till the soil and to produce. In this country we did not at once abandon the increased acreage but continued to maintain it, as they did in the United States, and in the end there occurred what was inevitable. To the extent to which those who had abandoned their farms to engage in the conflict went back and brought those farms once more into production, to that extent they were supplying wants that had been supplied by Canada and the United States, and this rendered it impossible for those engaged in similar occupations in Canada and the United States to find a market for their products.
Does anyone suggest that such a situation has ever existed in the world before? What brought it about? Compare the end of George's reign with what happened at the close of the last war. At the end of George's reign steam as a motive power was unknown;

Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
electricity was not heard of for commercial purposes; the internal combustion engine was yet a dream in the mind of an inventor not yet born. That is the position. All these changes came into being, and you can no more compare the conditions that existed at the end of George's reign with the conditions that existed at the close of the last war than you can compare the conditions, of which we have any record at all, that existed in the glacial age with present conditions.
Under these circumstances, what is the duty and function of government?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It may be a joke to
some hon. gentlemen but there are agriculturists who do not think it a joke. It well might be that the hon. member for South Perth (Mr. Sanderson), who is so agitated by the loss of a market by importation of flour from abroad, will treat it as a joke. But the people concerned do not so regard it.
Let us see what the position was. I have indicated in a few sentences the effect so far as agriculture is concerned. With respect to industry, what is the situation? The hon. member for Ontario yesterday briefly touched upon it. There was an abandonment also of all industrial activities except those that were related to war. Coal was produced so that T.N.T. might be supplied; cotton was produced so that there might be high explosives and so on right down, and the factories, the industrial life of the communities that were at war, were engaged in the manner I have indicated, the industries being developed to the highest point of production for war purposes, for instance, chemical gases and commodities of that sort.
At the end of the war the readjustment period began. As I have dealt with this once in the house I shall not repeat. The readjustment period with respect to industry we passed through, but as regards agriculture the condition was far different; there is no condition comparable with it. Here were men upon the farms that they had created for the purpose of supplying the deficits in food in the warring countries, and the warring countries were now supplying their own food by the toil of the men who had left the colours for the purpose of going back to their farms; that was the situation. Under those circumstances, what have governments done? The other day I pointed out in the house that France had taken immediate action for two reasons: she did not desire to pay $3 or S2.50

for wheat; she did not desire to be held up, as she regarded it, to ransom as long as she could cultivate her soil and supply her cereal wants. In addition to that she was not prepared to take the risk, if once more engaged in war, of the destruction of wheat transports by submarines and other methods such as torpedoes and mines. What did she do? Someone has referred to her policy as one of intense nationalism. What she did was to declare that she proposed to the extent of the ability of her people to make herself in food self-sustaining. In Italy, Germany and other European countries similar conditions prevailed and to the exent that they prevailed, there was a lessening of the markets which had been created for us by reason of 'the war in those countries during the war.
Faced with that condition here we have Canada in which about half the population is engaged in tilling the soil, and there again the right hon. gentleman and I would disagree. At the end of the reign of George IV you had the agricultural population, the yeoman of England, the country squires, the parliament that was one of landed interests only and you had in addition a certain measure of, shall I say, cooperative harmony in Great Britain between those who tilled the soil and those who owned it. In this country the major part of the population for many years after confederation was on the soil; it tilled the soil; but the great mechanization of the world that took place through the inventive genius of man affecting the whole attitude of mankind toward production in agriculture, sent into the cities and towns great masses of the people and left on the countryside smaller and smaller numbers of them. In a most interesting book written recently, Mr. A. G. Street, who came out to western Canada and lived in Manitoba, points out the great differences that have arisen in England in connection with that matter during the last fifty years. The countryside was once dotted with thriving farms. Now you have black chimneys and factories everywhere. That condition to a similar extent exists in Canada. For the first time the last census indicates that in this country more than one-half of the population is in the cities and towns, leaving less than one-half of the papulation inhabiting the farms and working and tilling the soil.
At six o'clock the house took recess.

Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, when the
house rose at six o'clock 1 had concluded pointing out some of the reasons why, in my opinion, the extraordinary change of conditions which had been brought about by the great war necessitated legislative action being taken at least to afford to the agriculturists the same opportunity that was afforded to those who, in some ways, had been perhaps more fortunate in their association with industry.
I was much taken with the provisions made by various countries when they came to deal with the marketing of products, with the surplus of agricultural production as well as of industrial production. Each community and nation endeavoured to supply itself with its material wants, and most of them enacted some form of legislation providing for the marketing of their products in an orderly and planned manner. Perhaps among the nations that dealt last with the problem was Japan, and I was much taken with the English translation of a few words in the Japanese act: A law concerning the adjustment of trade and the safeguarding of commerce.
It was promulgated on April 7 and became effective as from May 1, 1934, and these words are worthy of consideration by this parliament. The spokesman of the foreign office said:
Promulgation of this law has been made necessary because there is a growing tendency in other countries to ignore the fundamental economic principle of ministering to one another's wants and promoting through their cooperative efforts the progress and prosperity of mankind-all of which are being reflected in their attempts to suppress importation of foreign goods by means of high tariffs, restriction of imports, etc., and particularly because there seems to be an increasing number of countries which are setting up barriers against Japan's export trade.
He concludes with these words:
Of course, Japan has no intention to take any step that is likely to increase the present difficulties of the world. Rather, she hopes there will be no occasion requiring an actual operation of this law.
The empire of Japan, in dealing with the problems incident to the conditions to which I have referred, enacted the law I have just mentioned. We in this country, finding ourselves confronted with like conditions, world conditions over which we had no control and which were not within our jurisdiction to control, had to take some action to avoid the possibility of absolute destruction. It is not
as though this were a new principle so far as the provinces are concerned. I do not think there are many provinces in this confederation-there may be a few-in which an effort has not been made, aided by the legislature, to enable the agriculturist to market his products under more satisfactory terms and conditions than are involved in merely sending them to market without regard to conditions. British Columbia has had a marketing act for many years.
I saw the wheat pool founded in Alberta, when Mr. Aaron Sapiro came to Calgary and, after meeting with those interested in the production of grain, finally induced them to believe that this would be a useful thing to do. They drew up an agreement, which was subsequently ratified by the legislature, and in my professional capacity I was asked to advise upon it, so I saw the foundation of the movement. I still think that no wheat pool has been operated more reasonably and more beneficially with regard to the people concerned than the pool in Alberta. Pools were formed also in Saskatchewan and in Manitoba. It well may be that when, without adequate experience, they endeavoured to project their idea into the world market without, as I say, having a full understanding of what was involved, they met with a measure of disaster, but that does not in any sense militate against the soundness of what they were endeavouring to do. They were opposed by the great interests; they were opposed by many others, but they maintained their position, and I heard the foremost banker of that time in Canada say that it had done more to enable the western farmer to care for his obligations and deal with his economic life in an orderly manner than any other single thing to which reference could be made.
The ex-Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) has referred to the efforts that were made in the eastern provinces. For constitutional reasons, at every turn and in every instance there was, of course, a limitation imposed upon their powers. No province could create a pool or make provision for cooperative marketing that gave jurisdiction or power beyond the territorial limits of the province in question. Questions of contracts and sales and matters of that kind were dealt with as property and civil rights, but when you went beyond the boundaries of the province and had to deal with communities beyond those boundaries, whether inter-provincially or internationally, of course you were subject to the play of forces which were not under the control of provincial legislatures.

Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
Hence it was that they sought and, in some instances, by arrangement between themselves, exercised jurisdiction and power which otherwise they could not have obtained except by agreement with the dominion.
With that set of facts before us; with the economic conditions prevailing that I have mentioned; with the efforts and experiments in British Columbia with respect to fruit, apples, milk, potatoes and so on, what were we to do? I noticed in the press to-day that they allege that $300,000 has been lost to the growers of potatoes because this act could not be put in force in the province of British Columbia by reason of the delays that have occurred. In British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and some of the eastern provinces, within the limits imposed by the constitution, pools, or, if you like, associations or organizations having for their purpose the grouping together of individuals for the purpose of selling their products, have been in operation for years. But when the economic conditions that now prevail in this world are faced and you have to consider how you can best serve the interests of at least one-half of our population, and far more than half if you consider the production of new wealth from year to year, how is it to be dealt with?
I have been vastly amused and interested to observe the operation of the minds of hon. gentlemen opposite. First there was complete and absolute opposition to a marketing bill. Then followed a long, protracted struggle in which some of the less prominent supporters asserted that their suggestions had been accepted as amendments and that the bill offered for third reading was not the bill offered for second reading. But alas and alack; think of what has happened. The leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) has deprived his followers of the opportunity of saying that they have made a new bill, for he has now pronounced his opposition to the bill which emerged from the committee with the amendments attached. So the principle of the marketing bill, apposed as it was on the second reading, is now to be opposed, we are told, on the third reading. In view of my knowledge of the political history of this country in 1925 and 1926 I never expected to hear any ex-minister, who was so dependent at that time on the support of those who sat to the left, refer to those hon. members as "those birds". But I suspect that in using that term the hon. gentleman had [Mr. Bennett.l
regard to the fact that they have flown; I suspect that this was the real reason for that remark. And if of course they have flown, as in fact they have, the reasons for so doing-


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: Migratory birds.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman says, to his sorrow, that they were migratory birds. They may have been in fact just that. But at any rate I think it was not quite the just deserts due to those who sit to the left that those who for many years had sat in high places with all the emoluments of power and honours of office, who enacted legislation for standardizing hay, straw and potatoes and several matters of that kind, but left dead upon the order paper many standardizing measures which would have been passed had the birds not flown, should thus refer to them in this debate.
This government, when confronted with the circumstances to which I have referred, had no doubts in the world that the only measure which could possibly be enacted by this parliament was one which would give force, validity and life to the efforts made by organizations within the provinces and created under their authority to function beyond the immediate boundaries of those provinces. Could anything else be more simple than that? That is the basis of it.
One hon. gentleman has said that this is socialism. If it is, he has been a party to it for a long time. If it is socialism, then 1 plead guilty to having been a supporter of it for many long years. I cannot think that there is anything offensive in calling it socialism, if you like, if you mean that the force and power of the parliament of Canada is to be utilized to enable those who live within provincial boundaries and have organized themselves into units to promote their material efforts, and to get something for the toil they give. You may call it anything you like, but at least it is sound legislation which promotes it.
\ ou thus have the local units organized and functioning. Then, you have your federal unit not for a rendezvous, as the exMinister of Agriculture has said, but as a great clearing house centre for the purposes of enabling those who by reason of limitations imposed upon them constitutionally are not familiar with international conditions to be able to deal in the light of the knowledge that is given them of the whole international situation. That is the central board. It is not only to be a disseminator of information;

Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
it supplies the local units with such information as will enable them to determine how best to dispose of their products.
Why are you opposed to that? Why are those to the left of you, Mr. Speaker, rising in their places to-night and voting against a bill which provides for that? Have they given, in this long debate, any substitute for that which has been offered here? Have they offered a substitute? Has there been a single word of constructive criticism with respect to this measure? True, they did suggest some amendments-the crossing of a "t" and the dotting of an "i." They did suggest some amendments of that sort. Rightly it may be stated that they did suggest two or three. Every member has a duty to perform; he owes a duty to a measure before the house and if his suggestion is accepted by the government of the day, so much the better for the bill. Every hon. member must play a constructive part in it, to improve it, to make it better.
I do say that this legislation which was offered on the second reading of the bill which has now passed the committee and is submitted to the house for third reading-I say that this legislation embodies the idea that the central authority is to be utilized, with all its authority and with all its strength, with all its life and vitality, to enable the agrarian in the provinces, with the aid of his organizations, to have that knowledge which will enable him to deal with his calling, and to receive the best return for his effort. That is what we are endeavouring to do.


Joseph Georges Bouchard: And to deprive the
minority of their right.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman has
said that it is to deprive the minority of their right. His seat in this house deprives the minority of their rights. That is the basis of this type of government, if the hon. gentleman has any appreciation at all of what democratic representative institutions mean. They mean this, that the majority governs. How do we pass measures in this building? How do we do it? By the will of the majority. How do we do anything else? By the will of the majority. Representative institutions, involving the majority selecting their representatives, deprives minorities of their rights. That is the theory of our government, and as I said every hon. member who occupies a seat in this house is here, despite the opposition of a minority. And when that minority is converted into a majority. usually much to the chagrin of the person affected, then the will of that majority must prevail. That is the position.
We speak of liberty. "Oh liberty, what crimes have been committed in thy name!' No wonder that a great annotator referred to liberty in that way. Liberty-yes, there is no liberty that does not involve curtailment of rights.


Joseph Georges Bouchard: In terms of farming,
independence is the greatest gift.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I suspect the independence that is sought is independence materially, financially and otherwise. There is no man in the world who perhaps is as independent as the farmer, if he can farm profitably, and there is no man in the world so badly off if he has to toil from sunrise to sundown, only to find himself in debt at the end of the year. When you talk about liberty, is there an hon. member in this house who does not realize that liberty means restraint, that liberty means discipline, that liberty means loss of unrestricted freedom? Why is it that you have by-laws in this city? Why do you make laws in the legislatures? Why do we pass laws in the dominion parliament? Why have we a criminal code? Why have we any of these provisions which say to the individual, "You may not exercise all your liberties"? Why? Because the enjoyment of any liberty, any constitutional liberty, means sacrifice by each individual of some of his natural liberties. And when a legislature takes from this class or that class, from this individual or that individual, some of his natural liberties, it speaks in the name of society and in the name of the state, in order that there may be an enjoyment of liberty by everyone within the realm. That is the whole theory of liberty.


Joseph Georges Bouchard: When has selling a
hog without a licence been a crime, in the past?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am just going to deal
with that, for this reason: There are some hon. members in this house who have complained against this legislation because they say that what we are doing is delegating to a body certain powers which should be exercised by parliament. Well, Mr. Speaker, I confess that when I heard the right hon. gentleman say to this house yesterday that this was a new theory developed in recent years, and when he referred to Lord Hewart's book from which he erroneously stated that I sometimes quoted-I often referred to it, but I never quoted from it-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I beg the right hon. gentleman's pardon.

Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman will realize what I meant. There is no point in it.


An hon. MEMBER:: In days gone by.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, in days gone by, but I commend the hon. gentleman to a consideration of this fact, that this is not a new doctrine. Fifty-one years ago a statute was passed by a celebrated Liberal government in Ontario of that day, the government of Sir Oliver Mowat. They passed a liquor licence act, and the question as to its validity went to the privy council. That was in 1883, just fifty-one years ago, and fifty-one years ago the argument made here now by the right hon. leader of the opposition and so heartily applauded by the hon. member for Charlevoix-Saguenay (Mr. Casgrain) as soon as he saw how others were applauding, was made in that case. I wonder if this chamber has any realization of just how far the courts went with respect to that. The court held that:
"The Liquor License Act of 1877, c. 181, revised statutes of Ontario," which in respect of sections 4 and 5, makes regulations in the nature of police or municipal regulations of a merely local character for the good government of taverns, et cetera, does not in respect of those sections interfere with "the general regulation of trade or commerce," but comes within Nos. 8, 15 and 16 of section 92 of the act of 1867, and is within the powers of the provincial legislature.
Held, further, that the local legislature had power by the said act of 1867 to entrust to a board of commissioners authority to enact regulations of the above character, and thereby to create offences and annex penalties thereto.
"Imprisonment" in No. 15 of section 92 of the act of 1867 means imprisonment with or without hard labour.
That case is Hodge and the Queen. In that case the privy council laid down the rule that it was competent for the legislature of Ontario to create a body and give that body the power to licence, and to create criminal offences and fix punishments for those violating the law. That was not the legislature, but the licensing body that was set up by the legislature, and the argument made in this house the other day, with all the startling assertions I heard yesterday as to this being a modem doctrine, was made in the privy council when the case was heard by that body in 1883. Here are the words of the court in giving judgment with respect to that matter, and it does seem to me that they are very pertinent. The case was argued at great length. Mr. Kerr, Q.C., and Mr. Jeune, afterwards president of the probate division in England and afterwards Lord St. Hillier, argued the case for the appellant, and after the case had been heard at great length finally 
the court laid down this rule, a rule which I commend to the consideration of this house because it does appear to me that there has been an entire misapprehension as to the true construction to be placed on both the powers of parliament and the powers of the legislatures. Here are the words of the court in giving judgment:
Their lordships consider that the powers intended to be conferred by the act in question, when properly understood, are to make regulations in the nature of police or municipal regulations of a merely local character for the good government of taverns, et cetera, licensed for the sale of liquors by retail, and such as are calculated to preserve, in the municipality, peace and public decency, and repress drunkenness and disorderly and riotous conduct. As such they cannot be said to interfere with the general regulation of trade and commerce which belongs to the dominion parliament, and do not conflict with the provisions of the Canada Temperance Act, which does not appear to have as yet been locally adopted.
Then they proceeded:
Assuming that the local legislature had power to legislate to the full extent of the resolutions passed by the licence commissioners, and to have enforced the observance of their enactments by penalties and imprisonment with or without hard labour, it was further contended that the imperial parliament had conferred no authority on the local legislature to delegate those powers to the licence commissioners, or any other persons. In other words, that the power conferred by the imperial parliament on the local legislature should be exercised in full by that body, -and by that body alone.
We have heard that for the last ten days. The judgment continued:
It appears to their lordships, however, that the objection thus raised by the appellants is founded on an entire misconception of the true character and position of the provincial legislatures. They are in no sense delegates of or acting under any mandate from the imperial parliament. When the British North America Act enacted that there should be a legislature for Ontario, and that its legislative assembly should have exclusive authority to make laws for the province and for provincial purposes in relation to the matters enumerated in section 92, it conferred powers not in any sense to be exercised by delegation from or as agents of the imperial parliament, but authority as plenary and as ample within the limits prescribed by section 92 as the imperial parliament in the plenitude of its power possessed and could bestow. Within these limits of subjects and area the local legislature is supreme, and has the same authority as the imperial parliament, or the parliament of the dominion would have had under like circumstances to confide to a municipal institution or body of its own creation authority to make by-laws or resolutions as to subjects specified in the enactment, and with the object of carrying the enactment into operation and effect.
It is obvious-

Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
And I commend these words to this chamber:
-that such an authority is ancillary to legislation and without it an attempt to provide for varying details and machinery to carry them out might become oppressive, or absolutely fail.
I heard the right hon. gentleman yesterday ask: Why is not the scheme before parliament? Why are not the details of the scheme here for us to pass upon? Well, the scheme will be arranged and promulgated after parliament has risen. Next year when parliament has met, it would deal with it. But what would be its value? What would be its value, I ask? The delegation of power, as I shall presently point out, is the basis of all constitutional legislation. Their lordships in delivering their judgment said:
An attempt to provide for varying details and machinery to carry them out might become oppressive, or absolutely fail.
The very full and very elaborate judgment of the court of appeal contains abundance of precedents for this legislation, entrusting a limited discretionary authority to others, and has many illustrations of its necessity and convenience. It was argued at the bar that a legislature committing important regulations to agents or delegates effaces itself.
Has this chamber ever heard that argument?


Joseph Georges Bouchard: Drunkenness is a social evil.	.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is not so.
I am quoting now from the judgment:
It retains its powers intact, and can, whenever it pleases, destroy the agency it has created and set up another, or take the matter directly into its own hands.
There is the answer.
How far it shall seek the aid of subordinate agencies, and how long it shall continue them, arc matters for each legislature, and not for courts of law, to decide.
Fifty-one years ago the court of last resort in this empire made that statement of the law. It has been acted on ever since, and, as I shall presently indicate, by no one more than the right hon. gentleman himself. The judgment continues:
Their lordships do not think it necessary to pursue this subject further, save to add that, if by-laws or resolutions are warranted, power to enforce them seems necessary and equally lawful. Their lordships have now disposed of the real questions in the cause.
There was a later case from Australia which touched on parliament exercising jurisdiction in the same sense as this, the case of Powell against Apollo Candle Company. In that case discretion was given to a collector of customs
to determine what the tariff should be if there was no tariff on a particular commodity. If he thought it approximated in quality to some other commodity he might apply the duty on the commodity in question as he thought desirable. The statute is set out at length, and the case was decided in 1885, a little later than the case to which I have just referred. Even though it takes a few minutes to do it, in order that there may be no misunderstanding with respect to this fundamental principle, I am going to quote from the section which the privy council had to deal with:
Whenever any article of merchandise-
This was in the Customs Act:
-then unknown to the collector is imported, which, in the opinion of the collector or the commissioners, is apparently a substitute for any known dutiable article, or is apparently designed to evade duty, but possesses properties in the whole or in part which can be used or were intended to be applied for a similar purpose as such dutiable article, it shall be lawful for the governor to direct that a duty be levied on such article at a rate to be fixed in proportion to the degree in which such unknown article approximates in its qualities or uses to such dutiable article; and such rate thus fixed shall be published in a treasury order in the Gazette, and one other newspaper published in Sydney, and exhibited in the long room or other public place in the custom house, and a copy of all such treasury orders shall, without unnecessary delay, be laid before both houses of parliament.
That is a case in which, where no duty was fixed by statute, power was given by the legislature to the governor in council on the recommendation of the minister to fix a rate that bore some relation to the rate on the commodity to which it approximated in qualities or kind.
It was argued then, as it has been argued to-day, that the local legislature is in the nature of an agent or delegate, and, on the principle delegatus non potest delegare, the local legislature must exercise all its functions itself, and can delegate or intrust none of them to other persons or parties. But the judgment, after reciting that such had been the contention, goes on to say,	[DOT]
There is then a quotation from the judgment, and the court makes the clear statement that the tax in question had been imposed by the government and not by the legislature. The argument I heard yesterday in this chamber was that the scheme was a scheme prepared by individuals and not by this parliament. His lordship concludes:
It is argued that the tax in question has been imposed by the governor, and not by the legislature, who alone had power to impose it.
Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett

That is the argument here, that this parliament has the power and no one else. But the court dealt with it in these words:
But the duties levied under the order in council are really levied by the authority of the act under which the order is issued. The legislature has not parted with its perfect control over the governor, and has the power, of course, at any moment, of withdrawing or altering the power which they have entrusted to him. Under these circumstances their Lordships are of opinion that the judgment of the Supreme Court was wrong in declaring section^ 133 of the Customs Regulation Act of 1879 to be beyond the power of the legislature.
I merely mention these two cases because half a century has elapsed since the argument which has been advanced in this chamber so seriously and solemnly, and said to be of recent growth and development, was scotched by a judgment of the court in two cases. So far as the objection to this legislation on the ground that it is depriving parliament of its authority is concerned, we are met by two conclusive decisions which establish that that is not so. The right hon. gentleman realized his weakness in this regard yesterday when he stated that this was not for an emergency, it was forever. When I shook my head, he said: Well, until parliament repeals or amends it. That is the basis of all legislation, and that is what the court has said in both these cases. The power of parliament has not been taken away from it; you have not substituted for the power of parliament some other body or authority; you have merely' vested that power. Parliament has delegated for the present its powers to the board which it names, and until parliament withdraws that authority, the board may exercise that authority in the manner and to the extent indicated by the statute. So the first argument against this measure disappears. It disappears in the light of reason and of authority. Could anything be more monstrous than that this parliament could not delegate its powers to any body which it sees fit to set up?
During the nine years he was in power, the right hon. gentleman, with the help of "the birds" to his left, part of the time, and later with the help of the others, was dealing with this matter in various ways. First of all, there was the Canadian wheat board in 1922. The hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull) dealt with that matter at length. In that case complete power was given by this parliament to a body to impose conditions on the export of wheat from the provinces. That board had power to make such regulations as it desired. Yesterday the right hon. gentle-

man referred to Russia, and referred to the nefarious institution called the government which sat opposite. He stated that there had never been granted by this parliament any power to the governor in council to impose embargoes. All one has to do is look at chapter 46 of the statutes of 1923. The right hon. gentleman enacted an amendment to the then Export Act to enable the governor in council to place an embargo against the export of pulpwood produced in this country. That is all.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury) :: And never had the sand to use it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is beside the question. The question is: Has the right hon. gentleman exercised the powers, never mind the extent to which they have been used? Has he enacted them in his own favour?
Then we pass to the Inland Water Freight Rates Act. I shall not go into the details of this legislation except to say that the board might prescribe the maximum rate. I shall pass on to 1925. I wonder how many hon. members of this house realize that a man cannot erect a building upon the right of way of the Canadian Pacific or the Canadian National railways and undertake to store grain therein without a licence. That was passed in the house in 1925. To what board did they delegate authority to deal with the complex details of the grain trade, the largest single trade in this country? That power was delegated to the Board of Grain Commissioners for Canada. Who gave them the power? This parliament. Who conferred it upon them? The government led by the right hon. gentleman and supported by the former Minister of Agriculture. As my colleague suggests, does parliament ever hear of what they are doing?
What about that great commission created to deal with freight rates, the board of railway commissioners? What about its delegated powers? What about the powers that this parliament conferred upon it to deal with freight rates? Do you first submit freight rates to this house and then tell the board afterwards, or has the board complete jurisdiction to deal with them? That board has as full and plenary powers as could be conferred upon it by parliament. It is true the right hon. gentleman's government did not pass the Railway Act. That was passed by one of his predecessors in office and subsequently consolidated under the government of Sir Robert Borden. The Canadian Farm Loan Act is another instance of delegated powers. Then there is the Domestic Fuel Act and the Vehicular Traffic Act. I take them one after

Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
another, year after year. There is not one year that the right hon. gentleman was in office in this country that he did not ask this parliament to delegate some power and some authority to some body created by this parliament. That is the story that is written upon the statutes.
What do you mean by saying that this bill shall fail and is bad because parliament is delegating its powers to a body to be set up? It is true that that body may have its birth with the provincial authorities, but the central body which is to be set up is a body set up on the authority of this parliament. In order that constitutional difficulties may be overcome and that there may be an interrelationship between the functions and powers conferred by the provinces upon the local boards and the functions and powers to be exercised by the dominion board, adequate provisions have been made to meet just that situation.
Only last session we passed two statutes, one looking towards compositions under the authority of the Bankruptcy Act and the other dealing with the general powers of this parliament under section 91 of the British North America Act. Yesterday the supreme court sustained their validity by a unanimous judgment. There again you have an instance of the exercise of powers by this parliament to accomplish the purpose it has in mind.
I say to this house that if any hon. member is voting against this bill because he thinks that this parliament has no power to delegate its authority to any body which it sets up or which may otherwise be set up, he is voting contrary to the considered judgment of the court of last resort in the empire. But more, he is voting against something which was done by the government led by the right hon. gentleman opposite during every year of the nine years he held office.
One word more. It has been alleged that this legislation should fail-I really confess that I find it difficult to understand this- first, because it is socialistic; second, because it savours of sovietism, and third, because it savours of fascism. Those are the three grounds put forward why it should be rejected. I have dealt with the question of socialism and the socialistic tendencies of this legislation. As I read the history of the human race for the last twenty-five years, or even for the last fifteen years, I see more and more the tendency that the combined effort of all should assist the effort of one. This is so, whether or not we like it. I am no prophet, but I stand here to-night and say this, that you cannot read the history of our times
without realizing that more and more man is coming to a recognition of his obligations to his fellows, by banding himself together with his fellows for the purpose of promoting the welfare of each and all. That is the tendency of the times. You may stand out against it, as the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) did; you may object that it goes contrary to the doctrines of past centuries, as the hon. member for Ontario did; but we are dealing with conditions and not with theories, with actualities and with nothing else. We are dealing with conditions that have been forced upon the world in the hard school of experience, with conditions that have arisen in the light of the experience through which mankind has passed; and in the light of those conditions, and with that experience, there is not an hon. member of this house who reads, who observes, who takes the trouble to analyze, who does not realize that tendency, and a right tendency too. In these conditions that exist to-day, where you have such marked distinctions, such marked differences in fortunes, as old as the time of Aristotle, where you have changed conditions, the tendency is that the combined effort, by parliament or the legislature, as the case may be, by the majority, which means combination, shall be exercised for the welfare and good of each and all. That is the theory on which the world is now moving and is being governed.
I come next to the question of sovietism. Why, for the last twenty-five years in every province of this dominion there have been set up local boards, whether municipal councils or school districts, or a small combination of a few people for the purpose of taking goods to market by common understanding or on the authority of a statute. In the old province of Quebec it has been so-you have little local banks, savings institutions, the power to lend money one to another; and you had that long before the war.


Joseph Georges Bouchard: Not compulsory.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Who has said this is compulsory? I am talking about something that is not compulsory; I am talking about free organization within the province of such units as I have indicated. I shall deal with the question of compulsion in a moment. Thus we have a clear understanding that there is nothing new in that respect, and to denounce as sovietism, because it sounds well, that which has been in existence for a third of a century at least in the older of the provinces, is to do violence to one's own understanding and intelligence.
Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett

Then we come to the third ground. Section 9 of the act confers upon the government power to erect and create boards within districts and areas to be indicated. Now, this act is intended to be of use; it is not ornamental like the inland freight bill. It is intended to be of some use to the country; it is intended to serve a purpose, and I am going to put this to the house to-night:	There is
a rule of our jurisprudence, one of the most important that we have-So use your own as not to injure your neighbour's. That is the rule; and if you bring upon your property anything that causes injury to your neighbour, though it be surrounded by all the skill and care that engineering judgment would suggest, nevertheless if injury accrues by reason of your having brought any such thing on your property you are liable for damages.
Now transfer that broad principle to our economic life. Shall farmers who are looking to governments for light and leading, for assistance in the marketing of their products, be told that in a surfeited market, under the conditions to which I have alluded, by reason of the war-are they to be told that any man can ship any product he likes into a market already surfeited and so destroy the price of all products? Is that just? Is that right? Every member of this house who votes against the bill wants to declare that that is right, that it is right for one man, the minority as the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Bouchard) says, notwithstanding that there may be ninety-nine out of one hundred who think otherwise, by shipping his product to such a market, to destroy the price and the market and leave his neighbour ruthlessly ruined, without caring for the consequences.
Well, that is not the law of the country, and this statute is passed for the purpose of seeing that it shall not be the law with respect to associations. That is the purpose of the measure. When one heard the argument adduced yesterday, that the effect of this bill would be to enable the government, ruthlessly and autocratically, to do as it pleased with respect to these matters, one had only to put this to oneself. The central board, acting in association with the other boards, the local boards, for the purpose of securing to them the maximum return for their products, may be confronted with a situation in which a small, or even a larger area may take no action, doing nothing for the common good; and parliament has said that under those circumstances its will shall prevail. That is all. And why should it not? What about your county councils, your legislatures and parlia-fMr. Bennett.]
ments? The will of the majority prevails; but it is suggested here that the government will ruthlessly and arrogantly do something that will be at variance with the good of the whole community. Governments sometimes commit suicide, so the opposition say. But be that as it may, is it likely that they will consciously do so? When we are dealing with legislation of this character, as the privy council has so often said, we must adopt one cardinal rule, and that is, that it must be assumed that the legislators were acting for the common good in passing legislation, and not for destruction, not ruthlessly to destroy and ruin but to promote and upbuild and further the welfare of all. And that power in this bill is intended to prevent that reluctant minority, to whom the hon. member for Kamouraska refers, from destroying the efficiency and effectiveness of this measure.


Joseph Georges Bouchard: Is the Prime Minister
aware that in the country where agriculture has been most intensively developed no such measure has been passed-Denmark?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I have not suggested
that there was. What I am suggesting is this. Apparently the opposition have one object in mind. It makes no difference what legislation is introduced by this government, they oppose it, no matter what it is. There are exceptions to that rale. I wonder how many hon. gentlemen realized, as I did the mental agony of the ex-Minister of Agriculture

and I say that in no scoffing sense, for I have been through it. I voted in 1913 against my party, I spoke against it, in connection with the acquisition of railways; and I know how one feels if he has been a minister, and has worried and thought and then concluded, that he must serve his country and not his party.
Will any hon. gentleman in this house show that the attitude of the opposition has not been one of consistent and persistent opposition since this depression began? What measures have we offered to this house which they have not, by every means in their power, endeavoured to frustrate and destroy? And here is one of the reasons why, I suggest, this legislation is being so fought-and I use the word advisedly. What is there in this bill that justifies the long debates that have taken place over it? What is there in the bill to justify hearing the same speech three times? What is there in it to justify listening to talk about the trade and commerce of the country before the depression and afterwards, and a comparison of the two? What have been the relevancy of the observa-

Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
tions and the character of the opposition? Why has there been such opposition? Why? Because in this bill there is a provision that, if it were not there, might render the bill futile and useless; because we have inserted in it a provision that makes it no longer possible for the vociferous and vocal minority to destroy the efficiency and effectiveness of the legislation, we are met with cries that this is in derogation of the rights of parliament, a frustration of the power of the will of the people through their chosen representatives. We are told further that this is an effort at fascism on the one hand and sovietism on the other.
One word more. The right hon. gentleman yesterday denounced this bill and clause 12 has been denounced in this chamber as having behind it a hidden purpose. He says that there is behind it a vast scheme of economic imperialism. I ask any thoughtful member of the house whether he thinks that is a worthy criticism with respect to legislation of this character. All hon. members know that in all parts of the country the word "imperialism " by reason of the thought in the minds of many connotes military power and despotism as in the days of Rome, Baby-Ion and Assyria. That word will promote prejudices, create animosities and antipathies in certain sections of the country. When every other argument fails and is forgotten my right hon. friend cries aloud:	This is
imperialism! Only a few short months ago in the city of Quebec the right hon. gentleman made this observation; listen to these words:
This is an issue of vast import and significance and the resurrection of an old issue, most of us thought dead and buried long ago. Whether the British commonwealth of nations shall be permitted to remain what it has become, and what it is now-a community of free nations owing allegiance to a common sovereign-and to continue to expand on these lines, or whether it is to lose its identity and the individuality of its component selfgoverning parts and be made to model the Babylonian, Assyrian, Macedonian, Turkish, Roman and the German empires.
There you have the leader of the opposition at his best and his worst. There is the demagogue on the one hand appealing to the prejudices and passions of those whose antipathy to military empires is well known, and on the other seeking the opportunity to get a few votes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should like
to know from the Prime Minister whether the word "demagogue" is a correct word to use. I leave it to himself.


Richard Bedford Bennett: If the right hon. gentleman thinks the word "demagogue" may be too strong a term, I will say "agitator," because I think that is more parliamentary.


An hon. MEMBER:: No, it is worse.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, it is a proper parliamentary term; you might agitate for the right, for the good, and you might agitate for evil.
But at any rate let me go a step further. This legislation is legislation for Canada; it is made for Canadians; it is intended for Canadians. I have no apology to offer for the agreements of 1932. When I heard the hon. member for Ontario, who after all is a student, make the observation that the League of Nations had declared that Great Britain and Canada were leading the van toward prosperity, I realized what every man in this country knows, that but for the Ottawa agreements this country barely could survive. Go and look at your exports; go and look at the prices of bacon, of pork-


Frederick George Sanderson: Butter.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, butter. Look at
the prices of the various products we have to sell. Why is it the hon. member for Ontario paid us the compliment of saying that the reason this country had maintained the position it has was that it had sound economic laws? So we have and so we propose to have. The soundest economic law that can be found is the one that uses the power and force of parliament to provide that ail the resources of the state shall assist those who require aid in the development of the resources of the country.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: That is
the mechanical majority at work.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman is
even without a mechanical majority, and still he manages to make more noise than if he had one.
But let me proceed further for a moment. Imperialism! Mr. Bruce did not in either address he made in this country use the word "imperialism" so far as I can recall or find out in the short time at my disposal.


Joseph Georges Bouchard: He was too wise to
do so.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Just so, but my hon.
friend's leader is not. That is the point exactly. Have I been talking imperialism with respect to these agreements? I have said in every country, I have said in Great Britain itself, that whatever w'e did with



Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
respect to Britain and other portions of the empire, our first duty was to Canada. I said that everywhere; I said it in London; I say it in Canada and I say that when the members of the family desire to get together and promote their common fortunes, it ill becomes any man to scoff, by talking about imperialism, at the successful results of their efforts.
Let me go a step further; it does not stop just there. During the last election I was charged with having been too pro-Canadian. If the newspaper reports are correct as to what the right hon. gentleman said at Barrie, he said that he was for Great Britain, and wherever the word "British" appeared either in the original of his public address or in the press of the province in which it was made, you always found that note, but you find it no more. He thinks that because this country has made trade agreements with Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, the Irish Free State, India and South Africa, because of the agreements we have made within our own empire, we are thus to be branded with "imperialism". Mr. Bruce pointed out-and no one has denied this,-and the right hon. gentleman said that with what Mr. Bruce said he was in accord-that there is left but one country in which in the main the products of the rest of the empire might find a market. That is what he said, and it is because we have that market and a preference in it; it is because the dream of Sir Wilfrid Laurier as approved by his own people and himself in the conference of 1897 and because the dream of Sir Lomer Gouin, Mr. Graham and the right hon. gentleman himself in 1923 failed of realization and is now come true, they must oppose that which they formerly advocated.
I said in this chamber, standing in the place where my right hon. friend now is, that the greatest service Canada could make to the British Empire was to develop that part of the empire called Canada. I said that a woollen mill in Canada was as valuable an asset to the British Empire as a woollen mill in Yorkshire. I said that in my speech delivered on the budget in 1930, the year of the election. I said it when other nations were closing their doors to us, and let it be remembered that in the nine years that elapsed during which the right hon. gentleman and his followers were in power every one of those markets, one after another, was closed to us. Then they said: What about your trade treaties? We made a trade treaty with Great Britain. When we came into power a trade treaty with New Zealand was terminated, and we made a new one. We made treaties with Australia, South

Africa, the Irish Free State and Germany. During the nine years hon. gentlemen opposite were in power efforts to make a treaty with Germany on somewhat similar terms failed; we succeeded. A treaty was made with Austria. We are now about to negotiate a treaty with Poland. During all these months since 1930 we have been carrying on continuously, within the ambit of our powers and under the conditions that existed, negotiations with the great republic to the south. We completed a new treaty, through the Secretary of State (Mr. Cahan), with the republic of France, and all this in spite of the fact that we had to face a condition we did not create but which was inherited, with the markets of these countries closed against us through the actions taken while hon. gentlemen opposite were in office.
Will any hon. gentlemen rise in their places and say that is not so? Can they stand in their places over there and say that from the time they came into office in the fall of 1921 or the spring of 1922 until 1930, when they went out of office, during all that time the nations of the world did not consistently raise their tariffs against Canada? Although we turned the other cheek twice, as Senator Dandurand said at the League of Nations in Geneva; although the leader of our government coaxed us not to say anything that might provoke our great neighbour to the south, we were shut out of those markets by the highest tariffs we have ever had to face in that country, and all the nations of the world refused to accept our commerce. Then we turned, as the great chief of the Liberal party saw we would, to that greatest of all consuming markets to which all producing people look, and we secured there a preference that is now condemned and denounced in this house as imperialism. Go and tell the hon. member for Hants-Kings (Mr. Ilsley), who voted for those preferences, that what he has been voting for is crude material and economic imperialism.
Go and tell those who have reaped benefits to the extent of $11,000,000 or $12,000,000, as against their position if duties had to be paid, that this is not to their benefit or for their welfare. Why this should be brought into this debate is hard to understand ; there can be but one excuse and one reason, an effort to draw a red herring across the trail, to consolidate a broken party, to keep together men of differing views, some thinking one way and some the other; to get them all together to vote against the bill, to hold them at any cost so that the world may not know the dissen-

Marketing Act-Mr. Ralston
sions that have characterized their deliberations with regard to this matter.
Let them vote to-night. In a few minutes we will give them the opportunity to vote, and after they have done so let them remember that they have voted against, according to the agrarians and producers of primary products, that measure of assistance that is not denied to the other leg of the great movement that will make for the prosperity of the world. Secretary Wallace said the other day that Labour was the one leg and agriculture the other; as they march forward sometimes one and then the other is in advance, but if they march together there comes prosperity. So now are we to deny the one and accede to the other; grant to the one and deny the other? Hon. gentlemen opposite do not desire that there should be placed upon the statute books of this country a measure giving the primary producer an opportunity to receive that measure of assistance, that measure of parliamentary aid, that should come to him as the producer of the natural wealth of the country, that this country may recover and ultimately prosper as it did in days gone by.
Sir. I have trespassed somewhat longer upon the time of the house than I had intended. There are other matters that might be dealt with, but I trust that I have said sufficient to indicate the shallowness of the arguments that have been made against this measure. I have quoted the authorities of the courts of last resort to show that arguments of that kind are not valid, and I commend this bill to this house. I do so because the bill affords a practical illustration of the efforts that have been made by a party not bound by the shibboleths of the past, but accepting only the history of the past for the purpose of guiding them aright in the pathways they hew out for the future. I commend the bill also because we believe that the true measure of faith of the Conservative party is shown by our ability and willingness to accept, in the light of experience and knowledge, those principles which we know are sound and which involve, as they do, the lopping off of much that has gone before in order that the world may progress and civilization prevail.


James Layton Ralston: Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation to the house for the very kindly ovation they have rendered me. We have travelled from the days of Samuel Plimsoll down through the legislation with regard to child labour and Lord Shaftesbury's brilliant contribution to the charitable works of the last century. We have heard a good deal about Hodge and the Queen and the decisions 74726-239 J
of the privy council. We have heard some references to the New Despotism, which the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) Eays he never quotes from but only refers to; we have heard a discussion with regard to every point in connection with this bill except the point which has been dealt with all through this debate, namely the compulsory feature, to which my right hon. friend has omitted to refer. He promised us all the way through that he was coming to that, but he has not arrived there yet.
Now let me say to my right hon. friend, who has spoken of the doctrine of laissez-faire, upon which he laid considerable emphasis, that I have a quotation from my right hon. friend which indicates the sort of dynamic policy which he believes in. This is my right hon. friend speaking in this house in 1927; this is the right hon. gentleman who chides the party on this side of the house for its policy of laissez-faire. I quote from page 409:
We must decide whether from choice we will permit our resources to be diverted into foreign channels or whether, with courage and fortitude, we will continue to plough our furrow and go our appointed way, building slowly but surely, knowing-aye, knowing-that the day is not far distant when the very people whose high tariffs and offensive legislation have kept us out of their markets will have to come to us for the raw materials on which to subsist. That is one great vision before the Canadian people.
Wait until these people come to us. This is the gentleman who now complains that when he came into power in this country the markets were all shut. He is the one who had a policy which was going to solve the difficulties,-by sitting down and waiting. Well, he did adopt a policy; he adopted the policy of high protection. He says, I suppose, that that is not laissez-faire. The policy of high protection resulted as he was told it would result, namely in the reduction of the exports of this country from 81,185,000,000 in 1930 to $554,000,000 in 1934. That is the way my right hon. friend has built up the country.
Now we come to the crowning piece of dynamic legislation, the so-called marketing bill, as he so aptly phrased it-the "so-called" marketing bill-section 12 of which provides that the doctrine of laissez-faire shall still exist, and that what we will do now in order to forward the trade of this country is to "regulate or restrict the exportation from Canada of any natural products." That is the policy which my right hon. friend is advocating, when he comes to deal with trade -and he is the right hon. gentleman who complains of laissez-faire.

Marketing Act-Mr. Ralston
He has said the Liberal party have opposed the legislation which he has brought down. Will he tell us one piece of constructive legislation which he has brought down in the past four years until now when he tries to make up for lost time by concentrating all this so-called social legislation at the end of the fourth session of parliament, when he brings in a bill to make bankruptcy easy, when he brings in a bill in regard to farm loans, when he suddenly forms a price spreads committee in the dying days of a parliament, and when he brings down this marketing bill? All my right hon. friend has been doing up to this time has been to ask this parliament to vote money and to give him power, still more power, money and still more money. But I think the people of this country will search in vain in our statute books to find any piece of constructive legislation which has been opposed by this opposition. Why? Because there is not any; because my right hon. friend has not originated any; because he has been marking time in the same old policy of laissez-faire, and with the same old party shibboleths of high protection. That is the thing which was going to bring Canada out of the slough of despond in which he has put it.
I say to my right hon. friend that in his [DOT]discussion of the marketing bill to-night he has gone far afield. I do not purpose following him along all the devious paths into which he has wandered. There are one or two points however, to which I should like to refer. He has cited one or two privy council cases in connection with constitutional points. May I say to him right now that we are not concerned with the question as to what the privy council has decided with regard to the legality of legislation. The question in which the opposition and the people of this country are interested is the policy of the legislation, and as to whether it is proper for this parliament to hand over to an unnamed board the right to regulate the whole trade of this dominion in natural products. I say to him that he cannot quote any case from the number of cases he has cited which approaches the vastness and enormity of the amount of power given here.
What has he quoted? He has quoted the well known cases which have existed ever since confederation, the cases in which parliament from time to time delegates to the governor in council or some board the power to make regulations with regard to some particular feature-to fix a freight rate, for ex-

ample, as he said himself, or to fix a rate of customs duty, or to make regulations which could not ordinarily come within the ambit of parliament. But in every case you will find, Mr. Speaker, that there has been laid down clearly and consistently the limitation Within which that power is to be exercised, the conditions under which the control is to be administered, and the objects which are to be attained in connection with whatever regulations are made.
I am not going to go over every one of these acts to which my right hon. friend has referred. But every one of them is a power vested in the governor in council to make regulations with regard to matters clearly and definitely defined, and concerning which the object and intention of parliament is clearly laid down in the statute itself.
My right hon. friend waxed eloquent and got, if I may use the term, rather heated up about the word "imperialism." Has my right hon. friend denied what my right hon. leader said yesterday with regard to the object of this legislation?


Richard Bedford Bennett: He certainly did.


James Layton Ralston: The right hon. gentleman skated around it in every way he could. He has been talking about the markets being closed-oh yes, the markets have been closed. I ask him if he has not closed the markets himself. He talks about having only one market. What could work more towards that than to have my right hon. friend pegging the duty on one hundred and thirty-nine articles in the tariff schedule? He has made it impossible to make trade agreements with other countries because he has agreed with Great Britain that the duties should remain fixed for five years. I say to my right hon. friend all he has to do to find out whether or not the market was closed when he came into power is to study the returns of exports and imports to countries other than Great Britain, and compare them with to-day's returns. If he would do that he would find out who has closed the market.
But has he dealt with the feature that I felt and I believe all of us felt was the most important in connection with this legislation? He has dealt with the constitutional aspect of the matter. He has laid down a new principle. I saw some of his supporters gasp when he suggested that in this country a man is violating the law of Canada when he sells his goods lower than his neighbour does. That is not to be done after this. My right hon. friend says that that is the law of Canada, and that all we are doing is to put it into

Marketing Act-Mr. Ralston
this legislation. Well, some of my friends who are dealing in coal, lumber, steel, or gasoline may approach my right hon. friend after this session and say to him, "Say, look here, is this true, or were you just spoofing?" I say to my right hon. friend he knows perfectly well that he went a bit too far when he laid down the principle involved in the old case of Rylands and Fletcher, which instances the bringing of a wild beast on your own property and being responsible for keeping it there and liable for any damage which it does if it escapes. I ask the right hon. gentleman if that case could possibly have anything to do with the question whether or not a farmer has the right to sell his potatoes for twenty or thirty cents a bushel, despite the fact that his neighbour may wish to get forty or fifty cents. That is a new doctrine which is laid down by the right hon. gentleman; certainly it is a new doctrine in this country. It is a new doctrine laid down by a man who is a good constitutional and commercial lawyer. But I submit he goes a bit too far when he Jays that down as the law of this country. Now he says, "After all, we must see to it that one man is not going to damage the other in connection with the sale of his goods, and we are bringing in a marketing bill for that purpose."
The right hon. gentleman does not quite correctly reflect the views which have been expressed from this side of the house when he says that there is opposition to this bill per se. The opposition to the bill was laid down in the amendment moved yesterday afternoon by my right hon. friend, the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King). The opposition to the bill is against giving arbitrary power to an unnamed board to make laws without reference to parliament. Further than that, there is given to the same board, or to the governor in council, the power to regulate the whole export and import trade of the Dominion of Canada. That is something with which he did not deal; and we say also that there is no protection for consumers. The right hon. gentleman has gone all over the case of Hodge and the Queen, and the Apollo Candle case from Australia has been the subject of a great part of his speech. He talked a lot about imperialism, endeavouring to deny, and denying rather faintly, that he had the object in mind with which my right hon. leader charged him. But he said nothing whatever with regard to the fundamental objections to this bill which are dealt with in the amendment. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister strangely enough did not even speak on the amendment. He never said a word on it by way of
answering the objections which had been raised by my right hon. leader. No; he reserved his speech for the third reading because he felt that if he spoke on the amendment he would have to meet those very points. It was a good deal easier to talk about Hodge and the Queen, about the Apollo Candle case, about the Grain Act and the Elevator Act, and the Inland Water Freight Rates Act, and things of that sort than to deal with the essentials. Oh yes, and he paid a wonderful tribute to Samuel Plimsoll, of the dear old loadline, to the memory of that fine old Englishman and what he did. One would have thought we had not had in this country either under Conservative or Liberal administration any of the social legislation which has been put on the statute books of this country, and which has been there for twenty or thirty or forty years- the Workmen's Compensation Act, the Combines Act, the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, the Old Age Pensions Act. These aro all on the statute books at the present time and have been for years-all liberal measures too. But my right hon. friend has forgotten all about these things. He thinks that we are still in those black days before the time of Shaftesbury.
I say to my right hon. friend, let us get down to what this bill is really about. Let us get down to the essentials with which my right hon. friend has not dealt. My right hon. friend says that individualism is gone in this country and that an individual cannot exercise his individual liberty, but that for the first time a group of men who are in business have a right to exercise their majority control just as majority control is exercised under the British North America Act and under the acts of the parliament of Canada whereby a majority of voters may send members to parliament. There is no comparison between the two, and my right hon. friend knows it. He knows that the right of majority representation in the House of Commons, as in the parliaments of other countries, has been sacred with us for many years, and he knows also that side by side with that the individual has the right of an individual to carry on his occupation lawfully and properly and to enjoy the fruits of that occupation-that that right is just as sacred as the right of the franchise.
What we are endeavouring to do-let us get down to fundamentals-is to reconcile the two major factors in human activities. One, individualism; not selfish greed, but the right of a man to have the joy of achieving and the exhilaration of accomplishment in con-
37TS

Marketing Act-Mr. Ralston
nection with his daily occupation. That right carries with it not only the joy of achievement but the right to earn something for his work, to get remuneration for his labour. Generally I think it is true that three-fourths of the people of this world do not ask for profits for their own individual selves, but rather that they may support their families and look after those for whom they have responsibility in life, and make some provision for their old age so that they will be independent of charity and the poor house. That is individualism. Is there anything wrong about it? We have heard to-night for the first time that a man has no right to dispose of his goods or services or to do anything which may cut under the price which his neighbour wants to get for his goods or services. That is on the one side.
What is on the other? The other factor is cooperation, namefy, that a man living in society has to have in mind another consideration. He must be fair to the other fellow. We are in society with that in mind, whether we admit it or not. It has been very properly said that the laws that are passed from time to time are restraints on human liberty, but up to the time my right hon. friend spoke a man had a right to do what he liked with his property, to do what he liked so long as he did not injure his neighbour; but my right hon. friend has laid down a new doctrine to-night.
Cooperation, then, is the other thing. As to what my right hon. friend is aiming at in this bill and what we on this side express in the amendment moved by my right hon. leader, we are perfectly willing to follow him in the matter of cooperation and in endeavouring to help individuals get together and express their collective will, subject to the provisos that I shall mention in a moment.
But what do we find in this bill? Where is individualism in this bill? Section 5 lays down that a group of men get together and form a scheme, as they call it, for the purpose of marketing their product. So far so good The individual is represented. He has to consent to that scheme. They get together, they lay down the scheme. What should come next in the ordinary course of things if the principle which the Prime Minister lays down is correct? They should publish that scheme and there should be a hearing on it, in order that they may see to it that their neighbours who are not in the scheme are not going to be injured by it. Is that done in this bill? It is not. But that would be cooperation. Is that done in Britain, whose legislation we are supposed to

be following in this measure. It is provided in the British act that when the producers get together and lay down their scheme and submit it to the minister, he goes over it and advertises a public hearing so that those who may be affected by it, not only those in the particular industry concerned but those outside, may be heard in connection with it.
What else? In addition to that there is a consumer as well as a producer, and in the British act provision is made for the appointment of a committee representing the consumer. Is there any provision in this bill for that? None at all. My right hon. friend at one time was particularly strong on this question of the consumer. He pointed out that the consumer should be looked after, and that any legislation which was for the benefit of the producer and against the consumer was not right. This is what he said, speaking at Moncton on July 11, 1930, in that celebrated election campaign when my right hon. friend said a good many things that I think he now wishes he had not said:
For it should never be forgotten that the solution of the particular problems of one community which does not directly or indirectly benefit all other communities, is not a solution worth having. The prosperity of one section of Canada at the expense of another cannot be enduring. The betterment of one class with loss to any other, cannot be permitted. So, when a government, to meet the insistent demands of any section, or class or business, enacts legislation which is harmful to any other, that is bad government.
And listen to this:
If, to help the industrialist, the agriculturist is injured, that is bad government. If to benefit the producer the consumer is made to suffer, that is bad government. For the consumer must not suffer and cannot suffer without injury to the producer.
Does my hon. friend adopt that policy in this bill?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Hear, hear.


James Layton Ralston: Has he proposed anywhere in this bill that the consumer is to be protected? Is the consumer mentioned from beginning to end of this bill? Are any of the safeguards which are contained in the British act. for the appointment of a consumers' committee as a sort of king's proctor to represent the consumers found in this bill? They are absolutely wanting in this piece of legislation. That is section 5.
The scheme goes to the minister. The minister decides whether those who present the scheme are sufficiently representative of the industry. If he decides that they are sufficiently representative of the industry then the scheme is approved and a poll is taken as

Marketing Act-Mr. Ralston
provided in the act, and that is the end of it. The scheme is in force. As my right hon. leader pointed out yesterday, the law is made there and then. It is not merely a matter of regulation. The law is passed which decides whether John Smith shall export his fish, it may be, under a quota, allowing so many thousand pounds to be exported from some particular locality or to some particular market at a certain time, or whether some other man may export and sell his potatoes in another province under certain regulations which will permit perhaps only one-tenth or one-fifth or one-twentieth of his whole supply to be sold. Or perhaps provision is made whereby the local board can say to any producer in that particular area: You hold your fish, you hbld your potatoes or you hold the natural product in which you are dealing, we are going to allow somebody else to sell his product while your products shall wait. That becomes the law and not just a regulation. For the first time in the history of this country we are interfering directly and definitely with the rights of the producers of these goods. Has my right 'hon. friend realized that in this bill he is making a law which is directly contrary to the provisions of the combines act? Is there any provision in this bill which repeals the combines act? That act says that any man who makes an agreement or enters into an arrangement-


John Thomas Hackett: Which is harmful.


James Layton Ralston: My hon. friend can keep on if he wants to,

which is detrimental to the consumer or to the producer or to anyone else, is guilty of an offence under the act. This scheme may be detrimental to the consumers, but is there any provision to take care of that? It is directly contrary to the combines act. Section 498 of the criminal code makes it a crime to combine in connection with the production, the marketing or the handling of goods in order to enhance the price or unduly to restrict production or marketing. I am not quoting the exact words; I have them here but I shall not take the time to read them. This bill is in a directly opposite direction, and my right hon. friend makes no provision whatever to take care of the anomalous situation.
Let that pass: we have a scheme approved and we have a law in force. The minister has approved the scheme and we are away. As the hon. members for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) and Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) pointed out this afternoon, there may be a certain proportion of the producers who
would not consent to the scheme but nevertheless they are bound by it. I say exactly what he said about that. Without the safeguards which are contained in the British act, there may be a time when a small majority shall be forced to do certain things. We should have those safeguards and not simply have a scheme presented by a group of producers, carried to the minister without any hearing of any kind, and made the law of the land.
Mr. NF.ILL: My principal objection was that it might be possible to have a scheme proposed and accepted by only those concerned in marketing and not the producers.


James Layton Ralston: As has been pointed out, the British act goes further and provides that before a marketing scheme can be effective it must be laid 'before parliament and approved by parliament. There is nothing of that kind here. My right hon. friend skated over it and cited Hodge vs. the Queen. He said: Any way we have the power to do it. We are not talking about the power to do it; we are talking about the policy and whether it is right to do it. My right hon. friend cannot seem to get that into his mind, or, if he does, he omits to notice it in any way. In England parliament passes on the scheme; after a resolution has been passed not only by the House of Commons but by the House of Lords, the scheme becomes law.
Let me pause here to emphasize the fact that that act was passed in England in 1931; it was not a deathbed act, like this one, passed in 1934. That act was amended in 1933, when it was practically reenacted, but not a section with regard to the safeguards to which I have referred was changed. They have been kept in the British act and they are all there to-day. With that example before him, my right hon. friend still says that this bill should be put into effect. In England you have the majority rule my right hon. friend speaks about, but here you have no hearing, no publicity, no approval by parliament and no protection of the consumer as you have in England.
There is another thing which I do not think has been quite realized and it certainly has not been dealt with by my right hon. friend. I refer to what I call the compulsory features of this act. My right hon. friend skated over the powers of the dominion board. He stated that those powers were given only for the purpose of being used on occasions of emergency or in connection with international matters. I want my right hon. friend to look at the bill and see the powers conferred on the

Marketing Act-Mr. Ralston
dominion board under section 4. Under that section the dominion board requires no approval of any kind for a scheme. All that is required is that a product must have become a regulated product, that is, that there has been a scheme approved by the producers or that the minister has approved a scheme. Then the dominion board has jurisdiction. The dominion board may grant to the local board the power to regulate the marketing of a certain product, but at the same time the dominion board may exercise the power to prohibit entirely the marketing of that very product. A producer goes into a scheme because under section 5 (c) he is able to designate the powers which should be given to his local board; so that the producer consenting to the scheme knows just exactly what powers the local board will have. Under subsections (g) and (h) the scheme states the number of persons who shall comprise the local board and the basis of their selection, the name and number of the local board, the place and address of the head office, the chief executive officers, the quorum required to approve any order or resolution, and how vacancies are to be filled. In other words, the producers are entitled to select their own board and to say what powers that board shall have. A scheme having those particulars once being approved, a regulated product comes into being. Then what happens? As I said a minute ago, the dominion board may exercise any powers it likes of those mentioned in section 4 without any reference whatever to the producer. A man may go into a scheme thinking that John Smith, Bill Jones and Harry Thomas, who are his neighbours, are to be on the local board and are to have the power to regulate the marketing of his product. He may then wake up and find that the dominion board has stepped in and Nickerson, McLelland and McDonald up in Ottawa are suddenly handling his product and exercising powers which he never thought would be exercised in connection with his product. Subsection 2 of section 4 provides that the dominion board may withdraw from the local board every power which has been given to it. A regulated product having once been brought into being, the dominion board may step in and say: We think it is best in the interests of this industry that we should take charge. The man who goes into a little scheme with his local board with its limited powers, suddenly finds those powers withdrawn and the dominion board in control.
This is why my right hon. friend did not say anything about compulsion. This is why he dealt at such length with Samuel Plimsoll

-it was safer. My right hon. friend talks about the international powers of this dominion board, but this board has the power to exercise all the powers set out in section 4, either by way of substitution or concurrently with the local board itself. So I say to my right hon. friend that there is a power of compulsion in this measure, a fact around which he discreetly skated. I say to my hon. friends who spoke so eloquently this afternoon with regard to the power of compulsion and the rights of the minority that not only the minority but the majority may be put under compulsion by reason of the fact that the dominion board may substitute for the local board and exercise powers which they never dreamed would be exercised.


Mr. VENIOT:: That is the minority controlling the majority.


James Layton Ralston: As the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Veniot) says, that is the minority controlling the majority. I do not care who says it is sovietism, I do not care who says it is socialism, I say it is naked fascism. The governor in council gives those tremendous powers to their own appointees without any reference of any kind or description to the producers in that particular industry.
Only one word more with regard to section 12, which has been dealt with very eloquently and effectively by the hon. members for Labelle and Comox-Alberni. I do not think there is anything I can add except to say that anyone who violates the powers given with respect to tariff matters and the other matters in this bill, is liable under section 14 which reads:
Every person who fails to comply with any order of the board or of a_ local board or any regulation of the governor in council

This may be a regulation restriotng the export of a natural product.
-shall be guilty of an offence and punishable on summary conviction with a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars and not more than five hundred dollars, or to imprisonment not exceeding three months, or to both fine and imprisonment.
That is the gentle little act that has no compulsion in it, one of the voluntary measures that we ought to pass because we are all boys together. That is the kind of act that is being put on the statute book for the purpose of assisting producers.
What I believe this parliament should do, within the ambit of its legislative jurisdiction, is to encourage cooperative marketing by following the logical course, namely, employ-

mg men who know something about cooperation and sending them among the producers, having them meet the producers for the purpose of assisting them in connection with organizing associations. In his speech my hon. friend spent a good deal of time on British Columbia Cooperatives and the wheat pools, but all of these were voluntary. Then, if the producers need discipline within their ranks, let them come to this parliament or to the local legislature and obtain such power, provided it is safeguarded by the provisions contained in the British act. By so doing we should begin at the beginning, working from the bottom up rather than from the top down. But this act is conceived wrongly when it begins with the minister, the governor in council and the dominion board itself.
So that there may be no doubt about it, what we on this side say is this. We are for cooperation, but we say that sections 4 and 9 should be cut out, and section 12 as well. Section 12 I regard as an intrusion; it does not belong to the act because it has nothing to do with marketing. The price spreads provision should be placed where it belongs, in connection with any legislation brought in as a result of the report of the price spreads committee. But let us have a marketing act and not an act which combines the creation of new crimes, the provision for tariff regulation and arbitrary compulsion with what is essentially marketing. On this side we believe in proper and genuine marketing legislation to enable the producers to help themselves, giving them the power of discipline, provided first that the plan emanates from the producers and is always under their control; provided that the board and its powers cannot be changed at the will of an autocratic dominion board; provided that full provision is made for a hearing, so that those affected, both in the industry and outside, can be heard; provided there is approval of the scheme by parliament; and provided further that the consumer receives consideration. Even then you would be going to some extent in the direction of compelling the minority, whatever that minority might be-and I do not think it should be too large. But this bill authorizes a board which is irresponsible either to parliament or to the producers to paralyze, to misdirect and to divert the whole trade of the dominion in natural products, regardless of the opinions of the responsible representatives of the people of this country, and regardless of the policies of those who are engaged in industry and who know best how to carry it on. Some gentleman from Ottawa, knowing nothing about an industry, may go to fisher-
Marketing Act-Mr. Ralston
men or potato growers or those producing apples and tell a man who has had the experience of a lifetime when he is going to ship, what quantity he is to ship, and so on, withholding his goods and allowing someone else's to be shipped, or refusing him a licence altogether.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that these three features, the autocratic and compulsory feature	
of the marketing act	itself, the tariff feature
which does not belong to the bill, and the	
price spread feature	without proper definitions, are all inimical	te the welfare not only
of the producers but of the people of Canada	
generally. And when	I look at the act and
realize that the Prime Minister has completely failed to justify these vital and all important	
features, which have	been pointed out over
and over again in this debate, I am reminded that whom the gods would destroy they first	
make mad. I say to	my right hon. friend in
all seriousness that if	he passes this act and
attempts to enforce it	in the dominion he will
find that his destruction will be certain and	
sure.	
The house divided	on the motion (Mr. Weir), which was agreed to on the following	
division:	
YEAS Messrs:	
Anderson (Toronto-	Laurin
High Park)	Lucas
Arsenault	Luchkovich
Arthurs	Macdonald (Kings)
Barber	Maclnnis
Baribeau	MacMillan
Belee	(Saskatoon)
Bell (St. Antoine)	Maephail, Miss
Bell (St. John-Albert)	McGillis
. Bennett	McLure
Bowen	Manion
Burns	Matthews
Bury	Mitchell
Cahan	Motherwell
Cantley	Mullins
Carmichael	Murphy
Chaplin	Myers
Coote	Peck
Cowan (Long Lake)	Pickel
Davies	Plunkett
Dickie	Price
Duguay	Quinn
Duranleau	Rhodes
Ernst	Robinson
Esling	Rogers
Fraser (Cariboo)	Ross
Gardiner	Sauve
Garland (Bow River)	Senn
Gobeil	Shaver
Gordon	Simpson
Hanson	(Simcoe North)
(York-Sunbury)	Simpson
Hay	(Algoma West)
Irvine	Smith
Kennedy	(Victoria-Carleton)
(Peace River)	Smith
Lafleche	(Cumberland)
Marketing Act-Division

Speakman
Spence
Spencer
Sproule
Stanley
Stewart (Leeds) Stewart (Lethbridge) Stirling Stitt (Nelson) Sullivan
Sutherland Swanston Tetreault W ppcp
Weir(Melfort)
White (Mount Royal)
Willis
Wilson
Wright-85.
++NAYS
Messrs:
Beaubien	Hanbury
Boucher	Howden
Bourassa	King. Mackenzie
Brasset	Mackenzie
Brown	(Vancouver Centre)
Butcher	McKenzie (Assiniboia)
Cardin	Moore (Ontario)
Casgrain	Neill
Chevrier	Ralston
Denis	Raymond
Desrochers	Rinfret
Dubois	Roberge
Duff	Sanderson
Dumaine	Seguin
Fontaine	Stewart
Fraser (North-	(Edmonton West)
umberland, 0.)	Totzke
Girouard	Vallance
Golding	Venoit-35.

pairs is furnished by the chief Messrs:
(The list of whips.)
Anderson (Halton)
Baker
Barrette
Beaubier
Bell (Hamilton)
Bey non
Black (Halifax)
Bowman
Bourgeois
Boyes
Casselman
Charters
Cotnam
Cowan (Port Arthur)
Dorion
Dupre
Edwards
Embury
Fortin
Ganong
Gagnon
Garland (Carleton) Geary
Gott
Guthrie
Hackett
Harris
Johnstone
Jones
Kennedy (Winnipeg Larue Lawson MacDonald (Cape Breton) MacLaren MacNicol 
Factor
Bertrand
Rheaume
Ahearn
Mercier (St. Henri)
Euler
Dubuc
Hanson (Skeena)
Deslauriers
Hepburn
Howard
Blair
Hurtubise
Ilsley
Verville
Ferland
Elliott
Bothwell
Fafard
Michaud
Boulanger
Goulet
Mercier (Laurier-Outremont) Rutherford Lapointe Perras Jacobs Donnelly MaeLean McIntosh Thauvette Gray Urquhart
Fiset
Rennie
McDnde	Dupuis
McGibbon	Power
McGregor	Fournier
Maloney	Young
Morand	Parent
Nicholson	Bradette
Perley (Qu'Appelle)	Munn
Perley, Sir George	Marcil
Pettit	Bouchard
Rowe	Lacroix
Ryerson	Taylor
Short	Ileenan
Smoke	Pouliot
Spotton	MacMillan (Mackenzie)
Stevens	Malcolm
Stinson	Hall
Stitt (Selkirk)	Weir (Macdonald)
Thompson (Simcoe)	Jean
Tummon	St-Pere
Turnbull	McPhee
White (London)	Gershaw.


Walter Allan Hall: I was paired with the hon.
member for Victoria (Ont.) (Mr. Stinson). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


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


Mr. TURNBULL:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Yorkton (Mr. McPhee). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. MacLAREN:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Rimouski (Sir Eugene Fiset). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Lewis Wilkieson Johnstone: I was paired with the hon member for Willow Bunch (Mr. Donnelly). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Almon Secord Rennie: I was paired with the hon. member for Toronto Northwest (Mr. MacNicol). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


John Franklin White: I was paired with the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Gershaw). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. BAKER:: I was paired with the hon.
member for Prescott (Mr. Bertrand). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. BOYES:: I was paired with the hon.
member for West Elgin (Mr. Hepburn). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. MacDONALD (Cape Breton South):: I was paired with the hon. member for Colchester (Mr. Urquhart). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.

Bank Act


Alfred Burke Thompson: I was paired with the
hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Jean). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. KENNEDY (Winnipeg):: I was paired with the hon. member for North Battleford (Mr. McIntosh). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. RYERSON:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Norfolk-Elgin (Mr. Taylor). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Franklin Smoke: I was paired with the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


William Foster Garland: I was paired
with the hon. member for Russell (Mr. Goulet). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. HARRIS:: I was paired with the hon. member for Cartier (Mr. Jacobs). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. BOWMAN:: I was paired with the
hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Hanson). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.
Mr. GEARY':	I was paired with the hon.
member for Laurier-Outremont (Mr. Mercier). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Albert Edward Munn: I was paired with the hon.
member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Perley). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


Joseph Georges Bouchard: I was paired with the
hon. member for Welland (Mr. Pettit). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. STITT (Selkirk):: I was paired with
the hon. member for Macdonald (Mr. Weir). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr STEVENS:: I was paired with the
hon. member for North Bruce (Mr. Malcolm). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. FACTOR:: I was paired with the hon. member for Halton (Mr. Anderson). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


Charles Edward Bothwell: I was paired with the
hon. member for Hastings-Peterborough (Mr. Embury). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. BEAUBIER:: I was paired with the
junior member for Ottawa (Mr. Ahearn). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Joseph-Ernest-Henri LaRue: I was paired with the hon. member for Vaudreuil Soulanges (Mr. Thauvette). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Maurice Dupré: I was paired with the hon. member for Joliette (Mr. Fer-land). Had I voted I would have voted for the motion.


Mr. FOURNIER (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for South York (Mr. McGregor). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


Mr. RHEAUME (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Berthier-Maskinonge (Mr. Barrette). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


Julien-Édouard-Alfred Dubuc: I was paired with the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Black). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.


Hermas Deslauriers: I was paired with the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Bourgeois). Had I voted I would have voted against the motion.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.



BANK ACT AMENDMENT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Friday, June 1, consideration in committee of Bill No. 18, respecting banks and banking.-Mr. Rhodes -Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury) in the chair.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The first clause which
stands is clause 5.
On section 5-Bank charters continued to July 1, 1944, as to some particulars.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: On this
clause I want to move an amendment which I moved in the committee on banking and commerce. I move in section 5 in lines four and fourteen where the words "forty-four" occur, to delete the same and substitute therefor the words "thirty-nine."


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The effect of this amendment is of course obvious, namely, to extend the charters of the banks for a period of five rather than ten years, which latter extension has been the practice during the last half century. I do not allege that because this
Bank Act

has been the practice during the last half century, therefore necessarily it must be followed for all time, but I suggest that we can gain something by the experience in this respect of past years. The argument which I used when this amendment was submitted in the committee on banking and commerce was that it is too short a period and introduces an unnecessary element of uncertainty not only among the shareholders of the banks but as to the stability and permanent characteristics of our banking institutions themselves. While my hon. friend has not done more than support the position that he took in the committee, I must point out that I do not see that any good object would be accomplished by shortening the period during which the tenure of charters is to be extended, for the reason that while it is true under the provisions of the bill we extend the charters for a period of ten years we do not necessarily thereby debar ourselves from reviewing from time to time banking legislation. The question of the charter and its length is one thing; the question of the character of the legislation is another, and I have in that connection only to point out that after the last decennial revision, although the charters were at that time extended for a period of ten years, at the very next succeeding session of parliament the Bank Act was brought into the house and amended in a very important particular in providing for a system of bank inspection and the appointment of an inspector general of banks. Under those circumstances I feel no good purpose can be served by the amendment; in succeeding sessions revisions may be made, and in the public interest I must submit that this amendment cannot be accepted.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I fully
appreciate the argument adduced by the Minister of Finance. It is exactly the same as he presented in the committee on banking and commerce. The main reason I submit this amendment at the present time is that during the present session we are going to pass a new bill, the Bank of Canada Act, which will absolutely change the entire financial system and structure of Canada and will set up a new system of interrelation between chartered member banks and the central bank of Canada. I think it will be a matter of profound importance not only to this parliament and the financial community but to the general community as well to witness how the interrelated functions of these institutions are going to be carried out in the next few years. I quite agree with the Min-
ister of Finance that we can amend the Bank Act from year to year if we desire to do so. In the case he mentioned, however, I think it was done because of the Home bank incident. I quite agree that we could do the same thing next year or the year after, but I do think it should be a function of this parliament, especially since this bill has been passed practically without material or important alteration of any nature whatever, to take every possible precaution to see that we are in a position to review these charters at the end of five years not at the instance of any government that may be in control but as a matter of statutory right, as passed by this parliament.
I may express my own personal disappointment in the fact that this legislation has come before us practically as it was sent to the committee on banking and commerce, though I must commend that committee for its tremendous diligence and the hard and patient work it has done in considering the various sections of the bill. However, I am profoundly disappointed with the legislation now before parliament, and I do think I am interpreting the feelings of the Canadian community when I say that as a matter of statutory right we should have an opportunity to review this legislation again not in ten years but in five years.


Wilfred Hanbury: I rise to support the remarks just made by my colleague from Vancouver Centre. The Minister of Finance referred to the reviews that have taken place in years past. We did not have a central bank in Canada in years past, so the precedent to which the minister refers is hardly a good precedent in this connection. I only regret that my colleague from Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) did not make his amendment two years, because I believe that after the central bank has been functioning for a year we will find it necessary to do much in the way of amending the Bank Act. So I suggest to the minister in all sincerity that he would do well to accept the amendment of my hon. friend, because I really think it is in the interests of the people of Canada, of the banks themselves and of the better administration of the central bank that the banks should know that within a shorter period than they might expect otherwise they will come before a committee of parliament which will review the manner in which they have adapted themselves to the developments under the central bank act. Therefore I suggest to the

Bank Act
minister that he reconsider his decision in connection with this matter and give consideration to the amendment submitted by my hon. friend from Vancouver Centre.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have only one word to add; it is that my argument submitted immediately after the amendment was moved by my hon. friend from Vancouver Centre holds equally good with respect to what has been just said as to the Bank of Canada. The length of time for which the charters are extended is one thing, but the character of the sections of the Bank Act and their amendment is another thing. There is nothing to preclude-nay, on the contrary I would say there would be an obligation on parliament to do so-a review of the Bank Act in one, two, three or four years if the experience of the new combination of the Bank of Canada in its relation to the general banking structure and our chartered banks should call for it. In these circumstances I adhere to the view I expressed previously, that we cannot accept the amendment.


Wilfred Hanbury: I submit to the minister that there is a distinction between the right of parliament to review this legislation in one, two, three, four or five years as the case may be, and the duty of parliament to bring the chartered banks of Canada before a committee of this house, where their acts and the acts of the central bank may be reviewed in order to bring them to that degree of conformity which will best serve the interests of the people of Canada. One is a question of right while the other should be, I think, at this particular time, a matter of duty, to see that the chartered banks of Canada so conduct themselves during the coming two, three or four years that they will best meet the wishes and desires of the people of Canada. Again I suggest to the minister that he reconsider the acceptance of the amendment submitted to him.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: There is another point also. It has been said that the Bank Act was amended after its revision in 1923, following the incident of the Home bank. Possibly if the Bank Act had been revised at an earlier date conditions would have been disclosed that would have made the House of Commons and the committee reviewing the act aware that something was wrong, and the failure of the Home bank might have been avoided. Distressed circumstances and depression have prevailed for the last few years. Perhaps if the revision of the Bank Act had been carried out some years ago, instead of
being left until this year, we might have been able to ascertain the condition of the banks, the credits they were extending, the new enterprises they were promoting, and so on. We might have been able to prevent the inflation, the aggrandizement of business and the speculation which brought about the depression we are facing to-day. So I think the amendment of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre is well advised and brought forward at the proper time. I do not think it would work any harm if we accepted the amendment. Then it would be the duty of parliament to revise the Bank Act and look over the internal management of the banks in order to see how they are operating and whether the activities they are developing and fostering are in the best interests of the Canadian people.


Mr. SPENCER:: I wish to support the amendment of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) for the reasons that have been put forward and which I am not going to repeat, except to say that while the Minister of Finance admits that we can change this act from year to year, if we do so we change only specific sections of the act. On the other hand if the charters are reconsidered we go through the whole act very thoroughly indeed. There is no comparison between the work we do when we amend a section or two of the act and the work we do when we review the act every ten years. The principal officials of the banks have been before us for some weeks; they have been cross-examined thoroughly and have given us some very valuable information. We would like to see them oftener than once in ten years.
I might remind the minister also, when he says the act -can be changed any year we wish to do so, that in 1931 I submitted an amendment to section 91. The argument put forward at that time was that it was no time to change the Bank Act. I submitted the same amendment the following year, and the argument put forward then was that the act would come up for revision in 1933, and therefore there was no need to change it then. We came to 1933, and the Bank Act was amended to extend the charters for one year. Then the revision did come along, and the government saw fit to enact exactly the amendment I suggested three years previously. This amendment to section 91 has been clamoured for by the people of Canada for some years, and I am quite sure that if the whole Bank Act had been before us some years earlier there would have been
Bank Act

such strong public opinion behind the members of this house that this amendment would have been made several years ago. As the hon. members who have just spoken have said, the parliament of Canada is setting up the Bank of Canada, and there is not the slightest doubt that some very important amendments probably wild be suggested, which may have the effect of materially changing the Bank Act. I do feel, with the other hon. members who have spoken, that due to the changes taking place from year to year, and to the experiences we have had in the past, it would be the course of wisdom to have these charters extend for a five year instead of a ten year period.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: May I say a word in reply to the hon. members for Battle River (Mr. Spencer) and Charlevoix-Saguenay (Mr. Cas-grain) in addition to what I have already stated. We have gone a long way in giving charters for a limited period, and we have done it because it is recognized that periodic revisions should occur as necessity arises. But I submit if we shorten the period to less than that length of time which has been found reasonable in this country we are introducing an element of instability into a permanency which we should like to see surrounding our banking institutions. We must bear in mind the fact that it is always open to parliament to cure any defects which may be found, in the light of experience, to creep into existing banking legislation.


Mr. COOTE:: I agree with the minister that parliament has authority to change the Bank Act at any time it wishes, but in my experience in parliament during the last fifteen years the fact that the charters expire every ten years is used by governments as a reason for refusing to mate changes in the act when sometimes the public feel that changes are necessary. For that reason I agree with the amendment which has been moved. For the last four or five years the credit situation in Canada has not been satisfactory to the general public, and the public did expect some Changes to be made in the Bank Act. As we have the act now before us, reported from the committee with practically no fundamental changes-although I must say the committee put in several weeks of very faithful work- I think the case has been well put by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre and the hon. members who followed him. I think there is good reason for making the change. This is one of the important sections in the Bank Act. Perhaps we are the only country in the

world which issues limited charters. We are always told that Canada has the best banking system in the world. Perhaps we could make it a little better by renewing charters for only five years; therefore I hope the committee will support the amendment.


Wilfred Hanbury: I wish to say one word arising out of the remarks of the minister. He has said it is always open to us at any session of parliament to revise bank charters. May I say that we might have the same privilege at any session of cancelling bank charters. I am not particularly concerned 'with having revisions of the Bank Act at shorter periods. I am firmly convinced that *under ordinary circumstances the ten year period is short enough. But my point at the present time is that I believe the government would have been well advised to defer the revision of the Bank Act until next year, and until the central bank has been in operation for a year. Had the central bank been in operation for a year or longer I would agree with the minister that a ten year period is not too long. But in view of the central bank [DOT]legislation I suggest to him that we should leave the obligation upon parliament and upon the commercial banks of Canada to see that the Bank Act is reviewed shortly after the establishment and operation of the central bank. I am going to suggest to the minister once more that this particular section should be allowed to stand for the time being in order to give the government an opportunity further to consider whether it would not be in the general interest to have the five year term. I am suggesting that in view of the establishment of the central bank it should be a two year term.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I can assure my hon. friend that the government has given the matter the most careful consideration, and I express the considered view of the government when I take the position I have taken to-night with respect to the proposed amendment.


Wilfred Hanbury: I am satisfied with the assurance that after giving this matter full consideration the government has decided that the banks shall continue in operation ten years after the establishment of the central bank, which is mow an institution in Canada, regardless of what action may be necessary in that regard.
Amendment (Mr. Mackenzie Vancouver) negatived on division.
Section agreed to on division.

Bank Act
On section 20-Qualification of directors.


Henry Elvins Spencer: I have an amendment to move as follows:
That there be inserted' after subsection 3 of section 20, the following subsection:
(4) No minister of the crown in the dominion government shall be elected or continue to be a director of a bank.
This matter has come before the House of Commons on several previous occasions. It was discussed in 1921, and the suggestion was supported by nearly half the hon. members sitting here at that time. It was brought up again in 1922, upon which occasion it was supported by a very large number of members. My aim is not a criticism of members generally being directors of banks; my objection is to ministers acting as directors, because of the fact that the ministry has direct connection with the banks which they are supposed to control. I believe a minister is placed in a false position if, when acting as a minister of the crown, he is allowed as well to be a director of a bank.
Amendment (Mr. Spencer) negatived on division.
Section agreed to on division.
On section 21-Election of directors.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I believe this section stood because No. 20 was allowed to stand.
Section agreed to on division.
Sections 28 and 29 agreed to on division.
Sections 32, 53 and 55 agreed to.
On section 57-Quarterly or half-yearly dividends.


George Gibson Coote: I move, Mr. Chairman, that subsection 1 of section 57 be amended by adding thereto the following words:
But such dividend and bonus, if any, shall not exceed the rate of six per cent per annum on the paid up capital and reserve fund.
I should like to say in support of this amendment that the banks are, as has been stated in the committee, quasi-public institutions, and their business should not be primarily that of making money. If they are allowed to declare dividends to the extent of six per cent per annum on the paid up capital and reserve fund, I think that is making ample provision for the shareholders.


Mr. ERNST:: What happens to anything over?


George Gibson Coote: Anything that was over would be added to the rest account of the bank.


Wilfred Hanbury: Then they could pay dividends on that.


George Gibson Coote: The purpose of this amendment is to discourage the banks from trying to make too large profits for their shareholders. It would be a good thing for the banks themselves because every bank is interested in the market price of its stock. If it is known to the public that they are not to pay more than this rate of dividend the public will not run the stock up to too high a price on the stock market, and there will be less fluctuation in the price of that stock on the market. I think in the interests of the public and of the banks themselves the committee would be well advised to add this amendment to section 57.


Wilfred Hanbury: I regret that I cannot support the amendment of the hon. member for Maoleod (Mr. Coote). I assume that his theory is that he is going to assist the borrowers of money, in western Canada particularly, and I suggest to him that if he is going to limit the dividends which the banks are paying, all of the money in the bank, or most of it, will remain in eastern Canada where the banks will have greater security, and so the producers in western Canada whose security is perhaps not as high as the security in eastern Canada will not be able to borrow money from the banks.
The hon. gentleman refers to the market value of bank stocks. I fail to see where the market value of bank stocks has anything to do with the general business of banking. One is a stock exchange proposition, and the other is strictly a banking business. I suggest that in the interests of producers in western Canada who find it necessary from time to time to come to the bank and pay perhaps a higher rate of interest than the hon. member and I would like to see them have to pay, but which is necessary under the circumstances if they are to borrow money at all, we must not restrict the banks but must enable them to make that extra money so that they will serve that portion of the community in western Canada as well as other parts of Canada where the security is perhaps not as great as the banks might, receive if they were lending their money at a lower rate of interest, on which they would pay perhaps the lower rate of dividend that my hon. friend suggests. Therefore I cannot support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Macleod.


George Gibson Coote: I do not wish to delay the committee, but in reply to my hon. friend from Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Hanbury) I would say that some people are foolish enough
Bank Act

to judge the soundness of a bank by the market price of its shares, and for that reason the management of a bank as a rule is a little anxious about the market value of its shares. There is no question about that. When the market price of its shares is falling I am sure the management of a bank is concerned, because the public, not knowing any better I suppose, very often take that as a sign of weakness in that bank. That is not the fact, but if the public are of that opinion it is highly desirable that the market price of bank shares should not be fluctuating outside of very reasonable limits.
Amendment (Mr. Coote) negatived on division.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 59-Cash reserves in dominion notes.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have an amendment to submit to this section in consequence of an amendment which was made to the Bank of Canada bill. It is as follows:
That the first clause of subsection 4 of section 59 of Bill No. 18 be struck out and the following substituted therefor:-
(4) The next three preceding subsections of this sectiou shall be repealed on and from the date on which the Bank of Canada is authorized to commence business and on and after that date the bank shall maintain a reserve which shall, subject to the provisions of the Bank of Canada Act, be not less than five per centum of its deposit liabilities within Canada and which shall consist of a deposit with the Bank of Canada, and of notes of the Bank of Canada held by the bank;


Mr. MATTHEWS:: I move accordingly, Mr. Chairman.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I am entirely opposed to this amendment. In the very dying hours of the committee on banking and commerce, without any previous notification to the members of the committee, an amendment was introduced to the Bank of Canada bill in regard to the five per cent deposit of the chartered banks with the Bank of Canada. The result of that amendment was a tremendous and almost immeasurable concession to the chartered member banks of Canada, and I object to this amendment passing without its having appeared in the votes and proceedings and the committee having been given full and ample opportunity of studying its significance. My own opinion is this. The first conception of the Bank of Canada bill of a five per cent deposit from the chartered banks has been absolutely destroyed by an eleventh hour amendment without any previous notice to the committee, and without the committee having seen that

amendment in print. I know the Minister of Finance is absolutely sincere but I do not like to support the passing of a conjoint amendment to this Bank Act dealing with the same deposit without having ample opportunity of seeing the amendment in print and studying its possible implications.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Without wishing to enter
into an argument as to the merits of the position taken by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) may I point out that if his argument has merit-I do not intend to attempt to deal with the merit- it arises in connection with the Bank of Canada bill. It is necessary that this section must be in conformity with the provisions of that bill. Shall we put it in this way? If, when the Bank of Canada bill is dealt with, in the judgment of the house it is done so in a manner which is inconsistent with this amendment, we will have this bill amended either here or in the Senate if necessary.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I know the minister will give us ample opportunity, but it is quite possible that this bill might be past its third reading before Bill 19 is brought down for consideration. To my mind the change which was made with regard to the five per cent deposit is the most vital change which could be made in either bill number 18 or bill number 19. The chairman knows that in the committee on banking and commerce I suggested, and I suggest now, that the amendment would change very radically and comprehensively the features of both bills. I am not criticizing the fact that the minister failed to introduce this amendment, because this bill had already left the committee before the amendment was made to bill 19 which makes the present amendment necessary. I quite realize that, but I think I am within my rights in asking that this particular amendment should stand. We can deal very quickly with the other sections of this bill, but to my mind this is a very important and far-reaching amendment. It is a tremendous eleventh hour concession thrown in without any consideration whatsoever by the banking and commerce committee. I do not think the banking and commerce committee had a proper opportunity of studying the implications of this last minute change. I am not criticizing you, Mr. Chairman, the committee or myself. We had two and one-half months of hard labour to get these bills before this house and committee for consideration. Personally, I should like to give more study to the implications and consequences of the changed structures of both bills

Bank Act
due to the eleventh hour amendment which takes away the five per cent deposit which the chartered banks of Canada were compelled or supposed to leave with the Bank of Canada when the legislation was submitted to this house and to the committee on banking and commerce.


James Layton Ralston: Subsection 4 also deals
with the reserves against external liabilities and as I understand the amendment which the minister has just read, it leaves out that provision. It is a provision which should be in this bill, because it is possible that these reserves will not be with the Bank of Canada. The latter part of this subsection reads as follows:	,
-and the bank shall also maintain with the Bank of Canada or elsewhere adequate reserves against liabilities elsewhere than in Canada, and furnish such information as may be required by the minister from time to time to satisfy him that such reserves against external liabilities are so maintained.
As I understand the amendment of the minister, no reference is made to reserves against external liability.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Perhaps the fault is mine in not having read the amendment more slowly. My amendment referred only to the first clause of subsection 4. Perhaps it is not properly worded. Perhaps the amendment and the section should stand. I would point out that it must be amended in conformity with the corresponding section in the Bank of Canada bill, and if, when we come to that bill, it is found that that section is altered out of conformity with this amendment, I will undertake to see that a corresponding amendment is made in this bill.
Amendment stands.
Section stands.
Section 60 agreed to.
On section 75-Business and powers of bank.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: When we were last in committee I suggested an amendment to paragraph (g) of subsection 2, which will be found on page 3582 of Hansard. This amendment is designed to permit a bank's name to appear on prospectuses or advertisements in respect of certain types of securities which are peculiar to the province of Quebec. The word "related" in line three should be deleted, the words "corporation or" should be added after the word "school" and the word "board" should be deleted. The amendment would then read:
That paragraph (g) of subsection 2 of section 75 be amended by inserting the words, "or school corporation or parish trustees" 74726-240
after the word "municipality" in line six of the said paragraph, and by inserting the words "or unless provision is made for the payment thereof and the interest thereon by a province pursuant to its statutes" at the end of the paragraph.


Robert Charles Matthews: I move accordingly.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
On section 88-Loans to certain wholesale dealers.
Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: I think it is my duty
to move again the amendment I proposed in the committee for the purpose of protecting the unpaid vendor. I move:
That subsection 7 of section 88 be amended by adding after the word "months" in the seventeenth line thereof, the following words, "and any claim by an unpaid vendor of or in respect to such products, wares, goods and merchandise to the amounts remaining unpaid" and by adding after the word "remuneration" in the twentieth line thereof the words "and such claim of an unpaid vendor."


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I am sure my hon. friend will not consider me as lacking in courtesy if I do not go over the ground we covered when the amendment was considered in committee. He will recall that the principal argument used against it there was that it had the effect of nullifying the intent and purpose of the whole section, and it was the judgment of the committee that for that reason among others it should not be accepted. For the same reasons I would ask this committee to reject it.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: Those were the reasons
given by the banking institutions this year before the committee, and the same reasons were advanced in 1923. I know, as a matter of fact, that a good many members of the committee at that time wanted to be present when the amendment was being brought forward before the committee. Apparently, at that time, there was only a slight attendance in the committee, but the matter was considered at some length; it took two hours to discuss it. In my opinion it is worthy of consideration because there are many cases where apparently people who want to borrow money from the bank, under section 88, have to become bankrupt themselves and assign everything they have before they can get a penny, with the result that the unpaid vendor goes away without a chance of being paid. If it is a case of insolvency the bank takes it all. We know of instances where the claims of widows and orphans have been left unpaid because, the trustees stated, there was hardly any money to meet the bankruptcy proceedings, and the bank, under sec-

Unemployment Relief

tion 8S, came and took all the rest. The banks have always had advantages under the act and we do not want to curtail their privileges. But they should be very careful to find out, when they receive a document signed by certain persons who want to borrow and offer certain security, that the goods upon which they give guarantees are all paid for and are their property. It is up to the bank to find out that this is so. The amendment should be considered further, because there are other members who wish to speak on it.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It is obvious that we cannot make further progress to-night and I therefore move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Sections stands.
Progress reported.



RAILWAYS AND SHIPPING

Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, will you be good enough to revert to motions in order that I may make a formal motion.
I move that the estimates respecting Canadian National Steamships and Maritime Freight Rates Act, reported on by the select standing committee on railways and shipping, be referred to the committee of supply.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Friday, June 8, 1934