1934-06-12

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. I. D. COTNAM (North Renfrew):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to inquire of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) if it is the intention of his committee to investigate the price spreads in coal, gasoline and agricultural implements?


Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Minister of Trade and 'Commerce):: I did not quite catch the question of my hon. friend but I understand that he is inquiring if the committee is going to investigate certain additional matters. I think I answered this question the other day when I said that the committee is pretty well loaded up with material at the moment. We are making as rapid progress as possible but there are several important subjects before the committee for investigation and whether it will have time and opportunity to extend its investigations into these subjects is a matter which cannot be determined at the moment.
Mr. MaoLEAN: Why not be specific and say coal or gasoline?

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Mr. BROWN:: Where was the hon. member for North Renfrew (Mt. Cotnam) a few years ago?



WAYS AND MEANS


[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of ways and means, Mr. MacDonald (Cape Breton South) in the chair.
Hon. E. N. RHODES (Minister of Finance) :: The first item to be taken up is in connection with item 79 of the customs tariff.
I filed the finding of the tariff board with respect to certain items covering nursery stock and I gave notice of an amendment in ' consequence of that finding, which amendment is to be found in the votes and proceedings of May 29. The amendment reads:
That schedule A to the customs tariff, as amended by resolution No. 3. of April 18, 1934. be further amended' by striking thereout tariff items 79. 79'b, 79c, 81 and 82, the several enumerations of goods respectively and the several rates of duties of customs, if any, set opposite thereto and by inserting the following items, enumerations and rates of duty in said schedule A:-
Item 79-Florist stock, viz:-Azaleas, rhododendrons, pot-grown lilacs; hydrangeas and other pot-grown plants, n.o.p.; rose stock and other stock for grafting or budding, n.o.p.; seddling carnation stock, araucarias, bulbs, corms, tubers, rhizomes and dormant roots, n.o.p; dwarf polyantha rose bushes imported by florists or purchased in bond in Canada for bona fide forcing purposes in their own greenhouses prior to disposal; laurel and holly foliage, natural or preserved, whether in designs or bouquets or not: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Customs tariff-79b.	Flowers and foliage,
natural, cut, whether in designs or bouquets, or not, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, 40 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-79c. Trees, being seedling stock for grafting, viz:	apple, plum, pear,
peach and other fruit trees, including buds and scions for grafting such trees; peach pits for planting purposes: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-81. Trees, n.o.p., viz.:-
(a)	Apple, each: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 6 cents; general tariff, 7i cents.
Provided that when imported between September 15 and October 5, inclusive, the duty under the intermediate or general tariff rates shall not be more than 3 cents each.
(b)	Pear, plum, cherry, apricot, quince, each: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 8 cents; general tariff, 9 cents.
Provided that when imported between September 15 and October 5, inclusive, the duty on cherry trees and on plum trees under the intermediate or general tariff rates shall not be more than 3 cents each.
(c)	Peach, including June buds, each: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 5 cents; general tariff, 6 cents.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-82:
(a)	Grape vines, gooseberry and currant
bushes or roots, each:	British preferential
tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 2 cents; general tariff, 2i cents.
(b)	Raspberry, loganberry and blackberry bushes or roots; rhubarb roots, each: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 1 cent; general tariff, 1 cent.
(c)	Asparagus roots and strawberry plants, each: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, i cent; general tariff, J cent.
(d)	Rosebushes, n.o.p., each: British preferential tariff, 1J cents; intermediate tariff, 3 cents; general tariff, 7 cents.
(e)	Trees, shrubs, vines, plants, roots and
cuttings, commonly known as florists or nursery stocks, n.o.p.:	British preferential
tariff, 12J per cent; intermediate tariff, 174 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have an amendment to move that Schedule A to the customs tariff, as amended by resolutions in committee of ways and means, be further amended by striking thereout tariff item 99c and by inserting in lieu thereof the following:
Customs tariff-99c. Raisins and dried currants:
(i)	Until July 31, 1935 . . . per pound: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 4 cents; general tariff, 4 cents.
(ii)	Thereafter .	.	. per pound: British
preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 3 cents; general tariff, 3 cents.
When in packages weighing two pounds each, or less, the weight of such packages to be included in the weight for duty.
This is extending for one year more the Australian preference.
Item agreed to on division.
Customs tariff-117. Halibut livers, fresh: British preferential tariff; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.


Mr. RALSTON:: My hon. friend was going to give me some information with regard to this item, particularly with regard to the supply of halibut livers for the furnishing of oil required for consumption in the dominion and as to the amount of oil required for consumption in Canada.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Mr. Chairman, as I understood it, the item stood at the request of my hon. friend from Shelbume-Yarmouth, his



Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
desire being that I should get some additional iniformatiion, but I am unable to furnish any additional information to the committee as requested for the reason that the items have not been separated and we have no statistics available with respect to this item at all.


James Layton Ralston: What I wanted to find out was whether or not halibut livers were being admitted free into this country to-day, when there was an ample supply in the country. I have made inquiries and I am unable to get the information at least from the bureau of statistics or the Department of Fisheries. I was endeavouring to get the information from the trade, but I have received no information as yet. Can my hon. friend tell me whether or not halibut livers are produced in this country in sufficient quantity to supply the domestic demand?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Mr. Chairman, I had to seek the same sources of information as my hon. friend, and I have been unable to get a specific answer to the last question he put for the reason that heretofore, as my hon. friend knows, there has been no marketing of halibut livers. So I am not in a position to say whether there is a sufficient quantity available from our Canadian fisheries to supply the market in Canada.


Mr. HOWDEN:: I believe that there is a considerable amount of cod liver oil manufactured from halibut liver, and I am interested in knowing if that process is going on in Canada.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Such as has been used hitherto has been imported entirely from the United States. My information is that the use of halibut liver oil is in addition to the demand which hitherto existed for cod liver oil exclusively and that the use of halibut liver oil is increasing quite rapidly.


James Layton Ralston: I understand that representations came from British Columbia for this change in the tariff due to the fact that American halibut livers were being landed at Prince Rupert and were having to pay a duty. I understand the suggestion was made that they could be manufactured in Canada if they were allowed to be admitted duty free. Can my hon. friend tell me whether or not the product will be marketed in Canada or used for export to the United States and other countries.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: My hon. friend is not quite right in saying that they have been landed in Canada. As a matter of fact the duty prohibited their being landed. They were shipped by vessel back to the United States

or were dumped overboard. I believe the idea behind the request that they should be admitted free of duty is that we might have another industry in Canada developed. The demand in Canada, as I understand it, is comparatively limited and for a time at all events they will have to seek the export market for the major portion of the halibut liver oil produced. My information comes from the trade and is not based on any actual statistics or on a very wide degree of experience. But such is the expectation of the industry.


James Layton Ralston: My point is that in view of the fashion nowadays, with which I do not agree, to find out whether or not there is a possibility of supplying the home market entirely with homemade products rather than to export products, it seems to me that before changes are made in tariff items affecting natural products we should know whether the natural products which we produce in this country are sufficient to supply the demand for the finished product which is made from them. As I understand it the minister has not been able to get that information and I have been unable to get it, and I find a difficulty in intelligently discussing or voting on the item which proposes a change and proposes to admit free natural products from foreign countries which may come into competition with our own products.


Mr. NEILL:: Did the minister say from whom this request came?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It came from the halibut industry on the Pacific coast. I think the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Hanson) will be able to give more accurate information on that point.


Alan Webster Neill: From the fishing industry or a manufacturing industry?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: From the fishing industry, as I understand it.


Mr. MacLEAN:: I notice by press reports to-day, and I think it is worth mentioning while we are on this subject, that eel grass is returning in the maritime provinces. I would ask if this is entirely due to the good offices of the present government?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Mr. Chairman, hon. gentlemen are not at all backward, and I do not blame them, in attributing all the ills of the country to this government. I hope in this instance my hon. friend will not object to giving the government some little modicum of credit.
Item agreed to on division.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have an amendment to move, Mr. Chairman, striking out item 220 in the present customs tariff. As it stands today the British and United States pharmacopoeia are recognized but the Canadian formulary, which is Canada's equivalent, is not recognized and the effect of the amendment I shall move is to include in the tariff item in addition to the words "British and United States pharmacopoeia" the words "The Canadian formulary." This request comes to us from the Canadian Medical Association.


Mr. TOTZKE:: What is the significance of that?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Item 220 of the present tariff provides:
All medicinal, chemical and pharmaceutical preparations, compounded of more than one substance, including patent and proprietary preparations, tinctures, pills, powders, troches, lozenges, syrups, cordials, bitters, anodynes-
And so forth. I am not reciting the whole item; I am giving the essential part:
Provided that drugs, pill-mass and preparations. not including pills or medicinal plasters, recognized by the British or United States pharmacopoeia, or the French codex as officinal, shall not be held to be covered by this item.
All that the amendment does is to add to that list the words:
The Canadian formulary. I beg to move:
That schedule A to the customs tariff, as amended by resolution No. 3 of April 18, 1934, be further amended by striking thereout tariff item 220 and by inserting in lieu thereof the following:
Item 220-All medicinal, chemical and pharmaceutical preparations, compounded of more than one substance, including patent and proprietary preparations, tinctures, pills, powders, troches, lozenges, syrups, cordials, bitters, anodynes, tonics, plasters, liniments, salves, ointments, pastes, drops, waters, essences and oils, n.o.p.:-
(a)	When dry: British preferential tariff, 20 per cent intermediate tariff, 25 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
(b)	Liquid, when containing not more than two and one-half per centum of proof spirit: British preferential tariff, 25 per cent; intermediate tariff, 40 per cent; general tariff, 40 per cent.
(c)	All others: British preferential tariff, 60 per cent: intermediate tariff, 60 per cent; general tariff, 60 per cent.
Provided that drugs, pill-mass and preparations, not including pills or medicinal plasters, recognized by the British or United States pharmacopoeia, the Canadian formulary or the French codex as officinal, shall not be held to be covered' by this item;
Provided, also, that any article in this item containing more than forty per cent of proof
74726-246 J
spirit shall be rated for duty at: British preferential tariff, $3 per gallon and 30 per cent; intermediate tariff, $3 per gallon and 30 per cent; general tariff, $3 per gallon and 30 per cent.


Mr. JACOBS:: I suppose that is to prove the proverb that a prophet is not without honour except in his own country.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Quite so.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Item as amended agreed to.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have a new item, 296c. I move:
That the following item, enumeration and rates of duties be added to the list of items indicated in resolution No. 3, of April 18, 1934, as for insertion in schedule A to the customs tariff:-
Item 296e.-Magnesium carbonate imported for use in the compounding or manufacture of rubber products:	British preferential tariff,
free; intermediate tariff, 274 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
This is adding this commodity to the free list.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: With reference to customs tariff item 454, when the committee rises and the house resumes I will file a report of the tariff board giving their finding as the result of a hearing with respect to hookless fasteners and in consequence of their findings I move:
That schedule A to the customs tariff, as amended by resolution No. 3 of April 18, 1934. be further amended by striking thereout tariff item 454 and inserting in lieu thereof the following item, enumeration and rates of duties:-	.
454-Frames not more than 10 inches in width, clasps and fasteners (not to include slide or hookless fasteners), when imported by manufacturers of purses, chatelaine bags or reticules for use exclusively in the manufacture of purses, chatetaine bags or reticules, in their own factories, under regulations prescribed by the minister: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 17J per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.
This amendment merely excludes from the operation of this item slide or hookless fasteners.


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

569.
James Layton Ralston: Is this the hat and hood item?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes.


James Layton Ralston: Is the minister introducing it now?

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: When the house was in
committee of ways and means before, I moved to amend the item, but the amendment stood at the request of my hon. friend. The amendment is as follows:
That schedule A of the customs tariff, as amended by resolution No. 3, of April 18, 1934, be further amended by striking thereout tariff item 569 and by inserting in lieu thereof the following items, enumerations and rates of duties of customs:
Item 569-(i). Hats, caps, hoods and bonnets, n.o.p.; hat and bonnet crowns and hat, cap and bonnet shapes, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 22J per cent; intermediate tariff, 30 per cent; general tariff, 35 per cent.
(ii) Hats, hoods and shapes of wool felt, not to include fur, under regulations prescribed by the minister: British preferential tariff, 22J per cent and, per dozen, $1.


James Layton Ralston: Will the minister give
me a little information about this? Can he tell me the date of the hearing before the tariff board on the appeal by the importer from the fixing of an arbitrary value for duty purposes by the minister?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I was under the impression that at a previous sitting I had already passed on to my hon. friend a tabulated statement giving the whole chronological order in which the hearings arose.


James Layton Ralston: I do not seem to have
that.	[DOT]


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: That was my impression
and I am so advised by the commissioner of tariff. I have a copy of the findings before me and perhaps I can get the information that my hon. friend desires. I have here a copy of the report of the tariff board which indicates that the reference to the board was made by me on March 6 last, but I regret to say that I have not the list giving the chronological order of the hearings for which my hon. friend asked and which I was under the impression I had sent to him. I certainly brought it into the house for that purpose. I shall look in my desk.


James Layton Ralston: I do not seem to have
it and I do not remember the minister giving it to me, but I have the general agenda in my mind without actual dates.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Did my hon. friend get
the statement on jute? If he did, they were pinned together.


James Layton Ralston: I do not seem to have
the one on jute twine either. The point about the matter is that this item was one in respect to which the Minister of National Revenue had attempted under section 43 of the customs act to fix an arbitrary value for duty purposes. It was one of the items as to which 
it was alleged that the minister had lost the power of fixing an arbitrary value for duty purposes by reason of the amendment of November, 1932. Notwithstanding the fact that the section was repealed in November, 1932, and another section substituted which provided for the exemption of British goods from the power of the minister to fix an arbitrary value for duty purposes, the customs appraiser went ahead and imposed an arbitrary value on hats and hoods. This was appealed to the tariff board. Some time this spring-I have not the date but I think some time before March-the tariff board made an order holding the minister had no power to fix an arbitrary value for duty purposes, in other words, holding that the section of the act of 1932 was effective and that British goods were not to be subject to arbitrary valuation, and ordered, as I understand the matter, that a refund be made to the importer. I want to ask the minister whether the refund was made to the importer following the judgment of the tariff board.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I think my hon. friend is
confusing the reference to the supreme court which arose under part II with the present case which is a hearing under part I. Whether that be so or not, I will say to my hon. friend that I shall have to get the information from the Department of National Revenue. I have made no particular inquiry recently but so far as my knowledge goes there has been no refund. I have no definite information on the point and I shall have to get that from the Department of National Revenue.


James Layton Ralston: I think my hon. friend is right. I want him to understand clearly that I am not in any way confusing proceedings under part 1 and under part 2. Under part 1 the tariff board has power to make investigation and state facts on which the ministry may make decisions as to whether or not tariff items shall be amended. Under part 2 the tariff board have a judicial power, the same power as the board of customs previously had, to make decisions and to give effect to them. My complaint is that the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Matthews) and this government are perfectly willing to take the recommendations of the tariff board under part 1 when they increase tariffs but they absolutely disregard binding decisions of the tariff board under part 2 which do away with arbitrary valuations and in effect decrease tariffs. That is my point ini a nutshell. This is a good example of it. Here we have hats, hoods and shapes which are included in an item moved by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Rhodes) the other day and pro-

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
viding for a specific duty. A short time ago we had the tariff board making an order that hats, hoods and shapes should not be subject to arbitrary valuations for duty purposes. That order was completely disregarded by the government. As the minister says, there has been no refund made to the importers, notwithstanding that the tariff board under the powers given by statute ordered such refund. My hon. friend says: Well, there was a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada as to the powers of the tariff board. Let me point out that that reference is not in connection with hats, hoods and shapes, but in connection with jute twine, and that reference, as I have had occasion to point out before, only settles one question, namely: Had the tariff board power to decide that jute twine did not come under the provisions of the act of November, 1932? It has no reference whatever to what we are talking about to-day, hats, hoods and shapes. The government flouts the tariff board in disregarding the decisions which the tariff board have made under part 2, but seems to be only too happy to take the suggestions of the tariff board under part 1 and provide for increases of duty. I submit that was not our conception of the way the tariff board was to be treated when it was constituted under an act of this parliament. I protest in the strongest possible way against that manner of dealing with tariff matters. If we are going to have a tariff board let us endeavour to follow their rulings, not follow them when it results in increasing duties and forget all about them when they say that duty shall be refunded or that the customs appraiser shall cease to make arbitrary valuations for duty purposes.
While I am on my feet let me say that the customs appraiser in the jute twine case put on an arbitrary value for duty purposes which resulted in effect in an ad valorem duty of 82 per cent. That decision was upset by the tariff board, and when the board came to make a recommendation in regard to duty, instead of 82 per cent which the minister was intent on imposing, they only suggested a duty of 274 per cent. It shows how tariff mad my hon. friends and the Department of National Revenue1 have gone. I submit that if we are to have a tariff board we ought at least to attempt to follow its recommendations not only under part 1 but part 2 as well.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I shall not attempt to follow my hon. friend in a discussion of the circumstances surrounding the case submitted to the supreme court, arising out of circumstances which are well known to the committee. It will be time enough to do that after the supreme court has made its finding. I do not even raise the point that the matter is sub judice. But what I do want to point out is that while hon. gentleman opposite may differ from us as to whether their attitude with respect to the tariff is right and ours wrong, the government has in every instance accepted the findings of the tariff board on matters of fact. Without any exception, when they have made findings of fact we have brought recommendations to the house in strict conformity therewith. The reference to the supreme court has not to do with a question of fact; the difficulty arises out of a question of law, as to the jurisdiction and authority of the tariff board acting in the stead of the old board of customs appraisers. That is an entirely different matter. I think it is quite fitting and proper that that matter should be cleared up. But I submit with all deference to my hon. friend that is an entirely different matter from accepting as we have in every instance the findings of the tariff board on matters of fact.


James Layton Ralston: May I say to my hon. friend that his statement shows that he has misconceived the situation entirely. The decision of the tariff board in the jute twine case was that the minister should not fix an arbitrary value for duty purposes, and a similar decision was made in the hats, hoods and shapes case while in the tinplate Case they decided that tinplate was not of a class or kind made in Canada. These decisions were on questions of fact and not of law. Those were so far matters of fact that in the jute twine case an appeal was asserted to the governor in council on the question of fact as to whether or not the arbitrary value on jute twine was the correct value for duty purposes. My hon. friend must not draw that red herring across the trail. The reference to the supreme court was an attempt by the governor in council to get away from the decision on the question of fact by claiming that the tariff board had not the authority to make the order which they did in connection with the jute twine case. But the fact remains that the decisions of the tariff board in all three cases were on questions of fact, namely, what duty should be charged and what was the valuation upon which the rate of duty should be assessed. Those decisions stand unchallenged, because this government, although there was an appeal to them in connection with the jute twine case, have not seen fit even at this late date to decide it.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
What do they do? They refer to the supreme court the question whether the tariff board had authority. If they thought they had jurisdiction why did they not meet and decide the question of fact whether the jute twine ought to be valued at a value fixed by the minister and the duty assessed accordingly? What they said was: We will not decide the merits at all, whether A who imported these goods paid too much duty, but we will draw a red herring across the trail, skate around it and submit to the supreme court the question whether the tariff board have jurisdiction. After all the essential question in connection with commerce is, how much duty shall be paid. That is the essential thing from the point of view of the importer, the producer and the consumer, not whether the tariff board has jurisdiction but how much duty shall be paid. This government had the opportunity to decide that question or not to decide it, and they took the course of not deciding it. They referred to the Supreme Court of Canada the question of the jurisdiction of the tariff board, leaving untouched the decision of the board that as a matter of fact the value of jute twine for duty purposes was as it should have been after the act of November, 1932, had been repealed. I say that my hon. friend is wrong when he suggests that this government has followed the tariff board on questions of fact. This government have disregarded the decisions of the tariff board on questions of facts, and rather than face those decisions they have made reference to the Supreme Court of Canada as to the jurisdiction of the board on questions of law. I say that my point stands as I made it unchallenged; under part 1 they have accepted the recommendations of the tariff board as to increases of duty, but under part 2 they have studiously avoided following the recommendations and decisions of the tariff board that duty should be remitted and arbitrary valuations not imposed. Again I say that is not what was intended when the tariff board machinery was set up in this country.
Item agreed to on division.
Customs tariff-1035. Machinery, and parts thereof, and dies valued at more than five hundred dollars each, of a class or kind not made in Canada: when used in manufacturing or producing goods of a class or kind not manufactured or produced' in Canada prior to the twelfth day of May, 1923, drawback, 60 per cent.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: This is a drawback item
which was placed in the tariff in the first

instance in 1923. I do not know whether or not my hon. friend from Shelburne-Yarmouth is familiar with this item. Due to the lapse of time the administration of this provision has become increasingly difficult, and in addition involves very great expense to the department. It is submitted that because of the lapse of time at this stage the item might be properly removed from the tariff, and my motion is that item 1035 be struck out.


James Layton Ralston: What industries does it
affect?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Any industry at all that
makes the contention that it proposes to manufacture a commodity or a piece of machinery which was not made in Canada prior to 1923.


James Layton Ralston: I understood that it was
a drawback item.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes, 60 per cent drawback. As a matter of fact I am advised that in some years it cost more to administer the item than the total amount of the drawback involved.


James Layton Ralston: What is the value of the machinery imported, which is alleged to be subject to the drawback?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have not the value of
the machinery. The best answer I could give my hon. friend is that in the past three years the amount of the drawback has been $78,000, $65,000 and $54,000 respectively. My motion is:
That schedule B to the customs tariff, as amended by resolution No. 4 of April 18, 1934, be further amended by striking thereout tariff item 1035, the enumeration of goods and the rates of drawback of customs duties set opposite thereto.


James Layton Ralston: Would my hon. friend
say this was recommended by the board?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It is recommended by the department.


Mr. VENOIT:: There will be no drawback?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No.


James Layton Ralston: As I understand this it
means an increase in the tariff on these items. Previously there was a 60 per cent drawback which is now being refused so that one hundred per cent of the duty will be charged. I do not mean one hundred per cent ad valorem, but one hundred per cent of the duty.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The statement of my hon. friend is quite correct so far as it goes, but he must bear in mind that wherever a bona fide case arises where it is sought to import

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
into Canada machinery which is not manufactured here it is still open to the individual to have the duty remitted by order in council so that the full rights are preserved to the individual who can set up a bona fide case, without opening the door to abuses which have arisen under this item and without permitting blanket use to be made of this drawback.


James Layton Ralston: Is that the section which permits the importation of natural or manufactured products to be used by manufacturers in Canada? My hon. friend said there was a provision by which goods used in Canada could have the duty remitted on them. Is that the section that provides that either manufactured or natural products imported for the use of manufacturers in Canada can be put on the free list, or have the duty remitted?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No, I had reference to the Consolidated Revenue Act, which provides that under certain conditions the duty may be remitted.
Amendment agreed to on division.
Customs tariff-1049. Bituminous coal: when imported by manufacturers of coke and converted into coke in their own plants; drawback, 50 per cent. Provided that drawback payable under this item is in lieu of drawback payable under any other item.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have an amendment to move to this item, as follows:
That tariff item No. 1049, as contained in resolution No. 4 of April 18, 1934, be amended to read as follows:
Bituminous coal ... when imported on or after April 19, 1934. and converted into coke in coke or gas plants, 50 per cent. Provided that drawback payable under this item is in lieu of drawback payable under any other item.
Under the budget item the coal had to be imported by the actual manufacturer of coke. This amendment will permit those wholesalers who hitherto have imported coal which they have sold to gas plants to carry on their business as heretofore. If the tariff item had stood as it appeared in the budget it would have had the effect of putting out of business a number of gentlemen who had been in an established business for a number of years.


Mr. VENIOT:: Importers?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes.


James Layton Ralston: Do I understand that the only change is to provide that those having existing stocks are not to be affected by the change in item 1049?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No, this means that an importing company or an individual who has been a supplier of coal to gas plants hitherto will be still permitted to carry on his business, whereas under the item as it appeared in the budget he would have been precluded from carrying on that business, since the gas plant would have to import this coal direct.


James Layton Ralston: I have not the old item before me, but did it not apply only to importations by manufacturers?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes. The old item read:
When imported after the twenty-fourth day of March, 1925, by proprietors of by-product recovery coke ovens and converted into cokeand so on. My amendment takes out the words "when imported by proprietors" and provides that while coal must be used by the same plants those persons or companies who hitherto have been suppliers of coal to coke plants will be permitted still to import the coal.


James Layton Ralston: If the old item 1049 did not apply to importers, let us say, as distinguished from manufacturers, why make the new item 1049 apply to them? That is my question.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: We are widening the item. My hon. friend will recall that the old item 1049 was confined to those who manufactured coke in a by-product coke oven. It had no reference or application to a large number of plants, largely in the province of Ontario and largely municipally owned, where they manufacture coke as a by-product to their manufacture of gas. Now, the item having been widened, there will be a drawback of fifty per cent to those municipal gas plants where hitherto there has been no drawback at all. Because we are widening the item the amendment of which I speak is moved to take care of the established business which has been in existence for some time in sections of Ontario.


James Layton Ralston: I am sorry to delay the committee. I quite understand that when my hon. friend brought down the item he intended to widen its application but to narrow the drawback. The drawback was applicable to more coal but there was a smaller drawback; formerly it was 99 per cent while now it is only 50 per cent. What I want to know now is what is the difference between the amendment now introduced and item 1049 as proposed by the minister in the budget speech. I understood that tariff item 1049 as proposed did widen the item. Does this item still further widen it?

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It still further widens it in this sense, that if my amendment were not to carry some established importers of coal who for many years have been in business in the province of Ontario, and hitherto have supplied the gas plants in that province, would be put out of business, and the gas coal would have to be imported direct by the gas plants. My amendment, accordingly, permits coal to be imported as hitherto, through the importing channels, but it can earn the drawback only when it actually is converted into coke in the gas plant.


James Layton Ralston: Was there not a situation in connection with by-product coke ovens to which the old item applied? Was there no case there in which the importers brought in coal and sold it to the by-product coke ovens?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No, it had no application before. Under the application of old item 1049 it had to be imported by the manufacturers themselves.


James Layton Ralston: Why I query the matter is this: Previously this drawback applied only to by-product coke ovens, and when imported by manufacturers using or operating by-product coke ovens. The principle which my hon. friend wishes to introduce in the amendment is that not only shall you give the benefit to those manufacturers who actually import for the purpose of using it in by-product coke ovens, but you shall give the benefit to those importers who bring it in for the purpose of sale to those who run the by-product coke ovens. As I understand it, that would have considerably widened the item, but my hon. friend has gone even farther. He has proposed that this drawback shall apply to coal used in gas plants, and in what they call bee hive ovens as well. That is a further concession to American coal. That makes the drawback apply to more coal, but he has reduced the amount of the drawback, and therefore probably the protection in the long run to the Canadian market is about the same. My hon. friend goes another step now and states, "Not only am I going to give a drawback in case of coal imported by manufacturers operating by-product coke plants and gas plants and bee hive ovens, but I will give it in case coal is imported for this purpose by people who are not manufacturers." That, it seems to me, is a second step in widening the application.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I think the better way to put it would be this, that it will not increase the opportunity to qualify for the drawback.

All it does is to permit a plant to import its coal through an intermediary. That is all it means.


James Layton Ralston: Could my hon. friend give me an estimate-I am not tying him down- as to the amount of coal to which the present amended item would apply?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I cannot give my hon.
friend figures as to the amount of coal to which it will now be applicable, exactly. I could, however, tell him how much was used and the amount of drawbacks under old item 1049.


James Layton Ralston: Would my hon. friend
do that?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I could give my hon. friend and the committee a list of the companies and municipal corporations which will participate in the tariff amendment. They are:
The International Coal and Coke Company, Coleman, Alberta Crowsnest Pass Coal Company, Fernie and Michel, British Columbia.
Nova Scotia Light and Power Company, Limited', Halifax.
New Brunswick Power Company, Saint John.
Quebec Power Company.
Board of Light and Heat Commissioners, Guelph, Ontario.
City Gas Company, London.
Consumers Gas Company. Toronto.
Gas Commission of St. Thomas.
Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario. Cobourg.
Ontario Shore Gas Company, Limited, Belleville.
Ottawa Gas Company, Ottawa.
Port Hope Gas Company, Port Hope.
Public Utilities Commission, Kitchener.
Public Utilities Commission, Owen Sound.
Public Utilities Commission, Stratford.
Manitoba Power Commission. Brandon.
British Columbia Electric Railway, Victoria, British Columbia.
British Columbia Electric Power and Gas Company, Vancouver.
The Corporation of the city of Nelson, British Columbia.
Then, I give my hon. friend these figures: In 1932 a drawback was paid on 1,181,675 short tons of bituminous coal amounting to 8877,493.88. In 1933 there was an importation of 1,167,240 short tons and the drawback was valued at 8866,676.36.


James Layton Ralston: In addition to the figures showing 1,167,240 tons imported by by-product coke ovens, I find the imported coal used in gas retort ovens in 1933-34 was 570,251 tons, and the coke produced in bee hive ovens in 1933-34 was 55,377 tons. The capacity of the bee hive coke ovens was 431,500 tons, and the capacity of the gas retort ovens in Canada was 302,000. So it seemed to me that there was a possibility of this new item applying to an

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
additional 1,200,000 tons, although the old item applied to only 1,167,240 tons. Therefore it seems to me that the benefit of the reduction of the drawback from 99 per cent to 50 per cent would be more than offset by the increased application of the drawback to double the amount of tonnage. That is the figure I wish to have from my hon. friend. Has he anything to verify this increase of about 1,200,000 tons to which this drawback will apply, under the amended item?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have not those figures before me. Of course, my hon. friend is familiar with the general purpose we had in mind. We were confronted with this situation: The old item 1049 was brought into existence in 1925 for very good reason, namely, that coke came into Canada duty free, whereas if you wanted to manufacture coke in Canada the manufacturer was penalized by having to pay a duty of 50 cents a ton. As the tariff then stood it was designed to make it to the advantage of the manufacturer to manufacture the commodity which he used. What was done was that item 1049 was introduced to the tariff, giving a drawback of 99 per cent of the duty on coal converted into coke in by-product coke ovens. All that did was to place the manufacturer of coke in Canada on a parity, less one per cent, with the manufacturer in the United States, and it was done for the reasons I have indicated. But in the yeaT 1931 we placed one dollar a ton duty on coke, and removed entirely the reasons which occasioned item 1049 being applied in the first instance. Then there arose the situation that the manufacturer of coke in a gas plant who was selling coke in a given market found himself in competition with coke being manufactured by a by-product coke oven. The gas plant man was paying 75 cents duty on his coal, and the man with the by-product coke oven was not paying anything. That was the situation with which we were confronted. Either we had to widen the item or we had to cut it out. What we did was to split the difference. One reason for this amendment was the thought that it would inflict less hardship upon those who had hitherto enjoyed the drawback and would confer a very marked advantage upon a large number of users who could now enjoy the drawback of one-half the amount. While undoubtedly it will result in hardship to one or two important importers who have hitherto enjoyed the larger drawback, having regard to the country as a whole, we believe the result will be beneficial and it certainly will be more equitable.


Mr. STEWART (West Edmonton):: I
do think that the by-product coke ovens to which the drawback was extended on account of their manufacture of metallurgical as well as domestic coke-


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: My hon. friend must not
mention metallurgical coke.


Charles A. Stewart: I
merely mention that because it came in free.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: We are not touching that
at all.


Charles A. Stewart: I am
merely explaining the reason for the extension of the drawback to this particular product. It was comparable to metallurgical coke although up to that time metallurgical coke had not been used for domestic purposes to any considerable extent. When we extended this drawback we felt that it was going to be very helpful in encouraging the manufacture of domestic coke and in decreasing the price of anthracite coal which at that time was selling for $18 per ton. We succeeded in getting that happy result, that is, the price of anthracite coal was reduced very materially. My hon. friend must bear in mind that the by-product coke ovens or the coke plants throughout Canada, many of which he has mentioned, were not manufacturing a fuel comparable to metallurgical coke and that fuel had no appreciable power in the reduction of the price of anthracite. I always felt that if they changed their plants they should be entitled to the drawback. Many of them intended to do so but I assume the depression prevented them from taking this action. I am not objecting particularly to the extension but I feel that if plants like the Consumers Gas Company of Toronto and the gas company of this city changed their plants they should receive the benefit. The only two plants which took advantage of this were those in Hamilton and Montreal. Through experiments carried on in Montreal in connection with the treatment of coal, the plant there has increased very materially its consumption of Canadian coal. This is not true of the Hamilton plant as they do not use any Canadian coal. This change proved to be of great benefit to the producers in Nova Scotia. From an original consumption of five or six thousand tons of Canadian coal this plant has increased to a consumption last year of 150 thousand tons.


Mr. CANTLEY:: Two hundred thousand
tons this year.


Charles A. Stewart: We
had two purposes in view; one was to increase the consumption of Canadian coal, which we

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
did not accomplish at Hamilton, and the other was to have a competitor for anthracite coal which would have a controlling influence upon the price of that commodity to the consumer. I think my hon. friend will agree that those two purposes were accomplished. While the dollar a ton duty on coke referred to by my hon. friend is very helpful to the Hamilton plant, it has not the same effect upon the Montreal plant. My hon. friend has made up his mind to make a test of this matter but I would have preferred if he had left it as it was. I believe it was working very advantageously and accomplishing the two purposes which I have named. It has proved to be a regulating influence upon the price of anthracite, both American and British, and, in the case of Montreal which is within reasonable distance of the coal mines of Nova Scotia, it has brought about an annual increase in the consumption of Canadian coal. I felt that that was something to be desired and I thought it was working out to the advantage of the consumer and of the producer in Nova Scotia. I do not know what the result of this new move will be but in my opinion it certainly will not increase the consumption of Nova Scotia coal. We are not affected in western Canada because the only coke plant in existence there, that at Winnipeg, has been using Canadian coal for some time. I hope this move will not have the effect of cutting down the consumption of Nova Scotia coal and that it will continue to have a regulating influence upon the price of anthracite.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: For a number of years my hon. friend was Minister of Mines and he has had very intimate contact with the industry. I differ from him with some hesitancy but I must say that I do not follow him in his argument that by introducing item number 1049 he is going to encourage the use of Nova Scotia coal. I do not think he oan sustain that argument. Our feeling has been that that was a blow rather than an assistance to the Nova Scotia coal industry. I am not trying to raise this for the purpose of creating any party atmosphere with respect to this matter and I hope my hon. friend will accept my assurance upon the point. I cannot see how this proposal will affect the Nova Scotia coal industry prejudicially. I may say to him that our object in adopting this method was entirely different. We felt that an injustice had been created as between different producers in Canada of the same commodity.


Charles A. Stewart: It is not the same.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: My hon. friend Bays that it is not the same commodity. For the sake of argument let us assume that the quality of coke produced in a by-product coke oven is superior to that produced in a gas retort plant. The fact of the matter is that they are both coke, they are both fuel and they sell in the same manner. It cannot be to the disadvantage of the manufacturer of the superior product to be placed in even competition with the man who is producing an inferior product. So far as the manufacturer of t'he quality commodity is concerned, it seems to me that he is not prejudiced to the slightest degree. I admit that the situation in Montreal is a real one as it presents problems which are not common to any other industry affected by this drawback item. That matter gave me a great deal of concern. In the first place, the dollar per ton duty on coke was of relatively small advantage as they were faced with the free entry of British coke. That was the difficulty in the case of Montreal but it does not apply to the other coke ovens situated inland. Coke is a very bulky commodity and they are not subject to the same degree of competition under the British preferential tariff. Their only competition is from American coke which is subject to a duty of one dollar per ton. As my hon. friend has said we propose to adhere to this proposal and try it out for a year. If we find that any better method can be devised or put through after practical experience, we shall do so. Should any injustice appear in individual cases, for example, with respect to the Montreal coke manufacturing company, we will have to deal with the situation another year.


Charles A. Stewart: I do not think the change will in any way increase the consumption of Canadian coal.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Possibly not. I am not alleging that such will be the case.


Charles A. Stewart: As a matter of fact, I fear it will reduce the consumption. I want to correct my hon. friend with respect to the change in the use of Canadian coal. I know my hon. friend to my left (Mr. Ralston) did not agree with me and he has strenuously fought the idea from its inception believing that Canadian coal was entitled to protection, but I am not quarrelling with him about that. The fact remains that the plant that was within transportation distance of Nova Scotia mines has increased its consumption of Nova Scotia coal annually, and much more so may I say to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance in the days since he has been minister than previously because

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
after experimentation it was discovered through the agency of the Mines department and the company's own particular branch that was manufacturing in Montreal that more and more of the Nova Scotia coal could be acceptably added and they have gone on increasing the use of it. The minister has just informed us that it is now 200,000 tons. I did not know that it had reached that amount. It is possible that they will not cut down on that amount but will continue to use that much. I think they are making an honest endeavour to use as much Canadian coal as they can. That is what they agreed to do from the inception of the plant, and we spent a considerable amount of money to accomplish that end. If this were going to help the Canadian coal industry, if it meant that there was going to be more Canadian coal used,
I would be all for it, but I do not think it will. However, my hon. friend and I disagree on that point, and time will show what the results will be.


Thomas Cantley: There is one thing it will do; that is, it will tend to reduce the importation of coke. There is no question about that. So far as the use of Nova Scotia coal in Montreal is concerned, our difficulty was the unfounded prejudice of people who thought they could not get along without American coal. It took us several years to overcome that prejudice. There was no foundation for it at all. It was an absolute prejudice.
Mr. STEWAjRT (Edmonton): I can hardly accept that statement. Part of it is true perhaps, but on the other hand my hon. friend knows perfectly well that the change that took place among the miners themselves in preparing the coal had a tremendous effect on the amount used, and also the methods adopted in the plant itself for converting the coal into coke. Both factors tended to help the consumption of Nova Scotia coal. There is no doubt in the world that the engineers themselves were prejudiced against Nova Scotia coal as compared with American coal, but they have got over that, and I think they are making an honest endeavour to use every pound of Canadian coal that they can in their production.


Thomas Cantley: I stick to what I said, Mr. Chairman, that in the first year we had to overcome an absolutely unfounded prejudice. As a matter of fact, in Nova Scotia
we have been making satisfactory coke for more than thirty years from Nova Scotia coal without mixing it with anything. We have never had or needed any mixture either then or now.


Mr. BURY:: My hon. friend from West
Edmonton thinks that the change in the tariff item will not affect western coal. I wish I could believe that that was true, but I am afraid that the increase in the coke that will be produced by bringing in these beehive ovens and gas plant ovens will have the effect of bringing on to the market in Ontario a larger amount of coke and will conduce to the greater use of coke as a fuel, and I cannot see how that is going to have any other than a bad effect upon the efforts we are making in western Canada to get our Alberta coal into some part of the Ontario market.
I hope the reduction of the drawback may have some influence in the other direction, but I would deprecate exceedingly any change in the tariff item that would put another obstacle in the way of, or cause any discouragement to the movement.of Alberta coal to supply the Ontario market, which the government has already helped so much.


Charles A. Stewart: I do not
think my hon. friend need worry about that because bituminous coal from Alberta has never come from beyond Kenora.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: I am not talking about
bituminous coal.


Charles A. Stewart: That is the
only coal used in making coke.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: I am talking about the highgrade lignite coal which comes to the western part of Ontario and competes with anthracite and coke, and which now will have to compete with a larger volume of coke. The competition was hard enough when the coke was confined to the products of by-product coke ovens. It will in my opinion be very much intensified if the coke is poured out also from coke ovens, by-product and others, in competition with western coal in eastern Ontario.


James Layton Ralston: Manufactured from American coal under this drawback.


Mr. COOTE:: I wonder if the minister
would give to the committee a statement showing the amount of drawback paid in the last year, giving the names of the companies and the amount in each case.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff Mr. RHODES:	The drawback paid in 1932-33 and 1933-34 was as follows:
Steel Company of Canada	
Algoma Steel Corporation	
Hamilton Byproduct Coke Ovens	
Winnipeg Electric Company	
Montreal Coke and Manufacturing Company Ottawa Gas Company	
Drawback paid
1932-33 $277,541 65 41,919 40 308,295 07 23,727 98 210,608 64 15,401 14
1933-34 $342,541 43 44,080 81 263,369 65 6,868 88 192,926 35 16,890 04
That makes a total in round figures of $877,000 in 1932-33 and $866,000 in 1933-34.


George Gibson Coote: I understood the minister
to say, when he gave a list of the companies that would benefit from this, that there was one coal company in southern British Columbia and I was wondering why it was not included in the list just given.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I gave to the committee just now, at the request I thought of my hon. friend, the amount of the drawback and the companies that received it under the old item. A short time ago I gave a complete list of the companies who will participate in the benefit arising from the change in the item, permitting them, to the extent of half the amount hitherto available, to get the benefit of the drawback. In that list the International Coal and Coke Company, Limited, of Coleman, Alberta, is included. That is the only Alberta coal company there is, so far as we know.


George Gibson Coote: I misunderstood the minister. I thought he said that they had participated.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No-will participate.


George Gibson Coote: Under the new item proposed, does the coal have to go directly to the gas plant when it is imported?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No; early this afternoon I moved an amendment which would permit the coal to go to the gas plant through an intermediary. This was to protect existing contract suppliers who have been in business for a number of years. It will not affect the incidence of the tariff nor widen it in any way. It serves merely not to disturb and put out of business some coal dealers who have for many years been supplying some of these plants.


George Gibson Coote: I understand the coal could be purchased through the dealer, but does the physical coal itself, when it is imported, go to the dealer's yard, and if so, can it then go to the gas plant and the rebate be paid on it? How will the department administer this? How is it going to be sure that the coal was imported for that purpose?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I am assured by the officials of the Department of National Revenue that there will be no difficulty in the matter of administration. Even if my 'hon. friend might have in mind the idea that there might be substitution, I would point out to him that the question of the actual quantity of coke produced would afford an accurate measure of the quantity of coal which was consumed, and therefore of the total number of tons which would benefit by the drawback.


George Gibson Coote: Would this enable the dealer to sell some slack that he was not able to dispose of otherwise, by selling it to some plant making coke and thereby secure the rebate on that quantity of coal?


James Layton Ralston: Is there any large quantity used by operators of beehive ovens and gas plants which is bought through middlemen?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The amendment that I brought in is designed largely to protect one or two well established businesses in western Ontario which have been supplying the industry hitherto. It is to meet that particular case that this amendment has been introduced. They have the machinery, the wharves and the^ equipment and they have been in the business of supplying some of these industries for many years.


Charles A. Stewart: Any importer who sells to a gas plant would have to produce his record of sales in order to get any drawback?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes.


Charles A. Stewart: I do not know whether there is any particular complaint with respect to this, but after all, my hon. friend would have been well advised to stick to the gas plants and their returns.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I am quite free to admit that in practice it may work out that the object we have in mind may not be accomplished, in which event, if I am in this position another year, I shall not have the slightest hesitation in coming to the committee and saying so, but I thought there was a measure of justice in the proposal and I should like to try it out.

Special War Revenue Act


James Layton Ralston: I am apprehensive that cutting the drawback in half and extending the application will result in our paying half the drawback on more than double the number of tons so that the result will be a detriment rather than a benefit to Canadian coal.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The best information I can get is that so far as the treasury is concerned we shall be in about the same position, but we must always bear in mind this factor, that the use of coke is increasing and you cannot therefore measure one year with another with any degree of accuracy. The use of coke is increasing because the knowledge as to its use is becoming more widespread and as people become accustomed to it they regard that type of fuel with favour. It has become increasingly popular for another reason and that is that to-day coke is selling at two or three dollars a ton less than it sold for a very short time ago. The tendency has been for the price to go down rather than up.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: We will take up the gold resolutions.


SPECIAL. WAR REVENUE ACT AMENDMENT
[Stage Direction]
Resolved, that it is expedient to amend the resolution proposing amendments to the Special War Revenue Act, introduced on the eighteenth day of April, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four, by striking out paragraphs nine to thirteen inclusive and paragraphs fourteen and seventeen of the said resolution and substituting the following:-
9.	(1) That in addition to any duty or tax that may be payable under this act or any other statute or law, there shall be imposed, levied or collected a tax of twenty-five per centum on the premium value of gold deposited for sale at the Royal Canadian Mint produced from ore mined in Canada by producers of gold who in both of the years one thousand nine hundred and thirty-two and' one thousand nine hundred and thirty-three and at any time in the six months prior to April nineteenth, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four, paid, dividends in cash or stock on preferred or common stock.
(2)	That such premuim value shall be the difference between the price of $20'6718+ the ounce fine, established by the Currency Act, and the sale price of gold in the world market converted into Canadian currency at the prevailing rates of exchange, under regulations to be made by the Minister of Finance.
(3)	That the amount of the said tax shall be deducted by the Master of the Royal Canadian Mint from the proceeds of the sale of each deposit of gold subject to the tax and shall be paid by him to the receiver general.
James Layton Ralston: I think the minister should put on record the difference in principle between what is now proposed and what he proposed in bis budget speech.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The wording as we now have it provides the equivalent of what was introduced in the budget as a ten per cent tax on gold production. In other words a tax of twenty-five per cent on the exchange premium is the equivalent as nearly as may be of a ten per cent tax on production, with this distinction, that these provisions ensure that the tax will only come from those mines which have been regular dividend payers. For example if a mine paid a dividend in the year 1932, and did not pay a dividend in 1933, it would not be subject to this tax. Only those companies which paid dividends during the years 1932 and 1933 and for the six months' period ending March 31, 1934, will be subject to the tax. The wording, "gold deposited for sale at the Royal Canadian Mint produced from ore mined in Canada by producers of gold" excludes from the operation of the tax placer gold and scrap gold. There is one other feature; that is that the companies which pay the tax will be able to secure credit on this tax to the extent that they pay income tax. Those are the only changes from the original proposal.


James Layton Ralston: I congratulate my hon. friend on the change he has made. While he says these are the "only" changes, I think they are most vital to the gold mining industry of the country. When I had occasion to address the house after my ho>n. friend had delivered his budget speech I stressed the point that what my hon. friend should not do was to tax production, but that if a tax must be imposed on the gold-mining industry of the country it should be imposed on profits. Secondly, I stressed the fact that he should not tax mines which were in the development stage. There are plenty of mines which are producing some gold but production and profits from these have in the very nature of things to be plowed back in order that the mine may reach a stable and satisfactory producing position. My hon. friend has met the first point by providing that the tax shall be on the premium and not, as in the original proposal, on t'he price itself; and by providing further that the tax shall only be paid by mines which have paid dividends, thus taking care of the point that only those mines which have profits shall pay it. In the same way he has met t'he point that mines which are only in the development stage shall not be taxed, because these mines have not yet started to pay dividends. I think the tax is much more equitable in this form. It is a radical change from what was proposed in the budget. Far be it from me to suggest that my hon. friend has taken any suggestion
Special War Revenue Act

or hint from this side of t'he house but still I am glad to note that his proposals meet the points which were made at the time his budget was criticized. May I say that the third point, namely that the tax paid is to be credited on account of income tax, shows how thoroughly and absolutely 'he has adopted the principle I endeavoured to lay down that only paying mines and only profits shall be taxed for the purpose of raising revenue from this particular industry.


Mr. FRASER (Cariboo):: I want to say
a word in regard to this tax on gold, particularly with reference to the exemption of placer gold, as provided under the amendment. It will be remembered that when the tax was imposed in the first place it was a tax on the total production of gold, placer as well as lode. That had a very unfortunate bearing on the production of placer gold in my own district. As one who probably comes in closer contact with that class of goldmining than any other person in the house I would like to explain the effect that a ten per cent tax on placer gold production would have in my district. Since the depression hit Canada we have in the neighbourhood of a thousand men in the Cariboo district producing placer gold individually by rocking on the bars and benches there. Now these men are of a class who are doing their utmost to keep off relief.	They resorted to this
method of earning a living and undertook this laborious work-because it is hard, difficult work and the returns are very small-and I thought it was rather an imposition on men of that kind to take ten per cent of their total production when they were doing their best to relieve the country of their maintenance. I cannot say exactly what the returns obtained by these men are, but from my own knowledge gained through purchasing the gold from them I would say that during the year 1932 when this operation started practically, I bought something like .810,000 or $12,000 worth of gold and kept pretty accurate track of the amount of work put into the production of that gold. As nearly as I could figure the wages that these men were making from this operation were between 50 and 60 cents a day. Now you can understand that with a thousand men in my district working for such wages through their anxiety to keep off relief, the proposal of the government to take a ten per cent rake off from their production was not very popular. I appreciate very much, as do the placer miners of the Cariboo district, the fact that they have been relieved of that taxation.
fMr. Ralston.]
In order to show how much it affects the production of gold, last year the total production in Canada with premium added was something like $85,000,000. The production of placer gold is practically confined to the Yukon and British Columbia. The production of placer gold in British Columbia last year was $357,000 and in the Yukon about $1,000,000. Remember that the Yukon production at the present time is taxed by the federal government. I think it is two and a half per cent at the present time, but at one time the federal government levied a tax on twenty per cent on the total production of the Yukon.
I should like to give just a few figures in regard to mining in British Columbia. In 1933 there were 155 new mining companies incorporated in that province, of which 145 were gold mining companies. Most of these concerns, of course, are lode mining companies. Last year the British Columbia government issued 16,000 free miners' licences, the greatest number of such licences ever issued in that province in any one year. That is accounted for by the fact to which I just referred, that so many unemployed men resorted to the bars and benches of the different rivers of that province in order to recover as much of the gold from the gravel as they possibly could. I may say that some of those men who were well versed in the science of prospecting, who knew just where to go and how to save the fine gold, made very handsome profits. The majority of these men, being inexperienced and not knowing how to prospect, where to look for the gold or how to save it after they found it, made very small returns. In addition to those free miners' licences the British Columbia government also issued provisional free miners' certificates entirely without charge, which carried the privilege, for these men who were trying to make their living, of having their claims recorded free and working their claims without charge. So it will be seen by the committee that the government of British Columbia has been working in cooperation with these men in order to give them an opportunity to make a living in that way.
There is just one other point I should like to mention in connection with the expansion of gold mining in British Columbia. The territory which is producing the greater part of this gold is the territory served by the Pacific Great Eastern railway, and the tonnage hauled over that railway last year was greatly increased through the extension and expansion of the gold mining industry. That road

Special War Revenue Act
hauled 6,472 tons of freight in 1933 as compared with 2,137 tons in 1932, which gives an idea of what the gold mining industry does for the railway serving the territory in which the expansion is taking place.
Let me once more express my appreciation for the modification that has been made in the original proposal, and at the same time I should like to express to the Minister of Finance and the government the appreciation of those who are engaged in that industry in British Columbia.


Charles A. Stewart: I, too, should like to congratulate the minister on his amendment. As the provision was introduced it would have put a great many of the smaller gold mines out of business; there is no doubt of that. Undoubtedly it would have hampered the mines giving the greatest amount of employment as well, so I think the minister should be congratulated on having made the change. Undoubtedly the profit tax is the fairest tax that can be imposed, though in my mind I have a doubt as to whether this is a proper field for the federal government to enter. It seems to me that if a tax on gold was to be imposed it should have been imposed by the provinces, because there are only about three of the provinces that are gold producing. However, I am not going to quarrel with the minister on that aspect of the matter; I know how badly he needs revenue, and I am informed that he will get about as much by this method as was anticipated in the proposal first made. I do think this will have a stabilizing effect on the production of mines which have had some difficulty in carrying on and which, as I have pointed out, of necessity must give a greater amount of employment than the mines which now will be affected. I am not so sure about the retroactive aspect of the amendment. Is that not a new departure?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No; there is nothing
retroactive in it.


Charles A. Stewart: I understood that it was retroactive to 1933.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No, that has reference only to companies which paid dividends in that year; it is not a tax on the gold produced. Companies had to pay dividends in 1932, 1933 and the six months prior to March of this year; otherwise they were not taxed at all. That is merely used for the purpose of defining those companies that should pay the tax as and from the 19th day of April. That is all.
I could discuss this matter at length; it is rather an interesting subject, but I will deal with only one point. May I say to my hon. friend from Edmonton that the taxation of the mining industry is one thing that quite properly might be a field of taxation reserved to the provinces, but the tax on the premium on gold is an entirely different thing. The price of gold is fixed under the Currency Act as a matter of statute; its value is determined by the legislation of this parliament, and with all deference I submit that the tax on the premium is peculiarly within the right of this parliament and does not interfere in any way with the right of the provinces to tax the mining industry as such. Their taxation in that respect can be levied if they see fit to do so.


Samuel William Jacobs: They can do so now; there is nothing to prevent them from taxing the mining industry, as they probably will in due course.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: That is so.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: The hon. member for
Cariboo (Mr. Fraser) stated that in the last few years he had purchased a great deal of gold from miners. Paragraph 10 of this section makes it unlawful for anyone but the producer to ship gold to the mint. From this section I take it that the original producer must transfer his gold to the mint, and that it cannot be purchased by anyone other than the mint. I should like to know from the minister if that assumption is correct.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Perhaps I may be permitted to say a word in that connection. Placer mining is in a peculiar position. If the provision that producers must bring their gold to the mint were strictly adhered to it would debar hundreds and thousands of individual placer miners who gather up small quantities of placer gold in the Yukon and in British Columbia. So it is a real convenience to them to give them an opportunity of disposing of their gold on the spot and receiving cash from some individual who is prepared to buy it from them. That individual may gather together a considerable volume of such gold and, in turn, send it to the mint. My hon. friend will observe that the minister may issue a permit which would cover just that case in point. It is an entirely different thing from the gold which comes from a producer such as a company which produces several hundred ounces of gold in a year, as compared with the individual placer miner who produces perhaps only a few ounces.
Special War Revenue Act


Alfred Edgar MacLean: For the information of those of us who are on the outside and do not know the inside story of gold mining, would the minister tell us how the master of the mint knows placer gold from gold mined in other ways?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I am informed it is very easily distinguishable. The gold coming from each mine, as a matter of fact, has distinguishing qualities to an extent that the moment the master of the mint sees a brick he can tell, with a great degree of accuracy, from which mine it has come. There are different colours, qualities and bloom, as the hon. member for Pictou has reminded me. Furthermore, in every case certificates of origin are required.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: I wish to thank the minister for his explanation and, with other hon. members, to congratulate him upon the amendments. We must not forget. that the mining of gold is made possible by the investing public, and in connection with the imposition of a tax of this kind they must be considered. Not only t'he operators of gold mines and miners of placer gold are interested, but there are people from coast to coast who have put their money into mining ventures and made it possible for these operators and miners to carry on. Therefore, if the change made by the minister brings about a more equitable arrangement, I should like to congratulate him. I do not say he took his cue from the hon. member for Shelburne-Yar-mouth, but I do say there was a general appeal from people throughout the country that changes should be made, and I think the Minister of Finance was wise in making the change.


[Stage Direction]
Paragraph agreed to.
10.	That it shall be unlawful for any person to whom the provisions of this part apply (i) to sell gold produced from natural deposits in Canada otherwise than to the Royal Canadian Mint, except by the consent in writing of the Minister of Finance; (ii) to refuse to sell or refrain from selling such gold to the Royal Canadian Mint at such time as in the usual course of business such gold would be sold, and to provide penalties for violation of this provision.
Samuel William Jacobs: I should like to have some information from the minister as to whether the mint purchases old gold, and if so what prices are being paid for it?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The mint does purchase old gold. It is well defined and easily distinguishable as old gold, under the regulations
IMr. Rhodes.]
which have been laid down. The price paid is the world price less a charge of one dollar an ounce. I may point out that the gold must be in its original form.


Samuel William Jacobs: Old teeth, for instance,- bridges, and that sort of thing, melted down.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No, not melted down.


Samuel William Jacobs: They must be handed in in their original form?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes. Otherwise the opportunity to drop in the odd five dollar gold piece would be irresistable.


Samuel William Jacobs: So that if old gold comes in bars, melted down, it will not be purchased by the mint?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No, it must be in its original form, namely in the form of jewellery, spectacles, watches, rings and so on.


Samuel William Jacobs: That is scarcely an original form for gold.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It is the original form of old gold.


Samuel William Jacobs: What about teeth?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Well, I do not know whether or not they receive any teeth at the mint, but I have seen large quantities of old jewel-iery, watches, watch cases, rings, brooches, pins, ear rings, and all sorts of odds and ends


Samuel William Jacobs: The minister does not propose to put teeth in this law, then?


Mr. SIMPSON (Algoma):: Not gold teeth.


John Anderson Fraser: I should like to ask the minister if the regulation in regard to the permits issued to banks for the purchase or the handling of this gold will be continued? I am speaking about placer gold.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes, it is the purpose to
have such machinery as may be necessary to facilitate the carrying on of placer mining and the disposition of placer gold.


John Anderson Fraser: There is no contemplated change in the existing legislation?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: No, no change contemplated at the moment.


Samuel William Jacobs: I should like once more to revert to this matter of the price of old gold.
I have in mind an instance where a person came from the United States bringing a quantity of old gold in bars. It was declared illegal to bring it in, because a declaration

Special War Revenue Act
was not made at the border. That was the only illegality committed. After he had straightened out his difficulties with the department at Washington this [DOT] person retained parties in Canada for the purpose of selling the gold. He thought he would be able to do so, gaining the advantage of the premium, but he was unable to negotiate a sale because of the fact that the gold was not produced from Canadian mines. The question of the odd five dollar gold piece ought not to have been considered, because if there were any they would be American, and not Canadian. In that respect, therefore, he did not break the law. Why was it he was not given the regulation amount of $35 an ounce for his gold?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: For the reasons I indicated a moment ago, our regulations state that gold shall be submitted to the mint in its original form. This is done for the express purpose of preventing old gold being melted down, and gold coin being added to it.


Samuel William Jacobs: Canadian gold coin?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Yes, or British sovereigns,
or the five dollar gold pieces of the United States, none of which, as coins, are worth more than their face value.


Samuel William Jacobs: Why should we declare a
protectorate over American gold?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Because the United States coins are legal tender in Canada. We wish to protect only the legitimate trade, and not that trade which arises out of the opportunity to make an easy dollar.


[Stage Direction]
Paragraph agreed to.
11.	That no charges except the charges imposed by the regulations for the receipt of gold bullion at the Royal Canadian Mint shall be made by the Royal Canadian Mint in respect of any gold subject to the said tax, and the costs incidental to the sale of such gold so subject to the tax after its receipt by the Royal Canadian Mint may be paid out of the revenue collected by means of the said tax.
Paragraph agreed to.
12.	That all gold exported in the form of ore, concentrates or base bullion produced from ore mined in Canada by producers of gold who in both of the years one thousand nine hundred and thirty-two and one thousand nine hundred and thirty-three and at any time in the six months prior to April nineteenth, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four, paid dividends in cash or stock on preferred or common stock, shall be subject to the said tax, under regulations to be made by the Minister of Finance.
Paragraph agreed to.
13.	(1) That the said tax shall apply to gold deposited for sale at the Royal Canadian Mint, or exported, no matter by whom deposited, or exported, if it would have applied had such gold been so deposited or exported by the person who mined the ore from which such gold was produced.
(2)	That the said tax shall not apply to gold deposited for sale at the Royal Canadian Mint, or exported by any person if it would not have applied had such gold been so deposited or exported by the person who mined the ore from which such gold was produced.
(3)	That a depositor or exporter of gold shall furnish such evidence of the origin of the gold deposited or exported as the Minister of Finance may require and any producer of gold from natural deposits shall furnish to the Minister of Finance such information as he may require.
Paragraph agreed to.
13a. (1) That the said tax shall not operate so as to reduce the amount payable to the depositor or exporter below thirty dollars the ounce fine in currency of Canada.
Paragraph agreed to.
(2) That the amount of the said tax levied in the fiscal year ending March thirty-first, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-five shall be reduced by the amount of income tax payable under the Income War Tax Act by the producer of gold on which the tax has been levied, for and in respect of the calendar year one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four and the adjustment resulting therefrom shall be made when the amount of liability for income tax has been determined after the close of the fiscal period of such producer in respect of the calendar year one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four and for the purpose only of this subsection (2) where the fiscal year of a producer does not coincide with the calendar year, the producer shall make a return to the commissioner of income tax as at the end of the calendar year one thousand nine hundred and' thirty-four and a computation of income tax payable on the basis Of such return shall be made by the commissioner of income tax in the same manner as if such return had been made under the provisions of the Income War Tax Act and the amount so computed shall be determined to be the amount of income tax payable for the purposes of this subsection (2) and shall be used as the basis of the said adjustment: Provided, that in the case of a producer who derives income through the production of gold combined with other metals or materials, the provisions of this subsection (2) shall apply only to the amount of income tax attributable to the production by such producer of gold subject to the tax.
Samuel William Jacobs: I hope the phrasing is
sufficiently clear for those who have to operate under it. From the length of the section it looks to me as though this will be a gold mine for lawyers who will have to interpret the section in due course.


Mr. MANION:: It was probably drawn up by a lawyer.

Special War Revenue Act


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I have the hope that the fears of my hon. friend will be unfounded. As a matter of fact, this section has been drafted with very great care.


Samuel William Jacobs: All sections are drafted that way.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It has been scrutinized very carefully by the solicitors representing the companies which will be affected. I think perhaps the best evidence I can offer to my hon. friend that it covers the cases I have in mind is that I have as yet had no protests as to the wording.


Samuel William Jacobs: That does not amount to much.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I believe it is eminently suited to accomplish the objects which we have in mind.


Samuel William Jacobs: I hope it is but I imagine we will not know that it has been drafted with great care until the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has rendered a decision.


[Stage Direction]
Paragraph agreed to.
13b. That the Minister of Finance may make such regulations as he deems necessary or expedient to ensure the carrying out of the provisions and intent of this part, and to determine in any ease of doubt whether and to what extent gold deposited for sale at the Royal Canadian Mint, or exported, is subject to the tax, and such regulations shall have the force of law as if enacted in this part.
Paragraph agreed to.
14.	That any enactment founded' on paragraph one shall come into force on the first day of July one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four, and any enactment founded on paragraph two shall be deemed to have come into force on the twenty-first day of May, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four.
Paragraph agreed to.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: This is the amendment
which appeared in the votes and proceedings of May 29. In order to carry out the sequence I would ask you to take up number 15 which will be found in the budget resolutions.
15. That any enactment founded on paragraphs three, four and five of this resolution shall be deemed to have come into force on the nineteenth day of April, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four.


[Stage Direction]
Paragraph agreed to.
16. That any enactment founded on paragraphs six, seven and eight of this resolution shall be deemed to have come into force on the nineteenth day of April, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four, and to have applied to all goods mentioned therein imported
[Mr. Manion.l
or taken out of warehouse for consumption on and after that day, and to have applied to goods previously imported for consumption for which ,no entry for consumption was made before that day.
Paragraph agreed to.
17.	That any enactment founded on paragraphs nine to thirteen B shall be deemed to have come into force on the nineteenth day of April, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four and shall expire on the thirty-first day of May one thousand nine hundred and thirty-five.
Paragraph agreed to.
Resolution agreed to.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: I move that the committee rise, report the resolutions, and ask leave to sit again.
Resolutions reported, read the second time and concurred in.


CUSTOMS TARIFF AMENDMENT
[Stage Direction]
Hon. E. N. RHODES (Minister of Finance) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 98, to amend the customs tariff.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. E. N. RHODES (Minister of Finance) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 99, to amend the Income War Tax Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. E. N. RHODES (Minister of Finance) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 97, to amend the Special War Revenue Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I ask the consent of the house to revert to motions in order that I may table a report from the tariff board covering reference number 42, hookless fasteners, in connection with which an item was considered in committee of ways and means.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
Hon. R. J. MANION (Minister of Railways and Canals) moved that the house go

C.N.R.-Finance
into committee on Bill No. 71, respecting the Canadian National Railways and to authorize the provision of moneys to meet expenditures made and indebtedness incurred during the calendar year 1934, and to provide for the refunding of certain maturing financial obligations.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. MacDonald (Cape Breton) in the chair.
Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.
On section 3-Power to issue notes, for refunding and capital expenditures.
Mr. REID:: Perhaps the minister will remember that last year I took up with him the matter of a contract that had been let for the transporting of cars across Burrard inlet. It was drawn to t'he minister's attention that the contract was exorbitant in price and that perhaps the ferry belonging to the Canadian National Railways which has been lying idle in the Fraser river might be used. Has the minister looked into that and can he give me any information?


Robert James Manion: I did look into that matter at the time and I remember well that the Canadian National Railways management explained it to me quite satisfactorily, but I am sorry I cannot give my hon. friend the details now. The management explained that from the standpoint of finances they were ahead in the method they were employing, at least to their satisfaction. I have no doubt that I have all the details in my office, and while I cannot remember them at the moment, I shall be very glad to give them to my hon. friend if he cares to bring the matter to my attention at another time.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 3 and 4 agreed to.
On section 5-Power to aid other companies.
Mr. CASGRAIN:: What other companies?


Robert James Manion: Any of the component parte of the system-subsidiary companies.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 6 to 12 inclusive agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.
74726-247 J

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, June 8, consideration in committee of Bill No. 91, respecting shipping-Mr. Duranleau-Mr. MacDonald (Cape Breton) in the chair.
On section 2-Definitions.
Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: Mr. Chairman, before we proceed further with this bill I should like to know what the government has decided since last Friday evening. I was not here when discussion on the bill started. As everybody can see, this is a very bulky billi It is true that it has been considered by the Senate this year and that it has also been before a Senate committee which has gone over it very carefully, as it did also last year, but if it took the Senate all of last session and practically all of this session to be able to appreciate the contents of this bill, I think it is only fair to the members of the House of Commons that the same opportunity should be given to them. But here we are in the dying hours of the session, on the very last lap, and this bill is presented for our consideration. I do not think it is fair to ask the members of the House of Commons at this stage of the session to examine this bill carefully, clause by clause-the clauses are very numerous-and to examine all the rules and regulations and all the schedules that are attached to the bill.
But there is another reason. Although this bill was considered by the Senate last year I have been told that the Senate received many delegations from the pilotage authorities of the various districts throughout the country both this year and last. There are members of the House of Commons who would like to _ have some knowledge of the discussions that took place over there. Of course we cannot be expected to follow the discussions that take place in the committees of the Senate on the various bills that are later submitted for our consideration, for as hon. members will recall, this year we have had to consider in this house most important legislation, the revision of the Bank Act, which we passed only recently; the companies act, the act creating the new central bank, and many other pieces of legislation of the highest importance.
My attention has also been drawn to the fact that there are in this bill certain rules and regulations which affect the fishermen of the lower part of the province of Quebec and of the maritime provinces, and I am informed that the owners of schooners and other vessels and boats will have to pass examinations and obtain certain classified
Canada Shipping Act

certificates in order to operate their boats. In our part of the country and in the maritime provinces I am told that a great many of these people will be put at a great disadvantage if this bill is passed, because while most of them have been brought up to the sea a good many of them I daresay on account of their age and physical condition, the condition of their eyesight and other things, may not be able to pass the examination prescribed. If they cannot, they will be put to great expense in engaging the services of a certificated man to put in charge of the ship and the crew.
There are also in the bill certain clauses and rules and regulations which affect the pilotage district of Montreal and pilots of vessels coming from the maritime provinces and up the lakes, and especially affecting the pilots below Quebec. I am told on good authority by the assistant deputy minister, who is a very amiable and also a very responsible and competent authority in these matters, that these rules and regulations will not affect the certificates of pilots who have held their certificates for a good many years, but that they will affect the certificates of pilots in the future. This is a most important matter, and the situation of those pilots should be made clear when the bill is being discussed. I have received numerous communications, requests and petitions from the pilots of the district of Quebec concerning this very matter.
These are some features which right there stare us in the face. I am also mindful that as we proceed with the discussion of this bill other points which will come up for debate may take a considerable time. Last year when a similar bill was under consideration it was not proceeded with because of the serious -contentions made in relation to it, but the government saw fit to have a measure passed to protect sailors and others employed in vessels, the pilots being supposed to be protected also. On that occasion the Minister of Marine told us that it was of paramount importance that this measure be put through in order to protect those sailors and others. Now I am told that this bill that was passed last year by the House of Commons and assented to by the Senate did not come into effect. The government was in a great hurry to have the bill passed to protect those people but it did not see fit to pass an order in council to promulgate the bill and put it into effect. Apparently, however, nobody has suffered from the measure not being put into force. The same thing will happen to the present measure, and it might just as well

await its birth, origin and light of day for another year. For these reasons it might be laid over this year, as it is now nearly the end of the session. The shipping interests of the country will not suffer any harm if the passage of the bill is delayed for another year, and next session when we reconvene we shall have an opportunity to consider it and be able as members of the House of Commons and as truly representative of the people to give due and full consideration to the legislation. After five months of strenuous work as we have had it is not fair in the last days of this session to ask members to consider all the clauses of this bill and to give it the attention we would like to give, the same as we have given to other measures that have been laid before us in the last few weeks.
It is not sufficient to say that the Senate has considered the bill and reported favourably. I think it was the Minister of Justice who said the other day in connection with a bill concerning lotteries and sweepstakes that; the fact that it came from the Senate was not a certain certificate, and the house did not see fit to accept the proposals contained in that measure. It is all very well to say that the Senate is the superior body over all the people in this country, but when an important matter such as shipping comes up, the House of Commons should have the right and full opportunity of discussing every clause, subclause, schedule and anything else connected with the bill so as to be able to vote on it in an intelligent manner. Consideration by the Senate is all very well in certain cases, but we should not always take it for granted that we should pass any legislation just because it comes before us with their certificate.
Last year the question of the constitutionality of this legislation arose. I was not present when the minister spoke the other day, but this bill raises many serious questions with reference to the constitutionality of the law, and I should like to have more cogent and important reasons that we should be asked to put the stamp of our approval on this bill holus-bolus as apparently the government wants us to do, I for one protest against this measure being brought before us in the last days of the session. I remember a few years ago because bills were sent by the former government to the upper chamber in the dying days of the session, the Senate refused to consider them although they had been fully considered and passed by the House of Commons.
I for one would ask the government to reconsider its decision and see whether it would

Canada Shipping Act
not be well to put over this bill for another year. The government would be well advised if it would have the committee report progress and not have us asked to consider this bill again this year.


Mr. MERCIER (St. Henri):: Am I right
in saying that the Senate has studied this measure in the past two years?


Mr. DURANLEAU:: I think hon. members have followed the consideration of this bill in the Senate. As I explained when it was introduced and when I spoke on the second reading, last year a similar bill was introduced in the Senate and studied by the standing committee on banking and commerce of that chamber. When the interested parties were before that committee the point was raised as to the power of the Canadian parliament to impose certain duties on British consuls or other officials in other countries when we had perhaps no such authority. So the bill was deferred to this session and we had to arrange with the British authorities in the meantime to settle the point. That was the only question raised last year. The hon. member for Charlevoix-Saguenay (Mr. Cas-grain) spoke of the constitutionality of the legislation. I do not think there is now any ground for any fear, all these points have been settled.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: How were they settled?


Alfred Duranleau: The bill before the
Senate last year had to be withdrawn. Practically the same bill with certain amendments was introduced this year, and referred to the standing committee on banking and commerce of the Senate, where in turn a subcommittee was set up, where it was studied, I suppose, during two or three weeks. It was then referred back to the full committee on banking and commerce of the Senate, where again all interested parties were heard and slight amendments incorporated in the bill on the representations made. I would refer my hon. friend to the remarks I made on the second reading of the bill as they appear in Hansard of June 8 at page 3812.
The point raised by the hon. member for Charlevoix-Saguenay that the bill should stand over was raised by some of his colleagues last Friday. It was understood then that the government would consider the matter and after having done so and owing to public opinion, we feel we are bound to proceed with the bill. Though the debate took place late last Friday, I have been receiving since
then telegrams from interested parties urging the adoption of this measure. I can give my hon. friends the contents of telegrams we have so far received.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: From what concerns?


Alfred Duranleau: I have received a
telegram from the National Association of Marine Engineers of Canada, Council No. 8 of Levis, recommending the immediate adoption of this bill. They say:
Shipping bill as passed by Senate a great improvement and greater protection to navigation in general.
I have received also a long telegram from the Shipping Federation of Canada saying:
Reference debate House of Commons June 8 re shipping bill: This federation respectfully urges government proceed with enactment this important measure during present session of parliament. Representations from all parties interested this legislation were considered fully by Senate committee last year and again this year; consequently no interests can claim they have been overlooked or have had insufficient time submit their views. Consider any further postponement neither necessary nor in best interests shipping.


Mr. DUFF:: That statement is not correct. Who signs that?


Alfred Duranleau: The Shipping Federation of Canada.


William Duff: Where?


Alfred Duranleau: Montreal.


William Duff: Oh!


Sir EUGENE FISET:: Was it in answer
to a telegram of your own?


Alfred Duranleau: Not at all. These
wires have been received as a result of what they have read in the press since last Friday about the debate. The Canada Steamship Lines have also sent a long telegram urging adoption of this bill at this session. I heard my hon. friends last Friday; I heard also the hon. member for Charlevoix-Saguenay and I would say that there are not more than ten or fifteen sections of the bill affected by their statement.


William Duff: Who says that?


Thomas Reid: There are twenty-five at least.


Alfred Duranleau: I am saying that from the debate last Friday it appears that there are not more than ten or fifteen sections on which there would be discussion or contest.
All the other sections of the bill are a reproduction of our present law.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: Then they are in force
now.
Canada Shipping Act


Alfred Duranleau: They are in the
Canada Shipping Act or the load line convention or a reproduction of the safety at sea convention. All these conventions were ratified by this house two years ago and are the law of the land to-day.


William Duff: My hon. friend says that only fifteen clauses are in dispute. I ask him if he understands from my remarks last Friday that that is the case.


Alfred Duranleau: I would invite my
hon. friend to state the sections of the bill that he intends to oppose.


William Duff: I intend to oppose the whole
bill.


Alfred Duranleau: Well, let us suppose
so; we must proceed. We can go on clause by clause and my hon. friends will do what they think is in the public interest.


Mr. MUNN:: The minister gave a list of
requests he had had from different people interested. I would like to know if he has had any representations from the Pacific coast urging that this bill be proceeded with?


Alan Webster Neill: Since Friday.


Alfred Duranleau: I do not say that I have.


Albert Edward Munn: Say no, then.


Alfred Duranleau: Because they did not have time since last Friday-


Paul Mercier: They could
wire.


Alfred Duranleau: -to do what the others from the east have done.


William Duff: Did my hon. friend receive any representations from the maritime provinces ;hat this bill should be proceeded with?


Alfred Duranleau: I understand that all >arties in Canada concerned with shipping are nterested in having the shipping laws put into effect, and we have been asked every year that it be done.


Paul Mercier: It is funny.


Alfred Duranleau: Have the fun you want. Let us proceed, and my hon. friends will have ample opportunity to discuss any sections of the bill.


William Duff: My hon. friend has made the statement that the people of Canada are satisfied with this bill. I am asking him a definite question: Since this bill was passed by the Senate,-it was amended in a hundred different clauses by the Senate during two years and at the cost of a large amount of money
fMr. Casgrain.]
in bringing a lawyer from Vancouver who did not know a codfish from a mackerel, and they had a lawyer this year who does not know whether an alewife is a fish or not,-since the bill left the Senate has the minister received any representations from the eastern provinces that the shipping and business people in those provinces are satisfied with this bill? I want a definite answer.


Alfred Duranleau: I can tell my hon. friend that not a single man from the east has opposed the bill that is before the house to-day.


William Duff: Because they have not seen it. And that, Mr. Chairman, is my objection. What I want is to have this bill go to the shipping and business men all over Canada, whether on the Pacific coast or in Quebec or on the great lakes or the Atlantic provinces. I say this bill should not be forced through parliament, but these people should have a chance to study it. Here we have a bill of 497 pages which nobody has seen, which I say the minister himself has not read completely-


Alfred Duranleau: I beg your pardon.


Peter John Veniot: Lord help you!


William Duff: Well, perhaps the minister has read it; I must take his word for it. But I have spent a week since last Wednesday and so far have read only 74 pages out of the 497. The minister must have better knowledge than I because he has been to college and I have not, but I say that the people interested in this bill have never seen it and in the interests of the shipping and business people of this country, of the seamen and the fishermen and everyone else, I protest. It is not fair that the minister should ask that this bill be passed without due consideration.


Peter John Veniot: Last Friday when this bill was before the house certain of us from the maritime provinces on both sides of the house made representations asking that for certain reasons which we considered important this bill should not be proceeded with. It was then suggested, I think by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Rhodes), that in order to get the bill moving, one section or subsection should be adopted, and then the government would take time to consider whether they should proceed with the bill or on the request of representatives from the maritime provinces withdraw it till next session. Evidently the government has now decided to proceed. In order to justify that action t'he minister tells this committee that since last Friday he has received from various sources telegrams

Canada Shipping Act
asking that this bill be proceeded with immediately. I gather that he has received a telegram from the National Association of Marine Engineers of Canada, Levis section. Assume that it be from all the marine engineers of Canada, I do not care what section it comes from or the number, can the minister point out anything in this bill protecting the marine engineers that was not in the old act? He cannot do it. Therefore why should the marine engineers be in such a hurry to have this bill go through? The marine engineers' association of Canada looks after the interests of marine engineers, but we find in this bill section upon section that affects one of the largest industries in Canada, the fishing industry. Has the minister any representations from the fishermen's associations in the maritime provinces asking him to put the bill through in its present form? He cannot produce one line. Let me go further, and I am very earnest in this because I see the danger of almost absolute ruin to certain branches of our fishing industry if this bill goes through.


Mr. BENNETT:: Why?


Peter John Veniot: I will tell you in a moment. If it goes through in its present form it will impose conditions on the fishing industry of this country with which they cannot comply.


Alfred Duranleau: What sections?


Peter John Veniot: There are many sections. If we are forced to go on with this bill I will endeavour to have those sections amended, but what is the position of any representative of the fishing districts of the maritime provinces to-day, when we have not had an opportunity of consulting with our people, of laying this bill before them, of discussing the dangers they may see and their opinions as to the remedies .to be proposed? We are not in a position to consider the bill. If you force us to go on with this bill you force us to attempt to carry out what we believe is in the best interests of the fishing industry, but even with the knowledge we have of that industry we may do an injustice to our people. That is why I feci so strongly in the matter.
The other reason mentioned by the minister had to do with a telegram received from the Shipping Federation of Canada, who, the minister told the committee, represent all interests. They do not. The interests represented by that association from whom the minister received his information are principally the deep water interests, those
concerned with communication between Canada and foreign countries and those engaged on the lakes, which are international waters to some extent. They have no authority to represent or speak for the men engaged in the fishing industry in this country, and that is another reason why we do not desire to proceed with this bill. The minister also says the Senate has considered the bill and that all interests were represented before the Senate committee. He read a telegram something to this effect, "In view of the fact that all interests were represented before tha Senate this bill should go through." I say that telegram is a lie. It states that all interests were represented before the Senate, but neither the minister nor anyone else can show that one single interest connected with the fishing industry was represented before the committee of the Senate. Therefore why force us to go on with this bill this session when I am convinced that no interest will suffer if it is put off? I am firmly of the opinion, however, that if it is put through in its present form very large interests will be detrimentally affected, and the Lord only knows what the end may be.


Mr. IIACKETT:: Mr. Chairman, I was before the Senate committee for a number of days following this bill while the hearings were going on. I shall not attempt to enumerate the interests represented! there, but many interests were represented and many witnesses were heard. During the time I was there, which included the better part of a week, I thought the bill received very careful attention, especially from a large body of men from the eastern provinces.


William Duff: Who were they?


Mr. HACKETT:: The senators who come
from the east. To the onlooker they gave the impression that they were not only deeply interested in the work which has been going on there for some three years, I think, but that they were intimately acquainted with it. Furthermore I noticed that the great majority of the sections are non^controversial. A great many of them deal with treaties; a great many of them are lifted out of the old act, and a large portion of the time spent on these sections was devoted to their arrangement, deciding the sequence in which they should appear, rather than in dealing with the purport of any particular sections.
I thought the house might be interested to know the impression obtained by one who followed the proceedings of that committee very carefully. In the heated state of mind in which some hon. gentlemen seem to be
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I do not know whether they would care to proceed with the consideration of the bill, but I think if they attempt that course they will find that the controversial sections are very few and a long way apart.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The government proposes to proceed with this bill. It has been twice before the Senate, it has received more consideration than any bill that has come before parliament for a very long time. It has been given more attention in detail than any measure that has been in either house for a very long period. It is the result of much effort in which the former Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) participated in 1929 in London, in directing the general principles that should govern this legislation. The bill was drafted, considered by experts, redrafted and considered in committee.


William Duff: Who were the experts, please?


Richard Bedford Bennett: They were the gentlemen responsible for its legal provisions. The representatives of the various interests concerned made their statement before the committee. If there are very controversial sections in the bill they can stand as we proceed, and if the amendments suggested by hon. gentlemen opposite are such as appear to be in the public interest we shall be very glad indeed to adopt them. I trust that the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Veniot) will recall the observations made by his distinguished leader a few days ago with respect to the duties of a member of parliament. In the light of that statement I am sure he will find some difficulty in accommodating his views as expressed this afternoon to those of his honoured leader.
We desire to proceed with the bill for the reasons I have given. We believe it is in the public interest, which is the paramount interest. If individuals find it inconvenient to particular interests we will always consider the public interest and the particular private interest affected, but the public interest must prevail. With that principle in mind we will proceed with the discussion of the bill.


Peter John Veniot: I did not intend to speak again, but since the (Prime Minister has lectured me on my duties as a member I feel that I should make some reply to his remarks. It is true my right hon. leader did refer to the duties a member owes not only to himself but to the country as a whole. I do not need either my right hon. leader or the right hon. leader of the government to teach me any lessons in that regard. I have been long enough in public life to know the duty I owe to my constituents and to the pu' r:i at large.

This afternoon I am not pleading for my constituents, but I am pleading on behalf of one of the largest industries in Canada. I am speaking for the fishing industry on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and I am backed by representatives from those districts of our dominion. That industry, to my mind, is paramount to any protection this law may afford in connection with deep sea sailing, or the protection of engineers and captains of deep sea vessels. Therefore my opposition to the bill is not parochial. I have in mind the duty which, as a member of the House of Commons, I owe to all sections of Canada. As the principle has been laid down that the lesser must give in, for the benefit of the larger, may I say that to-day I am pleading on behalf of the larger. I am pleading on behalf of the fishing industry of Canada, as compared with the lesser interests of engineers and captains of vessels running from one country to the other. Under this legislation they are fully protected, and they were fully protected under the old legislation. There is no amendment in the new bill which affords protection contrary to that which was given them under the British act, the measure under which we have been operating since 1867. But in the adoption of the present measure as it stands an injustice would be perpetrated against one of the greatest industries in Canada, and as a member of the House of Commons with a full knowledge of my duty to my country and to myself I am pleading on behalf of that great industry, and against the smaller interests connected with marine engineers and deep sea captains.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: I regret that this very voluminous document which is of such great importance should be placed before the house at this time, and that at this late hour of the session we should be asked to study it. Hon. members know that we cannot stay here all summer. If, as the hon. member for Stan-stead (Mir. Hackett) has said, the other chamber studied the measure for three years, surely that is sufficient indication as to the importance of and the difficulties in connection with the measure. I agree entirely with the Prime Minister (Mr, Bennett) as to the advisability of a revision of the shipping act; it must be done. So far as the constitutional point raised by the hon. member for Char-levoix-Saguenay (Mr. Casgrain) is concerned, I must say that I am of the opinion his fears are not well founded. I think however it is not fair at this late hour of the session to ask hon. members of the House of Commons to consider the bill. It is the result

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of much work, as the Prime Minister and Minister of Marine have said. Undoubtedly it is a good thing that public business should originate in the Senate, but the fact remains that the country is not used to that procedure, and as a result the proceedings of the Senate are not followed as closely or as attentively as those of the House of Commons. With the exception of those hon. members who have been peculiarly interested in the measure, the country as a whole has certainly not become familiar with it.


William Duff: They have not had a chance.


Ernest Lapointe: On the whole I must agree with hon. members who have said it would be better to give the people of Canada an opportunity to become better acquainted with the bill before we undertake to proceed with it.


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. MacDonald, Cape Breton):: We are on section 2 of the bill, and I notice that in this section there are 113 subsections. Does the committee wish me to read every one of them?


William Duff: Yes, if it is necessary, but I should like to call it six o'clock.
At six o'clock the speaker resumed the chair and the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration in committee of Bill No. 91, respecting shipping- Mr. Duranleau-Mr. Smith (Cumberland) in the chair.
On section 2, subsection 2-" The Admiralty."
Thomas Reid: This is a new bill and it contains all the regulations pertaining to the hiring and dismissal of seamen, to hospitals and to all that which concerns the lives of the men on board ship. Would the minister be good enough to tell me if any personal representations were made before the Senate by representatives of the seamen or seamen's institutes?


Alfred Duranleau: From the west coast?


Thomas Reid: From anywhere, but particularly from the Pacific coast.


Alfred Duranleau: The proceedings of
the committee of the Senate were not reported, but I am informed that no representations were made by the seamen on the west coast.


Paul Mercier: Were representations made to the department by navigation or other organizations in Montreal?


Richard Bedford Bennett: What has that to do
with it? The government is assuming responsibility for the bill.


Alfred Duranleau: For two or three
years representations have been made, both verbally and in writing, to myself and my officials by different shipping associations and navigation interests. In drafting this bill with the assistance of the officials of the Department of Justice, the officials of my department have taken into consideration all the representations received.


William Duff: What representations were
made?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I do not think the representations which have been made should be the subject matter of inquiry in this matter. The government assumes full responsibility for the introduction of this bill, which arises from the conferences of 1926 and 1929. This bill is the result of what took place in London in 1929 and is one of the legacies which we inherited. For three years we have been endeavouring to give effect to it, and this is now the fourth year.


William Duff: I do not think it is ncessary
for the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) to intervene in this matter. Why does he not go back to mid-Victorian days, to the day of George I or to some time a thousand years ago? I think I am quite in order in asking this question of the Minister of Marine, and I do not think the Prime Minister had any right to interject what he did a moment ago. I have asked the minister if he has received certain representations in connection with this bill and I would like to know what they are. I contend that the fishing and shipping interests of this country are opposed to this bill. They do not know what it is, because they have not seen it, and we are now being asked to pass it in the dying days of the session. It came over from the Senate only five days ago, and I think the people of this country should have an opportunity to study it and decide whether it is right or wrong.


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Smith, Cumberland) :: Shall the subsection carry?
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William Duff: No, the minister cannot answer, that is the trouble; he does not know.


Alfred Duranleau: I told the committee that for the past two or three years representations have been made to my officials and to myself. Surely my hon. friend is not serious when he asks me to give him the particulars of the representations made. Different associations have made representations in connection with the sections in which they are interested, and as we proceed with the bill and reach the sections in connection with which representations were made, I will give my hon. friend what he asks for if I am in position to do so. But I do not think it is fair to put the question in that way when we are dealing with subsection 2 of section 2, which concerns definitions.


William Duff: Certainly it is proper for the minister in charge of this bill to tell us what is the object of the bill and what result it is going to have. This is a bill of 497 pages; it has 719 sections, it has 113 definitions and there are 224 pages of schedules. Surely the minister does not expect us to pass this bill when it has been before us for only four or five days. It is all right for the Prime Minister to want to close up this parliament in a few days, and I appreciate that, but-


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am perfectly indifferent to that.


William Duff: I beg your pardon?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am perfectly willing to stay all summer.


William Duff: All right, if you cannot go to have a holiday, neither can I, and we will stay. The Prime Minister and I agree that we will stay here until September* But even if we do stay until September, it is not fair that a bill of 497 pages, drafted by a lawyer from Vancouver, an honourable member in another place, in whose name the bill appears but who does not know a codfish from a haddock or an alewife from a hake, should be passed so quickly. This bill was sent here a week ago, and surely the Prime Minister does not expect us to pass it in a few days. Let us be fair about this thing. This bill means a lot to every man, woman and child in the maritime provinces, on the great lakes and on the Pacific coast. Surely the Prime Minister does not expect us to pass this bill in the few minutes taken by the Senate to pass it. Does the Prime Minister want us to do that? Has the Prime Minister read this bill? No, of course he has not. No one else has read it. I have been studying it for a week but how far have I got? Seventy-four pages [The Chairman.]
out of 497. Has the Prime Minister read one page? Has the Minister of Justice read two pages? Has the Minister of Trade and Commerce read ten pages? Has the Minister of Railways read fifteen pages? No. And yet the Prime Minister comes in here to-night and wants us to pass this bill in bulk, without giving it any consideration. Don't consult the fishermen or the sailors on the Atlantic coast or the Pacific coast; don't consult the men on the great lakes; just let us put this bill through so that we can get clear of parliament in a few days. I say, Mr. Chairman, that that is not fair. It has taken the Senate two years to pass this-I will not call it an amalgamated bill-what is it? It is a posthumous bill. It was conceived in sin and born in iniquity, and the Prime Minister wants us now to pass it without the opportunity for consideration. Surely he does not really want to do that, for he does not know what it is all about; he has not read the bill. There are hundreds of clauses in this bill which nobody has seen. The Prime Minister has not read them, and because the Senate passed the bill in three minutes, as they did a week ago, the Prime Minister now wants us to put this bill through. It is true that the bill was considered by a committee of the Senate, but who gave this bill to the Senate? A lawyer from Vancouver and a lawyer from Ottawa. Here is a bill, Mr. Chairman, which deals with the lives and the property of every business man on the Atlantic coast, on the Pacific coast and on the St. Lawrence. Surely the Prime Minister does not want us to put it through in such a hurry. .
Let us be fair about this tiling. Nobody will suffer if this bill goes over until another session. Nobody will be hurt. The seamen, the masters and the mates and everybody else concerned are not complaining. The Minister of Marine cannot show me one telegram or letter from anybody interested in the business life of this country who wants this bill passed at this session. Why, then, should the Prime Minister or the Minister of Marine want us to pass this bill now? Let it stand over for another session so that the shipping men and the business men can look it over, instead of rushing it through in the dying days of this session.
The Prime Minister says that we can sit here till September. Of course we can, but I would not want the Prime Minister with all his troubles and worries to have to face parliament for another two months. I would give him Wednesday nights off.
Here is an important bill of 497 pages, a bill which affects the shipping people and the business men of this country, and yet the

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Prime Minister says:	You must pass this bill
before parliament prorogues. I say, Mr. Chairman, that before we proceed to do that, the Minister of Marine must give us reasons why this bill is introduced at this stage of the session. Let him tell us what he knows about it. The Minister of Marine cannot give any good reason why this bill is introduced at this moment. I say that with a bill like this, which has not been before the shipping industry of this country, which has not been before the ship owners and before the business men who are interested in shipping, there is only one thing to do, and that is to ask that this committee rise, and say that this bill should not pass now.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: I would respectfully draw the attention of the committee to paragraph 2 of rule 58, which reads:
Speeches in committee of the whole house must be strictly relevant to the item or clause under consideration.
We are on subsection 2 of section 2 of this bill. It seems to me that the discussion has travelled very far afield, and I would ask hon. gentlemen to stick a little more closely to the section.


Thomas Reid: Mr. Chairman, when the bill
came up for discussion on Friday evening, the very first clause was allowed to stand without discussion on the understanding that we proceed to section 2 and that then the committee would rise. It was the understanding of the committee that when the bill again came up hon. members would be allowed very considerable latitude on this section. It was the Minister of Finance, I think, who suggested that the committee should rise after calling section 2.


The CHAIRMAN:: I have no objection.
I am in the hands of the committee.


Peter John Veniot: When the bill was up for
second reading, Mr. Chairman, there was no discussion upon it because it was understood that we would have a general discussion in committee, not confining ourselves to any particular section of the bill. Otherwise there would have been a lengthy discussion on the second reading.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: I would like to ask, so as to clarify the position, how many sections of this bill are reenactments of the Merchant Shipping Act, how many are reenactments of sections from the revised statutes of Canada, and how many are new sections. It seems to me that there are very few new sections, but I do agree that some of those are worthy of very careful consideration.


Alfred Duranleau: For the information of the committee, during the recess I counted the new dispositions in the bill and I find that there are exactly seventy new enactments, sections and parts of sections. There may be in all about thirty or thirty-five new sections. The whole bill is a reproduction of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, a reproduction of the Canada Shipping Act, and a reproduction of the conventions which have been the law of the land since 1931, when the load line convention and the international convention for safety of life at sea were approved by this parliament. There are from thirty to thirty-five new sections in all. That is why I said to my hon. friends on Friday evening that if they would take the trouble over the week-end to look over the bill they would find that there were not many controversial sections. I am sure, Mr. Chairman, that as we proceed to study the different sections my hon. friends will very shortly come to the conclusion that there is not so much to discuss.


William Duff: It is very nice of my hon. friend the Minister of Marine to say that I should have spent the week-end in trying to arrive at a conclusion with regard to this bill, but evidently he does not appreciate the seriousness of the situation. My hon. friend from York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) asks what new clauses there are in the bill. Let me say to him that the trouble with this bill is that the Marine department are back in the mid-Victorian era. They do not realize what has happened in the last thirty years. This bill is a composite bill drafted by certain officials in the Marine department, with the assistance of somebody else-I do not know who it is -who does not appreciate present conditions. If my hon. friend from York-Sunbury, who asked a question, will listen to me, I say that this is a composite bill drafted by somebody, first by a lawyer from Vancouver who perhaps deserved the money that the government paid him-he spent a year on it-and then by another lawyer. And what did they give him? A bill which is absolutely opposed to the business interests of the people of this country, to the interests of the fishing industry and of the marine industry. This bill takes us back to 1896 and 1906. I do not think the Prime Minister should be asked to father this bill or to say that he knows something about it. He does not. He is a lawyer from Calgary and my hon. friend opposite is a lawyer from York-Sunbury. But surely my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. Cantley) and my hon. friend from Inverness Mr. Mac-
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dougall) and others who go down to the sea in ships and do business on the great waters should be allowed to express their views, and I think our views should be taken into consideration by this government. I would be delighted, if this bill were right, that the house should pass it in bulk just as the Senate did in three minutes. But I say to my hon. friend from York-Sunbury that this bill, this illegitimate child of somebody, for that is what it is to those who have had a chance to study it, is not in the interests of the shipping industry or of the business men of this country. Has my hon. friend from Pictou had a chance to go over the 497 pages of this bill? Has my hon. friend from Inverness read the 719 clauses of this bill?


Mr. MACDOUGALL:: I have read all the sections of the bill and I want to say that I do not see any section that prejudices the interests of the fishermen.


William Duff: I am delighted that my hon. friend is such a strong supporter of this government that he will say that, but I want to say to him that if he and the government will take the responsibility for this bill, if he wants to see every fisherman and every mariner thrown on the beach-


Isaac Duncan MacDougall: How do you make that out?


William Duff: That is what will happen. My hon. friend does not know; that is the trouble. Under this bill every fisherman in a boat of five ton registry must have a certificate; every marine captain, every man who sails a fishing vessel or a freighter must have a certificate under this foolish, crazy bill, because that is what it is. If my hon. friend and the govern* ment want to take that responsibility, of course I shall lose perhaps $20,000 or $50,000 or $100,000. All right, I can stand that. If my hon. friend wants to be defeated in the next election I shall be willing to sit down right now and pass the bill en bloc.


Mr. BAKER:: 


William Duff: Yes, what does the hon. member who comes from Toronto care? He was never seasick in his life.


Richard Langton Baker: I have travelled hundreds and thousands of miles on the sea and have never been seasick.


William Duff: The hon. member must have had a good remedy for seasickness. He must have used Mothersill's. This is a serious matter. This bill contains 497 pages; it has been two years in the Senate and it embodies all

the ideas of the Marine department. Of course I admit that the practical men in the Marine department were never consulted about it; the minister cannot deny that.


An hon. MEMBER:: Are there any there?


William Duff: Yes, there is Captain Dixon. Was he consulted about this bill? Was Captain Robertson consulted about this bill? No.


Alfred Duranleau: Does my hon. friend know Captain Dixon appeared before the Senate committee and gave all his views on this bill?


William Duff: My information is that Captain Dixon was not consulted and that Captain Robertson, another practical man in my hon. friend's department, went before the Senate committee on the advice and at the instigation of one of the senators and was refused permission to give information and evidence.


Alfred Duranleau: I think my hon. friend is wrong.


William Duff: I am not wrong. I am right.


Alfred Duranleau: He is misinformed.


Mr. STITT (Selkirk):: I would like to direct the attention of the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough to the fact that I represent a few fishermen in my riding and I took the opportunity to go before the committee of the upper house. I was there afforded a wonderful hearing and was enabled by their assistance, without the matter being fought on party lines, to have the bill amended in the interests of my fishermen. It seems to me that there is no cogency in the argument advanced this evening by the hon. member who has just spoken. I am only a junior member of this house while he has been here for many years. As I was interested in the fishermen of my riding I got into touch with the department; I learned that the bill was going through the upper house; I got into touch with the chairman; I was invited to appear before the committee of that body and they were very careful in regard to every provision of the legislation. The Senate is not a hundred miles from this House of Commons, and when any man says in this chamber that he had no opportunity to go before that body he is saying what is not- true and is really convicting himself of a neglect of duty.


William Duff: Of course I do not mind my hon. friend saying that anything I have said is not true; that is only what I would expect

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from him. But I would like him to tell me what he did before the Senate committee, what clauses he got amended and what clauses that he advocated are in this bill?


James Herbert Stitt: I got clause 122, paragraph (b) amended, and I got the right of my fishermen to apply for licences to operate their vessels on the waters of lake Winnipeg. I was assisted in that by members of both parties in the upper house. While I am on my feet I want to thank the upper house for the consideration they gave me. I was also present when representatives of labour were there. I believe Captain Robertson's name was mentioned this evening. He sat beside me in the Senate committee.


Peter John Veniot: Did he give evidence?


James Herbert Stitt: Representations were made by organizations from the western coast, from Vancouver and, in fact, the Senate committee was working on May 24 when most of us were away on a holiday. I cannot speak too highly of the businesslike way in which the bill was handled and the free invitation and opportunity given to everybody who wanted to appear.


Ernest Lapointe: Does my hon. friend not believe it is in this house that he ought to present the case of his electors?


James Herbert Stitt: I believe it is in either house when I am given an opportunity to present a case. As an advocate the exMinister of Justice ought to know that in any forum in which it is possible for him to appear he should take the opportunity to embrace that privilege.


Ernest Lapointe: Those of us who were busy before committees could not go there.


William Duff: My hon. friend said that due to the fact that he went before another committee in another place he arranged with that committee that clause 122 should be as it appears in this bill. I am going to read clause 122 to show the committee-


James Herbert Stitt: Paragraph (b).


William Duff: I know my hon. friend is a good member of the house and wants to do his duty by his constituency, but listen to this: this is clause 122, subclause 1:
The minister upon the report of an examiner of masters and mates-
Are there any on Lake Winnipeg?


James Herbert Stitt: Yes, quite a few. Lake Winnipeg is larger than lake Ontario.


William Duff: I will ask the Prime Minister: Are there any masters on lake Winnipeg?


Richard Bedford Bennett: There are masters of steamers on lake Winnipeg anyway.


William Duff: The right hon. member means tugboats.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, passenger boats.


William Duff: All right-of small tonnage.
The minister upon the report of an examiner of masters and mates, and upon payment of a fee of five dollars, may grant a temporary certificate as master to an applicant sufficiently qualified by his knowledge and experience to take charge of-(a) a steamship-
Listen to this, Mr. Prime Minister:
-of not more than twenty tons gross tonnage.
Is that a steamship? Would he like to cross the Atlantic in one? Would he like to go to the orient in one? Would he like to go anywhere in a steamship of twenty tons gross tonnage?


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is a ship plying in minor waters.


William Duff: Yes, perhaps it is minor, but the Prime Minister butted into this thing; he butts in when he should allow the Minister of Marine to deal with the matter.
(a)	a steamship of not more than twenty tons gross tonnage, and certificated to carry not more than twelve passengers, plying within specified limits on the minor waters of Canada.
(b)	A steamship of not more than thirty-five tons gross tonnage employed in fishing operations-
Listen to this:
- (including the carrying of fishermen, their wives and children, and fish and fishing supplies used in connection with their operations) plying within specified limits on the inland waters of Canada.
2. The certificate shall describe such steamship and limits. It may be issued for any term not exceeding one year, but may be suspended or cancelled for cause by the minister.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is all on the statute now.


William Duff: I am reading the statute or the bill. The hon. member for Selkirk said that he did something in the Senate. I would like to know what he did. Will the hon. member please tell us-and perhaps the Prime Minister will elaborate on this-what happened in the Senate in regard to this clause.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am going to make only a very few observations, but I should like to direct the attention of the committee to the fact that this bill is a codification of existing
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legislation with such additional clauses as changed conditions between the enactment of the original legislation and its modifications and to-day make necessary. I hear hon. gentlemen talk about the schedules. There are 272 pages of the bill. The first schedule represents the agreement reached at the international Geneva conference which was signed by the late Albert Thomas, director of the International Labour Office, and the late Lord Burnham. That is a matter to which this country gave its approval. The third schedule is the convention concerning the repatriation of seamen, and that too is an international agreement which this country has accepted. This was done in July, 1926, while hon. gentlemen opposite were in power. It is signed by Lord Burnham and Mr. Thomas, late director of the International Labour office, at Geneva. Those two schedules, to both of which this country became a party in July, 1926, are embodied in this bill in accordance with the understanding arrived at that the bill was to contain those provisions.
Then we pass to the fourth schedule which was accepted in 1929 while hon. gentlemen opposite were still in power and Canada was represented, as will be found at page 290, as follows:
The government of Canada:
Mr. Alexander Johnston, Deputy Minister of Marine.
Mr. Lueien Pacaud, secretary in the office of the Canadian High Commissioner in London.
That is the fourth schedule, and it was ratified by parliament last year or the year before.


Peter John Veniot: Put into effect.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was ratified; it became binding on this dominion. All the clauses do not become effective until the shipping bill is passed. If hon. members follow through the pages they will find all these matters that the house has already ratified or dealt with are in schedule 4. The articles in that schedule number in all sixty-six and the signatures are on pages 324 and 325, our country's signatures being those of Mr. Johnston and Mr. Pacaud.
Then we come to the regulations issued under that schedule. All these regulations ire matters that this house considered and accepted. They are in their very nature technical; they represent an international understanding or agreement. They are not matters that we are enacting for the first time, but they represent, as I have said, an accord or understanding reached between the various countries. For instance, there are
fMr. Bennett.]
the questions of safety at sea and matters of that kind, the form of certificates that are to be issued. On page 373 will be found the second annex dealing with collisions at sea.


William Duff: Are these not part of this measure?


Richard Bedford Bennett: All that has already been accepted by this house.


William Duff: Are they not part of this measure?


Richard Bedford Bennett: As a matter of fact the sound signals and matters of that kind are also dealt with in this article. Then you come .to the fifth schedule, page 389. In that instance the government of Canada ivas represented again by Alexander Johnston, deputy minister of Marine. The convention was arrived at in 1930; some hon. members will recall the circumstances in which it was dealt with. That is the load line convention. This house accepted these regulations as international arrangements for the safety of those who travel at sea.
Therefore from page 272 to the end there is nothing that this house has not already accepted. As a matter of fact we are bound internationally by it. Some of the arrangements were made by former administrations, in fact I think it is only fair to say practically all of them; but the regulations were made in part by this administration, as was the duty of this government after they had been agreed to by our representatives. My memory is that the load line convention was agreed to only last year or two years ago.
Now we come to the main part of the bill. It is needless to say that the shipping bill that is the common property of all British peoples was the original shipping act enacted at Westminster. Our shipping act came at a later time and was a modification of that act to the extent necessary to meet our changed conditions. Then when the statute of Westminster was agreed upon, before it had been enacted in fact, in 1926 my hon. friend the former Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) the Under Secretary for External Affairs, and others including Mr. Read, the counsel of the Department of External Affairs, and Mr. Burchell, of Halifax, met in London and arrived at certain conclusions affecting shipping and other matters. In 1931 the statute of Westminster was enacted. Then it became essential that we should deal with our own shipping act. We did so. It stood. It was considered in the Senate. It stood over. Again it was introduced in the early part of this session and was considered

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with great attention and care. Now what is it? In the main it is a codification of existing legislation, modified by the circumstances to which I have briefly referred. Take the section we are now dealing with, definitions. Is it meet and seemly that this House of Commons should be listening to what we have listened to with respect to this section? This section in the main, with one or two exceptions, has been in force in this country ever since we have had a shipping law.


Peter John Veniot: Will the right hon. gentleman give the sections that have been changed?


Richard Bedford Bennett: They are shown in the bill. I am just coming to that. In order that there might be no difficulty in dealing with this matter we have asked that the origin of the sections should be indicated on the page opposite the printed text. It will be found that in respect to the first section, foT instance, attention is directed to the fact that that is section 1, chapter 186, of the revised statutes of Canada.
Now an hon. member has suggested that I have not read the bill. Those of us who attended Dalhousie university will remember the lectures on shipping given by the late Mr. Justice Newcombe, in which we learned that the foundation and basis of Canadian shipping law was the Merchant Shipping Act subsequently embodied in chapter 186 of the revised statutes of Canada.


William Duff: That is twenty years ago.


Alan Webster Neill: Section 1 deals only with the title.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Certainly, but what I am pointing out is that the definitions have to be modified by reason of changed conditions.


Alan Webster Neill: And the reference is not
given on the opposite page.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, because you could not give a reference to all the definitions; you would have to travel over a very wide radius.


Peter John Veniot: May I interrupt?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Certainly.


Peter John Veniot: In this section there is
nothing given on the opposite page to show its origin.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, because as I pointed out these are modifications of existing definitions that run through all these acts. In the very nature of things a definitive section can never be said to be already in existence.


Peter John Veniot: My strongest objection is to some of these definitions.


William Duff: You are going back to the mid-Victorian era.


Richard Bedford Bennett: As I said this afternoon, if there is any difficulty in determining whether a definition is adequate, all that has to be done is for hon. gentlemen to say so and that subsection can stand until we have further opportunity to consider it.
That is with regard to the definitions. Now let us commence at part I, of which several of the sections are new. In the very nature of things that must be so, because the changed legislative conditions that have been brought about by our change in status necessitated somewhat different language being employed. Then you have the Merchant Shipping Act, upon which we drew liberally. As everyone knows the effort is to have uniform shipping acts throughout the British Empire, so far as that may be possible.


William Duff: It cannot be done.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The provisions are given from which these sections are drawn; you have in every instance a statement of what is new, and if there is any difficulty it is only necessary to state what the difficulty is and it will be dealt with. That is the position. I think in all there are about seventy sections either wholly or partially new, but the arrangement of the sections of course is entirely different in many instances to what it was before, and the grouping and consolidation of sections has been brought about in a manner that it is believed is an improvement as compared with conditions that did exist.
There is nothing difficult or abstruse about this bill except with respect to those matters about which there may be honest differences of opinion. I am not given to suggesting what other men may or may not have done, whether they may or may not have read particular statutes. It is easy to read and not understand; it is easy to read and not be capable of understanding, and there are complicated matters of law


William Duff: That means me.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am not suggesting that it has reference to anyone; I am merely pointing out the fact. Some of these sections have been the subject matter of litigation, and presumably some of them will continue to be such. As I have said, it may be found that there are some differences of opinion with respect to the new sections, but if there are such differences we shall endeavour to
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meet the will of the committee in every reasonable way. If arguments are adduced that indicate there should be some changes made, those changes will be made. To use language that has been used already, the effort is not being made to jam through legislation; rather we are endeavouring to discharge a duty which we owe to the other dominions as well as to ourselves, to get this legislation as perfect as possible in order that there may be some degree of uniformity in shipping legislation having to do with ships that are protected at sea under the British flag. That is the position we are endeavouring to establish. I use the words "British flag" in their broad sense. It may be the mercantile flag of Canada in one case, the flag of the United Kingdom in another, the flag of Australia or of New Zealand in still another.
I do suggest to the committee that it is hardly consonant with our idea of parliament to be talking about sections that we have not yet reached and to be denouncing definitions we have not yet considered. We must remember that parliament has already passed some two hundred pages of this legislation in the form of conventions ir respect to which we sent our representatives to the nations of the world to sign the name of Canada. This parliament subsequently approved those conventions, and we are now endeavouring to give effect to our international word of honour. That is the position.


William Duff: The Prime Minister admitted that there were seventy sections in this bill which the committee should consider. I am very much afraid that the Prime Minister is back not in the mid-Victorian regime but in the Dalhousie regime of thirty years ago, and that is where the Department of Marine is. This bill is based on a bill which was passed in this country in 1906. The Minister of Marine and the officials who drafted this bill did not know anything about conditions as they are to-day or they never would have included certain clauses that appear in the bill. I can understand, of course, the Prime Minister realizing and appreciating the fact that in the interests of the empire and of everybody else we should try to pass a shipping bill. No one objects to that. I think my right hon. friend will say this much for me, that I am as anxious as he is to have a proper shipping bill in this country, but the trouble is with his Department of Marine.
In this bill we have many clauses from the Merchant Shipping Act of Great Britain, which are not applicable to Canada, together

with the old clauses of the 1906 bill, which are twenty years behind the times. Who drew this bill? What man in Canada who knows shipping as it is to-day helped to draft this bill? Will the Minister of Marine tell me that? Is there any man who knows what the shipping business means to this country who helped draft this bill? The Minister of Marine cannot answer that question. I say this bill is a conglomeration, a composite of the Merchant Shipping Act of Great Britain and a bill we had in this country twenty years ago. The Minister of Marine must get up to date. In addition to the seventy clauses the Prime Minister admitted were wrong, which must be amended-


Richard Bedford Bennett: I did not admit that
anything was wrong. The hon. gentleman surely must have heard what I said.


William Duff: I did.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I did not say that.


William Duff: Did not the Prime Minister
say there were seventy clauses which might be amended?


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is open to this committee to amend any clause. I said there were seventy clauses wholly or partially new. The clauses wholly and partially new number about seventy. I am not pretending to give the figure exactly; it may be more or less by two or three, but I think there are thirty-seven of one and thirty-three of the other. It is competent for this committee, of course, to amend them all, but I did not admit that any was wrong. If I had thought so I would have said so at once. I know of none that is wrong.


William Duff: Well, the Prime Minister is
agreeing with me, except that we do not use the same language. All I said was that all the clauses, except the seventy, were passed in this house in 1906, which was twenty-eight years ago. Surely the Prime Minister must realize that conditions in this country have changed in twenty-eight years. It is all right for somebody down in the marine department who has handled lumber over in Hull or someone who knows nothing about shipping to say that this legislation is all right. They never consulted any man interested in shipping, to have him appear before the Senate committee. I know the Prime Minister, who is interested in this country, will never get up and say that this bill, this monstrosity covering 497 pages, should pass this parliament without the people who are interested in it having something to say about it. Has the Minister of Marine given us any reason

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why this bill should pass? He has not. He read from a telegram from some association in Levis, Quebec. What do they know about this bill? Has the minister consulted the mariners of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island or New Brunswick? Has he consulted the captains or mates of Quebec? Has he heard from them? Has he heard from the mariners on the Pacific coast or on the great lakes? He has not, yet here is a bill which took two and a half years in another place. And here is what they got-497 pages of nothing; that is what it is-nothing. They bring it down here on the eighth day of June and, as the Minister of Marine has said, they expect me to read this bill on a Sunday morning, when I should go to the Presbyterian church. [DOT]


Robert James Manion: Do you go to church?


William Duff: I say to the Minister of
Marine that the bill is not fair to the Canadian people. Let him send it to the board of trade of Halifax; let him send it to the board of trade of Yarmouth; let him send it to the board of trade of Lunenburg, or to the board of trade of any other part of the country-Montreal, Quebec, Prince Rupert, or anywhere else; let him send it to those boards of trade; let him ask what they think of this conglomerate bill which does not mean anything, and which will put every mariner who now sails a ship out of business and out on the beach. Is that the objeot of the bill? Surely the Prime Minister does not wish to do that. With all his faults-and I admit that he has not many-he surely does not want to put the fishermen sailing boats over five tons out on the beach. Does he wish to say to a man who without a certificate has sailed a vessel for the last thirty or forty years, "You cannot sail this vessel any more"? If that man does not sail her, who willl sail her? Will the Prime Minister go down and take charge of her? I think quite possibly he could pass the eye test-I know I could not, and the skipper could not. Surely the Prime Minister does not wish to have that condition.
I say this bill could very well stand over until next year, and if at that time the mariners, captains, mates and sailors say there is nothing wrong with it, and if the boards of trade say it is all right, I will be the first man to get up in my place and say, "Mr. Minister of Marine, we will pass this bill in bulk," just as the Senate did, in three minutes. But no one knows what the Senate did with the bill. The only hon. gentleman in this house who had the courtesy to consult me 74726-248
in the matter was the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. MacLaren). There are several ministers interested in the bill, but the only man who consulted me was the Minister of Pensions and National Health, and he communicated with me through one of his officials. The official consulted me concerning chapter 5, and for several hours we discussed the clauses in that chapter. Speaking modestly may I say it would appear that either the minister of his official had some influence with the committee which sat in another place because I find every suggestion I made is included in chapter 5 of the bill. I wish to congratulate the Minister of Pensions and National Health and to thank him for his courtesy and decency in the matter, because he was the only minister who did so. Of course I admit I do not know much about marine matters, not half as much as people think I know, but the Minister of Pensions and National Health thought I knew something, and as a result he had courtesy enough to consult me. Why did not the Minister of Marine or his officials consult me? Why did they not consult the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill), or other hon. members?


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: Or Charlevoix-Saguenay.


William Duff: Yes, or the hon. member for
Charlevodx-Saguenay (Mr. Casgrain). The only minister who had decency enough to consult anybody on this side of the house was the Minister of Pensions and National Health.
I say there is only one proper way in which to deal with the bill: Let the boards of trade of Halifax, Vancouver, Quebec and Montreal have a chance to read it, and if they say they want the fishermen and sailors to be thrown on the beach, then I can stand it as long as the Prime Minister or any other member of his cabinet can stand it.


An hon. MEMBER:: Carried.


Peter John Veniot: No, it is not carried.
Let me say to the Prime Minister that I am not opposing the enactments approved by this parliament and based on international conventions. On page 273 and following in this enormous bill, schedules are included which, so far as I am concerned, I am perfectly satisfied should be adopted. But I am opposing any hasty decisions on those very conditions the Prime Minister has indicated, namely changes brought about through changed conditions. Every hon. member knows that conditions have changed, and in so far as the fishing industry on the Atlantic coast is concerned they have changed to a very great

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degree. Upon the introduction of this bill changes have been made to the original act under which Canadian shipping has operated for the last twenty-five years, and changes which are extremely detrimental to the present conditions of fisheries in the maritime provinces. I speak about the maritime provinces, because I know whereof I speak, and I am prepared to stand behind anything I say in regard to the conditions under which our fishermen operate, and the conditions necessary for their future welfare.
The hon. member for Selkirk has said he went before the Senate committee and obtained certain amendments. He has stated specifically that an amendment was made to section 122 of the Canada Shipping Act. So as to show the injustice and discrimination contained in the bill against the fishermen on the Atlantic coast I intend to quote the amendment the hon. member has indicated. He may say, "You had the same opportunity as I had to appear before the Senate committee." Mr. Chairman, my reply to that is that I was elected to represent my constituents not in the parliament of Canada but in the House of Commons of Canada, and I am stating that this bill should have been brought down in the House of Commons, the place where the people's representatives would be in a position to place the bill before a committee, such as the one which operated in another place, and upon which such occasion we would have had an opportunity to look into the legislation and to ascertain whether or not amendments were necessary. Then, if that reason is not sufficient, may I say that personally I was not physically able to appear before the Senate or any other committee at that time. However, had I been informed of the injustices contained in the bill I believe I should have come to the conclusion that an attempt should have been made on my part to appear.
To show the injustice of the action taken by another chamber in the construction of the bill, what do I find? I find that they amended section 122 so as to .give special privileges to the fishermen of lake Winnipeg, privileges which should exist for the fishermen on the Atlantic coast.


James Herbert Stitt: Would the hon.
member permit a question?


Peter John Veniot: Yes.


James Herbert Stitt: Is there not a vast
difference between the conditions existing in connection with fishermen on the inland lakes, and those on the sea?


Peter John Veniot: Yes. I could indicate to the hon. member exactly the same conditions on the Atlantic coast as he claims exist on the inland lakes. Further, I could give a reason why the privileges the hon. gentleman obtained for the inland lakes should exist to a greater degree on the Atlantic coast.
I find that paragraph (b) of section 122 in the bill is as follows:
A steamship of not more than 35 tons gross tonnage employed in fishing operations (including the carrying of fishermen, their wives and children, and fish and fishing supplies used in connection with their operations) plying within specified limits on the inland waters of Canada.
To these steamships certificates may be granted. Does the hon. member for Selkirk mean to tell me that in certain sections of the Atlantic coast we do not require those conditions? What about the islands along the coast? What about carrying our women folk, as is done on the lakes under special privileges, to the lobster factories to help their husbands in carrying on their vocation? What about the carrying of our fishermen in the inland bays and rivers? Our rivers are inland waters just the same as lake Winnipeg and they occupy the same position under this bill. Yet we are not granted that privilege. There is discrimination there. The hon. gentleman was able to go before the committee of the other chamber and have inserted that discrimination against the maritimes. I do not say that he had that in view; I think he had a broader view than that.


James Herbert Stitt: Is there anything wrong with the provision? Does not the hon. member want the same provision?


Peter John Veniot: I will answer that when we come to the section. I just want to show the carelessness with which this was considered by the other chamber when the amendment was before it. I may be called down for criticizing the other chamber but I am referring to the committee and I think I am within my rights. When this amendment was suggested to that committee they should have looked over the situation as it affected other waters of the dominion. They should have called in those who had knowledge of the conditions in those other waters which are not inland waters. In that way they would have avoided what I consider to be grave injustice and discrimination against the fishing interests of the maritime provinces. This afternoon the Prime Minister said that I should consider it my duty to represent the whole of Canada when I was in this house. What about the

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hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Stitt)? He so far forgot his duty to the rest of Canada that he went there and had parochial legislation adopted by the Senate committee.


James Herbert Stitt: I object to that statement, and I think it ought to be withdrawn. This amendment applies to all inland waters of Canada.


Mr. YENIOT:: Yes, but it does not apply to the fishing waters of Canada.


James Herbert Stitt: Why were not you there? Your whole argument is that I obtained what you wanted to obtain.


Peter John Veniot: What does the hon. member for Selkirk know of the Atlantic or the Pacific? Does he know anything about lake fishing? I doubt it. Did he ever catch a trout or a fish in any of the lakes-or a bullfrog?


James Herbert Stitt: I have not got a monopoly of fish or fish stories like my hon. friend.


Peter John Veniot: That is a fishy reply, and it is the only reply the hon. gentleman can make. I stated this afternoon that this bill could very well be left over for another session and that no interests would suffer. In stating that I am in good company. I am in the company of the right hon. Prime Minister of Canada. I am in the company of the Minister of Marine. I am in the company of the government of Canada.


Ernest Lapointe: You are in bad company.


Peter John Veniot: It may be bad, but I find myself compelled to be in that company for to-night. I hope it will not be for long.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is mutual.


Peter John Veniot: I am in the company of this very bill. This bill contains a clause which states that it may be put over. Section 719 reads:
This act shall not come into force until a date to be fixed by proclamation of the governor in council published in the Canada Gazette: -
That section gives the minister the power to proclaim only certain clauses and the remainder can be left over.


Alfred Duranleau: Not the minister, the governor in council.


Peter John Veniot: The section continues:
-Provided that he may. in the same manner and from time to time, bring any portion or portions only of this act into force.
I am very sincere in fighting this bill. I feel in all conscience that I should oppose it for all I am worth. The suggestion was made
74726-248 J
this afternoon that the government would be prepared to accept amendments which we might suggest. While I know a great deal about the fishing industry I am not prepared to do that without consulting those whose first interest is in that industry. I want to lay this bill before them and discuss it with the men who go down to the sea in ships and who risk their lives night and day in the waters of the maritime provinces to earn a livelihood for themselves and their families and to bring untold wealth to the Dominion of Canada. I want to sit down with those men and go over this bill with them. I want to have their opinions on the effect of this and that clause. I want to come back to this house with that knowledge added to the knowledge I possess already and then suggest to the government what I think is necessary to be enacted to benefit the fishing interests of the Atlantic shores. I am not going to move an amendment to this bill. The government accepts full responsibility for putting it through, and I shall go back to my people and tell them what I did in this house and that the government with its strong majority would not listen to us and put this bill through in spite of us. I can play politics with the next man, and I have enough politics to play against this government without undertaking to use this bill. I consider it my duty to voice my opposition on behalf of my people to anything which will be detrimental to their interests. I come from a nautical family. My father was a sea captain, without a certificate in those days. I have learned from him and from those with whom I have been living for the last fifty years what is in the best interests of the fishermen of the country.
I should like the Prime Minister to listen carefully to a suggestion I intend to make. Under section 719 certain sections of this bill may be proclaimed by order in council. I suggest that the Prime Minister or the government or the Minister of Marine put through such sections of this act as are noncontentious and allow those which we consider to be contentious and detrimental to the people we represent to stand until next session. A bill could be brought in at next session amending the legislation of this year and including such sections as are necessary to help the fishermen whom we represent in this house. I hope the Prime Minister will consider that suggestion.


William Duff: I was hoping that either the Prime Minister or the Minister of Marine would see the reasonableness of the argument put forward by the hon. member for Glou-
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cester (Mr. Veniot) but if we are going to consider section 2, although we have carried subsection 1 of section 2, I would like to ask the minister what subsection 1 really means. It says:
"The Admiralty" means the Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom for the time being, or the commissioners for the time being for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom.
We are an independent nation, perhaps not a nation, but at all events an independent country; why should we be under the sovereignty of the Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom? Why should the Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom appear in this bill a shipping act of Canada?


Alfred Duranleau: My hon. friend when reading the bill must have seen that the word "Admiralty" is mentioned in certain parts, so we had to define "Admiralty." That is all.


William Duff: That is not quite sufficient, Mr. Chairman. "Admiralty court" is defined in subsection 2. I can understand that, but what I am asking the minister is why this Dominion of Canada should be under the Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom or the commissioners for the time being for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom. How does that come in, in this country? I can understand that there would be references to the Merchant Shipping Act of Great Britain, but as for the Lord High Admiral, we have none; I am the only admiral in this country. Why therefore does the Lord High Admiral appear in this bill?


Alfred Duranleau: I have already told my hon. friend that we refer to the Admiralty in certain parts of this bill and so in the definition section we define "the Admiralty." There is no harm in that.


William Duff: I do not say that there is any harm in it. I have not had a chance to study this bill, although the Lord knows I have done the best I could. Of course, I admit I am stupid, I admit I am slow, I admit I am ignorant, I admit it is impossible for me in my ordinary capacity to study a bill of 497 pages in four days despite the fact that after I came home from the Presbyterian church on Sunday morning I spent the rest of the day trying to wade through these 497 pages. I took the minister's advice, and although I did not go to high mass on Sunday morning I went to the eleven o'clock service at the Presbyterian church, and as soon as I got home I sat down with this bill. I am sure the Prime

Minister will sympathize with me, because he is quite a religious man like myself, when I tell him that all I could get through on Sunday was seventy-four pages. The Prime Minister goes to Chalmers church and I go to Knox church, but I will bet dollars to doughnuts that the Prime Minister did not read this bill on Sunday like I did. He is too sincere: he does not believe in doing business on Sunday. But the Minister of Marine had asked us to read the bill over the week-end and so I waded through it and I got only as far as page 74. I have had the bill now for a week and the best I have been able to do was to get to page 74, section 174.


Alfred Duranleau: That is more than half of the bill.


William Duff: No. There are 719 clauses. The minister has not read the bill. He has not looked at it. He does not know what it is all about. There are 719 sections-


Alfred Duranleau: Over 700 sections.


William Duff: I want to keep the minister right on this. He is trying to get this thing into his head but it is impossible because he does not know anything about marine matters. There are 497 pages in this bill and all I have got through so far is to page 74, in spite of the fact that I spent all Sunday till twelve o'clock at night reading this bill.


An hon. MEMBER:: Did you have supper?


William Duff: Yes, a seventy-five cent supper at the Alexandra, after sticking at the bill from twelve to six o'clock and going over seventy-four pages.
I congratulate the minister on the fact that he has been able, as he has told us, to go through this bill, but I want to say to him that it is not fair to bring a bill of this importance and extent to parliament in the last days of the session and ask us to pass it in its present condition. The minister cannot show to this committee that any board of trade or any organization whether of seamen or of master mariners or of fishermen has asked that this bill should pass this session. It has taken the Senate two years to deal with this bill, and I am not reflecting at all on the other chamber in the eastern portion of this building. But why does the Prime Minister force the Minister of Marine to come here and ask that we pass the bill this session? Of course, if the Prime Minister and the government want to commit suicide, if they want to put this bill through, well and good.

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Samuel William Jacobs: Why should you object if they commit suicide?


William Duff: I would not like to see the Prime Minister commit suicide.


Samuel William Jacobs: I mean politically.


William Duff: It is too serious. I am not playing politics in this thing at all. Let me refer to chapter 2, if I remember correctly. That chapter, I want to say to the Prime Minister, should be revised in its entirety. The trouble with the minister-not the minister; I should have said with his officials who advised him in this matter, and I apologize- the trouble with his officials is that they are twenty-five years behind the times. They are living in the mid-Victorian era or in the time of King Henry VIII.


Alfred Duranleau: My hon. friend mentioned chapter 2. There is no chapter in the bill. Does he mean pant II?


William Duff: That is splitting hairs, Mr. Chairman. The minister is sailing close to the wind for a man w'ho is a lawyer in Montreal. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister could luff a little and tack on the other side.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He is proceeding under auxiliary power.


William Duff: Then he puts his sails down.


Peter John Veniot: Or double reefs.


William Duff: The Minister of Marine should not talk that way to an old sea lawyer like myself from the maritime provinces. It is not right for a lawyer from an inland town like Montreal to criticize an old sea lawyer like myself for referring to chapter 2 instead of part II.


Alfred Duranleau: It is because my hon. friend had not mentioned the section and I wanted to know to what part he referred.


William Duff: I appreciate my hon. friend's
lack of knowledge with regard to this whole matter and am delighted he has drawn my attention to the fact. I am not saying this in a disparaging manner to my hon. friend because I realize he is placed in a very awkward position. For two years another part of this parliament has dealt with this matter and it has been forced on the Minister of Marine. If he and I got together for two or three hours, we could splice the main brace and discuss this matter.


Ernest Lapointe: That is a good suggestion.


Peter John Veniot: Wait till the sun gets
over the foreyard arm.


William Duff: We might do that. Still, the
Minister of Marine does not want to force on this country a bill which as drafted is a conglomerate measure, a bill which mixes up clauses of the Merchant Shipping Act of Great Britain with chapter 186 of the revised statutes of Canada. Surely he does not want to go down in history as the man who put a bill through this parliament just because we are here now on the twelfth day of June and because the measure was passed by the Senate which had no interest in it. There was not a man on the Senate committee who invited anybody there who knew anything about the bill. Who were the witnesses? Will the Minister of Marine tell me who came before that Senate committee? I am not deprecating the work of the right hon. leader of the Senate nor of any other member of the Senate, but I say to the Minister of Marine that the real shipping people, the fishermen, the mariners, the sailors of this country, the business men, never saw this bill, never had an opportunity to go before the Senate and have not an opportunity now to express their views in regard to the matter.
I have no political axe to grind in connection with this question. I was born with a fishbone in my mouth, born by the sea, brought up with fishermen, mariners, sailors. Surely the minister does not want to say that I am playing politics in regard to this, because I am not. I am a Grit, of course, and I am a free trader. I am opposed to this government but I am not opposed to this legislation because it is brought down by this government. I say that it is too serious a matter to deal with hastily; it is a business matter, one that affects practically every man, woman and child in Canada, that affects every sailor, every seaman, every master, every mate, every shipping interest and every business interest in this dominion, because under this measure they will be responsible for what they do in regard to every cargo that is loaded.
Let the boards of trade, masters and mates, seamen, come back here after they read this bill or send their representations and say whether it is a good one or not. If they say that it is all right, so far as I am concerned I shall accept it. In the last four days I have sent seventeen copies of this measure out to people in Nova Scotia. Will my hon. friend say that I have had any opportunity to receive replies? I sent seventeen copies to different parts of the maritime provinces and I want those people, whether the chamber of com-
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merce of Yarmouth, or Halifax, or Lunenburg, or Canso, or Sydney, to give me their replies. I want the boards of trade of those towns to consult the captains, seamen and anybody else interested, and I say to the minister: Why force this bill through now? Nobody is asking for it. I say in all seriousness that in the last three months I have not had one word asking me to approve this or any shipping bill. The people concerned are quite satisfied with the old act because if this new legislation is put into force thousands of fishermen, thousands of sailors and, Mr. Chairman, hundreds in your own constituency of Cumberland, men who have sailed the seas for thirty, or twenty, or ten years, will be thrown on the beach. Is it fair that this party or this government or this parliament should say to the men of Cumberland, of Guysborough and of other places throughout Nova Scotia: You cannot sail your ships?


Ernest Lapointe: Does that not break your heart, Mr. Chairman?


William Duff: Yes, it does, because he knows I am right. Is it fair to men who have sailed the seas to Brazil, Hawaii, Rio de Janeiro, that they should be thrown on the beach through this stupid and foolish bill drawn by my hon. friend and by men who never saw salt water? The technical, practical men in the Department of Marine were never consulted about this bill. Who is there in the Senate who knows about the bay of Fundy, the Atlantic or the Pacific ocean? Yet not a practical man was consulted and I say in all seriousness: I do not care; I can stand this if the government can stand it, but heaven knows what is going to happen to them at the next election. If, however, they are going to put this bill through, I am satisfied; let them do it.


Peter John Veniot: When talking a little while ago on the amendment made to section 112 of chapter 186 I forgot lo point out that under the former act temporary certificates were permitted for vessels of less than ten tons, propelled by sail and auxiliary engine. Under this amendment in one instance that provision is extended to vessels of twenty tons and in another to vessels of thirty-five tons, for inland waters, whereas in the coastal service it is confined to vessels with auxiliaries of not over three horsepower; anything above that is classified as a steamer, and full certificates must be obtained for mates and masters. This applies to vessels in our fishing fleet having auxiliaries; although they are in one sense classified as sailing vessels, under this bill they

become steamers when their auxiliary is over three horsepower. Yet on the inland lakes it extends to vessels of twenty and thirty-five tons, which require a great deal more than three horsepower auxiliaries to navigate them. They are given that privilege, but we on the Atlantic coast are discriminated against in that way.


Alan Webster Neill: There is no doubt whatever that this bill is very much needed. Some of the penal sections of the present act are expressed in terms of pounds, shillings, and pence, which indicates its old origin. I think there was a bill drawn in 1908 or 1909, but for some reason which I have not been able to discover it never was brought into the house. It is perfectly true that members on this side including myself have been worrying the minister for years to introduce an amendment to the act. We have no quarrel with the idea that it is needed; it is only with the manner of its introduction that we find any fault.
Now, it is said that there are not many sections. Even taking the' minister's own statement that there are only seventy new sections, that is a considerable bill. However it might not be so serious if it were one readily understood by ordinary members of parliament. But it is not; in some aspects it is highly technical and impossible to discuss intelligently on the floor of this house, and that is why I have always urged that it should be considered in a committee where technical  men can come before us and we could have these questions explained. The hon. member for Stanstead (Mr. Hackett) said that we should have gone and listened to the discussions in the Senate committee-*


John Thomas Hackett: I said I attended them;
I did not make any suggestion to others.


Ernest Lapointe: He was setting a good example.


Alan Webster Neill: The hon. member was not suggesting that he did wrong in going there;
I think his suggestion was an open invitation to go and do likewise, as in the biblical example. I did not go myself; for one thing I did not know when the committee was sitting, and I have something else to do than attend committee meetings in another house;
I have enough to do to attend our own. But I did attend another committee on another occasion when, as the hon, member said, I was treated courteously and heard patiently.
I was allowed to make a statement, but I was not allowed to sit in and question witnesses or pass opinions. It would be indecorous; it

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is not done. But I did the next best thing, as I thought; I sent for the evidence taken before that special committee-it was referred to a special committee and a subcommittee.
I sent for the evidence in order that I might inform myself as to the numerous witnesses who according to the minister had given substantial and worthy evidences The answer was: there was no evidence; nothing had been printed. So how could we inform ourselves?
I do not know that anyone gave evidence.
I will take the minister's word that some did, but I do not know who they were; I do not know if they were making ex parte statements in their own interest or in the interest of the class they represent. I know nothing to guide me in deciding whether this bill is a suitable bill or not.
I think the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) would not take it amiss if I say that he is very strong on constitutional points. I wonder that he or someone has not taken up this constitutional point, that it does not become us to subordinate our rights of legislation to another chamber. Not that we should be jealous of our dignity, or touchy-not at all; but we should be jealous, and I propose to be, of the rights delegated to us by the people at the last election. They sent us here to represent them in passing legislation, not to accept legislation originating in another chamber, and swallow it holus-bolus and say that because it has received approval there we should just attach our signatures. That method was tried in the case of the railway bill a year ago, but we changed that bill in practically every detail. I think it is not the custom for the British House of Lords to introduce legislation of any substantial nature but to have it submitted with all formality to the House of Commons.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The rule is that legislation involving public expenditure originates in the Commons. Much important legislation has in times past originated in the Lords. Of the practice at the moment I cannot speak.


Alan Webster Neill: Not of late years, I think;
it has fallen into desuetude. Public opinion has insisted that the House of Commons is the responsible body, and I for one do not propose to subordinate its powers to any other chamber, however honourable or worthy it may be.
Then we were told that we should have read the bill. It is not impossible to read it, but that would not do us much good. I do not say this bill is wrong; I say I do not know, because there are many features of it on which I cannot form an opinion without
technical advice, and there is none obtainable in this chamber. Here is a letter I received -true, it was a year ago-in connection with the bill very similar to this, then before the Senate. I sent it to the Canadian Association of Seamen in Vancouver. Here is part of their reply:
For three weeks we have had a committee working steadily on each clause, and on rereading the amendments I am of the opinion that we have introduced one or two contradictory clauses, but to make our reading more easily understood, I am enclosing herewith a few comments relative to said amendments.
The few comments consist of four closely typewritten pages, and the original amendments that they suggest make thirty-two closely typewritten pages. They say that having their interests at heart they have had a committee steadily working on it for three weeks; yet we are going to railroad it through by just looking at it and someone reading out some word on the margin like "wharf" 'or "wreck" and so passing that particular section.
Then I have a letter this year submitting on three pages perhaps thirty suggestions, some of them of a very technical character. I read one the other night and I shall not repeat it, but it is not one on which we could form an estimate without having a technical man before us.
I come back to what I have been urging for the last two years; why not send it to a committee, not necessarily the marine committee, but to a special committee? I believe even yet it would be possible to do it, and in so doing it would get through a lot quicker than by trying to put it through this house in this manner. But the better way would be to leave it for another year and bring it down to the committee early in the session; then we would have the advantage of experience during the recess and could deal with it in an adequate way. My own view is that if the government decide to go on with it

the Prime Minister objects to the term "jamming it through," but I cannot think of any more appropriate term-if they decide to force it through, then I think my attitude should be to wash my hands of it and say that I cannot adequately advise, and the responsibility before the people must be theirs. It is absolutely certain that the bill is not perfect, from the complaints I have here and the number of clauses. I think the proper course would be not to lay ourselves open to the charge of obstructing-we do not want to do that-but simply to say "your blood be on your own head" as far as results are concerned.
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Thomas Reid: Just after eight o'clock I asked the Minister of Marine whether any personal representations had been made by the Canadian Association of Seamen. My reason for asking that is that the bill has, I believe, 131 clauses pertaining to seamen alone. The greater part of this deals with the very life of the seaman, his property, what happens to him if he gets sick, his wages, his dismissal, what is done if he gets stranded on a foreign shore, his certificate .of competency, and everything pertaining to his life on the ship and off it.


William Duff: Hear, hear.


Thomas Reid: It touches the very life of the seaman, yet no personal representations were made on his behalf in the Senate.


William Duff: Not one.


Thomas Reid: I shall not say they would not have been allowed, but they were not represented when it was before the Senate committee. I must object also to the implication or even the suggestion that a member is derelict in his duty because he does not appear before a Senate committee. I think that would be a bad precedent, especially during this session when there were so many committees in operation. But referring to those 131 sections I doubt if there is any man in this house in a position to know all the conditions affecting seamen. Now that the bill is being put into a new form it should not only be brought up to date but the seamen should be represented before the committee dealing with these matters.


Richard Bedford Bennett: All those sections were there before.


Thomas Reid: I quite agree, and I am glad the Prime Minister mentioned that. One of the complaints made by the seamen was that it was very difficult to get amendments made to the old act. It has been stated that the bill has been copied. That being so it is behind the times. If one looks through the bill he will find the term "steamship," alone used, as the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Stitt) suggested, but the change to motor power has been omitted. That alone shows that the bill needs revision.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: Carried?


William Duff: No, it is not going to carry.


Richard Bedford Bennett: By the definition, "steamship" covers a motor ship.


William Duff: That is the trouble. The government does not seem to realize that a motor boat should not be classed as a steamer.
Mr. Neill.]
A moment ago I asked the minister why subsection 1 of section 2 should be in this bill. Why should the Admiralty or the Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom appear in this bill?


Richard Bedford Bennett: May I answer that
question?


William Duff: Certainly.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The Admiralty is referred to in this bill, and the definition of the word is the Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom for the time being, or the commissioners for the time being for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom. If you have any word to which a meaning attaches in the statute it is desirable to define what that meaning is, according to the country which has that word in its statutes for expressing a given meaning. The meaning assigned to this word is the meaning assigned to it under the laws of Great Britain, and when it is used here it has that meaning.


William Duff: I quite understand that
definition, but I want to know why that should appear in a Canadian statute and where those words are used in the 497 pages of the bill. I have gone through only 74 pages, but I cannot find any reference to the Lord High Admiral -unless it is myself-of the United Kingdom for the time being or the commissioners for the time being for executing the office of Lord High Admiral. I can understand, of course, that we look after our own affairs, that we are daughter in our mother's house but mistress in our own. Is that the correct quotation?


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is.


William Duff: I am a great Britisher; I believe only one flag should fly over the empire, but in a Canadian shipping bill why should this subsection be inserted in the definitions when, in the 74 pages I have examined, I can find no reference to the Lord High Admiral, whether it is Winston Churchill or someone else, or the commissioners for the time being for executing the office? I want to know from the minister why that definition is there when no reference is made to the Lord High Admiral in the 497 pages of the bill, as far as I can tell.


Alfred Duranleau: My hon. friend does not affirm that there is no mention of the Admiralty in the whole bill?


William Duff: I did not say that. That shows conclusively that the minister is more at sea than I am; in fact he is in heavy weather. I

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am sailing along with all sails set, with the gaff topsails and the balloon jib and everything else going. The minister Iras his sails reefed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Why don't you drop your sea anchor?


William Duff: Not while the ship is under sail. You only drop the anchor when you are getting near the breakers or the shore. The Prime Minister should tell the Minister of Marine to drop his anchor.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I said your sea anchor; there is a great difference.


William Duff: It is used only in a gale of wind-


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is the point.


William Duff: -when you put your anchor out to keep your head in the wind. The Prime Minister and I are going to get seasick if we continue this discussion.


Finlay MacDonald: The Prime Minister means to heave to.


William Duff: That is not heaving to. My
hon. friend is a lawyer; for heaven's sake don't let us get into an argument. You heave to with only your foresail set. You are jogging to windward when you pull your jib to windward.
I want to know why subsection 1 appears in this bill. The minister says he has read the bill; he says he did not go to mass on Sunday because he was studying the bill.


Alfred Duranleau: My hon. friend is
joking. I never said any such thing.


William Duff: At any rate the minister said he did not go to mass last Sunday. Will he tell me why subsection 1 of section 2 is included in this bill, when we are in a free country and we are talking about a Canadian statute? I could understand it if the government wanted to give me a higher title than I have already and call me the lord high admiral instead of just admiral. I would be satisfied; I would take the title whether it came on the king's birthday or at any other time. But where does that appear in this bill?


Alfred Duranleau: Has my hon. friend
any objection to that definition?


William Duff: I am asking for an explanation.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: This subsection has been carried. It
is the only one that has been carried, and it seems to me this discussion is out of order.


William Duff: We had an understanding the other night with the Minister of Finance, who is a very good friend of mine, that we would pass that subsection in order that the business of the house might go on, with the understanding that when the bill came up- if it did, because we hoped that the Minister of Finance would have sufficient influence, being a sailor from the maritime provinces and knowing the shipping business as he does, to see that it did not come up until next session'-we would have an opportunity to discuss anything we desired. Since the bill has come up I should like to ask why this subsection appears in the bill. Where is it referred to? The minister says he has read and understands the bill. Surely as a matter of courtesy it would be very simple for him to tell me where this subsection is referred to in any other part of this terrible bill which on account of its bulk I can hardly hold in my hand.


Alfred Duranleau: When my hon. friend arrives at the section he will see where the Admiralty is mentioned.


William Duff: The Admiralty is mentioned
in subsection 2. I understand what an admiralty court means, of course, because I have been before it half a dozen times. I should like to know why the Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom should interfere in Canadian shipping.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He does not; it is a
definition of the word.


William Duff: Surely it means something; if
it does not it should not be there. I want the minister to tell me what it means and where it applies in the 497 pages of this bill.


Alfred Duranleau: That subsection was
carried on Friday last, and my hon. friend is too inquisitive to let this subsection go without discussion this evening. When we started to discuss this bill in committee I began with section 1. Hon. gentlemen opposite objected, because that was the only section that would allow them to say anything at all on the bill. So I left that section aside and began with section 2, subsection 1, which was adopted without any reservation whatever.


Samuel William Jacobs: What are we discussing?


Alfred Duranleau: At the beginning the chairman of the committee stated that the hon. gentleman was absolutely out of order in the discussion he has been carrying on this evening.
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Samuel William Jacobs: He has been out of order for an hour and a half; I think he should see the Minister of Health again.


William Duff: I am afraid the Minister of Marine is losing his temper. I am trying to be as respectful to him and to the government as I can be. I believe the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Marine should agree with me when I say we allowed the second reading of the bill. Then, I was prepared to consent to the carrying of clause 1, but the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) thought the clause should not be passed, and with the consent of the Minister of Marine and the Minister of Finance we went on with clause 2. We passed subsection 1 of section 2 merely as a matter of courtesy to the government and to the minister. Surely it does not lie in the mouth of the Minister of Marine to eay that I am inquisitive. I am not inquisitive ; I say that the minister does not know where in these 497 pages to find the words "Lord High Admiral," and he cannot indicate a reference to any such person. When he knows he cannot make such reference, and when he knows that the definition means nothing, he should be more courteous. We have before us a bill which affects Canadian shipping, and as is well known this country has no lord high admiral, and it has no commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom. Why should that subsection be in the bill? The fact that it is in the bill shows conclusively that the minister and the officials who drafted the bill, the gentlemen responsible for it, did not give it sufficient and careful attention. I say that subsection 1 should be expunged from the bill, and I suggest that the minister is not acting wisely when he states that I am too inquisitive. I have too much interest in the bill to be accused in that way. I suggest he has no justification for saying I am inquisitive because I want to know where, in these 497 pages, there is any reference to the Lord High Admiral. The minister states he has read the bill and that he knows all about it. Certainly the officials sitting near him should know something about it. Let him tell me where the Lord High Admiral comes into this Canadian shipping legislation. Will the minister tell me the page, the clause or appendix? He cannot tell me, and yet he says that I am too inquisitive.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: The ruling of the chair is that this subsection has passed. If by unanimous con-

sent the house wishes to go back and discuss the paragraph, I have no objection. My record shows however that the subsection has been passed.


William Duff: Is there a lord high admiral in Cumberland county?


Paul Mercier: We must
interpret the words "the Admiralty" by the definition appearing in the subsection. The hon. member is simply asking why the words appear.


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: Shall the subsection carry?


William Duff: Apparently the Minister of
Marine cannot find any place where subsection 1 refers to the bill under discussion. I am surprised that to-night the Minister of Marine takes a different attitude from the one he took on Friday night, upon which occasion we had a very agreeable discussion in which the Minister of Marine and the Minister of Finance, who is now leaving the chamber, took part. On Friday evening I referred in a joking manner to this particular subsection, and I thought the Minister of Finance understood the joke. Then, following my remark I find that at page 3825 the Minister of Finance is reported as follows:
The suggestion of the lord high admiral of the opposition is entirely acceptable. I can assure my hon. friend from Comox-Alberni that there was no idea in the mind of the government to take any advantage, either technical or otherwise, in calling the first section of the bill. I submit that the rights of the house and the committee are preserved in precisely the same manner whether the section is passed or not passed, but I accept without question the suggestion of the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough.


Alfred Duranleau: The Minister of
Finance mentioned section 1.


William Duff: We were discussing the advisability of helping the government to go on with this legislation, and we agreed to pass the second reading and to go into committee. I think the Minister of Finance will agree with me that there were no strings on what we did. We took the action which is taken in many other instances, whether they be public works measures, or anything else, whereby for the sake of convenience to the government the opposition allows a section to pass, with the understanding that the section may be reopened or discussed when the bill comes up again.
All I am asking the minister is this, and if he cannot answer me, I merely wish him to say so: Why in a bill introduced to this parliament of Canada, a free country which can

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pass its own legislation, should we include such definitions? It would seem to indicate that the advisers of the minister and of the Senate, those high priced lawyers from Vancouver and the other place, did not know what the bill meant, when they included subsection 1 of section 2 in its provisions. Of course, it was a matter of $100 a day or nothing. It was an easy matter to take the Merchant Shipping Act of Great Britain, it was an easy matter to take the statutes of Canada, and to make a composite act.


Mr. HANBURY:: And to take a pair of scissors and a bottle of paste.


William Duff: Yes, a pair of scissors and a
paste brush. That was a very easy matter for $100 a day. The Minister of Marine knows very well that that is what happened.
I am not reflecting upon what took place in the southeast corner of this building. I am not objecting to a Tory getting a good job when this government is in power. If I were in power again I would get good jobs for my friends, if I could. I say to the minister that he should not accept a bill affecting the rights, property and business of seamen, sailors, captains, mates and property owners, which came only five days ago from another corner of this building, and then bring it into this chamber and expect us to pass the bill without consulting our constituents, the people in Canada, the boards of trade or the shipping interests. I allowed subsection 1 to pass and hon. members on this side of the house allowed it to pass merely as a matter of courtesy to the government and to my good friend the Minister of Finance. Surely you, sir, or the Minister of Marine should not now say that I should not object to subsection 1 because upon another occasion I thought the words might be used in the bill. However, since that time I have tried to go through the bill; as I say I spent Sunday-and I know as a good Presbyterian I should not have done it-from one o'clock in the afternoon until twelve o'clock at night in a perusal of the bill. I accepted the advice offered by the Prime Minister. I got up in the morning, and after going to church studied the bill from one o'clock until twelve o'clock at night-and I don't know what my wife will say when she hears about it. I did that, and I am serious when I say to hon. members opposite that I have no political axe to grind in opposing the measure. This bill means the livelihood of men with whom I have been associated for the last forty yearn. Is the Minister of Marine going to say that he will force this bill through? Will the Prime Minister say
that, after the promises and the fine speeches he made in -the maritime provinces when he was down there in 1930? How will he face them in October, or some time this fall when he calls an election? Can he face the fishermen and the masters, mates, etc., who will be thrown out on the beach, and out of employment? I am just as serious as I possibly can be in this matter. I would not be standing here attacking this bill if I was not serious.
I do not object to the Senate sending us this bill as it now is; they did the best they could.
I contend that the boards of trade and the shipping interests, the business interests, the fishermen, the seamen, the sailors and the master mariners who are affected by this bill, should be heard. The Minister of National Health was the only member of the government who showed me the courtesy of consulting me. He consulted with me in reference to the poor devils who have to go to hospitals. This is an important bill as it affects not only captains and mates, but seamen, engineers, fishermen, pilots and everyone else. I say to the Minister of Marine: Let us let this bill stand over. No one will be hurt. I am sure the minister will agree with me that if there was any desire that this bill should be passed, I would have heard something about it. Could I afford to stand up here and oppose the passing of this bill if I had received petitions or letters from the shipping interests of this country asking that it be passed? Certainly I could not. Of course, the joke is that I do not know as much about shipping as people think I do, but I do not want to lose that reputation. I have not received one word asking that this bill be passed. No one has seen it. It is all right for someone whom nobody knows to come here from somewhere, but I think my hon. friend must admit that no really practical men appeared before the Senate committee. The only ones who appeared were those who wanted some special privileges. My hon. friend knows that the people interested in shipping on the great lakes are opposed to certain sections of this bill. I am not opposed to those sections personally, but as a man who has some interest in the shipping of this country, I feel I must oppose them. I opposed a bill when the liberal party was in power some twelve or fifteen years ago, and it was held over. This bill was opposed last year; it was never proclaimed because the Prime Minister realized-he will pardon me for saying this-that the bill was not practical. The bill which I opposed some twelve or fifteen years ago when the Liberal party was in power did not do any good to my party.
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I am serious in this. I say to the Prime Minister, I say to the government and I say to the Minister of Marine: Nobody will be hurt by letting this bill stand until next session. As I said a moment ago, I have sent seventeen copies of this conglomerate bill to my friends but it will take them at least two months to study it properly. Let us let this thing go over until next year. I say to the Minister of Marine and to the Prime Minister: Surely there are certain interests in this country which should be protected. There is no necessity to pass this and we cannot pass it. I cannot afford to stand here and let this thing go through as it is unless I am willing to let the government and the Prime Minister take the responsibility. The Minister of Trade and Commerce cut out the subsidies for steamers and many of these men have had to go on sailing vessels. Now the captains of such vessels of over five tons having auxiliary power must have certificates. These men cannot get certificates. I shall not give the reasons why just now, but I will if we are forced to deal with chapter 2. I am not playing politics in this, I am talking for the shipping and business interests of this country. I am not objecting to what the Senate did; -I am not objecting to the government putting this bill in the Senate; all I am saying is that the fishermen, the sailors, the pilots, the seamen and everyone else should have a chance to look at this bill. They should have an opportunity to discuss this matter with the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Stanley), the hon. member for Inverness (Mr. Macdougall), the hon. member for Cape Breton-North Victoria (Mr. Johnstone) and the hon. members from Vancouver. I am as much interested as anybody in seeing that the regulations for the safety of shipping at sea are carried out, but I ask that this bill be allowed to stand over so that those who are interested may be heard before next session. If there is no objection by next session, I will be ready to put this bill through in the shortest possible time.


James Layton Ralston: I should like to say a
word with regard to what the Prime Minister said in connection with uniformity of legislation. He spoke of the necessity for having this legislation in order to promote uniformity among the dominions. As he correctly said, the history of this legislation is that in 1929 there was a conference on dominion shipping legislation and merchant shipping legislation. The result of that conference was a report which was presented to the imperial confer-

ence of 1930. That report recommended an agreement on uniform shipping legislation throughout the empire and an agreement was arrived at and was approved at the 1930 conference and signed in 1931. This agreement laid down the general principles of the uniform legislation and it, of course, contemplated that there would be legislation following the laying down of those principles. I submit that that legislation cannot be uniform unless there is a further conference between the various members of the British commonwealth of nations. It seems to me that we can hardly have uniformity if we start out by passing a Canada Shipping Act all by ourselves and expecting the other dominions to follow. My view is that we would be doing more in the way of uniformity if we held a conference with the other dominions and then passed an act modelled along the lines suggested at that conference.


William Duff: That is what the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Cantley) suggested on Friday night.


James Layton Ralston: As I understand it, what we have at the present time is general uniformity from the fact that the Merchant Shipping Act is in force all over the British commonwealth. Then all the various dominions have are their own local shipping acts. We have the Canada Shipping Act here. I am told that the hon. member for Pictou has already suggested such a conference and I am convinced that it would be in the interests of uniformity if we did not start off by attempting to lead the procession, as it were, by passing an act and expecting the other dominions to rubber stamp what we do. That is my first point. My right hon. friend has mentioned that there is some sort of pledge, that we have passed our word of honour.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I was dealing with international obligations.


James Layton Ralston: I do not think we would
be violating any word of honour, and I do not believe my right hon. friend intended that his remarks should be so interpreted, by not passing this shipping bill. This bill is made up by the use of the pastepot and by the redrafting of legislation which was already in force. I imagine it was done in both ways. Then in addition to reenacting the old legislation it contains some new legislation. I submit that we cannot hope to have the sort of shipping legislation we should have in this country if we just follow the old British Merchant Shipping Act and our own Canada Shipping Act. The Merchant Shipping Act was originally passed in 1854

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before the days of cables, before the days of radio, before the days of aircraft and before the days of various modern aids to navigation. The result is that the Merchant Shipping Act is bound to be to some extent out of date. Amendments have been passed from time to time but no one believes that that aot has had the overhauling which it needs in order to make it completely in keeping with present conditions. The delay in doing this has been due to the fact that the various dominions have, following the statute of Westminster, been considering the best way to bring about uniformity in shipping legislation. I submit that notwithstanding all the work that has been done, and I find no fault with the work that has been done in drafting the act, we shall not have an up to date act when we get through with this if we simply adopt the Merchant Shipping Act and fit into it the Canada Shipping Act.


Richard Bedford Bennett: We have to.


James Layton Ralston: That brings me to my next point. As I understood the Prime Minister, he was suggesting first that we should pass this bill, because it contains what is already on the statute books.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, I said there were seventy new sections.


James Layton Ralston: Dealing with the law that is on the statute books. Why should we pass this act simply to reenact what is already on the statute books? It is there now and we have the benefit of it. It seems to me that we can afford to wait until we bring our shipping legislation into line with that of the other commonwealths before we decide on a brand new act. That is, so far as the legislation which is already in force is concerned, we are not going a step further ahead by rewriting it on the statute books.
My right bon. friend says there are seventy-five new sections. But even some of the old ones can hardly be recognized. I just look at one section, section 113. I know very little about shipping law; I do not profess to have made a close study of it. I have to learn in this school if we have to go through with this bill. Section 113 deals with shipping registry. Apparently that section is a combination of sections 93, 94, 95, 96 and 97 of the old Canada Shipping Act. You will not find it written in the same berms. I would not expect that. I would expect the draftsman to improve on it. But imagine those of us in this committee attempting to figure out whether it contains the old legislation or whether it is a
brand new section. That is just one sample. That is a section which my right hou. friend the Prime Minister would include under present existing legislation.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, partly new.


James Layton Ralston: Partly new, all right; but as I understand the principle, it is intended to be practically the same as the old legislation. In addition my right hon. friend says that there are seventydive new sections. That brings me to this.


William Duff: Section 113 is not new.


James Layton Ralston: My hon. friend from
Antigonish-Guysborough says that section 113 is not new. I aim taking his word and the word of my right hon. friend the Prime Minister, and assuming that the principle of it generally is already in force and that the drafting of it is new. Now about the new sections? What I am suggesting to my right hon. friend is this: We dealt with the companies act this session and adopted a number of amendments. I do not think my right hon. friend will complain of the way in which we on this side of the house dealt with that bill.
I do noit think he will complain of the way in which we dealt with about ten other pieces of legislation which have come before the house this session. The only bill that has really been contentious and taken a long time was the marketing act. The other bills have had all the expedition that my right hon. friend could possibly expect, and I am quite satisfied that he will frankly admit that. We had last night the bill dealing with compromises in the matter of farm indebtedness. We have dealt with a farm loan bill, a British and foreign companies insurance act, a Canadian insurance act; a tremendous bill consisting of a remodelling and revision of the Excise Act, and the companies act, which I have just mentioned. Then we have had the complete decennial revision this session of the Bank Act. We have also had the bill to incorporate the central bank of Canada, and in addition the Fruit Act, the Food and Drug Act, the Bills of Exchange Act, and the Admiralty Court Act. We have dealt with all that legislation this session, and now at this late date we are asked to deal with this monumental bill of 497 pages. I submit to my right hon. friend that we are having a surfeit, a gorge of legislation which we cannot possibly digest.
I say to him that with regard to this act we should deal with it as we dealt with the companies act, and have it go to a committee and consider the sections, see what the seventy-five new sections contain, and if the
Canada Shipping Act

committee can agree on the sections, well and good; but I submit to my right hon. friend that it is very difficult and not the most efficient way to do public business for us to attempt in this committee of the whole to deal with 719 sections, new and old, without an opportunity at least for a preliminary digest of the situation in a committee. I want to ask my right hon. friend even yet, if he will not agree to this bill being referred to a special committee which would have an opportunity to go over it, and if we find that it is not possible to deal with it properly before this session rises, the bill will simply have to stand over until next session. I submit to my right hon. friend that the way we have already dealt with legislation ought to induce him to accept a suggestion of this kind and to make him feel that there is no desire whatever to obstruct this legislation, but that there is on the other hand a real desire on the part of the committee to know something about the legislation which they are passing.
I do not think my right hon. friend any more than anybody else will say that simply because of the fact that the Senate has passed the bill and given it a lot of attention, that is any reason why we should not give it proper consideration in this house. The other chamber had all last year to consider this bill; they scrapped practically the whole of the bill which was drawn, and started out on a brand new bill this year, and now after nearly three months' work this bill is brought down to us. I submit to my right hon. friend that it is very difficult for us to deal with it in this way. It is not a practical way to deal with it, and I ask him in all earnestness if he will not consider the possibility, even at this stage, and before we go ahead with the various sections of the bill, of referring it to a committee.
Let me say to him that if we do pass the bill in the form in which it is we shall not have an opportunity for a number of years properly to revise and bring the bill up to date. We shall have put on record a bill that is more or less permeated with the atmosphere of the legislation which has existed since 1854. We shall probably overlook some vital features in connection with modern navigation and shipping. I think we could have taken care of these things if we applied ourselves to it by taking up a brand new, up to date body of shipping legislation as concurred in by all the other dominions, and I think it would be well for us to wait another year in order to do it.

One last word, and it is this. This is the first piece of legislation that we shall have passed, I think, since the statute of Westminster; I mean directly as a result of it. We have passed trade agreements from time to time.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And the Naturalization Act, and the Oath of Allegiance Act.


James Layton Ralston: The Oath of Allegiance Act was a comparatively formal matter, and the Naturalization Act we had dealt with pretty fully before the statute of Westminster. But this is a new departure. For the first time we are passing our own shipping legislation exclusively; doing away with what has been the charter of the seamen's liberty, namely, the Merchant Shipping Act. We are attempting to put on the Canadian statute books what was previously on the British statute books and adopting that as our own. I think we can afford, although it is four years since the statute of Westminster was passed, to go slowly in this respect. This is all-important legislation, affecting not only the sea coasts of this country, but mercantile interests right across Canada. So far as I am personally concerned I would like to see this legislation go through, but if it is impossible to deal with it competently this session I would ask my right hon. friend, first, to consider leaving it over until we have an opportunity of conferences with the other dominions. Secondly, if he feels that that should not be done,-I am not sure that he will not feel that-I suggest that this bill be referred to a special committee until we can see whether it is possible in the time at our disposal to go over the various sections and give them reasonable attention, paying particular attention to the seventy-five new sections which will require considerable work having regard to all the other duties which hon. members of this committee and of this house have to perform.


Alfred Duranleau: My hon. friend from Shelburne-Yarmouth made two suggestions: First, that another conference should take place between the different parts of the empire in order to have uniformity of legislation. That conference has already taken place.


James Layton Ralston: No. I have a copy of the conference of 1929 and of the agreement of 1931, but that was as regards the principles of the legislation. But I am talking about a committee on the legislation itself in order to draft a uniform act embodying those principles.

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Alfred Duranleau: The different parts of the empire which were represented at that conference did not suggest anything of that kind. Moreover, they all agreed that they would enact legislation along the lines set out in the agreement. These are the words of the agreement:
His Majesty's governments in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland', Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, the Irish Free State and Newfoundland, having considered the report of the conference on the operation of Dominion legislation and merchant shipping legislation, 1929, undertake to propose any necessary legislation and take such other steps as may be required for the purpose of giving full effect to the provisions of the present agreement with regard to merchant shipping.
So we are putting before parliament legislation that we have undertaken to enact along the lines suggested by this conference in order to preserve for some time to come uniformity in shipping laws within the empire.


James Layton Ralston: Does my right hon. friend not know from his conversation and reports he has had there was a discussion about having a committee on commonwealth shipping legislation with regard to both admiralty courts and merchant shipping, that is another conference? Does he say he has not heard of that and it has not been suggested? It is not in the report but that is the way, as I understand it, in which the legislation would be adopted.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, I have not.


Alfred Duranleau: I never heard of that. The agreement is very precise; we undertook to enact legislation along those lines.


William Duff: Does the minister mean to say that the Dominion of Newfoundland has enacted legislation similar to this?


Alfred Duranleau: I never suggested that.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is not a dominion. There were other reasons besides that.


William Duff: The Prime Minister should not rub that in to me-who, as he knows, was born there,-and the people of that island. Does the minister say that Newfoundland, whether it be a dominion or colony or whatever it may be, has adopted this legislation as it is in this book?


Richard Bedford Bennett: No.


Alfred Duranleau: I never made that statement.


William Duff: The minister tried to infer that.


Alfred Duranleau: All I said was that the different parts of the empire, including Newfoundland, undertook to pass legislation along the lines of that which we have before us to-day.


William Duff: Does my hon. friend want to have this legislation uniform with that of other parts of the empire? What I am saying is that he made use of the fact that Newfoundland had passed certain legislation. I know Newfoundland has not passed any such legislation as the minister is asking us to pass here to-night.


Alfred Duranleau: I have never said that Newfoundland had adopted such legislation as this. I have only stated that she is a party along with every other part of the empire to the agreement of 1931 to pass legislation along the lines mentioned in this agreement. It comprises almost the whole bill, not word for word or detail for detail, but the lines of the legislation.


William Duff: Has the minister a copy of the Newfoundland legislation? Will he tell us whether it is the same as this or what difference there is? It is not like this at all.


Alfred Duranleau: The only thing I say is that we are putting before parliament legislation along the lines adopted by the conference in 1931.


William Duff: But Newfoundland did not
adopt that; they passed legislation of their own which is not at all like this. Will my hon. friend) deny that or affirm it?


Ernest D'Israeli Smith: I would ask the hon. gentleman to address the Chair.


William Duff: I was addressing the Chair.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Newfoundland is no longer a dominion.


William Duff: The Minister of Marine tried to infer that Newfoundland had passed legislation similar to this. Before we go any further I would ask the Minister of Marine to bring before parliament the legislation which Newfoundland passed since the conference spoken of by the Prime Minister, who tried to make out that because Alexander Johnston and Lucien Pacaud, who know nothing about ships or marine matters, signed certain agreements in London, the sailors of this country should stand behind this legislation and have it put through parliament. That is not right. The Newfoundland government had more sense
Canada Shipping Act

than to pass any stupid, foolish legislation such as we are being asked to pass to-night and which has been brought down from another part of this parliament.


Peter John Veniot: Might I ask the minister whether the conference of 1931 which I understand was international, embodied anything that would bind this country to make uniform legislation in so far as coastal navigation within the Dominion of Canada is concerned?


Alfred Duranleau: No.


Peter John Veniot: I understand the minister to say no. Then so far as our coastal regulations are concerned, that is a matter of our own?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Surely.


Peter John Veniot: It is in regard to that I am raising the objection. If our coastal regulations and those governing our fishing fleet are embodied in this legislation, let the minister have passed those clauses that come under the jurisdiction, if you like, of the conference of 1931, but in the name of conscience let him give us a chance to consult our constituents in regard to coastal and fishing regulations, let him not impose them on us.


Alfred Duranleau: There are no fishing regulations in the bill.


Peter John Veniot: There are.


Alfred Duranleau: I would like my hon. friend to point them out.


Peter John Veniot: There are definitions as to what a fishing vessel is; there are definitions and clauses defining what a fishing vessel has to do, how she shall register, who shall sail her, who shall be in command, what the sailors shall do. This is right in the bill; the minister cannot deny it.


Alfred Duranleau: I think my hon. friend is mistaken.


Peter John Veniot: I am not mistaken.


Alfred Duranleau: As to the fishermen, the same law as heretofore is in this bill. I listened to the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough a minute ago state that the fishing boats wore bound to have certificated masters.


William Duff: Quite right.


Alfred Duranleau: There is nothing of the kind in the bill. If my hon. friend will read clause 113 he will see that ships solely employed in fishing are exempted from having certificated masters or mates.


Peter John Veniot: Does the minister mean to tell me that he can find any one vessel called a fishing vessel that is solely engaged in the fishing business?


Alfred Duranleau: Why not?


Peter John Veniot: Surely the minister does not wish to leave that impression with the committee. They have their fishing seasons and at other times they are employed at something else. If they are employed at anything else; if they are employed in taking supplies to far off fishing districts and are not engaged on a fishing trip, they come under this legislation. Especially do they come under it if they have an auxiliary attached of over three horsepower; then they have to have a captain with a certificate. More than that, they have to have an engineer.


William Duff: A certificated engineer.


Alfred Duranleau: I think my hon. friend is mistaken.


Peter John Veniot: I am not mistaken, and I
do not care where the minister gets his information. This is in the bill, and I know what its application means.


Alfred Duranleau: That does not apply
to those small boats.


Peter John Veniot: Let me give the minister an example. The W. S. Loggie concern at Chatham, New Brunswick, one of the largest fishing concerns in the maritime provinces, own a large number of vessels. They have vessels engaged in fishing and at other times the same boats are engaged in transporting their fish coastwise from one factory to another or to headquarters. Those vessels have auxiliaries. Under this legislation no captain of such a vessel can operate it unless he has a captain's certificate. Let me give another instance. Take the fishermen of Miscou Harbour, using vessels of ten to twenty tons. I think the largest about twenty-five. They fish all season; they will fish during the herring season in the spring and in the fall herring season, and after the fall fishing season they are recognized as freight boats; they transport their product to the markets at Chatham, Newcastle, Bathurst and Campbellton-coastal traffic. They have auxiliaries; they would come under this bill, and the captains will have to have a master's certificate.


Alfred Duranleau: The same as the
present law.


Peter John Veniot: No, it is not.


William Duff: It is not.

Canada Shipping Act


Peter John Veniot: Get the old act and read it. If it is the same law as before, two hundred and seventy-five Sail in the fishing fleet in the northern section of New Brunswick, the county I represent, are violating the law every day. I know it is not so; there is no use trying to put the like of that over on us, because we have experience.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. member for
Shelburne-Yarmouth (Mr. Ralston) has suggested that one of three courses might be taken in respect to this legislation. The accuracy of his recital of the historic facts I think no one will question. But we have proceeded with this legislation not idly, just to do something, but because we recognized that there was an obligation upon us with respect to it. We are a maritime community with shores on the Pacific and the Atlantic. When this matter was agreed to in 1931 we prepared a bill, and because of the fact that there are many difficulties involved and we were endeavouring to secure some measure of uniformity with respect to the principles -not,the details-I had the draft bill sent to and subsequently discussed it with the officials who are responsible in Great Britain for legislation of this character. Many suggestions were made; some of them we could easily accept, some we could not. Australia has not yet enacted the legislation. I think it is not unfair to say that they expect us to proceed first, because they have coastal difficulties to meet and we have coastal difficulties to meet; but we have in common with them the general principles to be accepted dealing with shipping legislation. Now, the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Yeniot) has very properly pointed out that with respect to coastal matters there is of course no uniformity. With respect to small details as to the size of ships that require certificated masters there is no suggestion about uniformity being necessary; it is not even hinted. But with respect to the large principles that govern the whole shipping business, obviously the largest shipping country in the world being Great Britain, we are anxious to obtain the benefit of their wide experience. If I say to this committee that I had the privilege of discussing it with those who are regarded as the foremost authorities in the world I but state the simple fact. The solicitors who are responsible for the advice to the various departments in Great Britain that have to deal with this matter were good enough to give us the benefit of their judgment; that advice was in the hands of the minister, and when the minister had the act redrafted we had the benefit of all 74726-249
their experience placed at our disposal in the form of a memorandum that would enable us to proceed in the best possible manner. If, as the bon. member for Antigonish-Guys-borough has suggested, this bill is but the product of the paste pot and scissors, obviously the enactment of it is a simple matter. If on the other hand it is a combination of old and new provisions, as it is, this committee will study carefully the terms expressing the meaning of parliament in the light of the existing legislation both in the Merchant Shipping Act and the Canada Shipping Act that we have had for years. It has been suggested that that can better be done by a special committee than in committee of the whole. The practice in England is to take it after second reading in committee of the whole. We have departed from that practice because sometimes we become very garrulous in committees of the whole and have failed to direct our attention to the particular sections under consideration. In Great Britain it is the practice to go into committee of the whole in respect to measures that are government measures, such for instance as the Home Rule bill, local rate bills and matters of that kind. We have recently departed from that practice. In the days of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, when parliament had to deal with the National Transcontinental and the Grand Trunk, it did not send the matter to a special committee but went into committee of the whole house. Delegations do not appear at the bar of the house to represent their views; the government of the day assumes responsibility. That was the practice in this house, but conditions changed and it was thought that to refer a bill to a special committee was the easiest way to get rid of some responsibility.


James Layton Ralston: It was not done to get rid of responsibility.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am not suggesting that was the hon. gentleman's intention.


James Layton Ralston: That was not the intention of anyone.


Alan Webster Neill: It was to deal with technical matters.


Richard Bedford Bennett: For technical matters the government must assume responsibility.


James Layton Ralston: I think the Prime Minister conveyed a wrong impression when he suggested that bills were referred to a special committee to escape responsibility. I do not think that was the intention of the government. I think it was because it was considered a better way to deal with them.

Canada Shipping Act


Richard Bedford Bennett: One of the best instances is the Georgian Bay canal bill.


James Layton Ralston: Well, take the Bank Act.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The government of the day attempted to evade responsibility by giving the Georgian Bay canal bill second reading to save its face and sending it to the committee for the purpose of seeing it killed, one man voting for it. That is not the practice in the British parliament. In connection with the Bank Act I pointed out the other day that the practice had grown up of dealing with such bills in the manner followed this session. But with respect to this legislation there is no necessity for sending it to any committee. The government of the day assumes the responsibility for the bill. If tonight we had spent the time in passing sections that have been on the statute books of this country for many years we would perhaps have come to the sections to which the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Veniot) has referred, although he had no right to refer to them in committee of the whole until they were reached; and then the arguments he has made and the arguments which the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough may make may be sufficiently powerful to induce the government to accept their view, and accept it gladly.
Then there is this further point: one must face actualities at some time or other. We have had this bill now considered for three years, two years in form, one year in the nebulous condition of general principles that were to be observed. We have printed and circulated it one session, then rewritten it, reorganized it in the light of views and criticisms received, and the fact that it has been considered in another place is only some evidence that in its present form it has received the best consideration that the men who were charged with responsibility of dealing with it in committee could give to it. I quite agree with what the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth says, that that is no reason why we should shirk our duty with respect to it. I have never asserted that we should. But there is nothing in the bill that should give this house any difficulty if it will apply itself to the consideration of it in the light of the existing legislation and remember that the new sections are not numerous but are important because they confer upon Canada jurisdiction in matters about which some difficulties might have arisen in times past. We wish this to be upon the statute books. If we are ever going to get shipping bills within the other members

of the commonwealth it is desirable that this country should take the lead, not for that purpose but because they look to us to do so, and they know that we have had the benefit of the best assistance that could be given to us in Great Britain. We are merely endeavouring to carry out not a compulsory obligation but an undertaking. The minister has just read from the document which the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth has in his hand, a statement of what our obligations were in 1931. It is not a compulsory undertaking that all the dominions would do so; we undertook to do something. Now we have done it. At [DOT] the end of this bill we have provided that it shall not come into force until proclamation. That is, once enacted as a statute it then becomes something upon which attention may be focused and as to which constructive amendments may be suggested. That section also provides that even the whole of the bill need not be brought into force on proclamation, that parts of it may be proclaimed if so desired. That is section 719, which reads:
This act shall not come into force until a date to be fixed by proclamation of the governor in council published in the Canada Gazette: provided that he may, in the same manner and from time to time, bring any portion or portions only of this act into force.
I need hardly remind the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth that this is done to meet the very condition to which I have referred. Conditions in various parts of the commonwealth are not the same, but with respect to the large principles of the measure, when we have enacted our measure we proclaim, we will say, one hundred sections that deal with one particular phase. That has met with general approval, and that is the end of it. Later we proclaim another hundred sections, because they have been approved by the various sections of the commonwealth. Finally we may proclaim the remainder. This section is drawn in this way in an endeavour to ensure that effect shall be given to the undertaking which, while as I say it was not compulsory in its character, involved the idea that we would proceed with some degree of reasonable promptitude to give effect to the promise which was made, namely that we would introduce legislation with respect to shipping on certain principles.
There is one other phase of it which is rather important. The schedules or annexes to this legislation, which cover nearly two hundred pages, represent conventions concluded at Geneva, at London and at other places. They are not conventions which we can disregard. Not only did we sign them;

Canada Shipping Act
we ratified them. Not only were they ratified by executive action; in the main they have been submitted to and approved by this house.


James Layton Ralston: Is there anything more needed in that respect?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am glad the hon. gentleman mentioned that, because if he will take the trouble to look through the bill he will find that the relation of the shipping act itself to the terms and provisions of the various conventions becomes of considerable importance. There are several sections here; I will not take time to turn them up. We find the words, "subject to the provisions of the load line convention," "subject to the convention dealing with labour matters," using the word in the broad sense, because otherwise you can hardly use it in regard to seamen who are under articles, and so on. Broadly speaking, the provisions of the conventions must be considered. Then you have the questions of signals, rules of navigation, radio communication and matters of that kind. These are covered by conventions, and they are woven into the statute. In large part those are the new sections, because needless to say when the first act was written there was no such thing as radio or communication between sea and shore as we know it. Fog signals were not of the character we now have, and in fact the rules of the road have been changed. The load line convention is related also to the provisions of the statute.


Thomas Reid: And the salvage of airships.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I thank the hon. gentleman; that was the other matter to which my attention was being directed. Following the loss of the Titanic there was a convention dealing with questions of life boats, rafts, life jackets, life buoys and so on. All these matters, while the subjects of conventions, by this statute are woven into the texture of the law, which the committee will observe is altogether different from merely having a convention which baldly declares what we are to do, without weaving it into the statute itself.
It is for these reasons that this provision is inserted in the statute which contemplates that the statute may come into force on proclamation, not necessarily as a whole but one part and then another part, in order that there may be no inconvenience caused to anyone.
May I remind this committee that there are some matters dealt with in this statute that relate to these conventions, and the 74728-2495
interrelation between the terms of the conventions and the statute is such that we cannot, without violating our international undertakings. do otherwise than pass the statute in the terms in which it appears. A moment ago the hon. member for Gloucester said something that greatly impressed me. He said, "If this be so, a large number of people are violating the law," presumably without knowing it. As a matter of fact there has been going on in this country continuously, without knowledge, because of changes that have been made in some of these matters, a disregard of the statute, and I think everyone realizes that substantial effort has been made last year and again this year to try to bring to the attention of as many people as possible the fact that we have assumed international obligations. The ex-Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) has been president of the League of Nations Society in Canada. The League of Nations is the organization that promoted these conventions. A moment ago the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) made some reference to matters touching the lives of seamen, their articles, their clothing, their food, their care when ill in marine hospitals, the disposition of their property if they died, and so on. All these matters were dealt with in days gone by in Great Britain by the Board of Trade, and the regulations of that body. In these conventions that we have made we have dealt with these very things, and the statute merely endeavours to relate the convention to the enactments of parliament, which of course is of first importance.
Does anyone suggest for a single moment that anyone sitting on this side of the house, with ministerial responsibility, is anxious to undertake unnecessary labour? Does anyone suggest that most of us have not enough to do? We have a duty to discharge: we may not discharge it to the entire satisfaction of hon. gentlemen opposite, but we will have to do the best we can. If I had not believed there was an obligation resting upon us to deal with this legislation I would not have introduced it. It will be recalled that reference was made to this legislation in the speech from the throne. The question of introducing it in this house rather than in another place became important in view of the fact that at this session this house undertook the responsibility with respect to the Bank Act and the Bank of Canada Act, and a committee was sitting that was dealing with matters of great public importance. Under those circumstances we concluded that in another house this bill could best receive, in the first instance, that attention which its
Canada Shipping Act

importance demanded. While the hon. member for Comox-Alberni was quite correct in saying that a stenographic report of what took place was not kept, nevertheless during the holidays and over the week-ends selected small subcommittees continued to sit and to deal with every phase of the bill. Draftsmen endeavoured to reconcile the various statutes which had heretofore existed with those which it was desired to enact. Suggestions made by those who had to deal with these matters were considered, and the fact is that in recent times no legislation which has been submitted to either house of parliament has received more consideration than this received in another place. I am not for one single moment endeavouring to assert that because that has been done we are relieved of our responsibility, but I do say that with respect to legislation of this kind these houses of parliament have co-equal jurisdiction, and it is idle to suggest that one house rather than another should receive all the measures of an administration. In fact, I believe as days go by it will be found that the other branch of parliament can be more effectively used than it has been. That is my conviction with respect to it. The idea of setting up a select committee-


James Layton Ralston: I thought it would be
;he committee on marine and fisheries.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The idea of referring
this bill to a committee I must, with all deference, disregard at the moment. I suggest that to-morrow, after we have dealt with the resolution on the Franchise Act, we should proceed with this bill and continue to proceed with it on Thursday, on Friday, on Monday and until such time as we have made the necessary progress to enable us to deal with those sections about which there is great controversy.
When there is great controversy and difference of opinion with regard to certain sections, while this government must assume the responsibility for the legislation, I promise this chamber that any reasonable suggestions which are put forward will receive not only every consideration, but if in the view of some bon. members of wide experience in this chamber, it is thought that we should change, modify, amend or deal with a section in any way, we will try to the best of our ability to accommodate ourselves to such view. That is so, because in domestic matters no principle concerns us except the well being of the people as a whole, our own people. I think the hon. member for Shelbume-Yar-mouth and myself are at one as to that, that the broad principles embodied in the agree-

ment of 1931 did not deal with our domestic situation at all, our inland lakes, our inland waters or, for instance, lake Winnipeg, the Red river, the Saskatchewan river, or those major rivers and lakes which constitute the great watershed, including lakes Superior and Michigan and the others. But when we deal with what may be called sea-going responsibilities, on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, we are endeavouring to enact legislation which is prepared to conform to the provisions of international conventions to which we became a party. Whether we acted wisely or not I cannot say, but the late administration as well as the present one must accept the responsibility.
That is all I can usefully say as to the purpose behind and the reasons governing us, and the earnestness of our desire to place legislation upon the statute book not simply to have more work or to supply a gorge of legislation, but rather to do that which we conceive to be our duty to our own people consonant with the obligations of an international character which we have assumed as signatories to various conventions on maritime questions, as well as the obligations which we assumed ip 1931.


James Layton Ralston: I cannot speak with the
same authority as has the Prime Minister with regard to the international obligations to which he has referred, but I would take it as this House of Commons has approved of, for instance, the load lines convention and these other conventions that it is possible by regulation to put them into force, and thus carry out any convention obligations which we had. I do not think it is absolutely necessary to pass this legislation in order to make effective those conventions practically all of which have already been accepted by this House of Commons and are I think already in force. That is my first observation, affecting international obligations.
With regard to coastal and inland waters, if I understand my right hon. friend correctly the law outlined in the new bill is practically the same as in the old. If that is so it seems to me the statute as it is to-day is sufficient; and there is no necessity for passing any legislation in that respect.
That leaves only that which my right hon. friend termed sea-going responsibilities, affecting deep sea navigation, our responsibilities on the high seas and with regard to seamen, safety of life, and so on. It seems to me those factors fit in with and are part of the agreement to which he has referred and to which the Minister of Marine has referred. I have read that agreement, and it seems to me

Questions
that before legislation is actually brought down consultation is contemplated between the various commonwealths. I find that article 16 in part VI of the British Commonwealth Merchant Shipping Agreement provides:
The standards of qualification to be required of applicants for certificates of competency and of service shall so far as possible be equal and alike throughout the British commonwealth, and shall not be lower than those at present established.
How can we have uniformity and have them equal and alike unless we have consultation among the different dominions concerned to ascertain what those standards should be?


Richard Bedford Bennett: After the statute is passed.


James Layton Ralston: No; that would mean that the only way we could have uniformity is by others passing some kind of statute, and we would have to make our statute uniform with theirs. That is not what this agreement contemplates, neither does it mean that we take the lead and set up a standard for them to follow. I am just trying to point the argument I tried to make, namely that the agreement of 1931 contemplated consultation before our statute was passed. Then, respecting offences on board ship I find in part IX, article 23, of the agreement the following:
Reciprocal arrangements shall be made for conferring jurisdiction on the lines of section 686 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, with respect to offences committed on board ships registered in any part of the commonwealth.
How can we make reciprocal arrangements without having previous consultation?


Richard Bedford Bennett: You have to have your
statute first.


James Layton Ralston: I submit not. You have a conference, and pass the statute afterwards. Then, turning to part II, standards of safety, I find the following as article 6:
While each part of the commonwealth will from time to time determine the standards with which its ships shall be required to comply in all matters relating to safety, every endeavour will be made to preserve uniformity and to maintain the standards at present in force.
You cannot do that without consultation.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Since then we have an
international provision ratified by this house.


James Layton Ralston: If we have an international provision already ratified we do not need the statute at all.


William Duff: It is not international. Every British dominion has its own law.


James Layton Ralston: I suggest this, that notwithstanding what they do in the British House of Commons, we have been dealing through committees with matters such as the one now before us. We dealt with the Bank Act through a committee, and we did the same with the central bank act. My right hon. friend, regardless of constitutional practice, will agree that that is the most efficient parliamentary method of dealing with it. There would be more real progress made if the matter were referred to a committee which could give it intensive study not merely from three o'clock to eleven o'clock, but could sit in the mornings and, if necessary, establish subcommittees.
I am disappointed that the Prime Minister has not seen fit to accept the suggestion, but I have made it in the spirit in which he replied, namely that we are both anxious to get on with the work of the house. I do feel that he defeats that object when at this late date- or, what is supposed to be a late date in the session-he places this voluminous bill on the table of the house and compels us to pass it through committee of the whole.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, June 13, 1934