1934-02-06

[Stage Direction]
Hon. E. N. RHODES (Minister of Finance) presented the report of the special committee appointed to prepare and report lists of members who compose the select standing committees of the house, as follows:
PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS Messieurs:
Anderson (Toronto-
High Park) Beaubien Burns Casgrain Casselman Duff Elliott Esling Gagnon Gray Guthrie Hanson
(York-Sunbury)
Jacobs
Kennedy
(Peace River)
Lapointe
Lawson
Lennox
Macdonald (Cape Breton South) MacNicol Marcil McPhee
Mercier (St. Henri)
Mitchell
Morand
Ralston
Stinson
Sullivan
Thompson
(Simcoe East) Turnbull-29.
(Quorum 10)

Select Standing Committees
RAILWAYS, CANALS AND TELEGRAPH LINES Messieurs:
Ahearn
Anderson (Toronto-High Park) Beaubier
Bell (Hamilton West) Beynon Bothwell Bradette Bury Cantley Casgrain Casselman Chevrier Dorion Dupre Edwards Esling
Fiset, Sir Eugene Fraser (Cariboo) Gardiner Geary Haekett Hanbury Hanson (Skeena) Harris Heaps Heenan Jones Kennedy
(Peace River) Laeroix Laurin Macdonald
(Kings, P.E.I.)
MacMillan (Saskatoon)
Manion
McGibbon
McIntosh
McLure
Mercier (Laurier-Outremont)
Moore (Ontario)
Munn
Nicholson
Pouliot
Price
Rogers
Ross
Ryerson
St-Pere
Sanderson
Seguin
Shaver
Simpson
(Algoma West) Smith
(Cumberland)
Speakman
Stewart
(Edmonton West) Stitt (Nelson)
Totzke
Turnbull
Urquhart
White (London)
White (Mount Royal)
Young-60.
(Quorum 20)
MISCELLANEOUS PRIVATE BILLS Messieurs:
Ahearn
Anderson (Halton) Arsenault Barber Barrette
Bell (St. Antoine)
Bowen
Brown
Chaplin
Chevrier
Cowan (Long Lake) Denis
Deslauriers
[Stage Direction]
Dumaine
Dupre
Dupuis
Edwards
Ernst
Fournier
Gobeil
Golding
Gott
Hall
Kennedy (Winnipeg South Centre) Lafleche
Larue
Lawson
Luchkovich
Maclnnis
Mackenzie
(Vancouver Centre) MacMillan (Mackenzie) Maloney McDade McGregor Mercier (Laurier-Outremont) Mitchell
Moore (Ontario)
Myers
Peck
Pettit
Raymond
Sanderson
Seguin
Spence
Stinson
Sullivan
Tummon
Verville
Wilson-50.
(Quorum 15)

[Stage Direction]
Messieurs:
Arthurs	Bell (Hamilton West)
Baker	Bell (St. Antoine)
Blair Bury Cahan Deslauriers Fontaine Fraser (Northumberland, O.) Hay
LaVergne
Luchkovich
McKenzie (Assiniboia)
Mercier (St. Henri)
Munn
Plunkett
Rowe
Thompson (Lanark) Woodsworth-20.
(Quorum 8)

[Stage Direction]
(Members to aot on the part of the Commons)
Messieurs:
Anderson (Halton)
Baribeau
Belec
Boulanger
Bourgeois
Brasset
Charters
Desrochers
Dubois
Embury
Esling
Factor
Fortin
Girouard
Gott
Gray
Hay
Heaps
Howden
Lucas
MacLean
Maloney
Marcil
Matthews
McKenzie (Assiniboia) McLure
Moore (Chateauguay-Huntingdon)
Munn
Murphy
Parent
Peck
Perras
Pickel
Porteous
Price
Quinn
Rheaume
Rinfret
Roberge
Robinson
Rowe
Ryerson
St-Pere
Short
Simpson
(Simcoe North) Spankie Spencer Spotton Taylor Tetreault Verville Wilson Woodsworth Wright-54.
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS Messieurs:
Anderson (Halton) Arthurs Beaubien Beaubier
Bell (Hamilton West)
Bothwell
Bourgeois
Cahan
Coote
Cowan (PortArthur-Thunder Bay) Davies Donnelly Dubue Duff
Dumaine Duranleau Edwards Embury Fournier Fraser (Cariboo) Fraser (Northumberland, Ont.)
Gagnon
Garland (Oarleton) Geary Girouard Hanson
(York-Sunbury)
Ilsley
Jacobs
Lennox
MacDonald
(Cape Breton South) Mackenzie
(Vancouver Centre) Macphail, Miss Michaud Perras Pouliot Power Ralston Rhodes Robinson Ross
Rutherford
Smith (Cumberland)
Smith
(Victoria-Carleton)
Smoke
Speakman
Stanley
Stewart (Leeds) Swanston Taylor Willis-50.
(Quorum 15)
[Stage Direction]
select Standing Committees

[Stage Direction]
Messieurs:
Arthurs
Baker
Beynon
Bothweil
Bowman
Casgrain
Chaplin
Coote
Donnelly
Dorion
[Stage Direction]
Ernst
Euler
Fraser (Northumberland, Ont.)
Gagnon
Ganong
Geary
Hackett
Hanson
(York-Sun-bury) Harris Howard Hurtubise Irvine Jacobs Lapointe
Laurin
Lawson
Mackenzie
(Vancouver Centre) MacMillan (Saskatoon) McGibbon McPhee
Mercier (St. Henri)
Michaud
Morand
Perley (Qu'Appelle)
Pettit
Power
Ralston
Raymond
Rhodes
Robinson
Sanderson
Smoke
Spencer
Stanley
Stevens
Sullivan
Vallance
White (Mount Royal) Willis-50.
(Quorum 15) AGRICULTURE AND COLONIZATION
Messieurs:
Barber
Bertrand
Blair
Bowman
Bouchard
Boucher
Boulanger
Bowen
Boyes
Brown
Burns
Butcher
Carmichael
Coote
Davies
Donnelly
Dubue
Dupuis
Fafard
Garland (Bow River)
Gobeil
Golding
Goulet
Hall
Hay
Jones
Loueks
Lucas
McGillis
McKenzie (Assiniboia) McPhee
Moore (Chateauguay-Huntingdon Motherwell Mullins Myers
Perley (Qu'Appelle)
Pickel
Porteous
Rowe
Sauve
Sdguin
Senn
Shaver
Simpson
(Simcoe North) Smith
(Victoria-Carleton)
Spotton
Sproule
Stewart (Lethbridge)
Stirling
Sutherland
Swanston
Taylor
Thompson (Lanark)
Totzke
Tummon
V allance
Weese
Weir (Melfort)
Weir (Macdonald) Wilson-60.
(Quorum 20)
MARINE AND FISHERIES Messieurs:
Baribeau Barrette Beaubien Black (Halifax) Brasset 
Cantley
Cardin
Dickie
[Stage Direction]
Duran,leau
Ernst
Ganong
Hanson (Skeena)
Ilsley
Jean
Johnstone
Larue
MacDonald
(Cape Breton South) MacDonald (Kings, P.E.I.) Maclnnis MaeLean McDade
McLure
Neill
Ponliot
Plunkett
Price
Quinn
Reid
Ross
Short
Speakman
Stitt (Selkirk)
Urquhart
Veniot-35.
(Quorum 10)

[Stage Direction]
Messieurs:
Beaubien
Belec
Bell (St. John-Albert)
Beynon
Bowman
Bradette
Cotnam
Cowan (PortArthur-Thunder Bay)
Denis
Desrochers
Dickie
Duguay
Esling
Fraser (Northumberland, O.) Garland (Bow River) Gershaw Gordon Hurtubise Ilsley
Johnstone
Kennedy
(Peace River) Maedougall Mitchell Mullins Nicholson Parent Plunkett Roberge Simpson
(Algoma West) Smith
(Cumberland)
Stewart
(Edmonton West) Stewart (Lethbridge) Stitt (Nelson) Tetreault Weir
(Macdonald)

35.
(Quorum 10)

[Stage Direction]
Messieurs:
Arsenault Bell (St. Antoine)
Bell (St. John-Albert)
Black (Halifax)
Bourassa
Ferland
Golding
Gordon
Hackett
Heenan
Howard
Jean
Johnstone
Kennedy (Winnipeg South Centre), Lacroix Maedougall MacNieol
Macphail, Miss
Matthews
McGibbon
McIntosh
Morand
Neill
Nicholson
Parent
Perley, Sir George
Reid
St-Pere
Stanley
Stitt (Selkirk)
Turnbull
Veniot
White (London) Woodsworth Wright-35.
(Quorum 10)

[Stage Direction]
Bouchard
Coote
Esling
Lafleche
Maedougall
Marcil
Messieurs: Rinfret Rogers Stirling Sutherland Wilson Young-12.
(Quorum 7)

Business of the House-Procedure

[Stage Direction]
(Members to act on the part of the Commons) Mr. Speaker and Messieurs:
Barber	Lafleche
Bertrand	Larue
Bourassa	LaV ergne
Boyes	MacMillan (Saskatoon)
Butcher	Marcil
Carmichael	McGillis
Charters	McGregor
Chevrier	McIntosh
Cotnam	Peck
Dubois	Perley, Sir George
Dupuis	Pouliot
Factor	Quinn
Ferlancl	Rheaume
Fontaine	Short
F or tin	Smoke
Fraser (Cariboo)	Stirling
Gagnon	Thauvette
Girouard	Thompson
Guthrie	(Simcoe East)
Hepburn	Thompson (Lanark)
Irvine	White (London)
Jones	Wright-44.
PARLIAMENTARY RESTAURANT	
(Members to act on the part of the Commons)	
Mr. Speaker	and Messieurs:
Ah earn	Macphail, Miss
Barrette	Mullins
Black (Halifax)	Ryerson
Bourassa	Senn
Carmichael	Spankie
Garland (Carleton)	Spenee
Ilanbury	Sproule
Howard	Taylor
Howden	Thauvette-20.
Lafleche	
Mr. RHODES moved that the report be	
conouiTed in. Motion agreed to.	
POWERS OF	COMMITTEES
Hon. E. N. RHODES (Minister of Finance) moved:: That the select standing committees of this house shall severally be empowered to examine and inquire into all such matters and things as may be referred to them by the house and to report from time to time their observations and opinions thereon, with power to send for persons, papers and records.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Leader of the Opposition):: Before the orders of the day are called I desire to raise a point of order. It is in reference to the construction to be placed upon standing order No. 57 of this house. The order is as follows:
The house shall appoint the committees of supply, and ways and means, at the commencement of every session, so soon as an address has been agreed to in answer to His Excellency's speech.
On Friday evening last the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) gave what he stated was the government's interpretation of the meaning of that order, which was to the effect that the committee of supply and the committee of ways and means must be appointed immediately after the conclusion of the debate on the address, but that there was nothing in the order which precluded the committees being set up before the address had been agreed to. The Prime Minister was careful to say that he would not say that the contention of the government was right, and you, Mr. Speaker, have not as yet been asked to rule on the matter. I am bringing up the matter at this moment, not for the purpose of in any way delaying procedure or of embarrassing the government, but rather to avoid both those possibilities. I have thought it better to raise the question before the government itself makes any formal motion to go into supply.
Last might the hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Guthrie) who was the acting leader of the house, mentioned that it was the intention of the government to move to go into supply to-day. I have thought it advisable, in order that the matter may be discussed in a wholly dispassionate manner, as a matter of procedure which really concerns members on all sides of the house, and in no sense a party issue to raise the question in the form in which I am raising it at the moment.
It is obvious, from the reading of the rule of this house, that it is copied literatim et verbatim from the rule of the House of Commons at Westminster. There are two words which appear in the order at Westminster that do not appear in our order, the words "in future," but they in no way affect its purpose. The order of the British house is standing order No. 14, it reads as follows:
This house will, in future, appoint the committees of supply and ways and means at the commencement of every session, so soon as an address has been agreed to, in answer to His Majesty's speech.
The interpretation to be placed upon the order by the British house is best given by the leading constitutional authorities on procedure in the commons, and on the law and custom of the constitution. I shall therefore quote from three or four of the most eminent authorities. It will be apparent, once the quotations are given, that there is no longer room for doubt as to what the intention of the order is.
288	COMMONS
Business of the House-Procedure
May's Parliamentary Practice at page 520 of the 13th edition, published in 1924, has the following:
The action taken by the House of Commons upon the demand of aid and supply for the public service made by the speech from the throne, is the appointment, pursuant to standing order No. 14, of those committees of the whole house, which are known as the committee of supply and the committee of ways and means. Motions setting up these committees are made immediately after the house agrees to the address in answer to the speech from the throne, and are put forthwith from the chair, no debate being permitted thereon.
Hon. members will observe that the wording is not that they " may be " or " must be '' established but that they " are " established immediately after the house agrees to the address in reply to the speech from the throne.
Anson's Law of the Constitution, volume I, fifth edition, 1922, page 286, states:
The speech from the throne always contains a demand from the crown for supply, and as soon as the House of Commons has agreed upon an address in reply to the speech, it has for many years passed two resolutions-one that on a certain day it will resolve itself into committee of supply; another that on a certain day it will resolve itself into committee of ways and means.
Here we have a positive statement of the customary method of procedure. I submit it is custom that governs in matters of this kind.
I refer next to Redlich's Procedure of the House of Commons, 1907, volume 3, page 133:
In response to the speech from the throne the commons, as soon as they have voted the address in reply, appoint the two great committees before which the whole finance of the year has to be discussed-the committee of supply and the committee of ways and means.
That is very specific language; as soon as they have voted the address in reply they appoint the committees. It is, I think, conclusive in its wording and meaning.
One further authority I should like to quote is Campion. In his Introduction to the Procedure of the House of Commons, first edition, 1929, page 235, this writer says:
The committee of supply is " set up " immediately after the conclusion of the debate on the address in answer to the king's speech by resolution in the following form:
Resolved, that this house will, to-morrow, resolve itself into a committee to consider of the supply to be granted to His Majesty."
The committee of ways and means is similarly set up at the same time.
The authorities I have quoted Mr. Speaker, are authorities we are continually quoting in this house, and are recognized as eminent authorities. I admit at once there

have been occasions in the British house when other matters have been taken up before the debate on the address was concluded, but always where such has been the case they have been in the nature of exceptions; they have been matters of some special significance at the moment, questions which for some special reason required to be dealt with at the time they were, and as to which the results might have been unfortunate had there been delay. What I am afraid of is that in this house we may be changing a custom by the exceptions we are making, that the government is not viewing the proposed course so much as an exception as it is seeking to make what has been an exception in the last session or two a custom which will govern in the future.
This matter is of importance, not only does it affect this house at this session, but the decision that will be given by His Honour the Speaker undoubtedly will be cited with reference to procedure in future years. Undoubtedly the rules are amongst other things for the purpose of protecting the rights of lion, members of the house.
With regard to the interpretation put upon the order by the Prime Minister, I submit that there is no necessity for a rule at all to ensure what the Prime Minister has said is the purpose to be served. The government is all powerful; its rights do not need to be secured by a special rule as to the time within which committees must be appointed. Except where there is a rule to the contrary, it has the pow'er to select its own time. But the minority in the house has in many particulars to be protected in its rights, especially at a time when for obvious reasons the government is finding it more and more necessary to take to itself as much right of way as may be possible for the prosecution of public business. The fact that the government is taking more and more of the time of the house for the government's own program, makes it more necessary for the opposition, regardless of what party may be in opposition, to see that the few rights that remain to hon. members to discuss generally the questions that are of great concern to them are preserved as far as may be possible. The interpretation that is being put upon this rule, especially when considered in relation to what is now being proposed, namely, that before the debate on the address is concluded, the house should resolve itself into a committee of supply to appropriate public moneys, makes the matter one which I think should be settled immediately and that in accordance with what I have shown to be

Business oj the House-Procedure
the prevailing custom in the British House of Commons.
The point I wish to make is this, that even if we admit for a moment that the rule is to be interpreted so as to give the government the right to set up these committees immediately, it does not necessarily follow that because the committees are set up, the house should proceed to go into committee of supply or committee of ways and means before the debate on the address is concluded. Indeed Redlich, whom the Prime Minister cites frequently as an authority, is quite positive in his statement on that point. Volume I, page 41, of Redlich's Procedure of the House of Commons, contains the following:
It is already a fixed custom that the Queen's speech is to be answered by an address which takes the first place in the deliberations of the house.
That is the point I desire to stress particularly at the moment. I believe it was to ensure that the address would take first place in the deliberations of the house that rule 20 was enacted, and where the rule is followed as interpreted by the authorities I have quoted it is pretty obvious that the debate on the address will take first place in our deliberations.
To show how important it is that the customary practice should be maintained may I direct attention to what would happen in the natural order of things if the opposition were considering a motion of want of confidence in the government on going into supply, and there was no other motion before the house. The opposition might wish to move that the motion to go into supply be amended by striking out all the words after the word "that" in the customary motion and substituting therefor the words "the government does not enjoy the confidence of the house." That might delay indefinitely both supply and the completion of the debate on the address. That would be a very natural motion to make at any time of going into supply. But assume that such an amendment were to be moved this afternoon to a motion that the house resolve itself into committee of supply, what would be our position? Already there is before the house a motion to the effect that the address should be amended by directing the attention of His Excellency to the fact that the government does not enjoy the confidence of the country. It is quite true that that amendment though it refers to the country is similar in meaning to the amendment I have suggested which -would refer to the house. Both are in the nature of want of confidence motions. I submit that before the debate on the want of confidence motion 74726-19
now before us is concluded, we should not run the risk of entering upon another debate which would certainly arise out of a want of confidence amendment being moved to any motion by the government to resolve the house into a committee of supply. I think, I have only to cite this possibility to make perfectly clear how obvious it is that rule 20 was intended to ensure the completion of the debate on the address before the house should go on with the discussion of any other question.
Of course there is the further fact that the first few days of the session are supposed to be devoted as well to getting the routine business under way and the machinery of business properly established. It always has been the practice, while the debate on the address was proceeding, to have different committees named, to have bills introduced, and to deal with other matters of routine, but not to proceed in discussion with matters of a substantial character until the debate on the address was concluded. May I ask if it is not something more than an anomally for the Commons to be asked to vote supply to His Majesty so long as there remains before the house as an order of business and of current discussion the question as to whether or not the government enjoys the confidence of the house or of the country?
Having submitted the matter in this form, I hope the Prime Minister will not to-day press his motion for going into supply, when the item is reached upon the orders of the day, but will allow the matter if need be to be further carefully considered between members of all parties in the house, so that the best procedure may be followed and the rights of all hon. members protected not only at this session but for subsequent sessions as well.


Hon. HUGH GUTHRIE (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, just a word in reply to some of the observations of my right hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King). In the first place, if he will read the rule which applies to this House of Commons, known as standing order 57, he will find the following:
The house shall appoint the committee of supply and ways and means at the commencement of every session, so soon as an address has been agreed to, in answer to His Excellency's speech.
That, I assume, means that there is a limitation in regard to the time in which we shall appoint these committees. We shall not delay appointment of these important committees. The conclusion of the address in reply to His Excellency's speech Shall be the



Business oj the House-Procedure
limit of tame for the house to appoint these committees. There is no rule of the house, so far as I know, which precludes an earlier appointment of these committees, if the house sees fit to do so. We are all aware that upon 'he opening day of each session of this House of Commons, for the express purpose of preserving the right of parliament to deal with other subjects prior to our consideration of the address of His Excellency, a formal bill is introduced respecting oaths of office. There is no reason for the introduction of such a bill apart from the single purpose of preserving the right of parliament to deal with such other business 'as it may see fit before taking into consideration the speech of His Excellency the Governor General.
I submit that any business can 'be taken up. Conditions may arise which render it very necessary to discuss some emergent condition, buit there is no limitation to the right of the house to deal with any subject. Any business which might later come before the House of Commons can be taken up in priority to the speech from the throne if the house so determines. The citation from Redlieh cited by the leader of the opposition is merely to the effect that the address in reply to His Excellency's speech shall be the first order of proceedings. At the opening of this session we did constitute it the very first order, and there it remains upon the order paper. In this practice we are following the course which is invariably adopted in England. After the mover and seconder have made their speeches and, as a rule, after the leaders of the various parties have replied, very often there occurs an adjournment of the debate and other business is permitted to intervene.
May, which I have had an opportunity of examining only for a moment sets out at page 173:
When the royal speech lias been read, an address in answer thereto is moved in both houses. Two members in each house are selected by the administration for moving and seconding the address and they appear in their places in levee dress for that purpose. The form of the address used to be an answer, paragraph by paragraph, to the speech. In both lords and commons since the commencement of session 1890-91, the answer to the royal speech has been moved in the form of a single resolution, expressing their thanks to the Sovereign for the most gracious speech addressed to both houses of parliament, and amendments to the address are moved by way of addition thereto. The transaction of public business is carried on whilst the proceedings on the address are in progress, bills being introduced and committees appointed. In session 1884, debate on the address was postponed from day to day, whilst a motion of censure on the government, regarding events in the Soudan, was under consideration, and in session 1922 whilst two bills pre-

sented by the government together with the financial resolution necessary for one of them were passed through all their stages.
There is no limitation expressed by May as to the nature of business which may be taken up. It is important for the prompt dispatch of business in this house that the committees in question should be established as early as possible; it is important to facilitate the transaction of business that the estimates be opened on a Tuesday, because we know that under the rules of the house unless the various departments are first discussed on a Tuesday they cannot subsequently be taken up on a Thursday or Friday. So that for the prompt dispatch of business in the house the present motion is very necessary. The motion that the house go into committee of supply on this Tuesday will enable us to discuss supply on Thursday and Friday. Unless there is a positive prohibition in some rule of this house or an established custom in the British House of Commons binding upon this house I submit we are at liberty to take up any item of business which the house may deem proper, pending our subsequent consideration of the speech of His Excellency. Therefore I take it that the point of order is not well taken, and that the house is at liberty to proceed at this time with business as it sees fit.
I do not quite agree with my right hon. friend in the statement he has first made concerning the rules of parliament. He has stated that the rules are for the purpose of protecting the rights of hon. members in the house. That may be one effect of them, but my submission is that the rules are expressly framed to facilitate public business in this chamber, and to achieve this purpose, the rules should not receive a narrow or limited construction. Rule 57, as now framed, is in its effect a mandatoiy order upon the House of Commons not to delay the setting up of the committees of ways and means and of supply later than the conclusion of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. But there is nothing of a prohibitory nature in this rule. There is no limitation as to what business shall be taken up or what shall not be taken up, and we know that by immemorial usage we are at liberty to take up such business as the house deems proper.


Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Quebec East):: Mr. Speaker, I submit that the motion to go into supply at this stage should not be entertained. Indeed, to move such a motion at the present time is, in my view, treating the house with scant courtesy. I do not agree with my hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Mr. Guthrie) as to the manner in which the debate
29r

Business oj the House-Procedure
on the address should be conducted and has been conducted in this House of Commons and in the British parliament. The debate in question is one of the two important debates of the session. Members of parliament after a long adjournment come from their respective constituencies and have a right to say what public opinion is in their respective sections of the country. They have the right to present to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the house the views on various public questions of the people they represent, and it has always been the custom and practice to let this debate go on before taking up other public matters.
First I shall quote from Bourinot, Fourth edition, page 95 as to the practice in Canada:
It is not usual in the Canadian houses to discuss any important matter of public policy before considering the speech. In 1901, an address was passed to His Majesty King Edward, expressive of the national grief on the demise of Queen Victoria, and of the continued attachment of the dominion to His Majesty's person and government, before the address in answer to the speech was taken up. In 1878, Mr. Barthe introduced a bill in reference to insolvency, but withdrew it in deference to the wishes of the house until the address was adopted. While bills are formally introduced and advanced a stage, the house generally consents to postpone notices of motion until after the disposal of the address. Of course, the public interests may at some time demand that the house should act otherwise, and-as it is undoubtedly its constitutional right-take up immediately a question of public importance and deal with it. It is usual in the British commons to ask questions, move addresses or orders for papers, present petitions and introduce as well as discuss public bills before the address has been adopted. In the session of 1884 " debate on the address was adjourned from day to day while a motion of censure on the government regarding ' events in the Soudan ' was under consideration."
But that was an exception, and at the bottom of the page, 96, Bourinot says:
In 1889 Mr. Abbott introduced in the Senate three government bills mentioned in the speech, before the address in answer thereto was considered. Objection was taken to this departure from the ordinary course of procedure. The bills were placed on the order paper for consideration subsequent to the address. In the following session the usual procedure was resumed.
If hon. gentlemen will look at the following pages, 98, and 99, they will see t'he interpretation that Bourinot gives to rule 57 as to the appointment of the committee of supply. After referring to the adoption of the address he says:
The next proceeding will be to move immediately that the house resolve itself at some future day into committees of supply and of ways and means. It is also usual to move at this stage of the proceedings the appointment of a chairman of committees when such appoint-74726-I9J
ment has to be made at the beginning of a new parliament or in the case of a vacancy in such office.
The same thing is done in the British House of Commons. I shall quote briefly from Todd's Parliamentary Government in England, Volume 2, page 366. He says:
Pending the agreement of the house to the address questions may be put to ministers, and addresses passed for the production of papers.
You see how it is limited. It goes on:
But it is usual to defer the presentation of papers asked for and to postpone a formal reply to an ordinary address, until the answer of the crown to this address has been reported.
Last year the right hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) said that he did not want to follow the practice in this house but wanted to adopt the British practice. Nobody said a word. I thought that possibly during the last few years a new practice had been introduced in the British House of Commons, but I took the trouble this morning to go to the parliamentary library and look into the debates of the British House of Commons.
In 1928 the address was moved on November 6 and was immediately taken up, debated again on November 7, November 8 and November 9, and then it was adjourned from Friday the 9bh to Monday the 12th, When it was again taken up, and again on November 13, again on November 14 and concluded on that day-seven days altogether.
I also found that a number of members varying from ten to fifteen spoke during the debate each day. As hon. gentlemen know, there is no eleven o'clock rule in the British House of Commons, and a considerable number of members speak during those debates.
In 1929 the address started on July 2, was taken up again on July 3, July 4, July 5, adjourned from Friday to Monday, July 8, when it was again taken up, again on July 9 and July 10, when it was concluded.
In 1930 the address was moved and discussed on October 28, taken up again on October 29, October 30, October 31, adjourned from Friday to Monday, November 3, taken up on that day and again on November 4, when it was concluded.
In 1931 the address was moved and discussed on November 10, taken up again on November 11, November 12, November 13, adjourned from Friday to Monday, and concluded on that day.
In 1932 the address was moved on November 22, discussed again on November 23, November 24, November 25, adjourned from Friday to Monday, November 28, and disposed, of on that day.

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In the present session, 1933, there was an exception for one day. The address was moved and discussed on November 21, and then it was decided that on the following day the house would discuss constitutional reform in India, which was a burning question which the house wanted to discuss immediately, but that occupied only one day and the address was taken up again on November 23, November 24, adjourned from Friday to Monday, November 27, taken up again on that day, and again on November 28, when it was disposed of.


Hugh Guthrie: May I ask my hon. friend if on those days he has enumerated in those years there was no intervening business taken up?


Ernest Lapointe: Except questions at the beginning of the sitting, as is done here; but there was no discussion of any matter. I have been careful to look into these debates personally.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that that is the sensible way of proceeding. As to the interpretation of rule 57, of course, I believe that it is clear, and that it means that the committee should not be appointed until the address is disposed of. That is the way I read it, and, Mr. Speaker, it is the way everybody has read it until a couple of days ago. That is the way in which it has been interpreted in past years at all times. Even my right hon. friend himself in the session of 1932, which met on October 6 because of the agreements at the Ottawa conference, introduced a motion to give precedence to government measures in order that those trade agreements should be approved as the first business to be taken by the house, even before the address was adopted. The address was voted on November 7, more than one month after the opening of the house. But did the right hon. gentleman move to appoint a committee of supply before the address was voted? No. The government then interpreted the rule as we interpret it to-day, and it was only on November 7, after the house had voted the address, that the committee of supply was appointed.
Another way of showing what has always been the interpretation is to look at the preceding rule, standing order 56, which says:
A chairman of committees who shall also be deputy speaker of the house shall be elected at the commencement of every parliament, as soon as an address has been agreed to in answer to His Excellency's speech.
I appeal to every member of this house whether they do not all remember that in

the first session of every parliament, when a deputy speaker has to be appointed, whether the house did not wait until the address was voted and agreed to before the appointment was made.
The best way to interpret this rule surely is to show what were the intentions of those who drafted it. The rule has been accepted and interpreted by all those who have acted upon it since it existed. Apart from that, what is the position to-day? My right hon. leader (Mr. Mackenzie King) has alluded to it. There is a motion of want of confidence in the government and shall we go into committee of supply and vote -money to a government that is actually defending its right to exist?


Mr. SPOTTON:: Oh, oh.


Ernest Lapointe: I have no doubt of the way in which the hon. member for North Huron (Mr. Spotton) will vote upon this matter but he will not represent the views of the majority of his electors, and he knows it.
Whatever it may be, there is a motion before the chair of want of confidence in the government. The house should not be asked to vote supply at the present time. As my right hon. leader has said, we all have rights in this house. For the time being the Prime Minister is first but we all represent the people of Canada. We have constituents to speak for in this house, we have rights and privileges and I believe that the wishes of the house and even the convenience of the members should be considered by the Prime Minister in this matter.


Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, if it were not for the somewhat rhetorical observations which the hon. gentleman who has just taken his place (Mr. Lapointe) made at the close of his remarks, it would perhaps not be necessary to rise at all. The rules of this house are made by the house and no one else. They are prepared by a committee of the house and submitted to the house for its approval. Therefore, they are not the rules of a government or an opposition, they are the rules that the members comprising parliament have thought desirable to enact. For what purpose? For the purpose of governing their proceedings; not for minorities or majorities, but for the orderly conduct of the business of the House of Commons. That is what the rules are for. It must be remembered that the miles of this house are not identical with the rules of the British House of Commons. They differ in many particulars. I shall point out presently one particular in which they differ and which has brought about the present discussion.

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It will be recalled that at the first session at which this government assumed office we were desirous of expediting the business of the House of Commons. I suggested to the leader of the opposition that we should proceed with the address on Friday but he thought it undesirable that we should depart from the practice or custom. Therefore, we waited until Monday when the mover and seconder of the address made their speeches. In Great Britain this is not the rule. I shall take last year as an example. The British House of Commons was opened on November 21, 1933, as reported in the fifth series, volume 283. The house met at twelve of the clock, Mr. Speaker in the chair. The sessional orders were then debated, some questions were asked with respect to certain matters, written answers were given and then the King's speech was proceeded with, as reported on page seven. The Speaker indicated that a copy of the speech had been obtained and the debate on the address proceeded. The King had delivered his speech that day. Mr. Cross moved the motion that afternoon and concluded his speech, as did the seconder of the motion. Sir Herbert Samuel and the leader of the government, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, concluded their speeches and the debate was continued into the evening. The motion to adjourn the debate was made by Mr. Edwards, and it was agreed that the debate should be adjourned until the morrow. Then followed the motion, "that this house do now adjourn," and the house was adjourned at twenty-one minutes before eight o'clock on the day upon which the King had delivered his speech. We do not do business here quite so expeditiously. The leaders of the parties and the mover and seconder of the address do not dispose of their speeches by twenty-one minutes before eight o'clock of the day upon which the speech from the throne is delivered. But on succeeding days the question as to when the debate shall be resumed is determined in one of two ways. If no motion is made that it shall have precedence, it takes its place upon the order paper under the appropriate heading.
In days gone by it has been the custom in this chamber to give precedence to this debate. The right hon. gentleman when in power used to move a motion, as will be seen in the journals of the house, that the debate do have precedence and thereupon it had precedence over all other business and was proceeded with until it was ended. I intimated last year-this is where my friend the former Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) apparently has misunderstood-that it would take its place upon the order paper under the appropriate heading. This was done last year, the year before and in 1930. It was also done this year when the leader of the opposition asked me whether or not I was going to ask this chamber, which has control of its own proceedings, to give precedence to the debate or leave it to take its place upon the order paper. I told him I proposed to leave it to take its place upon the order paper in accordance with the rules of the house. In other words, I declined to depart from the rules and to-day the address in reply to the speech from the throne occupies a place upon the order paper which is its appropriate 'place according to the rules. The right hon. gentleman was quite right in asking me whether I proposed to ask the house to change the rules, but I said no, that I proposed to leave the rules to their operation, just as they do in England. Every day this house has been in session, if other business had been disposed of it could have taken up the debate on the speech from the throne when it was reached under its appropriate heading.
I did not change the order of business. Why should we? What are rules for? Why does the right hon. gentleman want us to change the rules? Why does the former Minister of Justice ask that this house should change its rules? We have left the rules as they are and have declined to alter them and give precedence to this debate. The hon. gentlemen who formulated these rules did not so provide and only this House of Commons by motion made can change the rules covering the hearing of this debate. If it so desires, this house can say that this debate shall have precedence over all other business and if it has precedence over all other business, it has precedence over this business because this chamber, like any deliberative assembly, has said that we shall now go on with this business first and take something else second. But there is an absence of any such motion. I presented no such motion; I said: We do not intend to do so. That being so, it just goes on in the even tenor of its way as it does in England, taking its place under the appropriate heading and being called when other matters have been disposed of. The business of the house proceeds in the orderly fashion which parliament has fixed.
I ask this chamber and I ask every hon. member of at who wants to be fair: Why all this discussion when we have done nothing but cling to the rules which were made? The complaint is that we have not departed from them and that I have not moved to give this matter precedence. But I followed the English custom. I have in my hand the opening Hansards for the last four years. When the

Business of the House-Procedure
former Minister of Justice said that this debate had taken precedence he surely could not have read these as carefully as he usually does. The fact is that this debate did not take precedence. It took its place under the appropriate heading.	_
Now, all you have to do is to turn to the records of the British House of Commons for November 23, 1932, which was the day after the house had opened. The house met at a quarter to three in the afternoon, Mr. Speaker in the chair, and we find this order of business: Private legislation; Procedure (Scotland) Act of 1899, Sir George Collins; Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, one of the most important bills, moved by Mr. Hore-Belisha, one of the Under-Secretaries, Bill No. 1; Mr. Speaker ordered that the ballot should take place in Room No. 10; business of the house; amendments on going into committee of supply.
There is a motion passed before the debate was considered, that no notices of amendments on going into committee of supply be given until the first Thursday after the adjournment of the House of Commons.
Then we find: The Prime Minister, London Passenger Transport Bill, perhaps the most important of all public bills that have to be considered; ordered, that the proceedings of the London Passenger Transport Bill be resumed-Bill No. 2, fixed for Monday next.


Ernest Lapointe: Hear, hear. All these important bills are on the same page.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman must not .think that he can escape hiis own challenge in that way. He has demanded that we follow the English custom. That custom we are following, and now he says that these bills are all on one page. Just imagine such an argument-that certain business is all indicated on one page. Then the debate was resumed, Mr. Churchill continuing the discussion.
Then we come to the next day, the 24th. What happened on the 24th? We find: Questions, just as we have them here, the proper order of business; the debate stood where it was. Then we find mentioned the Lord Mayor's procession: Prisoner's Release; Tote Clubs. Then the 'Chancellor of the Exchequer answered some questions, and we find further-enumerated the Education of Injured Scholars, then a long number of oral and written questions, and then we come to the London Passenger Transport Bill and questions with respect thereto; written answers taking several pages; and just as the other day, under the appropriate heading following questions, came the debate, under

the order of business for that day in the British house followed the debate on the address-that is, the 24th.
Turn next to the 25th and you find on that day, at page 364 of the official report for November 25, 1932, bills presented: Dog Racing; Local Option Bill; Hours of Employment (Limitation) Bill; Parliament Act Amendment Bill, one of the most important measures; Workmen's Compensation Bill; Imported Foodstuffs (Marking) Bill; Home and Empire Settlement Bill; Summary Jurisdiction (Appeals) Bill; Municipal Corporations Audit Bill; Shops Acts Amendment Bill; Solicitors (Scotland) Bill; Hotels and Restaurants Bill; Seditious and Blasphemous Teaching of Children Bill; Local Elections (Proportional Representation) Bill; Exportation of Horses Bill; Trout (Scotland) Bill; Miners (Pensions) Bill; False Oaths (Scotland) Bill; Wheat Act (1932) Amendment Bill; Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act (1912) Amendment Bill; Slaughter of Animals Bill. Then followed, as here, under the appropriate order, questions for the day, and then was resumed the address, an amendment being proposed by Mr. Atlee with respect to the economic situation.
Then followed, on the 28th day of November, the house having adjourned over the weekend, something which I desire to point out as being of very considerable importance. Questions were on the order paper-Private Business, Oral Answers to Questions.- Then followed certain questions oral and written, and then the King's speech and the resumption of the address with respect thereto. That is that year. But I will point out in one moment that in another year something far more important took place. Mr. Baldwin, as Lord President of the Privy Council, moved a motion which involved a very serious debate in which a division was taken resulting in the government being sustained in the views it put forth. I think it important to turn that up in order that the house may have the record complete, and to show that what we have done has been to follow the course exactly as laid down in the British House of Commons.
You will find, for example, in 1931, certain bills introduced, including as a matter of fact the Westminster Act-introduced by the Secretary of State for the Dominions while the debate was pending. Under bills presented we find the Educational Endowments (Scotland) Bill, and then questions with regard to the Royal Navy (Discharges), National Savings Certificates, and matters of that character.

Business of the House-Procedure


Mr. NEILL:: Is there any record, amongst
those to which the Prime Minister has been referring, of the British house going into supply before the adoption of the address?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Perhaps the hon, gentleman will wait until I have reached that. I want to demolish one thing at a time; I have now demolished entirely the arguments of hon. gentlemen opposite, but I desire to point out one other matter, namely, a motion made by Mr. Baldwin prior to the house continuing the debate; I wish to show the division that took place with respect thereto before the debate was continued. At page 105 of the debates for 1931 we find, while the debate was still pending, that Bill No. 5, the Indian Pay (Temporary Abatements) Bill was introduced on that day before the debate was continued; and under private business we find a bill with respect to Edinburgh Corporation; the Kilmarnock Gas Provisional Order Bill, which was disposed of, and afterwards Mr. Baldwin, Lord President of the Council, rose in his place and moved:
That until the adjournment of the house for Christmas, government business do have precedence at every sitting, that no bills other than government bills be introduced, tmd that no ballot be taken for determining the precedence of such bills.
That brought about a discussion in which Mr. Lansbury stated his view; Mr. Tinker spoke; Lieutenant-Colonel Moore, Mr. Max-ton, and others. The house divided, the ayes being 378 and the noes 9. At page 148 we find a further motion was made by Mr. Baldwin:
That no notice of amendment on going into committee of supply be given until after the adjournment of the house for Christmas.
That was carried without division. We find on page 119 that the debate was resumed, Mr. Gwilym Lloyd George having made certain proposals with respect to it.
Now that proves conclusively that we are following the course that has been followed in the British House of Commons, namely, taking up the debate in reply to the speech from the throne when it has been reached under its appropriate heading, not before and not after; because we have declined to make a motion to give it precedence over every other business. In other words, it takes its place on the order paper. That disposes of that point.
Wre now come to the second point, with respect to the setting up of the committee of supply. I said to the right hon. gentleman the other evening that as no objection had been taken to setting up the committee of supply and the committee of ways and means the Minister of Finance moved that these two
committees toe set up. No objection was taken by any member of this house to that being done. The right hon. gentleman the other evening said that possibly the apposition had overlooked doing so. I told him that we had considered the matter before making the motion. I at once admitted that it is open to argument as to whether or not that committee could toe set up before we had passed the address. I shall come presently to the reasons why in this house I think it should be done. I said a moment ago that there is a distinction between the rules in the British house and those in our own in some minor particulars; the broad principle being, of course, that this house makes its own rules having regard to its own peculiar conditions. It will be within the memory of members of this house that Wednesday is a private members' day, it is a short day; Monday is a private members' day, a long day; Thursday is a private members' day for the first month. We have a rule, recently adopted, that when the house goes into supply on Thursday and Friday no motion is made; without motion the Speaker leaves the chair automatically on supply being called at the table. But there is one thing to be remembered; that cannot happen until such time as there has been opportunity for the house to discuss the broad question involved in the Speaker leaving the chair in order that consideration might be given to the items of any particular department. In other words when the Speaker automatically leaves the chair on supply being called on Thursday or Friday the house in committee cannot consider the items of any department that have not been previously considered, so that opportunity may be given for a motion of censure, if desired, against the minister and his administration of that department. Now as Thursday for the first month is a private members' day it follows that when private members' business is disposed of the Speaker leaves the chair on supply being called. But as it can only be with respect to departments that have not previously had items not passed, but considered, it follows that there must have been opportunity on motion made for the house to go into committee of supply to enable supply to be discussed.
The only day remaining for the first month is Tuesday. That is the reason for this motion, that is the distinction between the British rules and ours. In this house Tuesday is the only day remaining for the first month, if the business of the house is proceeded with as usual; that is, if private members take up all the sittings on Monday and on Wed-

Business of the House-Procedure
nesday, on Friday the Speaker can only leave the chair if there has been an antecedent discussion in committee of the items in supply that have to be dealt with by the committee. Unless on Tuesday the motion is made for the Speaker to leave the chair, while the house can go into supply on Friday, it cannot discuss any item because there has been no motion to have him leave the chair. There is no such rule as that in England. This is to meet this country's convenience, the purpose for which all rules are made. But I said to the right hon. gentleman and to this house, we do not ask this committee to pass a single item of supply, we only ask one thing, namely that there should be a formal going into committee of supply in order that an item may be called, as I said, in Finance, in Justice, or in Public Works; not passing them, but considering them, however trifling may be the item, in order that when Thursday and Friday come this house can go on with its business of supply with respect to the various items of the departments I have named that have to be dealt with. Is business to be expedited by the rules or retarded? Are the rules for the house or is the house for the rules? Were the rules made by the house or was the house by the rules? The rules were made by this chamber; and the rule making Tuesday the only day during the first month in which this matter can be dealt with is the reason for dealing with it as we have.
I will not repeat the argument that has been made by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Guthrie) as to the construction to be placed upon the rule. I said frankly the other night that that rule is open to the construction urged by the right hon. gentleman. I put upon it the construction that we did the other evening for the reason that, read with the other rule-and you must read all rules together to make sense out of them, that is the elementary rule of construction-as the first month of the sittings of this house is given up on Thursdays to private members, if the business of private members is exhausted on that day then we must have taken an antecedent step on Tuesday to deal with that situation.
That, Mr. Speaker, is the explanation of this whole matter. This government is in the hands of the house always with respect to the conduct of its business. Always. When we move adjournments, when we move that a certain step be taken to expedite the business, unanimity must be secured in order that business may be transacted. In this instance, read-

ing those two rules together, the setting up of the committee of supply and the committee of ways and means is a matter of which this house has supreme and complete control, and if there were any necessity for relying upon the fact that unanimous action was taken, the validity of the action cannot be challenged. It may well be that had the right hon. gentleman interposed and said, I object to that being done because this rule does not contemplate it, this argument could have been made then rather than now. But now clearly this house is estopped from asserting, and cannot now assert, that the rules have been contravened, for what it did it did with unanimity and the unanimous consent of this house is all that is required to abrogate any rule, to set up a new rule, to do any class of business we think best for the public good and to expedite the transaction of that business. In the closing days of the session, by unanimous consent we do practically everything.
The other question that is raised, whether or not we should pass supply before the governor's speech has been approved by this house, is of course another matter altogether. I am not one who does not realize the force of the argument that has been made against the passing of supply until such time as the speech has been adopted. But on the other hand we must read the rules together for the purpose of enabling business to be transacted. It would just mean that unless on Thursday and Friday we have the business of the house in such a position that the Speaker may leave the chair, and that means antecedent discussion here on the tabling of some items although they are not passed, then that use of the rules would be to prevent business being properly discharged. I submit to the house that that was was not the intention of the rule; that you must read that rule that permits the Speaker to leave the chair without motion put on these two days as a rule to expedite business. But if it comes on during the first month it retards it, unless we take the step we have taken. The only way in which it can be dealt with during the first month is to make a motion on a Tuesday, apparently. That is the position.
If this chamber thinks for a moment that there has been any effort on the part of the government to take rights from members, to deprive them of their privilege, I can assure them that such is not the case. It is so easy to make statements of that kind. I recall in this chamber that as a matter of convenience we have had the Speaker leave the chair on a Thursday or Friday, reserving the right to do so. The question of how we transact busi-

Business of the House-Procedure
ness is a matter of how we can best serve the purpose for which we are here, namely expeditiously getting through the business we have to do. Need I say that I vigorously deny the suggestion that anyone is endeavouring to push the business of the house more rapidly than it should be done. I think on reflection the right hon. gentleman will agree with me when I say that is an unwarranted observation.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I did not make an observation of that kind.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The right hon. gentleman said we were trying to hurry the business.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No, I was very careful to avoid saying anything of the kind.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Then it was his colleague who said it.


Ernest Lapointe: Not exactly like that,
but pretty nearly.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I offer the right hon. gentleman my apologies for having credited him with the authorship of the observation that was made by his colleague, the former Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) but I believe that on second thought he will conclude that this must foe wrong. There is no desire to do anything but give this house an opportunity to transact the business of the country, and the government is responsible for that. Reading these rules as they are with respect to supply and the conduct of business during the first month of the session I ask how we can transact business except by taking the steps we have taken. I may say that the other day I expected that hon. gentlemen opposite might have some observations to make, but when no hon. member of this house raised his voice against the setting up of the committees on supply and ways and means, I thought by that unanimity of opinion they desired to make certain that the business of the house should be transacted without unnecessary delay.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I ask the Prime Minister if it was not for His Honour the Speaker to raise the question? His Honour is the custodian of the rules of the house.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No. If a question arises that indicates lack of unanimity then the Speaker must act, but frequently the rules of the house are set aside by unanimous consent. In the closing hours of every session we would not get through in a week the business we finish in a day or two if it were not that
we unanimously agree to the suspension of the rules. The Speaker of the house is the custodian of the rules of the house only to the extent to which the house shows, by lack of unanimity, that it desires him to apply the rules. If this house unanimously resolved this afternoon, on a motion made by any member, that we should adjourn until next Monday, on the adoption of that motion the Speaker would be 'bound to adjourn the house. He is the presiding officer; it is his duty to apply the rules which we ourselves have formed for the transaction of our business and our conduct in regard to that business.
I again assure the right hon. gentleman and every hon. member of this house that the endeavour to go into supply this afternoon [DOT] not to pass an item of supply-in my judgment is not a contravention of the rules, but rather is an application of the rules to the peculiar conditions that arise in this house by reason of the distribution of business, which make it essential that we go info and out of supply, not to pass items but to have it said that we have considered them, in order that the Speaker may leave the chair on Thursdays and Fridays in accordance with the provisions of the rule. There is no case to which my attention has been directed in which the house in Great [DOT] Britain has gone into supply before the adoption of the speech from the throne. I tell my hon. friend from Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) that there may be such cases, but I am not aware of them at the moment. In any case that would not have any effect upon the rules of this house, which have been established for the orderly conduct of its affairs in order to expedite the conduct of public business.


Hon. CHARLES MARCIL (Bonaventure):: Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity of seeing these rules changed many times. In the old days one of the greatest grievances in this house was that on the orders of the day some members would arise and begin a discussion that would last during the entire sitting. We changed the rules to oblige the man who wanted to bring up something that was not on the order, paper; he could give notice thereof to the Speaker, and upon securing the consent of the house he could break away from the order paper to bring up the particular matter he wanted to discuss.
Further changes in regard to going into supply were made by Sir Robert Borden during the war, because then it was necessary to go into supply very often during the week to vote money. For that reason the rule was adopted that any item called on Tuesday

Business of the House-Procedure
could be gone on with on Thursday and Friday, when the Speaker would leave the chair without the question being put. I believe there is a great deal of support for that contention, which I think is generally approved of now by everyone in the house.
With regard to the right of the government to call the business in the order they wish, of course they have that power, always subject to the rules of the house. I have great respect for the rules of the British House of Commons, but the rules of this house prevail before those of the British house can be invoked. I remember a very knotty question that was brought up by the then young member for Portage la Prairie, now Right Hon. Arthur Meighen. He raised the point that Sir Wilfrid Laurier, having been elected for two seats, had to take the option within thirty days of sitting for one seat or the other, and he im'oked the first of our rules which states that in all unprovided cases the rules in England must apply. That question was hurled at me without notice, and I called upon Hon. Mr. Aylesworth, then Minister of Justice, to come to my assistance. After some research we found that this was a sessional rule in England, and the question to be determined was whether or not on July 1, 1867, the first day of the existence of the dominion, the British House of Commons was in session. It so happened that it was not in session on that date, and therefore the rule of the British house did not apply here. That, of course, enabled me to declare that the point of order raised by the then member for Portage la Prairie was not well taken. I remember that at the same time Sir Wilfrid Laurier remarked that evidently Mr. Meighen was a painstaking member with a future in the house.
As I have said, and as the house knows, the government has the right to call up business as it chooses, always according to the rules of the house. Time and again the rules are suspended; you can do that the moment you have unanimous consent, but in this connection I would direct the attention of the right hon. the Prime Minister to the fact that grievance before supply is the cardinal principle of our British constitution. The right of this government to carry on business has been challenged by a motion presented by the right hon. leader of the opposition as well as by a motion presented by the third party in this house. Before going into supply I believe the principle of grievance before supply should apply; the government should show the house and the country that it possesses the confidence of the house, and the only way to do this is to proceed with the

address and have these amendments voted down. The Prime Minister says that calling an item on Tuesday, even if it is not passed, does not mean that we are breaking away from the custom or doing away with the practice, but what does it mean? It means that if we call an item on Tuesday Your Honour will leave the chair automatically on Thursday and Friday, and then we might go on and vote millions, though the authority of the government has been challenged by two motions that are now before the house.
Taking all the circumstances into consideration, Mr. Speaker, I think the Prime Minister, who is a great admirer of the British constitution and who gave us some very interesting information to-day, should have these motions disposed of before we take up supply at all.


Hon. IAN MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a few observations on the point of order raised by my right hon. leader. I think it is very regrettable indeed that the discussion on this point of order has wandered so far afield from the actual point at issue. The greater part of the remarks of the right hon. Prime Minister were directed to standing order 28 rather than to standing order 57. I agree with the right hon. gentleman that a few nights a.go the question of the construction of standing order 28 came up in regard to the proper procedure in this house on Thursdays and Fridays, and I want to remind the right hon. gentleman, when he speaks of expediting the business of this house, that through its leader this party assured him the other day that if the debate on the address were disposed of the way it should be, according to the constitutional authorities, then we would meet his wishes and would not raise these technical objections in regard to going into supply on Thursdays and Fridays. So that the whole argument carefully built up by the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) in regard to expediting the public business of the country is disposed of, and the suggestions made from these benches have been disregarded. What is the point of order? The point of order centres around one standing order, and one only. I refer to standing order 57 of the House of Commons. The hon. member who has just preceded me properly mentioned that British rules do not apply in this House of Commons where our own specific rules do apply. Therefore I suggest with all respect that we have in regard to [DOT]rule 57 a Canadian interpretation. There is an interpretation by Bourinot, and so far as

Business oj the House-Procedure
I am concerned we do not have to go beyond the language of Bourinot to construe and interpret the significance of standing order 57. If Bourinot did not so express himself in the quotation read by the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) then Redlich and other constituted authorities would prevail.
There are two questions at issue in this instance; one is in regard to the proper procedure in connection with the disposal of the address in reply, and the second question is -and by the way, it has not been answered -can this House of Commons go into committee of supply before we have disposed of the address in reply to the speech from the throne? In regard to the first question I submit that there is a conflict of authority between the British and Canadian practice. Although all the authorities and all the practice in the British House of Commons have been against the statements made by the right hon. Prime Minister-


Richard Bedford Bennett: What does the hon.
gentleman mean by that? I read from the Tecords.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I will come to that.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There was a third reading [DOT]of a bill only the other day.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: 
Richard Bedford Bennett: May I ask the hon. member a question before he leaves that point?
I suppose he is aware that when the edition of Bourinot to which he is referring was written there was no provision about the Speaker leaving the chair without motion on Thursdays and Fridays.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The suggestion made by my right hon. friend has no bearing upon my argument. If my right hon. friend feels the rule is wrong and that it holds up the public business of the government, then let him amend the rule. This House of Commons can amend it. Through its committee it can amend the rules of the house. But I suggest to the house and the Prime Minister that the rules in this little book have been interpreted by the greatest authority on parliamentary procedure this country ever had, by Bourinot himself, and inasmuch as the government is bound by the rule so are both oppositions bound by it and, with great deference I suggest Your Honour is bound by it. Even if 'this House of Commons, last Friday, through lack of observance of the rules, failed to take the opportunity to exert its undoubted privileges with respect to this rule, I suggest that any time after that error is committed it is not only the right but it is the duty of hon. gentlemen in this House of Commons to call Your Honour's attention to such neglect. I will tell the

Business of the House-Procedure
Prime Minister that we are prepared to cooperate with him in the dispatch of public business. We say that the proper procedure is to dispose immediately of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. Once that is done-and in this I am sure I am speaking for the right hon. leader of the opposition-we will not raise unnecessary technicalities in regard to Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays or any other days.


Mr. SPEAKER:: The point of order has
been raised as to the meaning of standing order 57, it reads:
The house shall appoint the committees of supply, and ways and means, at the commencement of every session, so soon as an address has been agreed to in answer to His Excellency's speech.
Standing order 57 does not prevent the house appointing committees of supply and ways and means before the address in answer to His Excellency's address has been agreed to. As to whether such committees shall so be set up is a matter to be decided by the house, and not by the Speaker.
On February 20, 1930, it was resolved by this House of Commons:
That the speech of His Excellency the (governor General to both houses of parliament be taken into consideration on Monday next, and that this order have precedence over all business except the introduction of bills until disposed of.
At the fall session of 1930 no similar resolution was adopted. At the sessions of 1931, 1932 and 1933 consideration of the address was not given precedence. It was interrupted, and without objection other business was proceeded with by the house. On January 26, 1934, this session the house adopted the following resolution, on motion of Mr. Rhodes:
That this house will on Monday next resolve itself into a committee to consider of a supply to be granted to His Majesty.
There was a further resolution on motion by Mr. Rhodes as follows:
That this house will on Monday next resolve itselt into a committee to consider of the ways and means for raising the supply to be granted to His Majesty.
On motion of Mr. Rhodes the message of His Excellency the Governor General, together with the estimates presented were referred to committee of supply. In the present session the house has proceeded in the same manner as it has in the past three sessions. Whether that procedure shall continue is a matter entirely for the house to say.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I direct Your Honour's attention to the fact that there still remains the question as to whether or

not this house should proceed in committee of supply while the address of His Excellency is still not disposed of, and particularly when a motion of want of confidence in the administration is before the house.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: That, I take it, is a matter of policy entirely for the government and the house. It is not one for the Speaker to decide.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is quite apparent the
committee has been set up unanimously. It would always be in order to move that the Speaker leave the chair.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I believe the
Prime Minister and myself are anxious, so far as possible, to agree on matters of procedure and I hope that both of us desire to maintain what we believe to be the traditions and practices not only of this House of Commons but of the parliament at Westminster upon which our rules are based.
_ Mr. BENNETT: There is no such ruling in Westminster as this one.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend has intimated that he himself is not aware of any instance wherein the British House of Commons has proceeded with supply before the address in reply has been disposed of. I hope he will not press the motion to go into supply to-day and thereby create a new precedent in this House of Commons which I believe he would regret later on. If I may make the way clear, may I say to him now that, so far as the opposition are concerned, if we are through with the address and on Friday my hon. friend wishes an agreement on the part of the opposition to proceed with supply, we shall be prepared to meet him. There is no desire to embarrass the government in the dispatch of business. Our sole object in raising this question has been to maintain what we believe to be the best traditions and practices of the house.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I think the attitude of the right hon. gentleman is to be commended, but he has overlooked one thing and that is this, that there is no rule in Westminster similar to our rule about Thursday and Friday and as to Thursday being set aside for a special purpose during the first month. I say frankly, as I said to my colleague to my left, the real position is that the rules certainly conflict, and there is no way in which they can be brought into a proper logical scheme unless they are amended.
I perfectly appreciate the point which has been made and I understand it, but on the other hand, with this special rule in the

Silver Agreement
Canadian parliament about Thursday and Friday, and Thursday being a day set aside for the first month for a special purpose, it makes a situation that I cannot see how you can get over except in the way that I have indicated.
While I appreciate what the right hon. gentleman has said as to the dispatch of business, he realizes better than most members of the house, from his past experience, that any one member of the house not associated with him in the conduct of the opposition could raise an objection that would be fatal to that action on Friday. That is the real difficulty, and it was to overcome that difficulty that I made the suggestion that the Speaker should leave the chair.
So far as making a precedent is concerned, it is not making a precedent; it is conforming the practice of the house to the rules laid down about Thursday and Friday and as to Thursday being private members' day for the first month. There is a conflict which I see no way of keeping out of except in the manner I have suggested, and still do public business. I am perfectly willing that there should be a conference as to how the difficulty can be properly overcome, and in order that there might be no difficulty I suggested that the Speaker leave the chair. It is only a matter of five minutes to consider an item, and then we would go on with the next order of business. I only desire to have the business of the house done in the proper way.


Ernest Lapointe: If I may say a word, I fail to see what difference it makes that they have not in the British House of Commons our rule about going into supply on Thursday and Friday.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And as to Thursday being private members' day for the first month.


Ernest Lapointe: It makes no difference
because they do not take supply until the address is disposed of, either on Thursday or Friday, and we never did it either in this House of Commons. Why mention that rule as creating such a great difference as between the two houses? I feel that we should not take supply until there is a vote on the want of confidence motion. Until the address is disposed of I do not see how we can vote for a motion to go into supply.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I certainly was not
aware except in a general sort of way that this matter was going to be discussed to-day. The question now raised as to whether or not we are following the proper course is so clear that it does not admit of argument.
We are following the same course as they follow in Westminster, but in view of what has been said I am perfectly content, without in any sense abating from the views I hold and which I am ready to discuss further if necessary, that we take up order No. 3 for the second reading of Bill No. 2 instead of order No. 1.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. G. SANDERSON (South Perth):: I would ask the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. MacLaren) if it is the intention of the government at this session to introduce any amendment or amendments to the Pension Act?


Hon. MURRAY MacLAREN (Minister of Pensions and National Health):: The question is under consideration at the present time.
SILVER AGREEMENT On the orders of the day:


Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster):: May I ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Rhodes) if it is the intention of the government to introduce at this session legislation implementing the agreement regarding silver which was signed on behalf of Canada at the world economic conference, and if so, when we may expect legislation ratifying the agreement?
Hon. EDGAR N. RHODES (Minister of Finance) :	Mr. Speaker, in answer to my
hon. friend from New Westminster I may say that it is the intention of the government to ask the house to implement the agreement entered into at the world economic conference, but it does not of necessity follow that there should be specific legislation dealing with that matter alone. It may be that we may deal with it in connection with the banking legislation that is to be brought down.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JEAN FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata):: May I ask if the government is aware that the French version of the speech from the throne published on January 25, 1934, in an extra of the Canada Gazette, in the Hansard of both houses of parliament and the French dailies, is stuffed with gram-

Precious Metals Marking Act
matical errors, translation, mistakes, nonsense, misconstructions, wrong interpretations, inaccuracies and blunders of all kinds, totalizing three score and over?


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. member had better put his question on the order paper.



PRECIOUS METALS MARKING ACT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Minister of Trade and Commerce) moved the second reading of Bill No. 2, to amend the Precious Metals Marking Act, 1928.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I understand that the minister already explained that this is merely a consolidation and revision of the existing act, and that he will explain the details in committee.


Mr. STEVENS:: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury) in the chair.
On section 1-Definitions.
Mr. MACKENZIE  ICING@: What are the
changes here?


Henry Herbert Stevens: There is a very slight change. The words "importer of" have been added, and the words "who traffics in" have been substituted for the word "dealer". It is in order to clarify. This was asked for unanimously by dealers in this class of goods.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Jewellers, are they?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2-Mount.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is the
explanation of this section?


Henry Herbert Stevens: On certain silver or silver plated ware and gold and gold plated ware, there are sometimes what are called mounts, that is, a design or some other decoration which is superimposed. These mounts have never been properly defined under the act and this new section clarifies this matter and provides for the application of the terms of the act to the things mounted upon the plate itself. In other words, it is making the regulations apply to the parts mounted upon the plate the same as they apply to the plate itself.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.

On section 3-Gold. National mark.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Will the minister explain this section?


Thomas Reid: The section reads "composed
of gold of not less than nine carats in fineness,"' and I should like to know if this regulation is in effect in other countries.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I think that is the standard minimum recognized in the trade.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The explanatory note reads:
This proposed national mark on gold and silver articles (not gold plated or silver plated) should stimulate both the buying and manufacturing of gold and silver articles in Canada.
Will the minister explain how this effect-will be brought about by this proposal?


Henry Herbert Stevens: It is expected that the
addition of this section will stimulate the art of producing gold and silverware. A very fine business in an artistic way has been developed in this country, particularly in silverware. In years gone by certain countries in Europe-Great Britain has been an outstanding case-developed a definite skill in this art and turned out some very fine ware. Canada, being a new country, has not been particularly forward up until say the last fifteen or twenty years. But in that period the artistic production of gold and silver in Canada has been very material. We are now second in the production of gold and I think third in the production of silver and this country lends itself to the production of gold and silverware. The trade generally has been unanimous in asking for this amendment in order to set a standard in this country for these wares.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 4-Silver. National mark.
Henry Herbert Stevens: The same argument applies to this section as was applied to the preceding section.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 5-Gold plated and silver plated articles.
Ian Alistair Mackenzie: What is the reason for this?


Henry Herbert Stevens: This section is intended
to make more clear the regulations covering Sheffield reproductions. In other words, there are certain wares known the world over as Sheffield and the term "Sheffield reproduction" has been used in this and other countries. The natural inference is that the article produced

Precious Metals Marking Act
is of similar quality and standard to that generally produced in Sheffield. In the absence of more specific regulations, certain manufacturers have impinged somewhat upon the standard by producing an inferior article. It is to clarify the situation that these amendments have been made. In other words, when the public buy a Canadian article termed a Sheffield reproduction, it will know it is getting an article just as good as the original article.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: What is the penalty under the act?


Henry Herbert Stevens: We do not touch the penalties in this amendment. They are not what I would call stiff but are suited to the case. Frequent prosecutions are undertaken by the officer administering the act.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 6-Gold.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is the regulation dated December 6, 1928?


Henry Herbert Stevens: It will be observed that subsection (7) of this section is very technical but this amendment is simply to transpose into the act a regulation which has been in force for some years. What is sought to be done by this section has previously been done under the general powers to pass regulations not inconsistent with the act. The officers administering the act have at times found themselves embarrassed with the challenge that the regulation might exceed their powers in some technical detail. Therefore, it was thought advisable that the full definition should be carried into the act, and this is done by subsection (7). This subsection is highly technical but it has been gone over with great care by the officers of this and the justice department, all of which are agreed as to the correctness of the definition and its necessity and soundness.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 7-Obligatory marks.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is the effect of this section?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Part of the Trade Mark and Design Act was repealed and in its place was passed what is known as the Unfair Competition Act, 1932. This section formerly appeared in that part of the Trade Mark and Design Act which was repealed and now is being brought under the authority of the Unfair Competition Act, 1932. It is merely a technical amendment.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 8-Electro-plated flat-ware.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: What will be the probable effect of this section upon prices?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I would say that there will be no effect upon prices. This section merely clarifies a matter which has been in dispute for some time. Hon. members know that in recent years there has grown up a large sale in cheap and imitation jewelery and stuff of that character. Young girls like this for decorative purposes and we have been told that some of it is a very fine reproduction of real gold, silver, platinum and other precious metals. All we are concerned about is to make certain that no such product is imported and sold or made here and sold as platinum, gold, silver or plated-ware. The new sections 11 and 11A are designed to clarify the law in regard to these practices. It will not add to the price. In other words, it will not affect cheap jewelery at all, so long as such jewelery does not presume to be what it is not, namely, 14 karat gold or whatever it may be, nor profess to be sterling silver or silver-plated when in fact it is not. In gold plate there is a certain base of weight in gold that must be actually in the ware before it can bear the stamp "Gold Plated," and in silverware there must be a copper or nickel base and a specified quantity of silver in the article in proportion to that base before the article can carry the term "Silver Plated." Anything that does not meet with these regulations cannot bear the stamp "Silver Plated" or "Gold Plated," as the case may be.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 9-Meaning.
Henry Herbert Stevens: This deals with the nomenclature of the trade and the symbols used- "R.P." for rolled plate, and so forth, as set forth. It is merely to legalize these letters, because on small articles like a ring, for instance, there is not room to stamp the words "Rolled Plate", and the letters will be sufficient. This section specifies the terms that may be used and the meanings attaching to the letters in each case.


Charles Marcil: In every newspaper one
picks up there are advertisements for the buying of gold jewelery of various kinds. Is there any law in this regard?


Henry Herbert Stevens: A very strict law. The
whole act, including what we have been considering to-day, applies to such matters. Not frequently but occasionally our officers come
Intoxicating Liquors Act

across false advertising. Such advertisements are carefully scrutinized and where there are grounds for prosecution the offenders are prosecuted. The practice of misrepresentation in regard to cheap jewelery is very sharply dealt with by the officers.


Charles Marcil: Is there any provision for
protecting the public with respect to prices paid for jewelery they sell, or are the prices left to the buyer himself?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Competition between the
manufacturer and the importer of what might be called legitimate jewelery is naturally very sharp. In the five and ten cent stores and in the department stores there is extensive and keen competition in the sale of the class of jewelery to which the hon. gentleman refers, and so long as such jewelery does not carry deceptive markings we do not interfere. Our duty under the act is to see that the public are not deceived.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 10 agreed to.
On section 11-Offence.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is the
penalty? The offence might be minor and the penalty severe.


Henry Herbert Stevens: This subsection is an addition to a number of others all coming within the same category of penalties. I cannot inform my hon. friend at the moment what the penalties are, but they are not severe, nor have I ever heard anyone complain about them. I suppose that anyone who is penalized naturally thinks the penalty severe, but I have never heard any complaints in this regard.
Mr. MACKENZiE (Vancouver): They are all fines?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes.


Mr. GRAY:: I suppose these amendments were asked for and approved by the Canadian Jewelers' Association. What percentage of the jewelers belong to the association?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Practically all-all reputable concerns. I do not know of any exceptions, and certainly none have been taken.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill as amended reported.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. HUGH GUTHRIE (Minister of Justice) moved the second reading of Bill No.
3.	to amend the Importation of Intoxicating Liqours Act.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Smith (Cumberland) in the chair.
On section 1-Importation into province forbidden unless consigned to His Majesty, the executive government or commission, etc.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: There had been some contravention of the existing law, which was purely technical, and I take it that the object of the amendment is to regularize the matter.


Hugh Guthrie: Yes. There is a full explanation on the second page of the bill. For some time the brewers in Ontario, and in other provinces too, I fancy, have been shipping liquor to persons in Quebec other than the Quebec Liquor Commission, but persons authorized by the commission to receive liquor. Under the Doherty Act however that is a technical offence. The brewers in Ontario, for instance, can sell and ship only direct to the commission. If we insert the word "or" in line 13 and the words "or other" in line 17-that is the only amendment we ask-it will permit brewers from outside the province of Quebec to ship liquor into the province to persons authorized by the Quebec Liquor Commission to receive such liquor, as well as to the commission itself.


Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: Have not all the provinces laws with respect to the control by a commission of all liquor imported into their respective territories?


Hugh Guthrie: This will apply to all
provinces, but difficulty has arisen only in regard to shipments between Ontario and Quebec.	*


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: To whom would these shipments to Quebec go, to private persons?


Hugh Guthrie: No, persons licensed by
the Quebec Liquor Commission to receive them. But under the Doherty Act at the present time they can only ship to the commission authorized by the province.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported.

City of Ottawa Agreement

[Stage Direction]
Hon. H. A. STEWART (Minister of Public Works) moved that the house go into committee to consider the following proposed resolution:
That, it is expedient to authorize the Minister of Public Works, on behalf of His Majesty, to tenter into an agreement with the corporation of the city of Ottawa to extend the period of the existing agreement with the corporation for one year from July 1, 1933.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Smith (Cumberland) in the chair.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I ask the minister if it is his intention to introduce a bill based on this resolution, if carried?


Mr. STEWART (Leeds):: Yes, Mr. Chairman, it is necessary to do so in order to make payments out of the consolidated revenue fund.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Will the minister explain the nature of the measure?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: The proposition
is simply to continue an arrangement that has been in existence for some years past between the government and the city of Ottawa with respect to certain services, and the supply of water at the same rates as have been paid for some years. This agreement was made some ten years ago, I think, and amended while my right hon. friend was Prime Minister, and for the last three or four years it has simply been continued at the same rate, $100,000 per year for water. There is nothing else involved. Many of the questions that arose under the agreement have been settled from time to time and have passed out of the realm of practical matters, and this really applies only to the payment of $100,000 per year for water.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not know, Mr. Chairman, whether this is the moment to discuss the broader question of the relations of the city and the government, but I would like to suggest to the minister that when he is taking up with the city council of Ottawa the question of an agreement between the government and the city he seek to impress upon His Worship the Mayor and the members of the council that something besides the mere letter of agreements is worthy of consideration between large bodies such as the government of Canada and the corporation of the city of Ottawa. As the minister well knows, the government of Canada at very considerable expense expropriated certain pro-74726-20
perties in the city of Ottawa for the purposes of a national park. Before doing so there were conferences between the city and the government as to the extent to which cooperation between the two might obtain in accordance with a generally understood plan. In a word the plan was that a large area in the centre of the city should be set aside as a park to be designated Confederation park, as a permanent memorial to the celebration of the diamond jubilee of confederation. Before any move was made by the federal government, as my hon. friend well knows it was necessary to call into conference the mayor and certain members of the board of control of the city at the time, and secure their general agreement to the plan. It involved action on the part of the city as well as on the part of the government. As far as the government was concerned the carrying out of the plan involved the expropriation of large areas of property in the heart of the city, and paying, I think, over $3,000,000 for properties to be demolished in order that the city which is also the capital might be provided in part with the proposed park. The city itself also undertook to make certain expropriations, and among other things did carry out an agreement to widen a considerable portion of Elgin street so as to permit of the park having a very wide street on the west as an approach to the parliament buildings.
In the course of consideration of the whole plan the question came up as to what was to be done with the few buildings remaining within the area it was proposed to set aside for the park; that area being bounded by Elgin street on the west, the canal on the east-or rather the street just beyond the canal on the east side, I have forgotten the name for the moment-


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Nicholas street.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, Nicholas street, and Sparks or Wellington street on the north and Lisgar street, I think, on the south, I mean the far side of Cartier square where the Normal school is at present located. As hon. members will recognize, already most of that is in the nature of park area, and the question came up as to what would be done with buildings that might still remain within it as the time drew near for their being demolished. While there was not a written underbaking with respect to what would be done in that regard, the understanding was that no new buildings should be allowed to be erected within that area, and that as far as the city hall itself was concerned, if the time came that it was to be

City o) Ottawa Agreement

taken down or demolished, that location would fall into the general park area. As I was Prime Minister at the time and had to do directly with the negotiations, in which the federal district commission was also concerned, I would like to make it quite clear that there was no doubt in the minds of His Worship the Mayor and the board of control and the city council at the time or of the federal district commission or of the government of the day as to what the understanding was and the basis on which the government proceeded to make the expropriations which it did. Certainly if there had been any possibility of the city not cooperating in a wholehearted manner with the government in the improvement of the capital along the lines laid down, the government of that day would not have asked parliament to appropriate 83,000,000 or thereabouts for the expropriation of an area which lies right within the heart of the city.
The point I wish to make is this: the mayor and city council of Ottawa at the present time have called for designs for a new city hall.


Richard Bedford Bennett: On the old site?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Well the intimation is that the design should relate to the old site, but I understand that His Worship the Mayor has made it clear that that is more for the purpose of getting designs which will enable the city council to form estimates of what such a building would cost than actually to fix the location of the new building. I think the idea is to get the estimates at once for a building of a certain size, but not finally to decide upon a site until there have been further conferences with the government. That is my reason for mentioning at the moment what my understanding is of the arrangement made between the city and the government at the time the government asked this parliament to appropriate large sums of money for the expropriating of certain properties.
I should like to ask the government to stress with the city, if they will, the point that the object of the park is to provide a great open centre which will be not only an adornment to the capital of Canada but also something of practical service to the citizens of Ottawa, who are equally concerned in having a central park which can be used for ceremonial and other occasions and for gatherings of different kinds not to speak of the day to day use by children, young people, and persons of all ages. There is a civic end as well as a government end to be served,

and I should like to point out that there would be as much justification for the government taking the properties that it owns to-day in the park area and beginning to erect government buildings on them as there is for the city to claim the city hall site' as the one on which to construct a new city hall, since that site comes within the park area.
The government has expropriated all the land along the west side of the canal between Sparks street and Laurier avenue; it has constructed a fine driveway there of which the city has the advantage to-day. That drive is being maintained by the federal district commission. If the government of Canada were to take the ground that merely because they owned that land they could put up buildings within the park area, they would be perfectly justified in building on that roadway. They would be equally justified in putting up large public buildings in the area between Wellington and Sparks street, between the post office and Elgin street and south of Sparks street between the city hall site and Sparks street. The government of Canada would have as much justification for using land which it owns and which it has thrown into a genaral park scheme as the civic authorities have in claiming for building purposes the use of the south side of the old city hall which now has come into the park area. As a matter of fact as yet the civic authorities have not carried out a part of their specific agreement which was set out in writing, calling for the removal of the fire hall and police station from the park area. That should have been done years ago in accordance with the terms of the agreement.
This whole matter has relation to a plan in which all the governments of Canada have been interested and will continue to be interested. The government of Sir Robert Borden appointed a commission which went very carefully into the whole question of the future planning of the capital, and that commission recommended a large park in the centre of the city. The Liberal government which succeeded the Conservative administration of that day sought to carry on the plans of improvement of the capital that had been initiated and commenced by the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and continued by the government of Sir Robert Borden. I hope the minister will impress upon the city authorities the fact that in these negotiations between the city and the government there are larger considerations involved than just the matter of one small site.
I should like to add this, that I am sure this parliament will wish to be generous within reason with the city of Ottawa. That has

City oj Ottawa Agreement
been the attitude of parliament in the past and I am sure it will be so in the future, but parliament will expect a like attitude on the part of the city authorities. I hope it may be possible for the government, through its negotiations, to complete some arrangement which will ensure that the park area will be preserved as originally intended, and which will also enable the city to carry out some plan with regard to the erection of a city hall in connection with a scheme which will have the full approval of the administration of the day.


Mr. CHEVRIER:: Mr. Chairman, as one
whose honour and privilege it is to represent the capital city of this dominion, in association with my colleague, may I be permitted to associate myself with the remarks just made by my right hon. leader. Though the city of Ottawa belongs to its citizens it also belongs to the whole of Canada as its capital city. On a former occasion, when it was my privilege to speak with regard to the construction of the Victory Tower, I think Hansard will bear out that I said that the construction should be such as to represent the desires, the ambitions and the hopes of the Canadian nation so that the tower might in some way represent all these sentiments.
I do not know what the intention of the government may be with regard to the city of Ottawa, but I would ask that the government should not forget that Ottawa is the capital city of Canada, and that to it come legislators from the various provinces of Canada and visitors from the four corners of the earth. So I think that the government should do everything within reason, even in these very distressing times, to make the capital city of the dominion well worthy of the ambition, the courage and the fortitude of the Canadian nation, of which the right hon. Prime Minister is so wont to speak. When that time comes when the government feel like spending something, I would ask them to consider the fact 'that as one of the representatives of the city of Ottawa I have urged that this is one city that ought to be recognized throughout Canada.


Mr. STEW  ART@Leeds: In reply to my
right hon. friend I can only say that I have reviewed the file of correspondence and representations in connection with the park area to which he has referred, and undoubtedly he has interpreted that correspondence quite properly. There have not been any recent negotiations with the city in connection with the proposed construction of a city hall on the old site, so all I know is what I have 74726-20J
read in the press. From those reports I would expect that in the future there might be some discussion of this matter, and certainly I shall bring to the attention of the representatives of the city on such occasions the contentions and representations that have been made by my right hon. friend, because he has been thoroughly familiar with the matter since its inception.
Bound up with this matter is more than simply the opening of a park area. We must consider also the location of the national monument and other questions which undoubtedly, in the near future, will call for a conference between the government and the city. I can only say that we have endeavoured to arrive at a conclusion that is in the best interests of the Dominion of Canada and of the city, and that is calculated to carry out the original intention, so far as possible, as it is expressed in the correspondence.
I can only add that by this legislation we cannot in any way deal with the matters mentioned by my right 'hon. friend; the act has no application whatever to anything of that kind, since it deals only with certain services for which we make an annual payment.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think it only proper to say that some time ago we set up a committee of council consisting of the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Stewart), the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Manion) and Sir George Perley to consider this whole matter. The representations which the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) brought to the attention of the house this afternoon were present in the minds of that committee. The report in the press was made available, and the representations made by the city authorities at that time were communicated to the committee. Certainly there is no agreement and there would seem to be nothing in the nature of an arrangement which bound the city with respect to the rebuilding of the city hall so far as we can ascertain. I speak subject to correction with respect to that. There seemed to be however an understanding that the park was to be continued through to Cartier square. I believe expropriation proceedings were taken by the city with respect to the area which lies to the west of the Roxborough apartment.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is right.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Also, the property which lies to the north of that was expropriated leaving, as the right hon. gentleman has said, the fire hall, which is still on city property so far as I have been able to ascertain.

The Address-Speaker's Ruling


William Lyon Mackenzie King: And the police station.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, the police station, the fire hall and the city hall stand in the same position. The matter is now in a position whereby at an early date, whenever time permits the three gentlemen named as a committee of council to meet the city authorities they are to do so and discuss the matter further.
Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in. Mr. Stewart (Leeds) thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 8 to authorize an agreement between His Majesty the King and the Corporation of the City of Ottawa.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, February 2, consideration of the motion of Mr. Gobeil for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, the amendment thereto of Mr. Mackenzie King and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Gardiner.
Pierre Édouard Blondin: Before an hon. member proceeds to speak in the debate I should like to make some observations. Mr. Gobeil moved:
That an address be presented to His Excellency the Governor General to offer the humble thanks of this house to His Excellency for the gracious speech which he has been pleased to make to both houses of parliament.
Mr. Mackenzie King moved in amendment:
That the following be added to the motion: We respectfully submit to Your Excellency that Your Excellency's present advisers do not possess the confidence of the country.
Mr. Gardiner moved:
That the amendment be amended by inserting after the word " advisers " the words " and official opposition."
Mr. Gardiner in moving the amendment to the amendment is reported at page 105 of Hansard of January 30, as follows:
The amendment as amended would then read: "We respectfully submit to Your Excellency that Your Excellency's present advisers and official opposition do not possess the confidence of this house or of the country.
The hon. member was mistaken in stating that the amendment to the amendment would so read. He has not moved to add the words "of this house or," and they are not contained in Mr. Mackenzie King's
(.Mr. Bennett.]
amendment. If the subamendment were adopted it would make the amendment read as follows:
That the following be added to the motion: " We respectfully submit to Your Excellency that Your Excellency's present advisers and official opposition do not possess the confidence of the country.
The adoption of the subamendment would make the amendment a motion of want of confidence in the official opposition. Members of the official opposition are but individual members, and are not charged with the duty of advising His Excellency. The question as to whether or not the official opposition has or has not the confidence of the public is settled by the mere fact that it is the opposition. It is immaterial that His Excellency be made aware at the present time whether the official opposition or any other party or group has or has not the confidence of the public as long as the government of the day has the support of a majority of the House of Commons. Of this fact His Excellency has been officially advised.
If a vote of want of confidence in a government is carried it means the resignation of the government, His Excellency's advisers. On the other hand a vote of want of confidence in the opposition is of no effect and not a matter to be submitted to His Excellency. It is a well known principle of British parliamentary practice that votes of want of confidence are directed only against the government of the day. I therefore declare the subamendment out of order.


Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Melville):: Mr. Speaker, now that it has been decided to go ahead with the debate on the address I am permitted to get my little say off my chest two or three days sooner than I had anticipated. For that I am very grateful.
Turning to the speech from the throne I have much pleasure in announcing that I believe I shall be able to support one of the important measures forecast, namely legislation to facilitate the efficient and profitable marketing of live stock and agricultural products. I shall support it particularly if it lives up to the forecast contained in the press as to what is to be the nature of such legislation. I understand it is to be patterned after the British Agricultural Marketing Act of 1931 which I have in my hand. If Canadian legislation follows the British it will greatly facilitate the marketing of live stock and other farm products.
I regret however that, apparently deliberately, the government allowed a first class marketing medium to die right before its

The Address-Mr. Motherwell
eyes. I refer to the Cooperative Live Stock Association established in 1928, the operations of which extended across Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which had done a very important commission business for a number of years and had just nicely got into the export trade. This Canadian organization had first class connection with the Scottish Cooperative Association in Edinburgh, but it was struck amidships first by adverse exchange in September, 1931, and then by the fact that the government reduced the grant by S10,000. These two unfortunate circumstances combined to put this institution on the rocks.
It was therefore up to the government to do something in connection with the marketing of live stock, and apparently it is about to do something, although it is a little late. I do not know whether or not the Cooperative Live Stock Association, to which I have referred, is still alive, but certainly it is not functioning as an export institution.
I shall not deal at length with the wheat agreement; I should like to see it first. May I tell the government that there is considerable opposition growing up throughout the country against such an agreement. I should not like to take the stand some people are taking. Although I have read Premier Bracken's first class presentation of the subject, I do not quite see how it can work out. Possibly however as time goes on we will get more light on the subject. I am going to enumerate a number of blunders, from our standpoint, which the government has made during the last four or five years in the disposition and marketing of our grain, and in their attempts to stabilize this, that and the other thing. Nearly every attempt made by any country to do something spectacular of an artificial nature, which I am sure the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) does not agree with very much on general principles, to try to get us out of the difficult position we are in has been a failure, and this government's record in this respect is not dissimilar to that of any other country-possibly a little bit worse.
The first matter to which I wish to refer is the Prime Minister's entry into the interimperial field of diplomacy in 1930. We all remember that he went to London on October 1, after having first shoved up the duties on many British goods. Then he promenaded to London and announced that he had arrived. Let me refer for a moment to the Prime Minister's first speech, I think it was, in England, and remember, he was proceeding to carry out his blasting and blazing
policy at that time. After first slapping the British people, his kinsmen, in the face by shoving up the tariff on a number of British commodities he announced this:
We must approve or reject the principle. I have put the question definitely to you and definitely it should be answered.
He not only intimates there how he is going to apeak but suggests how they should reply. He went on:
There is here no room for compromise, and there is no possibility of avoiding the issue.
You would think our kinsmen over there were trying to dodge him. He continued:
Ihis is a time for plain speaking, and I speak plainly when I say that the day is now at hand when the peoples of the empire must decide, once and for all, whether our welfare lies in closer economic union or whether it does not. Delay is hazardous, further discussion of the principle is surely unnecessary. The time for action has come.
_ Well, if that is the new diplomacy, if that is the policy of blasting and blazing, and I think apparently it was, results came immediately which resulted in our premier coming home empty handed. Before he was in London eight days, I think it was exactly on the eighth day, the Prime Minister let all and sundry know that " where MacGregor sat, that was the head of the table." He was on the radio talking to the world, instead of engaging in a conference. That is such a painful incident that I will leave it with that historic remark of Hon. Mr. Thomas- "humbug." I shall not try to paint the lily. That was major blunder No. 1 in 1930.
In 1931 there was another big blunder, although affecting a relatively small number of people in Saskatchewan. That was when the government undertook to give a five cent bonus on wheat to the growers of the west. It was spoken of first as a compensating adjustment, but it was in the nature of relief or bonus and it followed a very excellent speech made by the Prime Minister on July 1, 1931, in which he announced to the people of Canada the calamity that had struck the western plains because of the drought in that area. But imagine the consternation of the people when they found that to those who had had a fine crop this government disbursed over 811,000,000, and the bigger the crop the more of a bonus the farmer got; while on the other hand, those who had no crop at all or very little got nothing which they did not have to pay back or give a promissory note for. That was the most amazing spectacle of stupidity and asininity in the whole administration of relief, and

The Address-Mr. Motherwell
nobody has ever even attempted to justify such a record. The municipalities in the southwest feeling strongly that they were entitled to some consideration when others were getting a cash handout, not something to be given back but a gift, a Christmas box, sent a deputation to Ottawa proposing that a bonus of one dollar per acre be given in the southern part of Saskatchewan, which was so hard hit on that occasion, and this was refused. That refusal was blunder No. 2-a most egregious and stupid blunder that no parliament of seventeen-year-old schoolboys would ever think of committing. I want to tell my hon. friends over there that that was one of the first things that caused the present government to take a terrible slide in the estimation and confidence of the people of the west. Everybody knew it was wrong. Even those who got the five cent bonus knew it was most unmercifully unjust to the southwesit and that is one of the many reasons why the government is rapidly sinking further and further in the estimation of the people of the west.
Then we had the Ottawa conference in 1932. Of course, there was no conference in 1931, or there would have been a more major blunder then. But there were conferences in the other three years. In 1932 a conference was called by the Prime Minister after consulting with the overseas dominions. Of course, we thought then, with the Prime Minister playing the part of host, that everything would be as nice as pie, that everything would be lovely. I think this was the very building the conference was held in. If one-half the reports we got were true, it was anything but a harmonious family gathering. But we will not dwell upon that. We all regret the rumours. Our Prime Minister did not come out of that conference with very great laurels upon his brow.
I want to refer to one statement that is being made ail over by the government and its supporters, and that is that we got a preference on our wheat which was tantamount to getting six cents a bushel more than we otherwise would have got. Out in the west the western Tory members are continually trying to leave that impression, although the Prime Minister said distinctly on October 12, 1932, that he had no thought of exacting six cents per bushel more from the homeland for our wheat, thereby adding to the cost of bread in the old country. Here are the Prime Minister's words, at page 135 of Hansard of October 12, 1932:
I have never at any time represented to the wheat growers of this country that the effect
[Mr. Motherwell.1
of a preference would be to set up in their favour a price differential in world markets and at the expense of the British consumer.
That is plain enough, yet the followers of the right hon. gentleman are continually stating out in the west that we get a preference which amounts to six cents a bushel for our wheat.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman has
misunderstood that. The Canadian producer does get six cents more than the foreigner gets for his wheat.


William Richard Motherwell: It hits the foreigner but it does not help us. With the low value of foreign currencies, the foreigner has still the edge on us just the same. For fear that we might get a little bit out of that preference, look at the proviso in article 4 of the United Kingdom-Canada agreement. We get the preference provided we sell our wheat "at prices not exceeding the world prices." That is the proviso. Here are the terms of the contract. Of course, we know who put that in there and who agreed to it. It was Mr. Baldwin who put that in to protect himself when he went home, and the Prime Minister of this country wanted article 4 of the agreement so that he would be able to say that he got a preference for our wheat in the British market. But we get no better price. It is just the same as we have been getting for the last fifty years, and we can go on getting it for the next five years under this contract. Blunder number three.
What else took place in 1932? I think it was in 1932 that the hon. member for South Battleford (Mr. Vallance), the hon. member for AVillow Bunch (Mr. Donnelly) and the hon. member for AVeyburn (Mr. Young) raised the question as to the relationship between the government and Mr. John I. McFarland who was then operating on the Winnipeg grain exchange. I understand that primarily he went to that exchange as the representative of the pool, and whether or not they suggested it, I understand that that appointment was pleasing to the government. Things drifted on until Mr. McFarland became the hedging medium of almost the entire grain trade of Canada. That is the statement made by the Prime Minister in 1932, but prior to that his colleague had made the bold statement that Mr. McFarland was not dealing in wheat, either directly or indirectly, and was not on the market at all for the government. He said that Mr. McFarland was independent of parliament and of the government. What extraordinary statements to make! Who is this Goliath that is on the market and is independent of everyone, including the Prime

The Address-Mr. Motherwell
Minister? I wonder from whom he takes his orders? Does he take his orders from the pool or from the Prime Minister?
We find that since the fall of 1930 when Mr. McFarland began to stabilize the market, whatever that means, the stabilization has consisted in prices going down to the lowest point in four hundred years. Yet this gentleman was supposed to have authority not only to stabilize the Canadian market but to stabilize the world market. Those are his very words.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Whose words?


William Richard Motherwell: It did not stabilize-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Whose words are those?


William Richard Motherwell: The words of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens). That stabilization process did not but momentarily keep up prices, but it did result in Canada hoarding her wheat until the carry-over was larger than ever before. I have some figures which I obtained from the pool at Regina and from what I know about them I consider them substantially correct. I want to establish that while the operations of Mr. John I. McFarland were well intended by the government, they resulted in prices going down to an all-time record. That is the admission made in a leaflet which has recently been got out by the federal and prairie governments. The yield during the last four years has been smaller but the carry-over in each year has been larger than in the preceding four years. The average total production for the crop years 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929 was 439,000,000 bushels, while the average total production for the last four years, 1930, 1931, 1932 and 1933, under this government and under the stabilization of Mr. John I. McFarland, was only 368,000,000 bushels. The average production for the last four years was therefore 71,000,000 bushels less than the average production for the preceding four years. The carry-over for 1926 was 40,000,000 bushels; for 1927, 53,000,000 bushels; for 1928,
92,000,000 bushels and for 1929, 127,000,000 bushels, a total of 312,000,000 bushels. The carry-over for 1930 was 127,000,000 bushels; for 1931, 140,000,000 bushels; for 1932, 137,000,000 bushels and estimated for 1933, 219,000,000 bushels, a total of 623,000,000 bushels, so that the average carry-over for this four-year period, 1930 to 1933, was 155,000,000 bushels, or twice the amount of the average carry-over of the previous four-year period. These figures show that while the average annual production for the years 1930 to 1933 was 71,000,000 bushels less than it was for the years 1926 to 1929, the average annual carryover for 1930-33 was over 76,000,000 bushels in excess of the average annual carry-over for 1926-29.
I will admit that Mr. McFarland might be able to hold up the price of grain momentarily or temporarily; I will admit that he might do it for an hour or two a day or perhaps for twenty-four hours, but there are two things that will always happen when you try to hold up prices above those obtaining on the world's markets. One of two things, and perhaps both, will happen. Wheat will be thrown on the Winnipeg market from Chicago, or elsewhere the price will be beaten down and Mr. McFarland will be put in the position of endeavouring to do the impossible by holding up the market while great volumes of grain futures are thrown at him from all sides. The only result is what did happen,-down goes the price until it reaches a record low for the last four hundred years. That is one thing that will happen. The other is that the slight degree to which he holds up the market immediately loses us export opportunities. Everyone knows that the moment we get out of line with competing countries, exporting ceases or dwindles away to a mere dribble. This policy, begotten of the very best intentions, has resulted in doubling our carry-over in the face of smaller crops during the last four years. I hope I have made myself plain on this point because I do not want to dwell any longer upon it than is actually necessary.
In 1932 the government entered upon a program of fake preferences. They made good and sure that -we should not receive any benefit from them by putting in the contract the stipulation that we must sell as we have always been selling, at world prices. That policy and the apparently free-lance appointment of Mr. McFarland had regrettable reactions, but I do not feel like blaming the government too much for them. These policies did not bring the results anticipated for the simple reason that the Argentine and Australia were able to undersell Canada, even though their products were of an inferior grade. This was made possible because of their depreciated currencies. Now that Mr. McFarland is hedging almost the entire wheat crop it cannot be said any longer that he is acting personally for a company or for the pool. He has the credit of Canada behind him and I think this house is entitled to know exactly what he is doing. I have placed some questions upon the order paper but sufficient time has not elapsed to make a complaint about not receiving answers. My information is that Mr. McFarland is in the employ and the pay of the government. Anyway, he has an office and staff.
The Address-Mr. Motherwell


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think it well to correct that at once. Mr. McFarland is receiving no pay, either from the government or from anyone else. He is giving his services.


William Richard Motherwell: I have two or three questions on the order paper.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He never was employed
by the government and the government has no control over his employment. It is by the pool.


William Richard Motherwell: Does the Prime
Minister wish the house to accept his statement that during all these years Mr. McFarland has been working for nothing and paying his own board and lodging?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I understand his expenses are being met by the pool.


William Richard Motherwell: He must be a very wealthy man.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He is a very publicspirited man.


William Richard Motherwell: In the meantime, I accept the statement that he is not getting any expenses.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I did not say that; I said he was getting expenses.


Ernest Lapointe: It is said the pool pays his expenses.


William Richard Motherwell: But the statement has been made all along that the pool is not paying his expenses. That is on record in Hansard; the Minister of Trade and Commerce said that several times.


Henry Herbert Stevens: No, no.


William Richard Motherwell: Oh, yes; I will have it hunted up after six o'clock and we shall see what the hon. gentleman did say.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Be reasonably accurate.


William Richard Motherwell: I hope the hon. gentleman will look up the figures with regard to these carry-overs. With less wheat he has got a double carry-over.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Of course; anyone who knew anything about it would know that.


William Richard Motherwell: If you had a one bushel crop could you have a one hundred and fifty million carry-over? The more you have, the greater the chances are of a carry-over. But with Mr. McFarland hoarding wheat, just as they hoarded wheat in the United States, it is no wonder North America gained the reputation of being hoarders of wheat, compelling buyers in Europe to turn 
to other sources for their supplies. It has been a huge blunder on the part of hon. gentlemen, who evidently do not know anything about their business in this respect. That is the trouble.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Don't get personal; don't be rude. Keep within the rules.


William Richard Motherwell: This is the time, we are told, to make complaints, to ventilate our grievances, and my constituents are anxious to have from the government an audited statement of the business of John I. McFarland during all these years. I will not take the responsibility of running into an election and admitting that I have not done anything to see that this matter has been thoroughly explained to the people, that they have not been made aware of the relationship of the government with Mr. McFarland and also with the pool. My information is that the original wheat which the pool turned over to Mr. McFarland has not yet been sold and accounted for to the pool. If that is so, and I believe it is, what a wonderful medium of getting rid of our wheat we have had all these years' They were going to show the pool how to sell wheat. Now, Mr. McFarland has occupied the position almost of a receiver. Well, he received the wheat, but he has not sold it-just transferred it into futures. He has not liquidated the pool wheat; and I understand that* not having done any of these things, he has really defaulted or been neglectful in his duties as receiver, so that it is up to the government, for their own sake as well as for Mr. McFarland's, to elucidate a little their relationship with Mr. McFarland and to let us know how much longer that gentleman proposes to keep up this hoarding policy. Is it going to be kept up until all the buyers in England are driven elsewhere for their supplies?
Hon. gentlemen may smile, but these are the seeming facts; and these carryover figures are correct. If they have anything further and fuller to offer us I am sure the house will be glad to know what it is. In the meantime I want it understood that we cannot allow this to run any longer. I cannot take the responsibility of not asking the government for some light on this subject-I will not say demanding; I will ask them for it. The Prime Minister two years ago made a very full statement, a good statement on the government's wheat stabilization policy. I do not know whether he understood it himself, but many of us did not.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is the reason you
find it good now.

The Address-Mr. Motherwell


William Richard Motherwell: I have no doubt
the Prime Minister would be glad to be rid of this whole business. I might refer to the situation as it existed last July, when wheat futures reached SI per bushel. Cash wheat was at one time anywhere from 94 to 96 cents.
I happened a little later to have a load of wheat left to sell and received at point of shipment 71 cents. We want to know how much John I. McFarland unloaded when it was at that price and how much he bought in later. We understood that the government intended to get rid of this business as soon as they could. Are they going to wait in order to make money for the pool? Well, that is a noble justification for waiting, but suppose it does not go up. The longer you wait the higher it must get because of carrying charges. Every time you sell futures at low and buy it high it costs money. I hope therefore that the Minister of Trade and Commerce or the Prime Minister or someone else will explain the relationship of the government to Mr. McFarland. The Minister of Trade and Commerce has made the statement that Mr. McFarland is responsible to neither the government nor to parliament, and if he is trading in wheat on his own account that is his own business.
Now we come to the wheat agreement. I do not know how it will turn out, but while Russia has agreed to the principle of the agreement the fact remains that she has not agreed to her allotted quota, and to the extent that we may back up they can step in and throw all the wheat they like on the British and European market. That is the situation as I understand it. There may have been developments in the last two or three days, but with Russia out of the picture it is absolute folly to talk about restricting our wheat acreage and permitting them.to occupy our place. There is another factor to be taken into consideration in this connection, and that is that in addition to wheat all these countries grow rye. So that all that their farmer would have to do, even if compelled to reduce his acreage of wheat fifteen per cent, would be to grow that much more rye. Rye is made into bread-occasionally it is made into liquids but for the most part it is made into bread, and good bread, which is used almost entirely in some countries in Europe. The result is that you will have as many loaves of bread as ever, if no provision is being made here with respect to the non-growing of rye. That is another evidence that hon. gentlemen do not know their business with respect to the world grain situation. Here we have had one blunder after another, one tragedy after another, and the end is not yet.
Now we come to the proposal that the farmers, among their other worries, will be prohibited from marketing or possibly growing more than a certain amount of wheat.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


William Richard Motherwell: Mr. Speaker,
shortly before you called it six o'clock some of my statements were perhaps not exactly challenged but almost so by the Prime Minister and by the Minister of Trade and Commerce. As the latter was not in his seat at the beginning of my remarks I am going to repeat something of what I have already said. When I indicated that the government had credited Mr. McFarland with stabilizing the price and steadying the world market, that was disputed. At page 2083 of Hansard of the 1932 session, the Minister of Trade and Commerce said:
To the extent that it held the Canadian market steady in. the face of the rather strange actions of the farm board south of the line it contributed to the steadying of the world market.
Again:
Where the government came into the matter, however-and I have said this three times; I trust my language is not obscure-the government simply guaranteed the banks against loss on the pool's initial payment to the farmers on the purchase of grain.
Then getting back to the quotation I made first with respect to the statement made by the hon. member for South Battleford (Mr. Valiance), here is what he said:
If it is not true it should be stated accordingly, because it is strongly rumoured that John I. McFarland is to-day holding large volumes of wheat, speculating in futures, with the Canadian people's money.
He was speculating in futures-every one knows that-and doing it with the Canadian people's credit; at any rate if you can distinguish between the two I would like to know. So the hon. member for South Battle-ford was substantially correct.
But listen to this amazing statement. The hon. minister, just like the Prime Minister, jumped into the breach, saying:
Oh, no, I must hasten to correct that.
And:
Mr. John McFarland, of course, is independent of parliament and of the government. He is a gentleman of means, a gentleman with knowledge of the wheat business, and if he has bought wheat on his own account that is his own business.
^	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Motherwell
He was never charged with buying wheat on his own account; he was charged with speculating in futures with the credit of the people of Canada and the guarantee of the government; and if he was not an employee of the government why did the government guarantee his account? Is the government going around helping everyone who has an account or a line of credit to be guaranteed? That would be high finance with a vengeance.
Then in reply to the bon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young) the Minister of Trade and Commerce said:
I do not know of a bushel of wheat held by the government, either directly or indirectly.
The same Mr. McFarland was then thought to have between 100,000,000 and 150,000,000 bushels of wheat futures and his line of credit guaranteed by the government, and the minister denies it on a quibble. When I heard that denial I thought I could hear in the distance the cock crowing. It is almost enough to make it crow. That is all I have to say in regard to that; I think I have covered all the points that were challenged.
Now a word about the stabilization fund, not Mr. McFarland's, but under the Department of Finance. It is not anything that has been done by the government that I am complaining of; it is what has not been done. For eighteen months on every dollars' worth of goods exported from Canada, whether from the factory, the farm or the forest, that was paid fior in British pounds, from ten to thirty per cent was lost in exchange on the transaction. That is what I am complaining about. The government, when it brought down the regulations for the stabilization fund, admitted that loss although its provisions did not include wheat. Why were they paying it if they didn't know their previous attitude was ruinous to the farmer? No; the government tied our dollar up to the American dollar; they legislated for the big fellow with obligations in New York; then at a late hour, when the British pound was coming right anyway, the government magnanimously came along and said:	We
will pay that exchange.
Mr. MeINTOSH: And the farmers lost millions.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, that is what
I complain of. They paid out just $20,000 or so when the minister himself estimated anything between $5,000,000 and $10,000,000. Just when the thing had cured itself along came the act providing for payment of ex-

change, and when they got the regulations fixed up they paid about $20,000, none of it being on wheat.
Now I agree with the Prime Minister about one thing, namely this carry-over, which has been growing furiously under this same stabilization policy of Mr. McFarland; which doubled during the last four years as against the previous four, although the crop averaged
11,000,000 bushels less for the last four years than for the previous four. I think the Prime Minister is quite right in saying that something should be done to remove that carry-over, but the action should not be to go to the farmers and tell them to grow less wheat. What justification have we when we hear statements like that of Mr. Cromie of the Vancouver Sun, made after travelling extensively in India, China and other countries, that three quarters of the population of the world go to bed at night with empty stomachs, while a good number of the remaining quarter go with a stomach too full. Suppose that is exaggerated; suppose half the people of the world go to bed hungry, what justification have we for reducing the present abundance in order to benefit those countries who have too much, and letting the other half of the world starve to death? You are just making C.C.F.'ers every day by following such a policy. You are discounting and damaging the very system that most members of the government believe is all right, the capitalistic system-and I too think it is the best in sight with some corrections; it should be bitted and bridled, however, and not let run around loose as at present. Last year I put on the order paper a resolution, and in the absence of the Prime Minister I am going to thank him now, the first opportunity I have had, for his very gracious and generous remarks in that connection. But what is the use if he does not act on them? Here is the resolution, omitting the introduction:
And be it further resolved,-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.
Three things may stand in the way of that being carried out. One is, can you find anywhere in this world in which half the people go to bed hungry a country to which you can sell wheat on long credits? We had representatives from China trying to negotiate an arrangement with the government a year ago.

The Address-Mr. Kennedy (Peace River)
I do not care where the wheat goes, whether to China or Japan or Russia, so long as it goes into consumption and we are not guilty either of destroying it or taking steps to prevent future abundance of it. So long as it goes to help someone and establishes a trade contact with some country that has not yet learned to use our wheat, it satisfies me. We want to develop a taste for wheat flour and wheat bread and get contacts with these countries with huge populations. We have to do it, whether we do it from a humanitarian or a business standpoint. We are being crowded out of Europe, and everyone knows the reason-their desire to become selfsustaining in the event of war, and in some measure justified retaliation against Canada for our high tariffs against them. So I suggest with all the earnestness the Prime Minister gave me credit for last year that disposition be made of our surplus wheat on the best terms possible to those hungry countries. It would of course add: a certain amount to the national debt of Canada. Suppose we add 875,000,000-and mark you, Mr. Speaker, we are responsible more than any other country in the world for this huge cany-over-in my estimation even if the government should add 850,000,000 or 875,000,000 to the public debt by taking this action I think it would have a better effect than will result from a reduction in acreage, and it would also bring about a new contact with a new country, establish a line of business which we do not have now and help cultivate a further taste for wheat bread. I can remember when Japan consumed very little wheat, while now she is a very large consumer, and it is the same with other countries. That is my alternative suggestion, and in addition I would say that the proposal advanced by the government is not workable. It is more apt to increase than decrease production, as experience has shown in the United States during the past twelve years.
I know that to many of our eastern friends the question of wheat is a complex problem, but I am going to point out that the government do not even know much about hogs. I have here the official hand-book of present conditions and recent progress in Canada for 1933. We have the picture of the Prime Minister in the front of the booklet, as large as life and twice as natural, and here we are told the kind of hogs we should grow, according to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, who goes on to elaborate on the great market that has been opened to us. But, he says, we must grow the right kind of hogs. Here we have the picture of an alleged pedigreed
Yorkshire brood sow. It does not look very much like a sow to me, but that is what it is said to be. Of course I do not blame the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) for this, though the experimental farm is credited with supplying the cuts for these pictures for the Department of Trade and Commerce. Then directly below is shown a group or litter of twelve Yorkshire geldings, so called. What a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of a government that knows nothing about either wheat or hogs. On a very superficial, cursory examination, we find that the alleged brood sow is not a sow at all but the gentleman pig himself.
This pamphlet has gone to libraries in every part of the British Empire, Mr. Speaker. I know when I was in the department these bulletins went to every part of the world. We all know the present fad for research, and just think, perhaps a hundred years from now some technocrat or research devotee will be going through the files of some of our libraries in order to see what was done at the Ottawa conference. I have no doubt, that when he does so he will wonder what kind of political geldings had charge of the destinies of Canada at this time.


Mr. D. M. KENNEDY (Peace River):: 
Mr. BOURASSA:: Oh, no.


Donald MacBeth Kennedy: He left the impression that the people of Europe were afraid that we would again hold them up like that. This agreement is the answer. We say: We will sell to you at fair prices, and they say:	You
are entitled to better prices than you are getting to-day. The fanners of western Canada had nothing to do with setting the price of wheat at $3 per bushel during the war. If there was any setting of prices to be done, it should have been done in connection with not only wheat but everything else in the country. When wheat was selling for $2 per bushel in Great Britain it was worth less than it was during the years when it was selling for around 90 cents and $1 per bushel.
I should like to refer to the report of the Imperial Economic Committee which gives the index numbers of British and American wheat and of all commodities excluding wheat and flour from 1846 to 1930. This table gives the value of wheat in terms of other commodities over this term of years, and the index varied from 54 in 1919, 52 in 1920, to as high as 119. We must go back to 1864 to find a year in which the value of wheat in terms of other commodities was as low as it was in the year 1919. I do not believe there was any bias in the minds of the people who prepared these statistics, nor was there any in the minds of those who prepared the figures for the imperial economic conference. I have this belief in spite of all that has been said to the contrary; if the people of western Canada as a part of the producers of the world were guilty, directly or indirectly, of bringing about the high price of wheat which prevailed during the war, they have certainly more than atoned for it during the past four years by accepting a price for their wheat which is less than half the cost of production.


Mr. F. W. TURNBULL (Regina):: Mr. Speaker, after extending my congratulations to the mover (Mr. Gobeil) and the seconder (Mr. Barber) of the address, which I do most heartily, may I make the observation that several times since this government came into office have I said that it has done more for the farmers of this Dominion of Canada during the three or four years it has been in office than the Liberal government did in the whole nine years previously. The proof of that contention is found in the fact that to-day this government is receiving support for its policies from those gentlemen in the house who do not belong to either of the old parties. We see them rising one after the other and commending the government for what it has done and

is doing with respect to agriculture in this country.
My remarks this evening may be somewhat more fragmentary than usual because I desire to place on record some figures in opposition to some of the fancies that have been given utterance on the other side of the house to-day and in the past day or two. Before doing so however I wish to apply myself to some of the remarks made by the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Thompson) the other day with regard to the relationship of the two central provinces to the western provinces of Canada in the matter of taxation. The hon. gentleman said that 45 per cent of the taxes of Canada were paid by the province of Ontario and 30 per cent by the province of Quebec. Had he said that 45 per cent of the taxes were paid in the province of Ontario he might have been within the mark; but when he says that they are paid by the province, that is an entirely different story. The great companies doing business throughout Canada have their headquarters in Montreal and Toronto to a large extent. The banks, for example, pay one per cent tax on circulation. That circulation is dominion-wide but the tax is paid in eastern Canada, and Ontario and Quebec try to take the credit for it. The great loan companies, the insurance companies, the railway companies and businesses with headquarters in eastern Canada all pay taxes in the east, but they make throughout the dominion the money out of which they pay those taxes. To say therefore that 75 per cent of the taxes in the country are paid by the two central provinces, and to leave that statement unmodified, does not present a true picture of the respective responsibilities of the different provinces of the dominion. The hon. member referred to the wheat pool and the agreements and guarantees. The guarantees will not cost the prairie provinces anything, because they are secured by mortgages on property, and the payments which the pool has agreed to make with respect to the guarantees will be made and continue to be made year by year.
With regard to railway policies, the western provinces have been no more guilty than any other part of the dominion. As regards social legislation, we have perhaps gone further than we ought to have done; but I should like anyone to name me any province that has not done the same. So far as balanced budgets are concerned, the province of Saskatchewan last year came closer to balancing its budget than did any province west of the maritimes. The province of Ontario did not come within $5,000,000 of balancing its budget, whereas Saskatchewan came within half a million. I do not know

The Address-Mr. Turnbull
what the figures are for this year; I am speaking for last year only. In 1928 the agricultural revenue of the three western provinces was $843,000,000, and in 1932, by reason of circumstances not under the control of the ptrairie governments, that .revenue fell to $273,000,000. Under these circumstances is it fair to say that the troubles in the western provinces are due to reckless extravagance on the part of their administrations? I wish to say to the hon. gentleman through you, Mr. Speaker, that the people of the west have been pretty fair customers of the people of eastern Canada, and the people in the east are beginning to realize that fact. Is it right and proper, then, to jump on your customer when he is down, instead of giving him a hand to help him to get on his feet again and resume a position in which he can buy? For that reason I ask the people of the east, who have had good crops all these years and have received more for their agricultural products than we have, owing to their proximity to a market, to be more charitable in their views of the western people who are doing their best in a time of adversity to play their part as citizens of the country in which they live.
Now I desire to address myself to some remarks made by the hon. member for West Edmonton (Mr. Stewart) the other day with respect to the tariff. In his address he quoted the tariffs on certain textiles, but he was as far behind the times in doing so as his party always is. The figures he gave were prepared by a man named Deachman over a year ago. They were pi-epared by adding together all the items that could be charged against British textiles. They were wide of the truth when they were prepared. They included dumping exchange duties, the excise duty of 3 per cent charged on all imports, and the sales tax, which is not a duty at all but is imposed on domestic as well as on foreign goods. That gentleman did not omit from the figures as he prepared them one single item which he could think of, and while they may have been in some degree nearer the truth on the day they were compiled than they are to-day, the fact is that the dumping exchange duties were done away with long ago. So that the figures submitted by the hon. member for West Edmonton and the figures placed before the people of Saskatchewan last summer by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) had, at the time they were given, absolutely no truth in them.
I have figures from the customs department with respect to the very goods dealt with by the hon. member for West Edmonton the other day. I am going to give in the first column the articles he referred to; in the second column the duty which he said was. now imposed against these articles; and in the third column I will show what the duty really was according to the figures submitted by the
Department of National	Revenue	on the 1stday of September 1933:	Alleged	ActualArticle	Duty	Dutyper cent	per centCotton print, piece goods..	58-5	26-35White cotton flannelette, bleached	52	25-9Wool piece goods	64	42-7Wool overcoatings	93	40-9High grade suitings.. . .	6S	34-2Wool hosiery	82	34-61Blankets	78	33-4Axminster carpets	80	40-3
The hon. gentleman also quoted rates of duty on agricultural implements. He was correct in these, but he drew the same inference which the leader of the opposition attempted to draw all through the west, namely, that we had placed a burden on the backs of the farmers. The right hon. gentleman, standing on the platform one day in the summer at Estevan, made certain statements to this effect in an area where the people had lost four crops and the fifth was then being consumed by grasshoppers-the very area with respect to which, for six weeks in this house, he refused to consent to relief being afforded the farmers until the house was compelled to pass the measure by closure. Yet he stood on the platform there and said, "Had I been Prime Minister of Canada in the last three years you people would not be in the condition in which you are to-day." The contention was made throughout western Canada that the prices which the farmers have to pay for the things they buy are higher to-day than they were when the present government came into office. Let hon. gentlemen make no mistake about it; the farmers of western Canada know better than that.
I have a list of certain types of farm machinery used in western Canada, showing the prices in Brandon as they were in 1930 and as they were in 1933. Let me quote some of the figures:
14-ineh John Deere gang plough with 4-horse eveners	
Five-section diamond harrow complete with 1-pieoe pulley hitch
drawbar	
Eight-foot outthrow Bissell disc harrow with 4-horse eveners. . . . No. 241-7-foot 9-tooth field cultivator, stiff tooth, with 4-horse steel
eveners	
1930		1933	
149	00	$ 136	5033	90	33	9072	00	68	00113	50	108	50
The Address-Mr. Turnbull

Model "C" manure spreader with 4-horse steel eveners	
20-size Van Brunt drill with double disc ops	
15-27 John Deere model "D" tractor equipped to burn kerosene,
distillate, or low cost fuel oil	
No. 5-10-foot John Deere combine complete	
No. 3-16-foot John Deere combine complete	
25 x 42 Goodi son all steel separator complete with feeder, blower, and perfection weigher and register	
1930		1933	
$ 204	00	$ 198	00249	50	212	501,170	00	940	001,716	00	1,450	002,405	00	1,600	001,530	00	1,470	00
In addition to that the John Deere Plow Company sold these goods on the basis of wheat being worth 75 cents a bushel, and when wheat was at less than 75 cents they allowed a discount on the cash payment on their machinery, so that at times there was 13 per cent discount. So that far from adding to the burden of the farmers, and far from their goods costing them more in 1933 than in 1930, itiheir goods cost less by large sums, besides which this government is now collecting a six per cent sales 'tax. The prices I have given I understand include the sales tax.
During the visit of the leader of the opposition to western Canada, when he began to appreciate the conditions facing the people there he grew very sympathetic and produced a great number of policies that he bad forgotten about since 1921. I could imagine him as a modern Rip Van Winkle who had gone to sleep in 1921 with a 1919 platform or chart before him. He woke up in 1931 to find the 1919 platform as good as new because it had never been used. The famous chart had not even a pin prick on it. He came into that country under these conditions and told the fanners and other people that he was in favour of a national scheme of unemployment insurance, and further that they ought -to have crop insurance to some extent at least against drought, insects and the other matters beyond the farmers' control. The right hon. gentleman promised these farmers things which he knew, or ought to have known perfectly well, weTe not within the power of himself or any dominion government to grant. Take crop insurance; hail insurance in some parts of that country costs 12 per cent-what would it coat to cover damage by grasshoppers and drought, to say nothing of the other plagues to which farm crops are subject?
Because of these promises I have gone to a little detail in getting the history of unemployment insurance in this country. In the first place, the promise of a national scheme of unemployment insurance was contained in the famous Liberal platform of 1919. Under pressure by the labour members from North Winnipeg and Winnipeg North Centre in 1926 a part of that paragraph that promised old age pensions was implemented by giving

grants in aid to such provinces as desired to enter into the scheme. That is the only part of that paragraph that anything was done with at all. The principle of grants in aid, or the placing of money raised by dominion taxation in the hands of the provinces to be disbursed, was afterwards declared by the leader of the opposition to be a vicious principle, and no further attempt was made to carry that principle into legislation. But pressure came from the third party in the house to do something with regard to these matters; election time was coming on and it was necessary to do something. So in 1928 a motion regarding unemployment insurance was referred to the committee on industrial and international relations for investigation, and report. A report, of the committee as set out in the journals of the house dated May 16, 1928, reads in part as follows:
(1)	That the necessity of a policy providing some method of unemployment insurance is one that will inevitably have to be dealt with before long as a solution in part of the industrial problems of the present day.
That sounded all right. Clause 2 accepted the principle of contributory unemployment insurance. Clause 3 reads:
That the evidence of the justice department makes it clear that the responsibility for such legislation rests on the provincial authorities; it being within their jurisdiction under the provisions of the British North America Act, but that it would be within the power of parliament to contribute by grant to such provinces as adopted such legislation, following the precedent set in the matter by technical education, highway construction and more recently the old age pension act.
But the theory of grants in aid having been declared to be a vicious principle, the report of the committee, although adopted by the house, was not followed up. The committee evidently knew the attitude of the government, because instead of recommending immediate action, they recommended by clause 7 that the matter be again referred to the committee on industrial and international relations at a subsequent year. In 1929 the question was again referred to the same committee, and the committee again endorsed the principle of unemployment insurance on a contributory basis. Clauses 2 and 3 of the report, however, read as follows:

The Address-Mr. Turnbull
(2)	Your committee recognizes that while it is highly desirable that such legislation should be uniform in all the provinces and while social insurance has a federal aspect, nevertheless, according to the Department of Justice, under our constitution legislative jurisdiction in relation to the establishment of a compulsory system of unemployment insurance is vested exclusively in the provincial legislatures.
(3)	Your committee finds that the provinces on being consulted by the Department of Labour with regard to their attitude towards the establishment of a general scheme, do not appear to be prepared to take immediate action.
There the matter was dropped. The committee recommended that the federal government be requested to bring the matter before the next dominion-provincial conference. I am informed that the question of unemployment insurance was one of the items dealt with at such a conference a year or two ago, and that the attitude of the provinces was that they are masters in their own house, so that in spite of all these facts, which are well known to the leader of the opposition, we find him during the summer going out into western Canada and telling the people that he is again favourable to a national system of unemployment insurance as well as crop insurance. Similar language was used by him in all parts of western Canada. That is the sort of remedy offered by him to people who are in misfortune; he knows perfectly well he has no power to carry out his promise but he hopes it may carry him into office at the next election. I submit that the only insurance that the leader of the opposition was interested in was the insurance of a job for himself on this side of the house after the next election; he was more interested in his success in that election than in the welfare of the people of western Canada.
In connection with that very question of unemployment insurance it might be well to remind the house that we have heard a great deal, during the last three or four years, about the number of unemployed in Canada. It is to be noted that figures furnished by the United States government indicate that during the last six years in which our predecessors were in office 436,000 Canadians migrated to the United States. They migrated there to get jobs that they could not get in Canada, even during the years of supposed prosperity under the last government. Had those 436,000 not been admitted to the United States during those six years our hon. friends opposite would have had a real unemployment problem on their hands before 1930. Unemployment did not originate in 1930. Hon. members know that in Saskatchewan 74726-21 i
before the provincial election in 1929, there were parades of unemployed to the Hon. Mr. Gardiner to ask him what he was going to do to take care of the unemployed in Regina. If they will read the press they will also know that the leaders of that parade were arrested the next day, brought before the magistrate, and imprisoned for vagrancy. That was the way they treated the unemployed when they were in office, but they are very nice and kind to them now that they are out.
I do not propose to go into very much detail with regard to the wheat agreement or the handling of the wheat by John I. McFarland on behalf of the central agency of the western pools. I would rather leave the speech of the hon. member for Melville (Mr. Motherwell) in that regard to the electors of Saskatchewan. They know what John I. McFarland has done; they know what it has meant to them.


Mr. YOUNG:: They know more than we do.


Franklin White Turnbull: If my hon. friend were
in touch with the farmers he would know also. They know that if it had not been for the operations of John I. McFarland, when they hauled a wagon load of wheat to the elevators to sell they would have been told, "Sorry, but we cannot buy your wheat, because we cannot resell it." It was only through the operations of John I. McFarland on the wheat exchange in Winnipeg that the farmers of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were able to sell large quantities of their wheat at all. They might have put it in storage but they could not have found a purchaser for it except as the wheat moved for export. In that case the carry-over would have been on the hands of the farmers and the cash would have been in the hands of somebody else, instead of the carry-over being on the hands of somebody else and the cash in the pockets of the farmers.
With regard to the reduction in wheat acreage and with regard to the restriction of production, the minimum amount that we are permitted to sell under the agreement is
200,000,000 bushels. In three years since 1921, and including that year, our sales of wheat and wheat in the form of flour combined have been less than 200,000,000 bushels. In the last year that my hon. friends opposite were in office, the year when they had the advantage of those wide markets of which they have spoken, the year when France and Germany and Italy and Czechoslovakia and all the other countries to which we formerly sold wheat shut out our wheat from their markets in spite of the so called low tariff
The Address-Mr. Turnbull

policy of hon. gentlemen opposite, the total amount of wheat sold by Canada was 155,000,000 bushels. When we get a restriction agreement that permits us to sell 200,000,000 bushels it is said to be terrible, to be restricting the farmers' sales, but when other countries put up their tariffs against us, with no protest from hon. gentlemen opposite, so that we can sell only 155,000,000 bushels, that is friendship for the farming population.
There is one matter to which I should like to direct the attention of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens); that is the question of consumption. The average consumption of wheat in Canada and the United States has been rapidly decreasing. Very eminent gentlemen, who are authorities on dietetics and who are supposed to be in the pay of people outside of this country, are persuading people all through Canada and the United States that white bread is not good for them and that they ought to eat something else. I understand they even made an impression on some hon. gentlemen opposite during the vacation. In any event the average consumption of wheat in this country and the United States has been rapidly diminishing. At the present time we are consuming about four and a half bushels of wheat per capita in Canada. There are twelve countries, most of them large buyers of wheat from Canada, whose per capita consumption is greater than ours, and there are nineteen countries whose per capita consumption is less than it is in Canada. If the
130,000,000 people living on the North American continent were to increase their consumption of wheat by one bushel per capita we would have 130,000,000 bushels of this carry-over taken care of at once, and I am told that about one slice of white bread eaten every day will do it.
My suggestion to the Minister of Trade and Commerce is that he get in touch with the national recovery administration in the United States to see whether between the two governments, by an advertising campaign of some kind-a "use more wheat" campaign if you like

you cannot persuade the people of these two countries, as part of the national recovery campaign, to use more bread and in that way assist the agricultural population. Since we have large numbers of United States magazines coming into this country, an advertising campaign carried on by this medium would give cheap advertising in Canada so far as we are concerned.
Having dealt with these matters I wish to touch for a moment or two on the question of national recovery. We are asked from time

to time why we do not do the things that are being done in the United States of America. We are asked why we have not had codes in industry, why we have not set hours in labour, why we have not. set rates of pay and so on. There is a simple answer to all these questions, even if they were good things to do. The simple answer is that the Dominion government has not the legislative authority with which to take any of these steps. It is asked "Why do you not do it under the peace, order and good government clauses?" The peace, order and good government clauses of the British North America Act do not transfer legislative jurisdiction from the various provinces to the dominion at all; they provide for the peace, order and good government of this country within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Dominion government. It is true that in time of war the legislative jurisdiction of the Dominion government is greatly enlarged in order to deal with those matters that are necessary in order to carry a war to a conclusion, but they do not go the extent of allowing the Dominion government, in time of peace, to usurp any of the functions of the provincial governments.
There are those who sneer at the idea that the British North America Act stands in the way of some things that it may be thought desirable to have done. I heard an hon. member say the other day that the British North America Act was used by the party in power as a shield with which to shelter itself from the need for taking action, no matter which party was in power. I have just read the report of the committee of the house, which at that time was under the chairmanship of the hon. member for North Battleford (Mr. McIntosh), and which, though composed mostly of Liberals, also had represented in its membership Conservatives and gentlemen from the third party in this house. The committee concurred unanimously in the view that unemployment insurance was purely a question of provincial jurisdiction.


Mr. McINTOSH:: There is no question about that.


Franklin White Turnbull: Absolutely not, yet hon. gentlemen get up in this house and condemn the government because they do not bring in a bill dealing with unemployment insurance, and in addition we hear those same hon. gentlemen promise that when they get back into power they will do so, though as my hon. friend says there is absolutely no doubt that this parliament has not the power to take that action.

The Address-Mr. Turnbull


An hon. MEMBER:: What about old age pensions?


Franklin White Turnbull: The same was true with regard to old age pensions as a federal scheme. Possibly unemployment insurance can be handled in the same way, provided the provinces are agreeable to having it done in that way and provided we can get away from the idea that it is a vicious principle for the Dominion government to raise money by taxation and allow the provincial governments to spend it. I am somewhat in agreement with the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) in that regard. I think the proper way is not to try to get around the constitution but rather to try to amend the constitution. If it should be a matter of federal responsibility let us amend the constitution and make it a federal responsibility, and then we will not need subterfuges in order to attain the desired end.
The question of national recovery is bound up with questions of monetary policy. Perhaps so far as that is concerned the Dominion government has the legislative jurisdiction, but monetary policy is not the only thing to be considered. This country will not be restored to its one time prosperity by monetary policy alone, neither will it be restored just by the setting up of a central bank. There are those who believe that once a central bank is set up everything will be all right, that anyone who wants money will be able to get it in a bundle. One of the leaders of the C.C.F. party in Saskatchewan said that their policy would be to provide all the money desired by those who produced goods as well as all the money desired by those who purchased the goods. But there is more than monetary policy involved; there is the question of distribution and the marketing of goods. That is both an internal and external question; it has to do both with our domestic and foreign markets. The jurisdiction is divided in that case; the Dominion government has control of exports while the provincial governments have control of marketing within their own borders, and that is another item that must be taken into consideration in considering the question of national recovery.
There is also an economic policy to be considered; the control of production, if that is thought to be essential; the regulation of production, if that is thought to be essential, and the establishment of credits, if that is thought to be essential. I am told there are industries in this Dominion of Canada which already have established codes of their own- it may be one of those things that we hear
called combines, but there are combines which, if they conduct themselves in the interests of the public, are very desirable- and such industries in Canada as have established codes of their own. have thereby regulated their own business in such a way that their products are on the markets of Canada at less money than they were when they followed a policy of ruthless competition instead of one under which they regulate production among themselves.
Then there is the question as to what part industrial relationships should play in the national recovery. The question of hours of labour, rates of pay, insurance against ill health, insurance against accident, insurance against unemployment-these are matters which must be dealt with if a general national recovery is to be brought about. There is the matter of social relationships, and the question of pensions, whether they be war pensions, old age pensions or any other kind. All these are matters in connection with which there is divided jurisdiction.
Then, there is the question of taxation which ought to be considered, and that of the dominion raising money by taxes and giving it to the provinces to be spent. There is the question of the field of taxation. Let us for example consider the income tax. As a western member let me state that in the province from which I come there is an income tax for federal purposes, and one for provincial purposes. Both those income taxes bear heavily upon the western members. It costs us money to come to Ottawa to live and to earn our sessional indemnity. While a commercial traveller is allowed his expenses

while away from home, a member of the House of Commons is not allowed those expenses by the federal government. The provinces have followed the lead of the dominion, and the result is that so far as sessional indemnity is concerned members from Saskatchewan are assessed twice on their gross incomes rather than once on their net incomes. So that there is the question of income tax.
The fact of the matter is that the Dominion government is being asked in all parts of Canada to stage a national recovery while the powers essential to such recovery are largely in the hands of provincial legislatures. The position is an impossible one. In the year 1934 the scheme of things in Canada is entirely changed from what it was in 1867. There have been improvements in transportation, improvements in communication, and a closer relationship between the people in different parts of the country, with the result

The Address-Mr. Turnbull
that matters which were formely of local and private concern or interest are now dominionwide in their scope and extent. The scheme which was wise in 1867 and which operated under conditions prevailing in that year and many years since may not be wise to-day. In those days people lived in communities separated from each other; they had their individual problems which did not infringe on the individual problems of others; they could take care of their own difficulties in a local way. But now our country is bound together by business relationships, communications and transportation; things which formerly affected the people of only one province now affect the dominion as a whole. The production of wheat in Saskatchewan, a local and private matter having to do with property and civil rights, is one which profoundly affects the whole dominion. It is a matter with which the Prime Minister of Canada could not deal at the conference in London until he had before him the request of the three prairie provinces so to deal with it. And when any person says, Mr. Speaker, that this wheat agreement arrived at in London is the result of a Tory policy of restriction, let me say to him that it is the result of the combined requests of a Farmer government in Alberta, a Conservative-Farmer government in Saskatchewan, and a Farmer-Liberal government in Manitoba. The Dominion government in carrying out its policy was only carrying out the policy asked for by those three prairie provinces through their representative, Major Mac-Pherson, whose signature is affixed to the wheat agreement.
The question of reduction of acreage, if there is any reduction-I do not believe there will1 be-is a matter for the provinces to handle. Again we are dealing with a question of property and civil rights, a point which the provinces fully realize. There are those who used to say that the Prime Minister of Canada was an economic nationalist. A few years later when we got the imperial treaties these people broadened their views and stated that he was an economic imperialist. In the course of a few more years they may get further wisdom and describe him as he really is. The fact is that only two international conferences in the last ten years have been successful and have resulted in action, the imperial economic conference of 1932, and the wheat conference in London in 1933. Strange to say, the man who is said not to want to have any truck or trade with his neighbours, the man who has been

referred to as an economic nationalist, was chairman of both those conferences.
The necessity for national recovery is apparent to everybody. Before this federal government can bring about national recovery it must have legislative jurisdiction placed in its hands. In 1934 we need more centralized authority than we did in 1867, all of which brings me to the point that a thorough revision of the British North America Act with regard to the respective legislative jurisdictions of the dominion and the provinces is long overdue. The field of legislative jurisdiction and the field of taxation ought to be reexamined in the light of present circumstances. The fullest protection as now provided for in the act should be given to minorities, but with respect to monetary, economic, social and industrial relationships there should be a revision of the whole scheme of affairs so that the central authority should have control over those things which have a bearing upon the welfare of Canada as a whole. I am of the opinion that the sooner we set about making this change the better.
Unfortunately there are some who hold the view that if one province dissents from an amendment to the British North America Act there can be no amendment. I believe the sooner we get away from that idea the better. We must get down to the point where we will think that even with respect to the British iNorth America Act-and I understand fully the contractual argument-we are dealing with more than a matter of contract among the provinces. In the interests of a minority province whose economic welfare depends upon the welfare of the dominion as a whole I submit that the majority should rule, and that the act should be revised and revamped in all its phases touching upon the welfare of the dominion as a whole, regardless of whether or not one or two provinces hold out against such revision.
I wish to congratulate the government upon the improvement which has taken place in Canada in the last eight months. I do not say that the improvement is due entirely to the action of the government, because we know that world conditions affect our country as all others. I congratulate the government because in a time of stress it has stood firmly through adversity, has led the Canadian people on the right path, and, more than that, has kept the Canadian people from straying into by-ways so that when world recovery, assisted by our legislative scheme, is brought about, we may be in a position to play a large part in it. We are making as much progress as any other country in the world. We are increasing our exports and our imports. We

The Address-Mr. Young
are increasing our exports to the empire and our imports from it. To hon. members who say that because we have done that we have prevented ourselves from trading with the rest of the world, let me say that we are increasing our exports to and our imports from the rest of the world. In all phases we are adding to our prosperity. When the day comes that western Canada can produce again a crop of wheat-they will do it again-and when they add to their wheat production the live stock they are producing to-day, it will be surprising how fast the wheels of industry will begin to turn in the east and how fast the people of the west will begin to pay their debts and again take their places among the prosperous provinces of Canada.


Edward James Young: Mr. Speaker, there is only one remark of the hon. gentleman who has just spoken (Mr. Turnbull) to which I wish to direct the attention of the house. He said that in the spring of 1932, when the relief bill was before the house, the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) by his opposition to that bill prevented the farmers of western Canada who had been dried out the jmar before and needed seed, from getting their seed for six weeks. My hon. friend is not well informed on that matter.
It will be recalled that in the summer of 1931, when it was first realized that the entire western prairie country was to have no crop and likely no seed in the country next year, the government took the precaution of buying what wheat there was in the country and holding it for distribution amongst the farmers the following spring. In the spring of 1932, when the relief bill was before this house and members on this side were opposing it through a protracted debate, it was freely said from the other side that the farmers of western Canada would not get their seed until that bill passed. I am going to be kinder to the Prime Minister and the government than the hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull) was, because with all his faults the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) was not guilty of doing the thing of which the hon. member accuses him. During that debate I had occasion to go west, and when I arrived the snow was still on the ground, the frost had not yet come out, no work had commenced on the land, but the farmers were drawing their seed home from the elevators, and getting it from the Saskatchewan relief commission, and when I came back I found that the same debate was still going on; and so I say I am kinder to the Prime Minister than was the hon. member for Regina. I do not
accuse him of depriving the farmers of the west of seed grain until the opposition yielded and allowed the bill to pass.
As I listened the other day to the Prime Minister, he gave us figure after figure, tables and columns of figures, to prove that at last we were turning the corner and that prosperity was beginning to dawn upon us, until I began to wonder if it was really so. But afterwards, studying the figures carefully in Hansard, I was not so sure of it. At page 63 of Hansard the Prime Minister gives us four tables comparing conditions in Canada with conditions in other countries. The object of giving us this table was to prove that if conditions are bad here they are at least as bad elsewhere. They tell us that misery loves company, that a person can always find some consolation from contemplating others who are as badly off as himself but that has well been described as the " consolation of the damned." It is true that the rest of the world is in distress, but if that teaches us anything, if we can learn anything from the four tables that appear on page 63 of Hansard, it is that the world is a unit, that if one country suffers we all suffer, that if one country prospers we all prosper. When we hurt one country we hurt all countries. When we strangle trade with one country we strangle our own trade. After studying these tables which the Prime Minister submitted I hope that he will never again stand up on a public platform in this country and boast that he is strangling the trade of the foreigner.
On the next page, 64, the Prime Minister submits a table showing improvement figures based on actual quantities; to prove his statement that conditions were getting better in this country, he gives the figures for February, November and December, all in the same year, and right at the top of the table appear the words "No adjustment for seasonal variations." To prove the country is prosperous the Prime Minister shows that in February of last year we imported six million pounds of raw cotton, in November nineteen million pounds, and in December nearly twenty million pounds. Well, anybody would expect -that our cotton manufacturers would bring in more cotton in the fall, when raw cotton comes on the market, than in February, after the market has been supplied. The Prime Minister does not compare the same months in different years. He compares different months in the same year, and the table is of no value whatever.
But if this table were an indication that trade is improving, it is also an indication
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that trade has gone the other way. The figures which he submits in most instances show an improvement from February to November, and then a very decided reaction from November to December. Take newsprint production, for instance. The figures show that our production in February was 125,000 tons, in November 193,000 tons, and in December 175,000 tons. Of planks and boards our exports in February were 37,000,000 feet; in November 102,000,000; in December
99.000.	000; copper exports, February 1,326,000 pounds, November 4,498,000, and -then the figure dropped in December to less than
2.000.	000 pounds; nickel exports, February
3.000.	000 pounds, November 8,500,000, and then a drop to 6,500,000 in December; car-loadings, February 133,000, November 201,000, and then a drop to 157,000 in December; bank debits, February 81,830,000,000, November
82.837.000.	000, and then down to $2,491,000,000, in December, or a decline of nearly $350,000,000; contracts awarded, February 83,000,000, November 810,000,000, and then only 88,000,000 for December. So I say that this table which the Prime Minister has submitted as a sign of prosperity is no indication of prosperity because although it shows an improvement from February to November, it also shows a sharp decline from November to December.
On the same page the Prime Minister gives a table showing the wholesale prices of Canadian farm products, indicating that the average price for the year 1932 was 48-4 per cent of what it was in 1926, and that in 1933 it was 51 per cent. But he makes no allowance for the fact that our dollar in the meantime had gone down from 88 cents in gold to 73 cents in gold, and if you make allowance for that difference, then in order to hold our own the average price for 1933 should have been 561 per cent instead of 51 per cent.
Turning over to page 68 of the Prime Minister's speech, there he gives another example of returning prosperity. He says that he knows one merchant in the city of Ottawa who told him that December was the best month he had had in six years for cash business. But that is no indication of anything. It would be strange indeed if somebody was not doing better than others in this depression. What kind of a merchant was this? It might have been a coal dealer for all we know, and anybody who knows the kind of weather we had here in December will realize that a coal dealer would certainly do more business in that month than in the same month in any of the previous six years.

On page 70 the Prime Minister says that our exports in 1933 amounted to 8531,474,000 as compared with $493,808,841 in 1932. Here again he makes no allowance for the changed value of our dollar. Let us bring those figures to a common denominator and measure them by the unvarying yardstick of gold. Our dollar in 1932 was worth 8S cents in gold; that is the average price for the year; its average price for the year 1933 was 73 cents in gold. Therefore in 1932, when our dollar was worth 88 cents in gold, our exports amounted to $434,551,000, and in the next year, 1933, when our dollar was worth 73 cents in gold, our exports really amounted to only $387,000,000, when you take into account the changed value of the dollar, and that is a very decided reduction when measured by the unvarying yardstick of gold.
On the same page of Hansard the Prime Minister says:
But there is something more than that. The principal fall in our external trade has been with the United States of America.
Further on he says, referring to the Americans:
They have raised almost prohibitive tariffs against the world. They have declined to permit other countries to find markets in their country, and they expect to find markets in ours.
In all the years I have been here I have been trying to denounce the tariff policy of hon. gentlemen opposite, but I have never been able to frame a sentence which so clearly and concisely damns the policy of this government. Let us change the pronoun and we will find that it applies with equal truth. Instead of "they," let us put in "we," and it will read this way:
We have raised almost prohibitive tariffs against the world. We have declined to permit other countries to find markets in our country, and we expect to find markets in theirs.
Did any hon. member on this side ever draw up such a damning indictment of the government's policy as that?
While I am speaking on trade with the United States, let me give a few figures. We have been told repeatedly, especially when we were in office, that this country had an adverse trade balance with that country of some $300,000,000 per year, that we were buying that much more from them than they were buying from us. It was then claimed that the right hon. gentleman would put a stop to that when he got into power. The figures given were substantially true. For the two years 1928 and 1929 our total imports from the United States amounted to $1,715,000,000 and our total exports to that country during

The Address-Mr. Young
the same two years amounted to $1,057,000,000, leaving a so-called adverse trade balance of $S5S.030,000 for the two years. Let us look at the figures for our trade with the whole world. During the same two years our exports to the whole world amounted to $2,-
533,000,000 and our imports amounted to $2,513,000,000. That is, our exports and imports to and from the whole world were almost in exact balance, one almost exactly paid for the other. But our exports to the United States were $658,000,000 less than our imports. What did that mean? It meant that while we were buying more from the United States, we were buying less from other countries, and our exports to the whole world were just about paying for our imports. You will recall that 1928 and 1929 were the years when the American people were extending enormous credits to the people of Europe. The people of Europe were using those credits to buy our wheat, our lumber, our newsprint, our surplus manufactured goods and so on. They could not pay for them with their own money, but the Americans had extended credit to them and said: "Go ahead; buy Canadian wheat, buy Canadian lumber, buy Canadian newsprint, buy Canadian mineral products and so on and we will pay for them." And they did. We sold our products to Europe and we received payment from the United States. We received payment in goods-the kind of goods we wanted-and that was the thing that hon. gentlemen opposite complained of; that was the thing they said they would stop. That is the thing that has been stopped. When the people of Europe could not obtain any more credit in the United States, when the United States would no longer pay for the goods that Europe was buying from us, then we could not sell our surplus products. Yet my hon. friends glory in the ruin they have wrought.
Let us now consider the wheat agreement. On page 75 of Hansard the Prime Minister is reported as quoting a telegram which he received from the premiers of the prairie provinces. I shall read only the third paragraph, which is:
That in view of the present large world surplus of wheat and the present prospect of a further large Canadian crop, some plan of curtailment of wheat production in or exports from the four principal exporting countries is essential to any such price increase;
It is upon that telegram that the wheat agreement has been based. The Prime Minister went over to the economic conference and because he had been advised by the provincial premiers that there was a surplus of wheat in the world, that because of that surplus we could not sell our wheat and it was advisable to curtail production, he took part in the proceedings which resulted in the wheat agreement. Since the opening of this session he has been good enough to place in our hands a pamphlet setting forth the reasons why this wheat agreement is necessary. I shall not take the trouble to read from the pamphlet, but I have made a synopsis of the figures which are to be found on page 8. This pamphlet is the strongest case that could be made out in support of the world agreement. It states that during the thirty years, from 1885 to 1915 the world wheat acreage increased by 100,000,000 acres, an average increase of three and one-third million acres per annum, and that world production in the same time increased by
2.000.	000.000 bushels, an average increase of over 66,000,000 bushels per annum. The pamphlet also tells us that that increase was just about enough to take care of the steadily increasing requirements of the world for no surplus had been built up during all those years. From 1915 to 1922 the world wheat acreage decreased by 41,000,000 acres while production decreased by 850,000,000 bushels. In the next ten years, from 1922 to 1932, the world acreage increased by 75,000,000 acres as compared with the 1922 figure, or 34,000,000 acres more than it was in 1915. Had the normal rate of increase continued from 1915 to 1932, the increase would have been
57.000.	000 acres. As it was, the acreage in 1932 was only 34,000,000 acres more than it was in 1915. World production in 1932 had increased 800,000,000 bushels above what it was in 1922, but it must be remembered that in 1922 it was down 850,000,000 bushels. The production in 1932 was 50,000,000 bushels less than in 1915. The production figures are not yet complete for 1933-34, but it is estimated that it will be 175,000,000 bushels less than in 1932. The total production for 1933-34 will be 225,000,000 bushels less than in 1915. Under normal conditions there should have been an increase of 1,250,000,000 bushels in that time, and the world would have been able to take care of it.


Mr. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: What does
that prove?	.


Edward James Young: It proves that this so-called surplus of wheat is mythical-that there is no surplus. But wheat is not the only food of the human race. People might be eating less wheat and more of something else and production might swing from wheat to rye, from wheat to barley or from wheat to some-
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thing else. In order to get a true picture we must consider not the question of whether there is too much wheat in the world, but whether there is too much food in the world. I have before me the figures for the world production of wheat, oats, barley, rye and potatoes, the five principal foods of the white races. World production in these five foods for the year 1932 amounted to 15,490,000,000 bushels. The average world production of the same foods for the five years from 1926 to 1930 was 18,498,000,000 bushels. In other words, instead of being up, the world production of food in 1932 had decreased 16 per cent below the average. The figures for 1931 reveal the fact that the production for that year was 20 per cent below the average.
In the light of these figures how can anyone say that there is an over-production of wheat in the world? Last year the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) stood in his place in the house and told us that the surplus was rapidly disappearing, that the vast quantities of wheat which the farmers of Europe were in the habit of carrying in the stack and which represented a vast invisible supply had disappeared. The Minister of Trade and Commerce was right when he said that the surplus was largely disappearing, and the time that scarcity is going to overtake us is a year closer than it was when that statement was made. I notice that the minister has not been in his seat while this wheat agreement has been under discussion. I do not blame him because I believe that in his heart he knows there is neither a surplus wheat nor an overproduction. A thousand million people in the world are not getting enough to eat. Give each one of them an extra slice of bread three times a day and the so-called surplus will disappear over night. Some day soon the people of the world are going to wake up to the fact that the world is facing a wheat shortage, that we are actually on the verge of famine. Then the people will rise and demand from their governments an explanation as to why they were not allowed to buy the wheat they needed when the people in other countries were willing to sell it; and the people of this country will rise and demand an explanation as to why this government did not allow us to buy the manufactured goods we needed and which the people of Europe were willing to give in exchange for our wheat.
The trouble is not overproduction of wheat. We must seek the cause elsewhere, and it is to be found in the fact that the governments of the world will not allow their people to buy it, and the governments of the countries that have wheat to sell will not allow their

people to accept goods in exchange for it. The solution of the wheat problem is not to curtail acreage but to find some way of breaking down these barriers that prevent wheat from flowing where it is needed and that stop other goods from coming back in payment for it.
In the prairie section of this country we have only one possible source of wealth, namely, our land. Our soil and our climate are preeminently suited to the growing of wheat. In spite of the fact that we are further from seaboard than any other wheat producing country in the world, we have succeeded in growing wheat and putting it on the world market in competition with all countries. We have met with some measure of success growing it. We have demonstrated our ability to make a living at it, but we have not demonstrated our ability to make a living at anything else. Those who tell us to stop growing grain and go in for mixed farming do not know what they are talking about. The country is, as I say, preeminently suited to the growing of wheat and nothing else, and now we are being asked to abandon the one thing that we can do. To what else can we turn? There is nothing else we can make a living at, and because governments in some other countries are trying to force upon their people an uneconomic policy of trying to feed themselves we are asked to abandon the one thing that we can do. Has any one really practical suggestion been offered by anybody who supports this agreement as to how it will be carried out? How will you enforce it? Are you going to go to each individual farmer and tell him to sow so many acres less, leaving the rest of his land to grow weeds? Are you going to compensate the farmer, or are you going to tell him to gQ ahead and grow all the wheat he likes and then refuse to allow him to sell it? And how will you apportion it? Not one practical suggestion has been offered by anyone supporting the agreement as to how it will be carried out. We have an exhibition in Saskatchewan at the present time of the incompetence of governments. The provincial government is sending out one set of officials to advise the farmers to get busy and prepare to fight the grasshopper plague-because we have twenty-two million acres infested with grasshopper eggs-one set of officials, I say, going out telling the people to fight the grasshoppers lest they destroy the crops, and now another set of officials going out advising the farmers to destroy the crops themselves. This is an example of planned economy-planning done by the state.

The Address-Mr. Young
In my opinion there is no way of carrying out the agreement exeept by some form of centralized marketing under government control, and I wonder how many hon. gentlemen opposite are in favour of the centralized marketing of wheat. How many are in favour of the government taking hold and doing all the marketing? Every government in the world during the past several years has been doing its level best to raise the price of wheat. They have raised tariffs, imposed embargoes, granted bounties, enforced milling restrictions -have done everything conceivable to increase the price of wheat. And the net result of all their activities is the lowest price in history. -Can we never learn anything from experience? Surely it is time for the peoples of the world to tell their governments to get out of the way and let wheat prices find their own level.


An hon. MEMBER:: As was done in the
paper business.


Edward James Young: It was government privilege
that put the paper industry in the mess it is in now. So much for the wheat agreement.
There are one or two other matters in the speech from the throne to which I would direct the attention of the house. Mention is made of an attempt to provide intermediate or short term credits for agriculture. It seems to me that if we want to provide intermediate or short term or long term or any other sort of credits for agriculture the first thing to do is to make it possible for agriculture to pay its debts. No one will lend money to the farmer to grow crops that will not pay the expense of growing. The money we pay in interest on our debts is not all interest. Part of it is interest on the money borrowed, part of it is the cost of rendering the service and part of it is insurance against loss. The greater the risk the greater the cost of insurance against loss, and if you want to reduce interest rates the first thing to do is to make the loan safe, and that portion which we call interest, which really goes to cover the risk, will disappear. Then it will be easier to get money, and when money is easier to get, when there is more competition in lending, then the cost of the service will come down and interest also will decline. The first and only way to bring down the rate of interest to farmers is to put the farmers in a position to repay the loans they obtain.
Then there is a proposal to try to relieve unemployment by launching an extensive program of public works, and iit is generally believed that this will be paid for by the
printing of new money. I was startled when the announcement appeared in the press that the Prime Minister would adopt that policy. A week later, speaking in Vancouver, he said that they would have to do some serious thinking before they ventured on such a policy. I hope he has done that very serious thinking. The question arises-Can you relieve unemployment by creating public works? Do you not create as much unemployment as you relieve? In the first place, no program of public works that can possibly be launched in this country will reach all the unemployed. Unemployed are to be found in every nook and corner of the country. You cannot create public works everywhere, and if you take men away from their homes and put them to work on public works you place them under the necessity of paying their board in one section of the country and keeping their homes in another place. Their expenses will eat up their wages and there will be nothing left for them to support their families at home. If you pay for the public works by a direct tax on the people, you take the money out of one man's pocket and put it into another man's, and the man out of whose pocket you take it can buy that much less goods; he buys as much less as the other buys more. You cannot solve unemployment by taking money out of one man's pocket and putting it into somebody else's, because in increasing the purchasing power of the one you are reducing the purchasing power of the other. The way to solve unemployment is to create a demand for goods the production of which will give employment to the people. You must increase the purchasing power of the people, but when you collect taxes from one set of people and give them to another set you reduce the purchasing power of the first set of people by a slightly larger amount than you increase the purchasing power of the others. If you issue bonds, borrowing the money, there is a possibility of bringing into circulation some money that might otherwise be lying idle, but in that event you saddle yourself with interest charges. But suppose you do what it is generally expected will be	done-simply	print	new	money?
What do you do then? You simply add water to the soup, you only thin it out. For with the same quantity of goods in the country to be consumed, and a little more money to buy them with, it just takes a little more money to buy them. The man who gets this new money simply buys goods that otherwise would be bought by others. There is a danger too in creating public works that we saddle ourselves with a maintenance cost which we will
The Address-Mr. Young

find it very difficult later on to carry. I know we have to see that no one starves; we cannot allow people to starve in our midst; we cannot allow undue suffering, but the condition in this country to-day is so serious that the work of relief must be done in the cheapest possible way, and our experience in the past has been that the creation of public works is not the cheapest possible way. We know from our experience in the first year that it took $4 from the treasury to put SI into the pocket of the workingman. Perhaps that was an overstatement, for the other $3 did not all go into profits and capital; it went in part to pay wages to those who produced the materials bought. But it has been found everywhere that the creation of public works is the most expensive form of relief you can dispense. Perhaps there are some kinds of public works that would not saddle us with maintenance costs later on, that perhaps might even be revenue producing. We might spend money draining marshlands, making them fit for cultivation, or perhaps improving our forests. We might even try the experiment of reforestation, that would give employment for the time being and perhaps produce revenue later on. There are places where perhaps we could catch the spring run-off of water and hold it against the dry seasons. But speaking broadly the cheapest way to handle the unemployment situation is by paying direct relief, and the finances of this country will not stand relief in any other but the cheapest way.
One other matter, that of the central bank. We are to have a central bank; the Macmillan commission has recommended it; the government is pledged to it, the opposition and the third party all seem disposed to have it Then the question arises: What kind of central bank are we going to have, and how are we going to run it? I think a great many people are due for disappointment when the central bank comes into being. There are those who think that the central bank is going to force the other banks to lend us money whether we are likely to be able to pay it back or not. There are others who say a central bank is one where the government can get all the money it wants without taxing the people. I heard it said that a central bank is one where a municipality can go with its tax roll and deposit the roll and get the cash instead of collecting the taxes. All these fantastic ideas prevail. What we must remember is that after we get our central bank it will not be able to create wealth out of nothing. It will have to be run by ordinary fallible individuals like ourselves, and the problem will be how to find the very best men to run it; men with understanding, men with courage,

men of character. I want to give this piece of advice to the government, that the directors of this bank should be so chosen that neither the government, nor the banks, nor the big financial interests, nor the captains of industry so-called, nor anybody else will be in a position to put undue pressure on them.


Ernest Lapointe: Hear, hear.


Edward James Young: That I think is the best advice I can give the government in regard to a central bank.
Mr. ERRICK F. WILLIS (Souris):	I
desire at the outset, Mr. Speaker, to compliment the two gentlemen who moved and seconded the address in reply. I desire to do this particularly in view of the fact that the theme of my address will not be entirely complimentary'. I listened to the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young), who has just taken his seat, make the usual address in regard to free trade in this country, which I have heard on so many occasions. The hon. member criticized the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) because the Prime Minister dared to point out that there is distress in other places besides Canada, and also that the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) had never happened to mention that fact. The hon. member for Weyburn should get together with the hon. member for West Edmonton (Mr. Stewart) because they made two speeches entirely contradictory of each other. That, I suppose is due to the policies of Liberalism, which embraces high-protectionism, Progressivism, Liberalism, and other isms


Edward James Young: And two Conservative
parties.


Mr. WILLIS:: The hon. member for Weyburn said the fact that the retail stores of (his country are selling more than usual meant nothing. That is the sort of argument he advances. When the retail stores sell more goods while the Conservatives are in power it means nothing, but when the Liberals were in power their leader could tour this country and tell people that retailers were selling more, and therefore the country was prosperous.
The hon. member for Weyburn says the wheat surplus is a myth. That will be news to the people of western Canada. Again I refer him to the hon. member for West Edmonton who in loud and vociferous terms the other evening damned this government completely' because there is this overproduction and surplus. So all I can say to the hon. member for Wey'burn is: "You boys get together."

The Address-Mr. Willis
I cannot complete my reference to the hon. member without paying him at least one compliment. I believe as he does that public works will not satisfy the conditions which we have in this country. Public works themselves, while they have value in certain districts, will not entirely relieve unemployment in this country.
I only desire to make one more correction in regard to the address of the hon. member for Weyburn. He referred to himself as a fallible person, or themselves as fallible persons. I should like him to remember that although they may be fallible, all the persons in this country are not gullible.
I desire to refer to two addresses made in this house. I apologize to j'ou, Mr. Speaker, for making this address, but I had not intended to make it until I read the speech of the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown); so if there is any blame attaching in regard to the remarks which I am now making let it rest upon his head.
Let me refer first to one or two remarks of the hon. member for West Edmonton, who the other evening delivered an address of great volume. He referred, as reported on page 136 of Hansard, to the fact that this government, while it did implement its promise in regard to the construction of public works to relieve unemployment, subsequently turned to the dole, and therefore in his opinion it should be thrown out of office. But the hon. member for Weyburn says the dole is the only policy; that for this purpose public works cannot be satisfactorily undertaken. Again I say to the hon. member for Weyburn and the hon. member for West Edmonton: "You boys get together."
The hon. member for West Edmonton says that because of the great natural resources of this country we should have none of the present difficulties. I recall the story of a gentleman who went to the old country and was to make an address to a group of businessmen. He asked one gentleman what it was he should say, and the Englishman replied: "Far be it from me to advise you, except to this extent: for goodness sake don't mention those great natural resources of your country." But the hon. member for West Edmonton feels that the people are still gullible and can still be told these things.
The hon. member for West Edmonton condemns a former member of this house who is now on the tariff board because he had the audacity to say that the Liberal party increased the tariff of this country. For that reason he is to be condemned, in spite of the fact that statistics for any year will prove to anyone who desires to look at the figures that
time and again in this house his statement has been proven to be true. One is surprised to hear the addresses of the hon. member for Weyburn in regard to tariffs in this country when that government of which he was a part, increased tariffs during their regime after having promised that they would lower them. One hears strange stories in that regard.


Edward James Young: Strange stories of a speech in Toronto.


Errick French Willis: Yes, I am coming to that,
and it is no strange story. I am surprised that the hon. member should harp continuously on the same theme when he knows that the government of which he was a part increased tariffs after having promised not to do so. If the hon. member has any doubts in that regard, let him try to get the portfolio of national revenue in a Liberal government in this country. Let the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) try to get the portfolio of trade and commerce in any Liberal government. No, they would have no chance. The Liberal party takes no chances in regard to the tariff; they place in those positions the millionaires of eastern Canada in order to safeguard the interests of the east. May I say to you gentlemen who parade your virtues with regard to free trade throughout western Canada that every government that comes into power in Canada will do precisely the same thing, and if you think the people are so gullible as to swallow that again, then I say that so far as my people are concerned they will not do so. Look at those who are independent in politics in this country; go to the farmers' group in Alberta and ask them what they think in regard to the tariff question no matter whether they were Liberals or Conservatives previously.
The hon. member for West Edmonton quoted many statistics which were furnished by a friend of the hon. member for Weyburn, all of which proved to be untrue and incorrect. I suppose that is the usual line of argument that has been advanced in the past.
Again, and another strange thing, the hon. member for West Edmonton seems to condemn the group which sits to his left. Here is what he says:
I want to say to my hon. friend-
That was the hon. member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Irvine) to whom he was speaking.
-that his fears, and the fears of the gentlemen who support him, that they may be in any wray contaminated by association with the Liberal party, may be set at rest at once.
Isn't that good? The good old Liberal party says to the farm groups of Alberta: "You are terrible; we will have nothing
The Address-Mr. Willis

whatever to do with you gentlemen." It says to the farm groups of Saskatchewan: "We will not have a thing to do with you; we will condemn you on every platform in Canada." Then it comes to Manitoba and says to the United Farmers of Manitoba: "We are all for you; you are all good boys. Come into our party." So they came into the party, and they are still there.
Let us follow along the speech of the hon member for West Edmonton and see a few more of the difficulties into which he got. He was speaking in. regard to protection and the fact that the wages paid in the factories were not very high. He said:
I am astonished to learn that the lowest scale of wages in the history of those industries is now in effect.
He was speaking of the silk industry and others. In Cornwall in the rayon silk industry the lowest wages now paid are S12.50 per week, which is more than some school teachers are being paid. In spite of that fact the hon. member makes that sort of statement in this house. He must have thought he was out on the hustings in western Canada. Then in another paragraph he says:
The government was told that if they gave this measure of protection it would never reach the employee. It never does, it goes in excessive profits to the manufacturer himself.
I suppose when the hon. member made that statement he had in mind the furniture industry, which was given a protection, of 52 per cent under his government; therefore he had a very intimate knowledge in regard to the excess profits gained by manufacturers under the administration of his party. The hon. member went on to say that this government is not thinking at all of the farmers of western Canada. In reply may I say that this has been proven untrue time and again. I am sorry the hon. member has not read my recent speeches on the subject; I suppose I cannot blame him for that, but I would refer him to my address of March 31, 1933, when I took forty minutes to prove that this government had done more for agriculture than any other government we ever had in Canada.
The hon. gentleman went on to condemn the Ottawa agreements, and finally he said:
I have lived in western Canada for over twenty-six years, Mr. Speaker, and I have never known the people to be so incensed as they are to-day.
Let me say to the hon. gentleman that I have lived in western Canada much longer than he has. I come from a district where they have not had crops for four years; I
[Mr. Willis. 1
visit my people every year and hold from fifteen to twenty-five meetings, and I never saw the people more willing to listen to a discussion of the affairs of their country or more lacking in heat and recrimination than they are at present, due to the fact that they know the government has been doing what it can for them.
Now for a few moments I should like to deal with the reverend and hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown), because he said some things which were true. The hon. gentleman said that the east had sent us many carloads of food and clothing which were greatly appreciated. That is absolutely true. We in our district in particular desire to pay a tribute to eastern Canada for the help they have given us. My district is different from the district from which the hon. member for Lisgar comes, and there came to us from eastern and other parts of Canada some fifty-six carloads of vegetables, which enabled the people to keep alive. In addition there came ten carloads of apples from eastern Canada, without which I believe there would have been many deaths due to malnutrition. So we desire to pay this tribute.
I should like now to make a comment or two on the remarks of the reverend and hon. member for Lisgar in regard to the wheat agreement. He said, "I look upon it with a great deal of fear." May I say to the hon. gentleman that this is the first thing the Bracken government ever did upon which he looked with fear. I would refer him to the Bracken government, of which he is a supporter and a strong proponent, and I would suggest that he take his representations to that government and to the professor of economics of the University of Manitoba, who is a great friend of his as well as a friend of mine. Let him go to the grain exchange also.


Mr. BROWN:: They both hold my views.


Errick French Willis: Apparently your views have impressed them about as much as they have impressed me. However, I do not desire to comment on the wheat agreement, because western Canada has accepted it. The grain exchange has accepted it; economic experts have accepted it, and those by whom it has not been accepted are those who cannot look with kindly or friendly eyes upon any act with which this government is connected, and who consider that the greatest crime, ever committed in this country was perpetrated on July 28, 1930, when hon. members opposite were not returned to power.

The Address-Mr. Willis
The hon. member for Lisgar complained that members on this side do not get his viewpoint. He said:
Why will not hon. gentlemen opposite try to get our point of view?
Let me point out some of the difficulties in the way of getting that point of view. The hon. member for Lisgar and other hon. members make speeches in regard to the tariff policy of this government, but they never happen to mention that their own government while in office increased tariffs. They never mention that fact out in our country, and therefore I have to mention it now. It is difficult to understand the point of view of hon. members coming from the province of Manitoba, only one of whom has the courage to say he is a Liberal. That is to say, of all the members from that province sitting behind the leader of the opposition, the only one who in the province of Manitoba calls himself a Liberal is the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Howden). The others are Progressives. One calls himself a Liberal-Progressive, another a National-Progressive, and the hon. member for Lisgar is not a Liberal,- oh, certainly not! You may be surprised to learn he is not a Liberal, despite the fact that he has sat behind the Liberal chief for so many years. If hon. members will take the trouble to look up the little red book known as the Parliamentary Guide they will find that the hon. member for Lisgar is still a Progressive, despite the fact that he has continued to follow the right hon. gentleman who now leads the opposition. This is something which I know the hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Gardiner) must find difficult to understand. May I say, however, for the benefit of the hon. member for Acadia, that generally speaking it is not known in the constituency of Lisgar that the hon. member sits with the Liberal party, that he is not a Progressive and speaks against Progressive policies in this House of Commons. That is not generally known, 'but I promise the hon. member for Acadia that I shall do my best to make it known.
Let us try to get the point- of view of these hon. gentlemen. How could we get the point of view of the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Beaubien). He sits with the Liberals, but we find that he calls himself a National-Progressive. Just what is a National-Progressive? I must confess it is difficult to understand even a rational Progressive, but a National-Progressive is quite beyond the bounds of human thought.
The hon. member for Lisgar paid me a great many compliments which are responsible
for my speech of this evening. He quoted from a Canadian Press report of a speech I made in the city of Toronto, in which I am quoted as having said such and so.


Ross Wilfred Gray: Read it.


Errick French Willis: The press dispatch states that I was delightfully frank in the city of Toronto. I hope I shall always be so. I read:
Mr. Willis told his audience-and it must have been something of a shock to most of those present-that he represented the new type of Conservative which "makes the party a young man's party,"-


Edward James Young: Go on.


Errick French Willis: I pause to say that the proof of my statement is ample. I shall read plenty for you boys before I am through. The proof that the Conservative party is the young man's party is quite unnecessary in this House of Commons, although it may be necessary in the city of Toronto. In the house, as hon. members must know, most of the young men are on the Conservative side because the young men of Canada are naturally drawn towards the Conservative policy. It goes against the grain of a young member from western Canada to accept the Liberals, who go around and preach free trade and then come down here and sit behind a leader who has increased tariffs. That goes a bit against the grain, and while one may become dishonest in his old age we would not expect him to be dishonest so early in life.
The quotation continues with the words: -and which does not believe in high tariffs-


Ross Wilfred Gray: Read it all.


Errick French Willis: Alay I state for the information of the hon. member for Sarnia and points west that I will read it all. To continue :
and which does not believe in high tariffs and "all the things which historically the party was supposed to stand for."
The history given to Conservatives in western Canada by members who sit opposite is that the Conservative party is composed entirely of people who believe only in high tariffs and are always looking back. When I made my speech in Toronto I wanted to point out that we do not look backwards, as do hon. members opposite, to theories in regard to free trade which came to us hundreds of years ago, and have been abandoned by those who are still young enough to think.
I desired to point out to that audience, as I am pointing out to this house, that the people in western Canada, speaking generally, do not believe in the same degree of tariff pro-
The Address-Mr. Willis

tection as is thought proper by people in eastern Canada. That difference is due to the geographical locations of the two sections of the country.


Edward James Young: Why don't you boys get together?


Errick French Willis: That is the difference between the boys on this side, and those opposite. We in western Canada accept the inevitability of protection because we know that in the St. Lawrence basin there is to be found fifty-five per cent of the Canadian population. We know that if you boys get into power you will increase the tariffs of Canada-and I use the word "if." You said you would not do it before, but you did it. Any government in power in Canada will increase tariffs, if the world is increasing them. It does not matter what you say, or how you may shake your heads. You said before that you would not raise tariffs; you shook your heads before, but you raised the tariffs. If you wish proof of it may I say that the hon. member who held the office of Minister of Finance in the late Liberal government, Mr. Dunning-


Pierre Édouard Blondin: The hon. member should
address the chair.


Errick French Willis: I am very sorry Mr. Speaker, that I have not followed the rule of the house. I should much rather address my remarks to you than to hon. gentlemen opposite.


Thomas Reid: So would we.


Errick French Willis: Mr. Speaker, one gets into
difficulties in regard to this matter because one naturally addresses those who need the information most. The Minister of Finance in the previous government, who has now, of course, gone over to the big interests, formerly sent down each year from the Saskatchewan government a petition to this government in regard to free trade and the lowering of tariffs. Then he came to Ottawa, became Minister of Finance and became connected with the men in eastern Canada who he thought had influence. The Dunning budget was presented to the house, and through the countervailing duties of that budget it was anticipated that we had to have increased tariffs. The duties under the countervailing provisions in the Dunning budget would have effected tariff measures over which hon. members who now sit opposite could not have looked, or beyond which even their fancies could not have reached.
Therefore I repeat that any government which assumes power in Canada at a time when the world tendency is towards higher tariffs must follow that tendency, just as this

government did. Any government which comes into power in Canada must get tariff revenue, and hon. members sitting opposite were the ones who gained most through tariff protection. For the first time in the history of Canada they took over $200,000,000 in tariffs from the people. Yet they say, "We do not believe in tariffs, certainly not; we just take the money." They do not pause to consider that five-sixths of the goods which enter Canada come in free of duty.
I believe my remarks will indicate to hon. members at least some reason why I have taken this opportunity to speak. There are one or two further matters however to which the hon. member for Lisgar referred and in connection with which I have some comment. Again the hon. member for Lisgar is killing horses up in his country. He says there are eight horses dead in a distance of seven miles, or something like that. I do not dispute that fact, but I want to warn the hon. member that the last time he told this house about dead horses I had letters, which I now hold in my hand, from men who wanted to engage him in public debate to prove that his statement was incorrect. I have a communication before me now from four men who are willing to take affidavits to the effect that the statement of the hon. member for Lisgar was incorrect. Of course, he is an honourable and reverend member of this house, but I wish him to be careful, that is all, in regard to statements he makes. Because the hon. member is a friend of mine I want him to be careful in that regard. If the hon. member wishes to have a line in regard to who some of these people are he should refer to the reeve of Pembina municipality, who would be very happy to furnish him with the information.
The hon. member for Lisgar says that hon. members on this side who do not believe in high tariffs are still supporting the government. The difference between those who sit on this side and the hon. member for Lisgar is that wrhile he denounces high tariff all the time, yet it is all right when the government of which he is a supporter increases the tariff. But as far as we are concerned we do not preach free trade. We accept protection and have done so always.
The hon. member for Lisgar also said that he would not object to carrying on a campaign with these gentlemen because he would never let them get away with some of the statements they are trying to put over on the people. Well, Mr. Speaker, there are not many miles between us. In my constituency I hold from fifteen to twenty-five meetings each year and I invite questions and discuss at each meeting the tariff issue, taking some time to

The Address-Mr. Willis
explain it to the people, with the result that now some of those who come to my meetings know at least a little bit more about it than they did previously. They know a little more about it than my hon. friend from Weyburn, who is now laughing, and who comes to this house and talks free trade and evolves many curious arguments in support of a theory which our grandfathers buried.


Jean-François Pouliot: If the hon. gentleman
answers questions, he should be sworn in as a cabinet minister.


Errick French Willis: Thank you, I accept the office. That reminds me that it is not so very long ago that the Canadian Press gave me a title. I have asked the members of the Canadian Press to give it to me, but so far unsuccessfully, and if anything can be done in regard to that matter I shall be glad of the assistance oi' hon. gentlemen opposite because it improves one's chances, particularly in the line of matrimony.
It is important so far as this country is concerned that certain forward steps should be taken. 1 think one of the foremost steps that has been taken by the government has been the appointment of a committee which is to inquire into prices and mass buying in this country. While passing through the city of Winnipeg I was stopped by a number of gentlemen who do not see politically the way I do, yet they asked me to convey their congratulations to the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) upon the investigation which is to be carried out with respect to the distribution of commodities.
In conclusion, with regard to the stocks of gold in this country, due to the fact that in the United States the price of gold has now been fixed at $35 and that in Great Britain they are paying practically $35 for gold, it strikes me, as one who knows very little about the matter, that it may be necessary in this country for the government to take over the existing gold supplies now held by the banks and revalue our gold on a $35 basis, to the great benefit of the country, as I see it.
Then there is the question of debt in this country, which is of paramount importance. So far as the people I represent are concerned, it is perhaps the greatest problem which they have to face and will continue to have to face. It seems to me that those who hold the bonds of this country payable in Canada to the extent of some $200,000,000 might very well consent, and would consent, to a refunding at a saving of at least one to two per cent interest, which would mean a saving to the treasury of some $20,000,000 74726-22
a year. There may be practical difficulties in the way, but at the moment I cannot see them.
Those are the two suggestions which I should like to leave with the house which seem to me of some importance. I trust that at a later date I shall be able to outline certain matters in regard to debt, and relief within the constituency which I represent. The whole drought area of the province of Manitoba is within my constituency as defined by the provincial government, and for the past four years the people in my constituency have been having great difficulty in the payment of their debts, in regard to relief, and in keeping starvation from their doors. They have their problems and the first brunt of them falls upon the municipalities. I have had to make a few trips to Ottawa on behalf of these people, and I have always found the government willing and ready to lend money to the province of Manitoba to help out the people as and when asked for. So far as lending money to the province of Manitoba for the relief of these people is concerned, I say that on that charge this government can be exonerated. At the end of December, by reason of these -advances, there remained payable to this government by the province of Manitoba slightly over $8,000,000, which indicates that this government has drawn no political lines in helping to solve the relief problem. They have tried to keep body and soul together so far as the people are concerned.


Albert Joseph Brown: Before the hon. gentleman
sits down, might I ask if he is aware that one of the standing charges against the former government by hon. gentlemen opposite was that Canada had reduced the tariff while all other countries were raising theirs?


Errick French Willis: Let me continue a little
while. Charges will be made according to the geographical position of the person making the charges. I say at once to the hon. gentleman in reply to his question and to the hon. member for Weyburn, that if they desire to convince the people of Canada of the sincerity of their sentiments they should start with their own members, namely the hon. member for North Bruce (Mr. Malcolm) ; then the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Howard), and then the hon. member for Toronto West Centre (Mr. Factor). If they can convince these gentlemen there might be some hope of their convincing western Canada: but if they cannot, they

The Address-Mr. Parent

might as well stop talking free trade because it will bury them just the same as the theory has been buried for centuries.


Mr. E. E. PARENT (Terrebonne):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in the debate on the address I desire to extend my congratulations to the mover (Mr. Gobeil) and the seconder (Mr. Barber), both of whom performed in a very creditable manner their duty of trying to convince the members of this house and the people of the country as a whole of their faith in the present administration. I must confess, however, that I differ from them on many of the points on which they expressed opinions. My constituency being composed of ninety-five per cent of Canadians who are descendants of those of French origin, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the house, I shall continue my remarks in their and my mother tongue.
(Translation) Mr. Speaker, one who peruses the speech from the throne feels baffled by these first lines:
Canada occupies a leading position amongst those countries where the evidence of a return to permanent prosperity is most convincing.
Indeed, sir, as a Canadian, it gives me great pride to note that Canada occupies an enviable place among the nations of the world in connection with the return to prosperity. However, this position is not all that can be expected, especially when we consider that the population of Canada is composed of descendants of hard working and conscientious men, having at heart the progress and development of their country, offsprings of pioneers who opened to civilization our vast native land, comprising the whole northern part of the American continent and which encloses more wealth, proportionately, than any other country in the world, resources which amount to more than $30,000,000,000 or more than $3000 per capita.
I now come to another interesting paragraph of the speech from the throne:
The prices of agricultural products, which have fallen in recent years to the lowest level in history, have shown substantial improvement in the last few months. My government realize, however, that further increases in price levels are necessary to insure success to those engaged in agriculture.
This simply means that His Excellency the Governor General, in the speech dictated to him by the cabinet, states that agriculture, the fundamental industry of Canada, must receive the consideration of the government. In the course of my remarks, I shall endeavour to prove to the house and to all my fellow-
Wf, Willis.J
citizens that the government has been guilty of negligence, towards the farming class.
That is why His Excellency adds:
My government realize, however, that further increases in price levels are necessary to insure success to those engaged in agriculture.
Prices, sir, automatically find their level according to supply and demand. This is a fundamental and recognized fact. However, in order that the law of supply and demand should become effective, one should not, by means of tariff barriers or other impediments, prevent the producer from receiving fair and equitable prices. Tacitly, therefore, His Excellency recognizes that the government has strangled trade and commerce through its tariff barriers, its famous protection policy. This so heralded policy, in the 1930 election, must be discontinued and our tariff placed on a sound basis. I do not advocate free-trade but a reasonable tariff for revenue purposes, hindering neither trade nor industry. Only when these tariff barriers are down as recommended by His Excellency the Governor General, shall we witness the price of farm products increase.
In order to well understand the conditions existing in Canada, one has but to consult our official statistics. We cannot go astray. Certain members have, at times, contended that these statistics are not accurate. Perhaps, there may sometimes be errors, however, on the whole, one can rely on them. As I intend to particularly discuss agriculture, that industry which has had to suffer more than any other in Canada, I shall do so with statistics in hand and my remarks will especially refer to the paragraph of the speech from the throne which advises the government to study the question relating to the prices and sales of farm commodities.
At page 10 of the booklet Canada, 1934, published under the supervision of the Department of Trade and Commerce, we find the following:
While the farmers' difficulties in 1932 were centered around extremely low prices and' while their hopes lay in the bountiful crop production of the year, a different situation existed in 19S3. Summer drought was widespread across Canada, and prolonged in many sections.
I cannot, sir, see how one can reconcile the speeches delivered in the house by the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett), and a number of members opposite, with this statement issued by the Department of Trade and Commerce and published in the booklet Canada 1934, showing that price levels were down and farmers, who expected a large crop, were disappointed owing to the very dry season. I wish to refer to the statement, in

C.NJR.-Locomotive Engineers and Firemen
1930, of the right hon. Prime Minister when he promised higher price levels for farm products, and, that, if necessary, he would blast the markets in order to facilitate the sale and marketing of their products. On his return from the London Imperial Conference in 1933, the right hon. Prime Minister issued a program, not with the idea of helping the farmers who had suffered losses owing to the drought but one of curtailment of the wheat acreage. I cannot really understand how one can reconcile these two statements. Let us, however, proceed, because there are still other facts to disclose. The hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) states in this yearly booklet, in the same paragraph which I quoted a few moments ago:
The increase in prices of farm commodities helped considerably to offset the lower production.
Let us examine what is this increase in the prices of farm commodities mentioned and how it came about, if it ever did. Let us examine closely whether such are the facts, by consulting the bureau of statistics.
In the booklet Canada 1934, at page 47, we find that in 1930, the net returns of agricultural products amounted to $758,000,000, in round figures; in 1934, $538,000,000, and in 1932, $428,000,000. It is quite an easy matter to compare the figures for these various years.
Let us now examine what is the decrease in our agricultural resources. At page 67 of the same publication, we find that in 1931, the agricultural wealth of the country amounted to $5,697,000,000, and in 1932. to $5,070,000,000, namely a difference of $627,000,000 in our agricultural assets. Do the Canadian farmers realize that, according to these official figures, their loss amounts to $627,000,000? There has, therefore, not been any increase, on the contrary, statistics prove there has been a decrease.
In order to clearly show the situation of our industrial activities, I shall quote the Bureau of Statistics in connection with our various industries, including agriculture. In 1930, the value of our industrial products amounted to $3,216,000,000; in 1931, to $2,500,000,000, a difference of $716,000,000. Is that an increase, I ask these gentlemen? It would be very hard to convince me of the fact, when the government figures themselves show a considerable decrease.
There is a spread in manufactured products of more than $300,000,000 in less than, a year. Is that the realization of the pledges made at the election in 1930, so as to capture both the confidence and vote of the Canadian people?
Still referring to the Dominion statistics, I find the following at page 12 of the same 74726-22 J
publication under the heading of price commodities:
In March, 1933 (after three years), wholesale prices began the first appreciable advance that has occurred since 1929. It came after an almost unbroken decline of 42 months during which time the Dominion Bureau of Statistics' general index number of wholesale prices fell by roughly 30 per cent.
That is word for word, sir; it is taken from Canada 1934.
It adds:
Prices in some commodity groups such as farm products had dropped more than double this amount-
Namely 60 per cent.

while manufactured goods showed decreases of less than 20 per cent in many eases.
Much could be said, sir, in connection with the serious results which might be the outcome of this abnormal situation, this discrepancy in the price levels of Canadian farm products and those of manufactured goods.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, February 7, 1934