1936-03-11

AGRICULTURE AND COLONIZATION

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved:: That the name of Mr. Johnston (Lake Centre) be substituted for that _ of Mr. Ross (Moose Jaw) on the select standing committee on agriculture and colonization; and
That the name of Mr. Thorson be substituted for that of Mr. Beaubien on the select standing committee on agriculture and colonization.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour): I beg to lay on the table of the house the report of the registrar of the Combines Investigation Act on an investigation into an alleged combine in the importation and distribution of British anthracite coal in Canada. The investigation was completed in 1933 but the report was not made public. In this report certain of the tables have been supplemented by figures covering the years 1933, 1934 and 1935.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk).
voters' lists Mr. COCHRANE:
1.	What was the total cost of printing the voters' lists for the 1930 federal elections?
2.	What was the total cost for printing the voters' lists for the 1935 federal elections?
3.	What was the total cost of machinery specially installed by the dominion government for the printing of election lists?
4.	How many linotype operators were employed on this work (a) what wage scale were they paid; (b) how many overtime hours did they work and what rate of wage were they paid for overtime; (c) was it necessary to bring operators into Ottawa to complete the work?
5.	Were any of the voters' lists printed by firms not connected with the government (a) if so, what office did the printing; (b) what rates were they paid?
6.	Are linotypes installed for the setting of voters' lists now working full time (a) if part time, how many hours per day?
7.	What did it cost to revise election lists in 1934 and 1935?

Mr. HEAPS:: 1.	What was the total value of the goods seized by custom officials in Canada during 1935?
2.	What are the classifications or nature of goods so seized?
3.	What was the valuation of seized goods sold, and what amount was realized?
4.	What was the valuation and nature of goods destroyed?


Mr. ILSLEY:: I would ask my hon. friend if he would not withdraw this question in view of the fact that it would take so much labour to compile the answers. If he insists I will ask that the question stand as an order for return, but it may not be brought down this session.


Mr. HEAPS:: I have no desire to put the department to all the labour entailed in answering the question. If it involves too much work, as the minister suggests, I will drop the question, but I do think that if the department were properly organized it would be a very simple matter to have at the end of each year a complete tabulation of the information asked for in my question.
Question dropped.


RADIO REFINERIES LIMITED
Mr. MUTCH:: 1.	Did the Radio Refineries Limited, located at or near Winnipeg, bring into Canada, during the period from 1930 to October, 1935, large quantities of gasoline without paying the duty thereon?
2.	If so, why was the duty not collected?
3.	If the government discovered that smuggling had occurred, when did such discovery take place and what action did the government take?
4.	Did the government lay a criminal charge against the officers and directors of the said company, and, if not, was any reason assigned?
5.	Did the government sue the Radio Oil Refineries Limited, in the Court of King's Bench in Manitoba for a large sum of money?
6.	If so, how was settlement effected, and for how much?
7.	What was the amount for which the government sued the Radio Oil Refineries Limited?
8.	Does the present government propose to take action in the matter, and, if so, what action?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Part 8 of this question relates to a matter of government policy and it has not been the custom of the government to answer such questions. Apart from that, the question is answered:
1.	No-Importations were described as crude petroleum in its natural state but the department held it was not in its natural state.
2.	Due to fact that entries were made under wrong tariff classification.
3.	The goods were not smuggled. Following investigation it was definitely established to the satisfaction of the department early in 1934 that duty was being evaded and in May, 1934, charges were preferred.
4.	No. A claim under the Customs Act for duties short paid and penalties was preferred against the company. It was believed that better results would be obtained in this way than by criminal procedure.
5.	Yes.
6.	Settlement was effected for $10,000, through an agent appointed by the Department of Justice.
Salary Deduction Act

7.	It was charged by the department that duty and taxes short paid amounted to $19,712.35 but amount claimed in suit including penalties and forfeitures was $178,942.70 and costs.


BILINGUALISM IN FEDERAL DEPARTMENTS
Mr. TREMBLAY:: 1.	How many federal civil servants in each department in each of the several provinces, except Quebec, speak and write only French?
2.	How many federal civil servants in each department in the province of Quebec speak only English?


Mr. RINFRET:: In reply to this question, I may say that no records are kept from which we can supply the hon. member with the desired information.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. FLEMING:: 1.	Is George Wilson, barrister and solicitor of Kinistino, Saskatchewan, in the employ of the federal government?
2.	If not so employed now, has he been in the employ of the government at any time, and in what position, and when were his services dispensed with?
3.	If in the employ of the government during the years 1930 to 1935, what amounts of money did he receive?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: Return tabled herewith.


INSPECTORS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
Mr. HANSON:: 1.	How many inspectors are there in British Columbia under the following headings (a) seed; (b) feed; (e) grain; (d) fruit; (e) dairy?
2.	What are the names, addresses and' salary, respectively, of such inspectors, and what territory is covered by each?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: Return tabled herewith.



MOTION FOR PAPERS


Mr. SYLYESTRE:: For a copy of all correspondence, reports, telegrams and other documents exchanged during 1935 and 1936 between the Minister of Public Works and the municipal corporation of Normandin, regarding a proposed lease in connection with a post office.



CANADA-UNITED STATES TRADE AGREEMENT PROPOSED AGREEMENT TO FISCAL TREATMENT ACCORDED TO UNITED STATES PRODUCTS

William Lyon Mackenzie King: I beg to move, seconded by Mr. Dunning:

That the fiscal treatment accorded to goods, the produce or manufacture of the United States of America, by the trade agreement between Canada and the United States of America, signed at Washington, November 15, 1935, be agreed to so that there may be introduced a bill giving the said trade agreement the force of law in Canada.


Mr. BENNETT:: Should not the motion be that it be referred to the committee of ways and means?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes; I was
going to move that the agreement be referred to the committee of ways and means.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Mr. Mackenzie King
moves, seconded by Mr. Dunning, that the resolution be referred to the committee of ways and means.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think the correct method is to move that the Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to resolve itself into committee of ways and means "to consider the following resolution."


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am advised by the clerk that the procedure I adopted at the outset is correct, that after the resolution is carried, I then move that the house go into committee of ways and means to consider the resolution.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance) moved:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to authorize a deduction of five per cent from the amount of certain salaries or other compensations or indemnities payable by the government of Canada during the fiscal year ending the 31st March, 1937.
Walter Edward Foster: Mr. Dunning moves, seconded by Mr. Crerar, that the house resolve itself into committee of the whole on the said resolution. Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): No, sir, and I will tell you why I object to this motion.


Walter Edward Foster: Order. I draw to the attention of the hon. member the fact that this motion is not debatable.


Mr. POULIOT:: Then why do you say, is it carried? I say it is not carried; I am ready to object to it on serious grounds, and now you prevent me from expressing my views on it.


Walter Edward Foster: Shall the motion carry?


Jean-François Pouliot: No.

Hamilton Harbour Commission


Walter Edward Foster: Motion carried.


Jean-François Pouliot: Mr. Speaker, may I ask
the government-*


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, on a question of order: I have no desire to be constantly rising to refer to matters of order, but I heard your honour say that the motion made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) that this resolution be considered by the committee was carried, and that the Speaker do leave the chair. If that is so-


Mr. DUNNING:: I did not make a motion that the Speaker leave the chair.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is what was said,
as far as I could hear. There was some noise in the chamber.


Charles Avery Dunning: I made the usual notice
of motion to make it possible for the resolution in question to be considered when the house goes into committee of the whole.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That was done by the
Prime Minister.


Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, I confess I do not quite follow the ruling-it may be a sad reflection on myself. The motion, as I understood it, was that Mr. Speaker should leave the chair and the house resolve itself into committee of the whole to consider this resolution. I understood your honour to say that such a resolution was not debatable. I personally am under the impression that it is debatable, although I confess I may be mistaken, and I think that, for the purpose of good order in the house, we ought to have that point made perfectly clear. I may be entirely wrong, but I should like your honour to explain just why that motion upon which the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) desired to speak is not a debatable motion.


Jean-François Pouliot: Mr. Speaker, in the meantime may I ask the government if they have superannuated General McNaughton and Colonel Steel, the former a member of the national research council and the latter of the radio broadcasting commission, at the lowest rate of superannuation before imposing a cut of five per cent on all civil servants?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I understand
the question which my hon. friend has just asked was on the order paper and was answered some days ago.


Jean-François Pouliot: No, it was not in that
form, and I put it again in this very shape.


Walter Edward Foster: The motion to which the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) refers was a motion that the house go into committee of the whole at the next sitting of the house. This is the motion which I said was not debatable.


Henry Herbert Stevens: May I call to your
attention, Mr. Speaker, for the sake of accuracy, the fact that that form of motion was not properly put. I think the motion should have read, "at the next sitting of the house." Had it been done in that way I should not have taken objection.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JOSEPH JEAN (Mercier):: Mr. Speaker, I notice in the public press a statement to the effect that there is to be appointed a board of harbour commissioners for the city of Hamilton. Does that mean that at some ports there will be harbour commissions, notwithstanding the decision of the government to abolish those commissions?


Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Railways and Canals):: The harbours of Canada are
of two categories. There are seven ports which are definitely national ports, and in all of which the government has a very substantial investment. In addition to that there are some five or six other ports, such as Hamilton, Toronto, New Westminster-to name only a few-in which the government has no substantial investment, and in which the city has attended to the development of the particular port; these ports have been administered by harbour commissions, on which the city has representation, and in such cases it is not the intention of the government to make any change in the system of administration. The reason, and I think the only reason, why the government has the appointment in some cases of one and in other cases of two harbour commissioners is that the commission is charged with the carrying out of certain government regulations.



GERMAN CONSCRIPTION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Before the orders of the
day are called may I point out that the afternoon papers carry a dispatch from Montreal that Ludwig Kempff, Consul General for Germany in Canada, announced to-day in Montreal that German citizens living in Canada and Newfoundland are to be conscripted for possible service in Germany. The state-
Canada-US. Trade Agreement

ment said that Germans who have become naturalized British subjects are not affected, but it also went on to say that enlistments were to be invited. I should like to ask whether, if this dispatch is correct, such action is calculated to maintain good relations between different classes of Canadian citizens, and also as to whether or not the German consul would not be exceeding his rights here in Canada.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, before I
answer my hon. friend I should like to make inquiries as to the actual communication made by the German consul. After having seen it, I shall reply to my hon. friend.



WAYS AND MEANS


[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of ways and means, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.
Resolved, that the fiscal treatment accorded to goods, the produce or manufacture of the United States of America, by the trade agreement between Canada and the United States of America, signed at Washington, November 15, 1935, be agreed to so that there may be introduced a bill giving the said trade agreement the force of law in Canada.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Chairman, I think we had better have a clear understanding as to procedure in committee at the present time. The purpose of the resolution is to consider, as I said, the fiscal treatment accorded by the trade agreement to goods, the produce or manufacture of the United States of America. The trade agreement contains a schedule of rates to apply to commodities specified therein imported from the United States. The consideration of the article to which this schedule is attached and of the schedule itself would of course cover the changes in the rates applicable to imports from the United States. There are other clauses in the agreement which I should imagine the committee would also wish to consider in connection with the schedules. They will have to be considered some time, either when the bill itself is before the house or now when the agreement is being discussed in committee of ways and means. If the committee is agreeable to taking up the agreement in its entirety clause by clause at this stage, I fancy it will shorten discussion in the long run and give to hon. members immediately detailed information they are desirous of obtaining in regard to many specific items as well as to the agreement as a whole. If that method is acceptable, I suggest that we consider the agreement clause by clause, and begin now with article No. 1.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Of course it is not within the purview of the resolution, but as there must be a bill founded upon it, and presumably the agreement will be attached as a schedule to the bill, and will be considered in committee of the whole house, the only question is whether or not it is desirable to do it now or when the bill is being dealt with. To me personally it is a matter of indifference. But it is clear that if the bill founded on the resolution is introduced and the agreement attached as a schedule, when the committee goes into committee on the bill the whole matter will be open for discussion. That may be the better place.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: When the
British house considered the Canada-United Kingdom agreement the Chancellor of the Exchequer before introducing the bill at all, moved the house into committee of ways and means to consider the tariff changes involved in the agreement. We are following that course because we think it the preferable one.
I should like to say to my right hon. friend, if he will pardon my doing it at this moment, that I think he was mistaken at an earlier stage in the debate in saying that his government had followed the same procedure.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, not the same procedure as in England, the same procedure as adopted in regard to the treaty with France.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Not the same procedure as we have adopted in connection with this agreement. I have looked up the journals and find that the following was the order of procedure in connection with the Canada-United Kingdom agreement: On October 12, 1932, my right hon. friend moved a resolution approving the agreement. The resolution was agreed to on November 3. On November 7, Bill No. 8 was given first reading. On November 8 it was given second reading. On November 21 the bill was reported in committee of the whole, and on November 22 given third reading. It was not until after third reading, namely on November 24, that the resolutions were adopted in committee of ways and means, reported, read the second time and concurred in.
I am proposing that we take up in committee of ways and means, before we introduce the bill at all, consideration of the fiscal matters referred to in the agreement.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There is, I suppose, no point in discussing the methods that were adopted at other times. What we did with respect to the British agreement was the same as in respect to the French treaty. Last year we adopted a trade agreement with Poland,

Canada-US. Trade Agreement
and we adopted one made with France the session before; the schedule was attached to the bill, the bill was introduced on a resolution, and the whole matter was then discussed as an ordinary measure. I am not sure but what the suggestion of the right hon. gentleman as to the desirability of separate treatment being accorded, in committee of ways and means, to the items that constitute the schedule may be the sounder method, but the method we pursued in connection with the Polish agreement was to discuss the schedules to the bill when the bill itself was in committee, and that we may do here when the bill founded on this resolution is introduced into the house. This resolution contemplates discussion at the moment of the tariff items only; there would still remain for consideration the various articles of the agreement. As I point out, those articles must necessarily be open for discussion when the bill is before the house, the schedule being part of the bill. If it is thought desirable to consider the agreement now article by article, I personally have no objection, but it would be competent to have the discussion over again when the schedule comes up as part of the bill.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Quite right.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Whatever the right hon. gentleman thinks desirable is acceptable as far as I am concerned.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My thought is that we shall probably save time in the end by taking up the agreement now article by article. It is probable that hon. members in discussing the items will make reference to articles in the agreement, and I have no doubt that when we come to the bill itself the house will not wish to repeat a discussion which has already taken place.


On Article I:: Trade Agreement Between Canada and the United States of America
His Majesty the King of Great Britain, Ireland and the British dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India, in respect of the Dominion of Canada, and the President of the United States of America, being desirous of facilitating and extending the commercial relations existing between Canada and the United States of America by granting mutual and reciprocal concessions and advantages for the promotion of trade, have resolved to conclude a trade agreement as a step toward the lowering of the barriers impeding trade between their two countries, and for this purpose have through their respective plenipotentiaries agreed upon the following articles:
Article I
Canada and the United States of America will grant each other unconditional and
unrestricted most-favoured-nation treatment in all matters concerning customs duties and subsidiary charges of every kind and in the method of levying duties, and, further, in all matters concerning the rules, formalities and charges imposed' in connection with the clearing of goods through the customs, and with respect to all laws or regulations effecting the sale or use of imported goods within the country.
Accordingly, natural or manufactured products having their origin in either of the countries shall in no case be subject, in regard to the matters referred to above, to any duties, taxes or charges other or higher, or to any rules or formalities other or more burdensome, than those to -which the like products having their origin in any third country are or may hereafter be subject.
Similarly, natural or manufactured products exported from the territory of Canada or the United States of America and consigned to the territory of the other country shall in no case be subject with respect to exportation and in regard to the above-mentioned matters, to any duties, taxes or charges other or higher, or to any rules or formalities other or more burdensome, than those to which the like products when consigned to the territory of any third country are or may hereafter be subject.
Any advantage, favour, privilege or immunity which has been or may hereafter be granted by Canada or the United States of America in regard to the above-mentioned matters, to a natural or manufactured product originating in any third country or consigned to the territory of any third country shall be accorded immediately and without compensation to the like product originating in or consigned to the territory of the United States of America or Canada, respectively, and irrespective of the nationality of the carrier.
Article I agreed to.


On Article II:: Mr. STEfVENS:	In regard to this article
and other articles of a similar character, I should like to ask whether it is clearly understood that it does not include concessions of arrangements between Canada and other countries in the British empire?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is covered by
article XIII.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I know, but I want to
make it abundantly clear that that applies in all these articles.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Mr. CAHAN:: Is it clear as a matter of
construction that article XIII does all that is suggested? It seems to me it would be better drafting if in article I and article II an exception were made and a reference to article XIII inserted, for the sake of clarity; "except as in this agreement otherwise provided." Here it says "like products having their origin in any third country," without specific exception.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The understanding on which the entire agreement was made is that as far as the British empire is concerned, rights within the empire are entirely a matter of our own business, and that nothing in this agreement shall affect any existing relationships between one part of the empire and another with respect to duties or anything else. The whole agreement is based on that understanding.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Article II introduces for
the first time recognition of a quota system being applied in Canada. We have not heretofore generally accepted that as a governing principle in connection with our tariff legislation. This article recognizes that quantitative restrictions may be made by Canada in connection with our tariff legislation. Leaving that for the moment, there is a question I desire to ask which is a vital one in view of our experience in connection with quotas under the French agreement. The year that is to be fixed as the basic year is all important. This agreement does not specify that a given year shall be taken, but it says:
-a share equivalent to the proportion of the trade which is enjoyed in a previous representative period prior to the establishment of such quantitative restrictions.
In other words the period has to be hereafter fixed. On what principle is that period to be fixed? Did we arrive at any conclusion as to whether it would be a three year or a five year period? It would make a very great deal of difference if the period were

a five year period prior to 1935 or a five-year period prior to 1930. In the discussions; that took place in connection with the quantitative restrictions under the French agreement we had some little difficulty in arriving at a year, but we finally arrived at a year which was applied to all countries, not to Canada alone, and that year having been applied to all countries our exports to France were based upon the application of a percentage rate to the figure for that year. It becomes a matter of tremendous importance, having regard to the discrepancies between the import figures of France and the export figures of Canada, for example. I suppose hon. gentlemen saw the last monthly bulletin of the Royal Bank of Canada in which attention was directed to the fact that according to French statistics the imports from Canada into France amounted to something over $16,000,000, whereas the exports from Canada to France were shown as something between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000. In other words commodities shipped from Canada to the continent had been, probably during the progress of the voyage, directed to go to France. One of the notable items was wheat. In dealing with the question of quantitative restrictions we must exercise such extreme care in arriving at the basis upon which our percentages are predicated that I would ask the right hon. gentleman whether or not he has any information to communicate to the committee with respect to that matter.


Charles Avery Dunning: The provision in article
II was designed to cover any quantitative restrictions which might be imposed by either country in the future. The difficulty my right hon. friend points out is a very real one, but unfortunately it is impossible to decide now what a representative period would be with respect to each type of commodity concerned.


Richard Bedford Bennett: They do not do it that
way.


Charles Avery Dunning: After careful examination from the point of view of both countries it was thought that it would have to be left open to negotiation and arrangement in the spirit of the treaty itself, when such contingencies arise.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am afraid that does not go far in answering my question. In the first place it is an incorrect statement, if I may be pardoned for making that observation, to say that you must take up each item in each year. You must have a given period. That period may be a year or a term of years, but once the period is arrived at the percentage of the imports during that year that shall be free to be utilized by Canada or the

Canctda-U-S. Trade Agreement
United States as the case may be does become of vital importance. For instance suppose the year 1934 were taken, then that year becomes the fixed term for the purposes of the agreement. And if it comes to say, commodity A, and the United States have determined that we shall not export to that country more than a given percentage of that commodity, and they fix it at eighty per cent, then it will be eighty per cent of what their imports from Canada were during the year 1934. But in the case of commodity B there would be no change to another year; nor could it be changed to another year for commodity C, because there is a base year established. Usually in quantitative restrictions, which are largely used on the continent, they take a term that is an average of a period of three or five years, or take a year absolutely; they say that the year 1926 or 1929, for instance, shall be the determining year, the base year.


Charles Avery Dunning: With respect to all commodities?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, with respect to all commodities. That was one of the difficulties that we had in connection with the French agreement. France said, we will take a certain year-I forget what year; my memory is it was 1928, but whatever year it was, that year applied to Sweden, Australia, Canada, the United States and all other countries, and each country was allocated a percentage of the total imports of goods during that year, having regard to the relation that the total imports bore to the imports from a particular country. That is, if Canada supplied twenty per cent of the imports of the given commodity to France during that year, and it was concluded that the allocation should be eighty per cent, we would have but sixteen per cent of that year's importations. I point out that you cannot have varying years for different commodities, because that might work an unfair advantage or disadvantage to another country as against our own. The reason the question of arriving at a base year becomes of such tremendous importance lies in the possibility of difficulties arising on account of an endeavour to get a most favourable year for your country, while the other party to the agreement is endeavouring to get a year which will not involve as large importations as otherwise would follow. I can see that probably nothing more can be done about it than to leave it in the terms in which it now stands, because the agreement has been made. I certainly think, however, that it is an invitation to difficulty, if quantitative restrictions are resorted to.
Thus far in Canada, if my memory serves me correctly, the Liberal party has been vigorously opposed to the making of quota arrangements, and it may not be necessary to rely upon quota arrangements. But if quotas are made this will become a subject of difficulty, and to anticipate it and possibly provide against it is preferable to waiting for the arrival of a difficulty which would be very real, I might say, in connection with matters in regard to which quotas have been suggested. That is the reason why in other parts of the agreement I take it that this government, as well as the negotiators on behalf of the American people, were so careful to provide not a quota which would fluctuate, but in the case of seed potatoes a quota of 750,000 bushels and in the case of cream 1,500,000 gallons. The same applies to the arrangement for some odd thousand head of cattle, which quota of course was arrived at by computation on the part of the parties who arrived at the figures. But they did not leave it to conjecture or doubt as to how this was to be done when the time arrived. The computation with respect to cattle is well known.


Charles Avery Dunning: In that instance the
method is indicated in the item.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is indicated; in the cream quota it is not so indicated, and with respect to seed potatoes it is not so indicated. But those who were responsible saw to it that definite figures were used because they realized, as I now point out to the committee, that when you get into the realm of quantitative restrictions, which means the allocation of quotas to affect importing countries -and I could conceive of a dozen items I could mention which would be affected- grievous difficulties would be caused, having regard to the year which is selected as the base year upon which to make computations.


Charles Avery Dunning: My right hon. friend has himself indicated the reasons why it was quite impossible to state this matter more definitely than is stated in the agreement. The finding of a base year which would be fairly applicable to all commodities was a great difficulty. If I may mention the difficulty in connection with choosing a base year for cattle, for instance, may I say that we could not take 1932, 1933 or 1934 as base years with respect to this clause of the agreement, because no cattle were exported from Canada to the United States during those years.


Richard Bedford Bennett: They are covered by special items.


Charles Avery Dunning: happen with respect to some of a large number of items constituting the trade between these two countries. I agree entirely with my right hon. friend that it would have been very desirable indeed if absolutely certain machinery could have been set up in this section of the agreement to deal with possible future quantitative restrictions. But after very careful examination by the negotiators who acted on behalf of both countries it was felt that this was as far as the matter could be dealt with at the present time. I appreciate the fact that there may and probably will be difficulties, if one country commences to set up quantitative restrictions against the other in connection with commodities dealt with in the agreement. This clause is inserted to give, if possible, a means to settle those difficulties.
Article II agreed to.


On Article III:: Articles the growth, produce or manufacture of the United States of America, enumerated and described in schedule I annexed to this agreement, shall, on their importation into Canada, be exempt from ordinary customs duties in excess of those set forth in the said schedule. The said articles shall also be exempt from all other duties, taxes, fees, charges, or exactions, imposed on or in connection with importation, in excess of those imposed on the day of the signature of this agreement or required to be imposed thereafter under laws of Canada in force on the day of the signature of this agreement.
Schedule I and the notes included therein shall have full force and effect as integral parts of this agreement.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What is the meaning of the word "ordinary" in the third line? The expression is, "be exempt from ordinary customs duties."


Charles Avery Dunning: It is very difficult to describe the meaning of a simple word. I know the hon. member has the legal interpretation in his mind.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Of course; this is a legal document.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes; it is a legal document. "Ordinary customs duties" is the expression which follows the language commonly used in the United States and Canada in the description of customs duties, and especially when qualified by the words "in excess of those set forth in the said schedule." Those words surely qualify the meaning so that there could be no dispute as to the intention.


Abraham Albert Heaps: May I ask if there would be any question as to a dispute in connection with the imposition of excise duties on goods coming in? Would there be any possibility of misinterpretation of article III with respect to

excise duties now imposed on goods entering the country?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. member has anticipated something I was going to say, so after I have made my observations possibly the minister would answer both of us. If he will observe the language of the article he will find that in the third and fourth lines there is the expression "ordinary customs duties in excess of those set forth in the said schedule." That is, meats, prepared or preserved, other than canned, n.o.p., carry a duty of three cents per pound. That is the ordinary duty. But let us apply that to the following line: "The said articles"-meats-"shall also be exempt from all other duties, taxes, fees, charges, or exactions, imposed on or in connection with importation, in excess of those imposed on the day of the signature of this agreement or required to be imposed thereafter under laws of Canada in force on the day of the signature of this agreement." The amount imposed on the day this agreement was signed was three cents per pound, and there is no provision whatever for excise tax.
That has given me a great deal of concern with respect to the language of the agreement, the language to which the hon. member for Winnipeg North has referred. The article refers merely to "ordinary customs duties" in the third line, and then it states that you shall not impose anything in excess by way of duties, taxes, fees, charges or exactions, beyond those charged on the day of the signature of the agreement. In this instance the amount imposed on the day of the signature of the agreement was three cents per pound.


Charles Avery Dunning: Read the next phrase.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That does not help. It says that it shall be free from anything that may hereafter be done or hereafter be imposed. That shuts the door tighter still. This makes it clear beyond peradventure that with respect to these items you cannot do more than impose the ordinary customs duties now imposed. My doubt is as to whether that left us free with respect to what we call our excise tax, or other fees, charges or exactions. When I look at the language I find it says that they shall not be higher than those "imposed on the day of the signature of this agreement-or required to be imposed thereafter." That is, it is made clear beyond peradventure that they cannot be raised afterwards. On the day this agreement was signed the rate on meats was three cents per pound; but if we brought meat in from the United States there would be a three per cent excise tax.

Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement
Let us go a step further and consider soya beans, which are imported free. Soya beans must remain free during three years. You cannot raise that; you cannot change it; it is under the intermediate tariff. I want to know whether soya beans are subject to the excise tax of three per cent or not. That is one of the difficulties I have, and it is one apparently to which my hon. friend from Winnipeg North (Mr. Heaps) has had his mind directed as well.


Charles Avery Dunning: As to the intention I
have no doubt at all.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What was the intention?


Charles Avery Dunning: I will answer as to the
intention, first. I believe also that the legal draftsman did carry out the intention, but I cannot argue with my right hon. friend on a question of legal draftmanship. Article III reads:
The said articles shall also be exempt from all other duties, taxes, fees, charges, or exactions, imposed on or in connection with importation, in excess of those imposed on the day of the signature of this agreement.
Clearly, any tax which was in force on the day of the signature of this agreement represents the outside limit to which such charges can be imposed in the future.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Would the minister look at this very item of soya beans? Soya beans became free the minute we gave the United States the intermediate tariff, but now that we have made soya beans free for three years, can we charge the excise tax?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, because the tax was chargeable on that day.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It says:
The said articles shall also be exempt from all other duties.
The other duties are the ordinary customs duties.


Charles Avery Dunning: But soya beans would
be covered by the next phrase, "taxes, fees," and so forth.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But it says that they
shall be exempt. Let us read it in connection with soya beans:
Soya beans shall also be exempt from all other duties, taxes, fees, charges, or exactions, imposed on or in connection with importation, in excess of those imposed on the day of the signature of this agreement.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is the point.


Richard Bedford Bennett: They were free the
minute this agreement came into force.


Mr. EULER:: Not free from excise.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Free from everything.


William Daum Euler: No.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Not free from everything? They were free from customs tariff the minute the agreement was signed, and this document says that no other taxes shall be charged against them.


William Daum Euler: Other than those being
charged on the day of the signing of the agreement, and the excise tax was in force on the day of the signing of the agreement. In future we cannot increase it, under this article, but I suppose we could reduce it.


The CHAIRMAN:: Shall article III carry?


Richard Bedford Bennett: No; the schedule has
to be considered in connection with the article, Mr. Chairman.


Charles Avery Dunning: Before article III can
be considered to be carried the schedule to which it refers should first be considered. Article III therefore stands, and we will proceed to schedule 1 of the agreement, reverting to article 3 when we have concluded the discussion on schedule I.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Quite so.
Article III stands.
On schedule I:
Customs tariff-10. Meats, prepared or preserved, other than canned:	(b) n.o.p., 3
cents per pound.


Richard Bedford Bennett: May I ask the minister what is the rate on similar goods, meats, prepared or preserved, other than canned, entering the United States? We have heard a good deal of talk about reciprocal arrangements, and I just want to know what the duty in the United States is after this agreement comes into force.


Charles Avery Dunning: The United States rates on this item are not entirely comparable, but so far as it can be traced the meat item in the United States tariff reads:
Meats, bacon, hams, shoulders, et cetera, 3J cents per pound; prepared or preserved, n.o.p., 6 cents per pound.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Meats, preserved or prepared, would be the comparable item with the United States one on which the duty is six cents, I would think.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Mr. ROWE (Dufferin):: 
Charles Avery Dunning: The n.o.p. item in the American tariff is six cents, yes, and it is comparable with our item 10 (b).


Richard Bedford Bennett: Which is the item in question. How much was our duty reduced in that case on United States goods coming into Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: From six to three cents.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And their duty was left the same, at six cents.


Charles Avery Dunning: Of course, this is entirely incidental to the granting of the intermediate tariff. The United States immediately gets the benefit of our intermediate tariff, which is three cents, whereas the general tariff is six cents.


Percy John Rowe: But the ultimate outcome of the agreement, so far as meats are concerned, is that our meats pay six cents going into the United States, and their meats pay three cents coming into Canada.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The minister has not quite stated the full effect of the agreement. During the currency of this agreement any meats, prepared or preserved, other than canned, that we desire to ship to the United States are subject to a duty of six cents at the present moment. They may reduce their rate, but we cannot increase our rate from three cents. That is a short way to put the matter.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is right.


Abraham Albert Heaps: What was the amount of importations under this head during the last fiscal year?


Charles Avery Dunning: We imported 700 pounds of pickled beef in barrels, all from the United States, valued at $70;	93,000 pounds of
sausages, valued at $27,600; fifty pounds of other meat, salted, n.o.p. all from the United States, valued at $13, and 27,000 pounds of the n.o.p. item, valued at $7,700. The total of all the imports under that item amounted to 120,000 pounds, valued at S45.000. During the same year we exported pickled beef in barrels, chiefly to Newfoundland, to the amount of 322,000 pounds, valued at $25,000.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That is not affected by this agreement.


Charles Avery Dunning: I gave that just by way of information on exports and imports.


Percy John Rowe: How much did we export to the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: I can get that information.
.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There is one matter to which the minister has not referred. Under this agreement you have to consider importations from other countries as well. There is the Argentine, for instance, and that at once becomes a factor, although the largest part of the importations from the Argentine last year and the year before was canned beef, and it was estimated that the canned beef we imported from the Argentine last year represented many, many thousands head of cattle. We have now to consider that the rate on Argentine importations of meats, prepared or preserved, will be three cents. That is clear because the Argentine has favoured nation treatment with us, and the lowest rate we give to the United States we must give also to the Argentine. That is also true with respect to every part of the British empire. But the rate on meat from New Zealand and Australia is roughly three cents, and therefore the matter does not become important. I assume that the n.o.p. item covers products that carry a lesser rate than three cents, but I am not quite clear on that point.


Charles Avery Dunning: The Argentine is not affected, because it has been under our intermediate tariff for longer years than I can remember by virtue of a very old agreement so no change is effected in respect of Argentine importations.


Mr. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: What were the importations for the fiscal year 1930?


Charles Avery Dunning: These black books of mine hold a great deal of information, but I cannot possibly bring to the house the information for a series of years. However I shall be glad to get that information for my hon. friend.


Ernest Edward Perley: The year that is quoted is very low so far as importations are concerned; it is the lowest year.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is the latest available in every instance; I take the same year with respect to all of the information I give.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The 31st March, 1935?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, 1935.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Of course, we have the figures for the last ten months.


Mr. SENN:: Perhaps I could furnish the minister with the information asked for by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle. In 1930 we imported, of meats of all kinds under this category, something like 14,000,000 pounds. That was before the Hawley-Smoot tariff came into effect and before the tariff changes in Canada became effective. Since that time

Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement
these importations have been dwindling until last year they were the lowest in the history of the country. The danger is now that there will be a steady increase again. In 1930 we imported 11,000,000 pounds of pork in brine and there is grave danger that the same thing will happen again under this arrangement.


Charles Avery Dunning: If I can comfort my hon. friend a little, I would point out that the rates under which the importations to which he refers took place were lower than the rate provided under this agreement.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The Secretary of Agriculture for the United States, whatever he may have meant, said that under this agreement the United States would send into Canada increased quantities of pork. He made that statement at a public meeting in Chicago and I read it into the record of the house. What it means I do not know, but that is his statement for what it is worth.


Mark Cecil Senn: I made an error in my computation. It was in pork alone of different kinds that there were importations of 14,000,000 pounds in 1930, and if that is computed on the basis of hogs, it would require at least
100,000	hogs to make that quantity of pork, so that the figures are worse than they appeared at first.


Mr. DEACHMAN:: For several years we imported from the United States certain classifications of thick fat hogs which were used and appreciated, I understand, in the mining camps and in the lumber woods of Canada; and because of the importation of that product, which we brought in at a lower price, we were able to make a corresponding increase in the export of high grade bacon to Great Britain. If we choose to use American pork and like it, and can by importing that pork sell our own product which brings a higher price in the markets of the world, I as a Scotchman see no reason why this should not be done.


Percy John Rowe: Then we are to understand that it is the policy of the government to bring in through the back door a fat coarse type of pork while we send out of the front door pork of a better quality?


Robert John Deachman: Would not my hon. friend do that if he had an opportunity?


Percy John Rowe: I would propose a policy to produce the pork at home.


Robert John Deachman: Even the coarse fat stuff?


Percy John Rowe: That is our trouble; we produce too much coarse fat stuff now.
I have not the figures before me, but is it not a fact that the duty has been reduced on bacon, hams and shoulders from five to If cents per pound under this agreement?


Charles Avery Dunning: That is not in the
schedule.


Percy John Rowe: In the intermediate tariff?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, that is correct.


Percy John Rowe: In the agreement
with the United States we have reduced the duty on bacon, hams and shoulders, imported from the United States, from five to one and three-quarter cents per pound. It has been admitted by some hon. members, by the Minister of Finance himself, that this agreement has been negotiated at the expense of the industrial life of Canada, and the Prime Minister has emphasized its contribution to agriculture. I would ask hon. ' members whether they can find in the agreement any great advantage for the farmers, especially the bacon producers, of Canada, in view of the possible increase in production encouraged by the late government and still encouraged by the Department of Agriculture, seeing that those producers have now to face the competition of the United States, in which production is being increased by thousands and thousands. Indeed, production is being increased there by between 4,000,000 and
5,000,000 extra brood sows. The United States destroyed more hogs three years ago than we produced at that time, and now the duty is being lowered three and one-quarter cents per pound on the product, with falling prices. It is no wonder that prices are cheaper for cattle and hogs to-day than before the trade agreement came into effect; nor is it any wonder that the farmers are alarmed, in view of the uncertainties of the situation, at the effect the agreement is going to have in every stockyard from coast to coast. If there is one glaring example of the serious effect of the agreement, it is in this reduction from five to one and three-quarter cents on pork coming into Canada, when we have been struggling for an export market. If the government has not yet done so, it should consider now the effect of this agreement on the renewal of the imperial agreement. As the leader of the opposition has said, Secretary Wallace of the United States, if he has not alarmed this government, has at any rate alarmed the hon. Mr. Elliot of the British government, who foresees difficulties in connection with the renewal of the imperial trade agreement with Canada. It is true that we have not provided our full quota under the imperial agreement, but it does appear to

Canada-TJS. Trade Agreement

me to be very unsound business to reduce the rate by three and one-quarter cents on bacon, heavy bacon or whatever type of pork you like, while we are struggling to find a market for our good bacon.


Charles Avery Dunning: Perhaps it will comfort
my hon. friend, who apparently sees at the border line quantities of meat waiting to tumble into Canada, when I tell him that the figures for January, which are the latest available, indicate that we imported, of all meats, $10,000 worth in January, 1935, and only $7,000 worth in January, 1936. I do not think either figure is sufficient cause for the great alarm expressed by the hon. gentleman.


Percy John Rowe: I do not want to delay the committee, nor do I want to bore the minister with my alarms, but may I point out that you cannot produce bacon in a month.


Charles Avery Dunning: This is not bacon; this
is all meat.


Percy John Rowe: Well, you cannot
produce meat in a month.


Charles Avery Dunning: The farmers have been
waiting to produce it, have they?


Percy John Rowe: The minister knows, because he was at one time a farmer, and he is now framing the farmers with an agreement like this. Everyone knows that the year before last the United States destroyed more hogs than Canada produced for the market, and since their prices for bacon and meats have started to rise they have turned now almost as strongly the other way and are planning for a greatly increased production. We have enjoyed higher prices in Canada every year, due to the imperial trade agreements. We have had the most stabilized price for bacon since confederation, because of those trade agreements, and while we have not provided the full quota yet, the effect has already been felt in the stockyards. Ask the stockmen who sell in the Toronto stockyards about the effect already, of the American trade agreement, and the uncertainty it has created. I only wish to point out that probably by this time next year matters will be serious, because the Minister of Finance and every other man who has ever farmed or produced any hogs knows very well that you can produce bacon very rapidly; in fact the former Minister of Agriculture from this side of ohe house was twitted very often by the ex-Minister of Agriculture from the other side with encouraging increased production of bacon. For two or three years we have been encouraging increased production in Canada, and the result has been felt here, and will be felt in the United States. I regard this as one of

the most unfair parts of the agreement. I think we were entitled to a greater reduction than we have received in respect of our bacon going in to the United States, at such times as we might have it to market there.


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: Listening to the hon. gentleman's remarks in regard to this item makes one think of what weird arguments protection can give rise to in order to try to bolster up an old discredited policy that has been in effect in this country for some time. Imagine, Mr. Chairman, any man standing in his place in this house and telling us to-day that the United States are commencing to produce hogs for all they are worth-


An hon. MEMBER:: Are they not?


John Gordon Ross: -throwing them on the Canadian market, and killing the Canadian farmers' market. And he brings up along with that the idea that a year or two ago many millions of hogs were slaughtered in the United States.


Percy John Rowe: So they were.


John Gordon Ross: Why did they not put them on the world market in competition with Canadian hogs at that time?


Percy John Rowe: Because we had a tariff against them. Because the present leader of the opposition raised the tariff to protect the producers of this country.


John Gordon Ross: Then why did they not put them on the world market?


Percy John Rowe: Because we had the imperial trade agreements, which the hon. member's party opposed. That is why.


John Gordon Ross: We art told that a year or two ago the United States would far rather slaughter hogs than sell them. Now that we have a trade agreement with the United States we are told that they are going to use it to ship hogs and other commodities into Canada and thereby ruin the farmers of this country. As regards tariffs for our Canadian farmers, let me tell the hon. member and his friends that, after having gone across this country for many years and tried to sell a tariff policy to the farmers, they got the most terrible drubbing that any party ever received on that policy.


Mr. ANDERSON:: And you will get it
the next time.


Mr. CASSELMAN:: You won't be here.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Your turn is coming.


John Gordon Ross: That policy was never any good to the farmer of this coun-

Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement
try. We are exporting all the time bacon, beef, and other commodities, and we must take our price on the basis of the world price. All this business of telling the farmer that you are helping him by putting protection on farm goods is all a myth, an attempt to fool him. My hon. friends want to use that cry in order to put up high tariffs on the commodities the farmers buy. That is one of the arguments my hon. friends use all the time. As one of the farmers of this dominion, I am not a bit afraid of competition from farmers of the United States or any other part of the world provided you let me buy at a world market price the commodities I must buy for my production; then I will produce anything in Canada that should properly be produced in this country on a farm, in competition with anybody in the world. But I cannot do this so long as the policy of my hon. friends is in effect, and there is a great deal of it in effect yet. This agreement has only touched the matter of high protection for secondary industries, so that I must pay an excess price for the commodities I have to buy in order to produce on the farm, and consequently cannot sell in world markets and make any profit. But if the farmer can buy at the proper price the articles he needs for his use, he can produce farm products and sell them in competition with anybody in the world.


Percy John Rowe: I would not rise except that the hon. member asked me why the United States had not shipped its hog products into Canada instead of slaughtering them in the United States.


John Gordon Ross: I did not say
that. I said: Why did they not put them on the world market instead of slaughtering them?


Percy John Rowe: I may say that
when our party was in power, had we reduced the tariff at that time three and a quarter cents, as the government now proposes to do, the hog producers of Canada would have taken for eighteen months three and a quarter dollars a hundred less for their hogs than they did.


John Gordon Ross: That would be less than nothing.


Percy John Rowe: We enjoyed in
eastern Canada, and certainly western Canada enjoyed, practically double the price the United States farmer got for his hogs, because there was in force in this country a tariff of five cents, which to-day is being reduced to one and three-quarters cents.
12739-62$
when the United States was slaughtering hogs for which they could get less than half what the Canadian producer obtained. We received $8.75 per hundred pounds for hogs in the city of Toronto when the American producer was receiving $4.25.


John Gordon Ross: When was that?


Richard Bedford Bennett: 1932.


Percy John Rowe: Every hon. member knows that. And when my hon. friend argues that protection is a myth, may I remind him that even though he opposed the late government, he cannot deny that during those years the farmers of Canada received over $36,000,000 more for their hogs than they would have received had we had the competition that he suggested here to-day. I do not think it is any myth so far as the farmers are concerned when they benefited to the extent of $36,000,000 a year from the protection which the late government maintained, and which is now being wiped off. I know that is the old stock-in-trade argument from the free trade element in western Canada; for years they have expressed just what the hon. member has expressed: Give them a chance to buy their implements of production cheaper and they can compete with the greatest producers in the world.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why not?


Percy John Rowe: Why should the implements of production not come in free? Since I have been in this house I have heard that question asked over and over again. I watched the present government, when they were in power between 1921 and 1930, lower the duty on farm implements, and I watched those implements rise in price. I recall that after they had lowered the duties over that number of years, in 1930 farm implements were higher as regards every item than they were in 1921 when the Liberal party came into-power. I have also watched the late government raise tariffs, giving encouragement to Canadian industry and employment to Canadian workmen, with the result that every article from a hoe to an eight foot reaper lowered in value when the duty was raised. It may seem a strange coincidence that since the present government came into power, since they have negotiated this wonderful agreement with the United States, farm implements have again risen in price. Surely, Mr. Chairman, three times is out, and the hon. member has seen it go three ways already. He has watched his own party lower tariffs and the price of implements go up; he has seen our party raise tariffs and the price of implements go down;
Canada-US. Trade Agreement

he now watches his party lower tariffs and the price of implements go up. Members of his own party ask, why? The price spreads committee have investigated and reported, and hon. members will find in that report practically everything one can expect to get out of the commission as to the reason why prices have risen. So there are more myths than those of the protectionist.


Charles Avery Dunning: May I just suggest, without being too rigid, that I think there is a rule which perhaps I as well as other speakers have somewhat transgressed in this discussion. I think the rule in committee is that the discussion must relate directly to the matter under discussion.
With reference to the last remark of my hon. friend from Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe), if it is true, as he states with respect to farm implements, that a reduction in the duty puts the price up, that rule should also apply to hogs, so his previous theories are ill-founded.


Percy John Rowe: The two commodities are not manufactured in the same factory.


John Gordon Ross: My hon. friend says that the hog raisers of this country received $36,000,000. If they did so it was at a cost to the farmers of Canada of about $360,000,000 in other ways during the same time.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I was going to point out that this item divides itself into two parts. I endeavoured to indicate that the rate on this class of meat going into the United States is six cents, while on meat coming from the United States or any other country covered by the most favoured nation clause the rate will be three cents, because the countries that have most favoured nation treaties with us will get the benefit of the lowest United States rate provided in this agreement. But there is another class of which I have not spoken and to which I desire to direct only a few words. The effect of giving the intermediate tariff to the United States is to enable their meat to come into this country for 1| cents per pound where previously it paid the general tariff rate of five cents.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is on bacon.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, that is on bacon.


Charles Avery Dunning: Not in this item.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But it arises out of the intermediate tariff being given. I do not propose to traverse the observations made by the hon. member for Moose Jaw; I am only going to read what was said in that connection
.
by the Secretary of State of the United States. He may have been entirely wrong and the hon. member for Moose Jaw may be entirely right, but this is what he said, that Canadian concessions on meats and meat products duties will open the way "for our farmers to get back a bigger share of the British pork market. The new agreement will permit American pork to go to Canada to replace Canadian pork exported to Great Britain, thus, in effect permitting increased exports of American pork to Great Britain." I hardly think anyone who has observed the history of the growth of the bacon and pork industry in this country since 1932 would make the observations that have been made in the house this afternoon.
One of the leading supporters of the Liberal party, a gentleman who prides himself on the fact of his notable contributions to it, Mr. McLean of Canada Packers, has issued a booklet which I think he has put into the hands of every member of this house. In that booklet he pointed out, rightly or wrongly, that the effect of the agreement made here in 1932 was to put into the hands of the farmers of this country not less than thirty-six millions of new dollars, not by reason of a tariff alone but because we had free access to the markets of Great Britain and Great Britain imposed a tariff against foreign pork products. The result was that the 1932 agreement prevented the farmers of the United States from selling their products in Great Britain without the payment of a duty, which was imposed by Great Britain and not by Canada; thereafter their products did not enter that market except to a very limited extent, and we obtained the benefit of that. Mr. McLean said that that meant some $36,000,000 to us. I do not know whether that is a correct estimate, though I am informed by the hon. member for South Waterloo (Mr. Edwards) that another packing firm, Wilsil's, of Montreal, made the same estimate. This I do know, however, that to a very considerable extent we supplanted Denmark in the British market because we had free access to that market. We fixed a quota so large that as yet we have not reached it, and as a result Canadian farmers have had a ready, stable and continuous market for their products in Great Britain. It has been the most stable market, according to the representatives of the packers, that we have had in Canada since we became a dominion. As a consequence we have steadily increased our exports; we have supplied more and more bacon to Great Britain, and because of the duty imposed by Great Britain the United States has been unable to send her products to that market.

Cancida-UJS. Trade Agreement
Now I am merely pointing out that as a result of granting the intermediate tariff we have done two things: first, we have bound ourselves not to increase it on the item during the currency of the agreement. That is, the rate has been cut in two, from six cents to three cents, but the United States rate against our products still remains at six cents. There is no reciprocity in that, at least. Second, under the schedules of our country there was a duty of five cents on bacon and various duties on other kinds of meats. In the case of bacon this has been cut to one and three-quarter cents, not because we have taken direct action in that regard but because we have lifted the item from the general into the intermediate tariff. The result is that from January 1 last on the United States enjoys our markets by surmounting a barrier of only one and three-quarter cents per pound, whereas previously it was five cents.
The only point I desire to make is that Secretary Wallace has said that this is going to mean a great thing for the farmers of the United States. He, I believe, should be able to speak on that point with more authority than anyone in this chamber, and that is his view. I merely leave the matter at that, but I am grateful that at least the government have reserved the right to deal with the intermediate tariff and increase it if necessary with respect to meats other than the item mentioned in this schedule. They are free to take any action they like in raising the tariff, if need be, to protect the Canadian producer except with respect to this one item. This one item is bound, but this one item may be made very wide or it may be made rather narrow, depending, as the hon. member for Huron North (Mr. Deachman) said, on the quantity of clear pork that is taken by this country. There was a time when we relied entirely on the United States for the clear pork that came in barrels and went to the lumber camps and other places. Latterly that has not been so to the same extent, and very lately, by reason of the tariff we imposed in 1930 and 1931, we have reduced importations from the United States until they have become practically negligible, though under a three cent rate they did go up as high as 14,000,000 pounds of pork meat alone. That is the position.


John Gordon Ross: If, as the right
hon. gentleman states, the dominion, under the agreement, obtained a larger market for hogs in Great Britain, I want to be one of the first to give him credit for having made an agreement that brought some benefit to the farmers of Canada. However, when we say that lowering the tariff on pork coming
into this country is going to take away from Canadian farmers the British market for pork, we presuppose that the man in Canada cannot raise pork as cheaply as it can be raised by the man in the United States.


Percy John Rowe: Certainly we cannot.


John Gordon Ross: Of course we
can, and if you will take your tariffs off other things we can produce it even more cheaply. If we have a better market in Great Britain for certain kinds of pork and pork products all the better for us, but as a farmer-and I have raised a good deal of pork in this country-I would say that we do not need any tariff protection on pork or pork products coming into Canada. What we do need is a reduction in the tariff on the things we buy, not on the things we sell, because we sell our pork and everything else in world markets. If we get a better market in England so much the better, but we must meet the competition of the United States in the markets of the world.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Where is the world market?


John Gordon Ross: Anywhere you
can sell pork, the same places as those in which the United States can sell it.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I challenge the hon. gentleman to find any world markets for either the meats or the agricultural products of Canada.


John Gordon Ross: My hon. friend
challenges me to find any markets for meats or any other agricultural products of Canada. There is one great reason why we have not had a market for the last five years; it is that we would not take in return for those products the things we could bring into this country.


Mr. MacNICOL:: I was pleased to hear the hon. member for Moose Jaw speak kindly of the market Canada obtained in Great Britain as a result of the Ottawa agreements. I should like to hear him speak kindly also of the manufacturers, employers and employees of same, particularly in Quebec and Ontario, since they provide the very finest home market for the producers of farm products in Canada. I should like to tell him of just what the Americans think is the effect this agreement will have on the market for American farm products. I have under my hand a number of clippings from United States newspapers, and I should like to read some of the clippings that apply to this item. The first is from the Phoenix, Arizona, Star, and it states:
In no sense has it wiped out any existing tariffs. It has merely reduced tariffs. In the
Canada-U\S. Trade Agreement

case of cattle, for instance, the tariff has been reduced from 3 to 2 cents per pound on animals weighing under 700 pounds, but only 155,000 such animals will be admitted at the lowered rate. As this number amounts to only three-quarters of one per cent of the total annual consumption of the nation the cattlemen have nothing to fear.
If the cattlemen in the United States have nothing to fear, neither have the Canadian producers of cattle very much to gain from that item. Now I should like to read another United States newspaper comment on this agreement, this time quoting from the Miami, Florida, Post:
With industrial payrolls up, the farmer and the dairyman will gain.
Of course they will. I do wish the representatives of the western farmers, for whom I have the very highest regard and whose problems I have tried to understand, could see these matters as I do. Perhaps if I were farming in the west I might be just as bitter as they are against producers in eastern Canada and against the workmen in the factories of the east, but I hope not.


Frederick George Sanderson: I would ask the hon. member to confine his remarks to item No. 10.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Very well, Mr. Chairman. But in any case I do not see that I am not addressing my remarks to item No. 10, since those employed in industry in Ontario and Quebec provide a market for farm products; naturally they must be the consumers of meats and other commodities, and I am anxious to convince my hon. friend, for whom I have a very high regard, that these workmen in Ontario and Quebec, yes, and in other provinces are a very great factor in the prosperity of the farmers of both the west and the east. As I pointed out the other day, the counties of Waterloo and Huron present a concrete example of that. So, if the industrial workers in Quebec and Ontario, numbering hundreds of thousands, are consumers of meats and other commodities-and they are- we should not do anything to injure the prosperity of those workers. A little later on, when the machinery items come up for discussion, I will read many editorials from United States newspapers showing that, in the opinion of the press, this agreement is going to be of tremendous benefit to industry in the United States, resulting in the engagement of thousands and tens of thousands of workers in the factories of that country. I have no fault to find with United States workmen getting work; I like to see men anywhere get work, but in this case it will

interfere with the consuming power of workmen in Canada and will affect the farmers of Ontario and Quebec as well as those of the west because both Ontario and Quebec buy from the west. I have not the figures before me, but I know we buy thousands of head of cattle from the western provinces.


John Gordon Ross: In reply to my hon. friend I may say that we from the west have nothing whatever against the manufacturers or the workmen of Ontario or Quebec. The hon. member says that we are bitter against them, but we are not. We never have been, but we do say that we should not be subjected to a tremendous exploitation for the benefit of those people, and that is what has been going on in this country for many years. As a matter of fact, if you will look up the report-


Frederick George Sanderson: Order. I must ask the hon. member to confine himself to item No. 10.


Charles Avery Dunning: I would refer you, Mr. Chairman, to paragraph (2) of standing order 58, which reads:
Speeches in committee of the whole house must be strictly relevant to the item or clause under consideration.
I do not apply that to my hon. friend from Moose Jaw only; I apply it rather in a general way.


John Gordon Ross: Very well, I will get back to the item, which deals with meats. Cattle are meats, I understand, on the hoof. My hon. friend said that Secretary Wallace or someone else had stated that this small amount of cattle going to the United States certainly could not affect their market to any great extent, and for that reason we could not expect much benefit from this item.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That was not what he said.


John Gordon Ross: Just a couple of months ago I happened to take part in a byelection that was held in Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, and at that time I happened to meet some of the ranchers of that part of the country. This trade agreement had just come into operation, and I met a rancher who told me that he had just shipped some 248 head of cattle to the United States under this agreement. He said that he had gained S10 per head on those cattle, and he told me that if he had known, when he was shipping last fall, that such an agreement was coming into operation, he could have made that gain on some 2,400 head of cattle he marketed at that time.

Canada-UJS. Trade Agreement


Percy John Rowe: What does he say now?


John Gordon Ross: He told me that this gain of S10 per head on those 248 cattle that he marketed helped greatly and, in fact, almost paid the expenses of running his ranch for this year. Surely that was a great benefit to a Canadian rancher, so I think we can say that already this agreement has been of great benefit to people in Canada who are in the live stock business, shipping cattle to the United States. Otherwise, why are there so many more hundreds or thousands of cattle going across the line to-day than there were a year ago?


Robert John Deachman: Before this item passes I want to add another word, and I promise to confine myself strictly to the subject of hogs. I venture to suggest that the increased prices which have been mentioned come about because of the difference in the hog population of Canada. In 1911, according to the Canada Year Book, there were 3,600,000 live hogs on the farms of this country. In 1931, there were 4,699,000, and in 1932 there were
4,636,000.	Every farmer in this house knows that in 1931 and 1932 prices for hog products in Canada were very low. Some of my friends in western Canada could not get sufficient for their hogs to pay for the cost of shipping them, and there was practically no market for hogs in western Canada under the government in existence at that time. Then the number of hogs was reduced, and in 1934 it amounted to 3,654,000. In connection with the increased consumption of hogs and hog products which must have taken place in Canada between 1911 and 1934 may I say that there must have been a substantial increase in the number of hogs consumed at home, because our population has increased. At the same time there was a decline from the peak years of 1931 and 1932 in the number of hogs on Canadian farms. Taking almost twenty-five per cent out of the hog population of Canada would cause an increase in the price of live hogs and hog products, no matter what government happened to be in power.


Mark Cecil Senn: I should not like to have the remarks just made go unchallenged. For the past few years we have been marketing approximately 6,000,000 hogs per year. Whether the numbers on farms go up or down the numbers on the markets have remained fairly constant. Mr. McLean, who was mentioned as being head of Canada Packers, Limited, has said that in the first year of their operation the agreements raised the price of pork at least S3 per hundred. Although I may be getting away from the
subject I think that statement ought to be made. On a two hundred pound hog the increased price would amount to $6, and I would remind hon. members that in that year, and in each year since, 6,000,000 hogs have been marketed. Whether or not the hog population has dropped off is apart altogether from the question. -
There is another fact I should like to mention, namely, that during the last three years our exports of bacon to the United Kingdom have increased to a point at which they are almost doubled. It seems to me that the hon. member who has just attempted to show that the price of hogs is due to a lessened population of hogs rather than to the market we have in Great Britain is quite wide of the mark.


Mr. DONNELLY:: I have listened to
hon. members speak about the amount of money saved to the farmers of Canada because of the operation of the empire agreements. I believe the statement was made that $6,000,000 more was received by the hog raisers of Canada.


Mark Cecil Senn: $36,000,000.


James J. Donnelly: As I have travelled
round the country in the past five or six years I have wondered where that $36,000,000 has gone. I have tried to find some of the farmers who have received it, and when I have gone out to the farms and have told them this story they have begun to laugh. I have asked them to put their hands in their pockets and see if they could find that money. I have yet to find a farmer who will admit that he has received any of it. Surely the farmers in Ontario must have it, because we in the west have not that money. I assure hon. members that if they will go to the west and travel among the hog or cattle raisers they will not find that amount of money. I will tell hon. members right here and now that no class of people in Canada have suffered more than have the live stock men, whether they be raising cattle or hogs. They are just as hard up as are some of the wheat growers in western Canada. We know that for many years the market for Canadian cattle was in England. We know, too, that our natural market is across the border, in the United States, and if we are giving a preference to cattle exported to the United States we are giving an advantage to farmers in western Canada.
Hon. members ask what the situation is to-day. I want to tell them that if they have good butcher cattle they can get a good price for them across the line, but
Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement

if they have only stockers and feeders they will not receive as good a price because their bins have not been emptied. If we were to wait another month or two, until spring opens up, and until a time when stockers and feeders would have emptied out the bins we would get a better price.


Frederick George Sanderson: I must ask the hon. member to confine himself to the subject under discussion.


James J. Donnelly: I am talking about the price of live stock.


Frederick George Sanderson: There is an item referring to cattle.


James J. Donnelly: Very well; with reference to prices for bacon and pork may I say that we know the price of bacon is set in England. However I want to say to hon. members that we did have a market in England for all the bacon we could sell; we always had that market. For years we had an open market. There is one point, however, which must be mentioned, namely, that in the English market we have never been able to get anything better than the Baltic price. Do hon. members suggest that Canadians cannot raise as good pork as is raised in Denmark or other European countries? Of course we can. Then, why do we not receive as good a price? We do not receive that price because of the way in which the pork is handled at the abattoirs. Our farmers go to the abattoirs and sell a thousand hogs as No. 1 bacon, but those thousand hogs are not shipped out under that grade. Possibly the abattoir will ship 2,000 as No. 1 grade. The poorbacon that is shipped to England sets the price. I would recommend that the Minister of Agriculture make an investigation as to why our abattoirs are allowed to ship out more No. 1 hogs or No. 1 bacon than they buy from the farmers. That is the difficulty so far as the price of bacon is concerned.
May I say that United States bacon does not compete with ours. We ship bacon to the United States, because the American hog is not a bacon hog. It is a fat, short hog which is raised for its fat, and is not produced for bacon. I repeat that they do not raise a good bacon hog, and we do not compete with them. All hon. members have seen coming from the United States pork on which there have been three or four inches of fat. That pork is found in the lumber camps, and it is a fair sample of the kind of pork raised across the line. That is the Idnd of stuff that would be coming into Canada. If we cannot compete with pork of that kind we are not farmers at all. Canadian farmers are not asking favours from any-
body. We can compete with the world, but we do want markets in other countries and fair market conditions.


Percy John Rowe: It would appear unnecessary to answer the hon. member who has preceded me, because I believe the answers to his observations may be found in what he has said. However I must not leave unchallenged the statement that no farmer in Canada would admit he had received more for bacon or meat because of the imperial trade agreements. I tell him that practically every two or three months of the eighteen months to which I referred previously I received double the amount that farmers in the United States had received for a similar type of bacon.
The hon. member attempts to tell the committee that nothing but a coarse type of bacon would come from the United States. I do not believe the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Ross) said that. I realize that in the United States pork can be produced more cheaply than it can in Canada. Whether or not the hon. member for Moose Jaw will agree, I think every other hon. member realizes that pork can be produced more cheaply in that country. In the western states the farmers can feed grass when it is forty degrees below zero, and the stock can be fed corn.


Mr. McLEAN (Melfort):: Where in western Canada can they feed hogs outside at that temperature?


Percy John Rowe: There are several states in the United States where hogs can be fed outside practically all the year.


Malcolm McLean: On grass?


Percy John Rowe: Yes, on grass, corn or rattlesnakes, if you like. In the United States hogs can be produced more cheaply than we can produce them.
The hon. member who preceded me has said that farmers in the United States do not produce good bacon. In making that statement he shows that he does not know much about the bacon trade. I realize it is hard for a man to be a doctor of everything, but surely he will admit that for years the Swift company in the United States was one of our greatest competitors on the British market. They produced as good export bacon as we did. I note what the hon. member said with respect to bacon shipped from Canada to the United Kingdom, and I realize that there is a certain amount of truth in his observation. However I suggest that it is unfair to charge the abattoirs with not shipping good bacon, because I believe some

Canada-US. Trade Agreement
of the blame should be placed on the farmer. The quality of bacon is decided to a greater extent in the farm barnyard than in the abattoir. So far as shipping it out of Canada is concerned, I think in all fairness to the abattoirs we must realize that there is a demand in Canada for good quality bacon, and there are many members of this house, including the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning)-who will no doubt have quite an appetite to-morrow after all the hard work he is doing to-day in this house-who would be very much disappointed if they found on their breakfast table to-morrow morning only the type of bacon, what is called rattlesnake pork, that comes in from the United States.


Charles Avery Dunning: I like my breakfast bacon very much.


Percy John Rowe: Certainly, and
thousands and thousands more Canadians want their breakfast bacon to be of high quality. Schneiders of Waterloo have a plant that has been producing high class bacon for years, and you cannot expect the packers at Toronto and other points in this country to send their best bacon out of Canada and retain only their coarser qualities to compete with Schneiders and other high class producers in this country.


Mir. MacRAE:: Does the hon. member think it is good policy for Canada to send out poor quality bacon?


Percy John Rowe: No, I quite agree that we should send more of the good quality, but there is a constant demand in Canada for high class bacon. We consume in Canada from ninety-five to ninety-seven per cent of our pork and pork products. We have been struggling for many years to get a more balanced production, to produce more bacon and other finished products, using more of our own grain rather than having it left in the elevators, and it is bad business to encourage the importation of this product when we could be using wheat as feed and in that way get rid of some of our unsold grain. The principle is absolutely unsound and very dangerous.


Charles Avery Dunning: Might I just point out that in this item there is not a hog, not a bit of pork, nor any cattle, with the single exception that sausage comes into it.


Percy John Rowe: Where do you get the sausage?


Charles Avery Dunning: I think, Mr. Chairman, that we might now pass this item and have the different subjects come up for discussion on the proper items.


Percy John Rowe: As long as you have sausage in there, you have them all.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Chairman, I realize that you are right and that most of this discussion is out of order. It is not my intention to violate your ruling; I simply wish to say that when the agriculture estimates are up it is my purpose to discuss this question of export bacon and the price of hogs, the part that is played therein by the packers, both in Canada and the United States, and other matters pertaining thereto. It would be entirely out of order, of course, for me to do so on this item.
In order to justify my position on this item I would call the attention of the committee to the fact that it provides that meats, prepared or preserved, other than canned, n.o.p., shall carry a duty of three cents per pound under the intermediate tariff, which is the tariff applied to the United States under this agreement. The reason I am prepared to support this item is simply that I think three cents is a sufficient duty, but it would be unfair to myself and others who might hold similar views to allow the impression to go abroad that I am entirely in favour of a very low rate of duty on imports of meats of all kinds. This, however, is not the proper item under which to discuss that, and I am simply serving notice to the committee that by acquiescing in this item I am not expressing approval of many of the views that have been expressed here to-day.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 47. Soya beans, n.o.p., free.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Would the minister ex,
plain why this item is made free?


Charles Avery Dunning: Our imports of soya
beans are not separately recorded. The only provision in our tariff at present is item 663. Prior to the coming into force of the treaty, soya beans could be imported free when imported for use in the manufacture of cattle feeds and fertilizers. The statistics of imports under this item cover a number of commodities and do not segregate soya beans. There is a limited production in Canada, particularly in southwestern Ontario, but so far the record of this crop in this country has not been an extremely encouraging one. In at least two or three recent years the crop has been disappointingly small with extremely high prices, the latter being in part a reflection of conditions prevailing south of the line, where demand has outstripped supply. The great natural source

Canada-U-S. Trade Agreement
of soya beans up to the present time has been the orient^ it being one of their staple products. and one of the great necessities of life in China and Manchukuo. As the field of use has widened in Canada, the demand has grown, and in no sense of the word has production kept pace with the demand. In recent years various governments have been requested repeatedly for action by order in council whereby soya beans for this or that purpose might be imported free of the duty of two cents per pound which they had to pay when imported as beans n.o.p. Under the trade agreement, as indicated by the present item, soya beans are made free regardless entirely of the purpose to which they may be put in this country. The United States rate on soya beans is two cents per pound.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I just want to make a few observations on soya beans because my hon. friend from Lincoln (Mr. Lockhart) dealt with the matter very fully yesterday. If any member of the committee happens to enter Chicago at the central station and will go upstairs and look at the exhibit of soya bean products he will get a clear understanding of what soya beans mean in the economy of that country. It is estimated that 592 products can be produced from soya beans. I do not know how accurate that statement is; I do not pledge myself to its accuracy.


Charles Avery Dunning: A very great number, anyway.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Next to coal tar products it is one of the most remarkable products we have in the number of derivatives that may be produced from the beans themselves- duco for example, for painting cars; oil for soaps, cake for feeds, and oil refined for other purposes. That will give the committee some idea of what is involved. During all these years we have been eudeavouring in this country to secure variety of crops, and the late government was asked very particularly to see what might be done with respect to soya bean production. Last year we had ten thousand acres sown to soya beans in Canada; roughly five thousand acres went for ensilage and so forth, and the other five thousand acres produced beans. There is a small factory at Stratford which had many difficulties, but is now in a better position, and there is a factory in Montreal, that extracts the oil from the beans and sells it to the soap factories. This was one of the most fertile fields for development that I know of in this country. Now it has gone.

There will be no development of it with the free entry of soya beans into Canada; in the very nature of things it is quite impossible. In the first place the greatest field of production is in the orient, in Manchukuo where the beans are grown in larger quantity than anywhere else. In the valley of the Mississippi in the United States the production has increased very rapidly, but so great has the demand grown that it was with difficulty we could secure any quantity of soya beans from the United States, and the price became very high. The protection given to the farmers of the United States in the production of soya beans is two cents per pound, if my memory serves me aright. We did give the same rate of protection in our general tariff with a slight reduction-I think the rate was li cents-on the intermediate, and it was free under the British preference. Now it becomes free to the United States, but that means that it is free to Japan and to all other countries that enjoy the most favoured nation treatment. I take it that it is free to Japan.


Charles Avery Dunning: It always has been, under the intermediate, for certain purposes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There is no question about its being free in any event to Japan and to all the other countries that enjoy the most favoured nation treatment. A great many of these items were free, but all countries that now enjoy the most favoured nation treatment in Canada will have the same protection as we accord to the United States. I do think it was a mistake to bind this item. In the first place it is a leguminous plant; as a matter of fact it is cut with binders in the field. In the next place production has been very high per acre where the soil is suitable; and the variety of products made from it rendered it highly profitable. I do not know that any field ever offered a greater opportunity to the Canadian farmer, in the sections where it could grow, than did soya beans; and when I saw that it was on the free list and bound, I confess I felt it was rather unfortunate. My hon. friend was wrong about the intermediate. The intermediate was li, except where the product is used for specified purposes, namely, for food, and then it was free across the board. But soya beans, for the general purpose I have mentioned, the extraction of oil and the production of various derivatives to which I have made slight reference, carried a duty of li intermediate and 2 per cent general and was free under the British preference. It is now free to the United States and thereby free to twenty-seven other countries. I had hoped that it would not be, for the reason I have indicated. It offered the greatest opportunity

Canada-US. Trade Agreement
for development in connection with our farm industry. My interest in it came about in a very accidental way. Many years ago, passing through the central station at Chicago, waiting to change trains, I happened to go upstairs to the news stand and went over and looked at the exhibit. I do not know whether it is there now, but it certainly did give me a most remarkable insight into the possibilities of the industry.


Charles Avery Dunning: It was first in the exposition and was afterwards in the station.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Then my hon. friend has seen it; he is familiar with it.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is very remarkable.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is indeed very remarkable, and what does rather distress me is the fact that we shall lose the chance to develop that industry in Canada. In the first place it cannot be done with the United States having a two cent duty against importations, when we now find countries enjoying the favoured nation treatment having free entry. We cannot develop the industry under such circumstances. The United States found it essential, against eastern competition, to place the tariff at two cents and that is still maintained. But there is another reason, and that is that the definition with respect to class or kind not made in Canada at once arises and the producers have not been capable of supplying ten per cent of the oil necessary for soap making. The little factory at Stratford did not succeed; with respect to the one at Montreal I cannot say anything at the moment, but we were asked to permit machinery to come in at a lower rate, of duty or free in order that the industry might be established. I am told that about 5,000 acres of the product was used for ensilage. There is also the secondary market which has been mentioned by the hon. member for Lincoln. It has taken the place of peanuts when roasted, and its sale is larger than that of peanuts because it is regarded as a more delectable food. The effect is nothing more or less than to prevent, during the currency of this agreement, the establishment of what I should regard as a very important industry in that section of the country where soya beans may be grown, it being of course, as my hon. friend says, an agricultural product.


John Gordon Ross: I do not wish
to take issue with everything my right hon. friend says, but after all this is a crop that is grown in more or less tropical countries.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Canada is not tropical.


John Gordon Ross: It grows principally in semi-tropical countries, in China
and in the southern states. My right hon. friend says that it will interfere with the development of an industry that might be built up in Canada. Well, if Canada is adapted to the growing of soya beans we shall start to grow them, provided they can be grown in the ordinary way. But are we to bolster up a new industry again, thereby charging the people of the country a large amount for, as he says, some 592 products required by the world? We should be careful about what we are doing in this regard. We are not trying to protect one of the infant industries which we have been protecting until they have grown hoary with age. This is a new one we are talking about and there are no vested interests in Canada in connection with it. Let us not start setting up in this country more vested interests, which have to live on a dole from the people of Canada as a whole, in order that one section may be given pap from the Dominion of Canada for the benefit of a few people. Perhaps a little corner of the Niagara peninsula might grow these beans.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Just a word or two in
reply to the hon. gentleman. I should not have expected him to oppose this item, because as far as I know the manufacturers-if he were alluding to them-are not opposed to it; it is the farmers who should be opposed. I was told by one of the men in the business that there are approximately 10,000 acres in western Ontario to be put under crop for the raising of soya beans.


John Gordon Ross: Mostly for feed.


John Ritchie MacNicol: western Ontario. From this article I would conclude that they are now raising in the state of Illinois the largest crop in the world, outside of Manchuria, of course.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: And Illinois is not a tropical country.


John Ritchie MacNicol: For my part I should
imagine that the manufacturers would not oppose this because they would welcome having their beans come in free provided they could not obtain all they required in Canada. But for the farmer who wants to get into it, I want to support anything that will help him in Ontario, in British Columbia or any other province, for that matter. I am now speaking of those who I know were engaged in this business in western Ontario. If the soya bean helps them I am for it, because when the farmer has prosperity we all have prosperity.


Charles Avery Dunning: I should appreciate it if
the committee would allow me to pass the soya bean item. I would then suggest that the committee rise and report progress and endeavour to arrange for my hon. friend the Minister of Pensions (Mr. Power) to get into committee of supply some time before six o'clock. I have only this to say with respect to the remarks of the leader of the opposition. The soya bean is certainly a fascinating bean-I mean that seriously. I do not know of a commodity that grows for which a greater variety of uses has been discovered by man. Broadly one may say that it will grow where corn can be produced commercially. Those areas of Ontario which can produce corn commercially-and they are very small-have a chance, I am advised, to produce soya beans commercially; but the fact that during recent years of very high prices for soya beans the area under cultivation devoted to this purpose in the whole of Canada has not grown beyond ten thousand acres, at least half of which was used for feed, indicates something of the difficulties. I might point out with reference to soya bean oil that it has been free under all tariffs for years past, and soya beans themselves have been free for years for use in making cattle foods and fertilizers, which are among their most prominent uses in this country. During the last five years the finance department has had literally scores of applications for the free entry of the beans, the oil and the meal for various purposes, including foods for human use, oil for industrial uses, soya bean flour for various uses, and it is a moot question whether by having access to all the uses that can be made of soya beans grown elsewhere the

Canadian citizen would be better off than he would be as a result of an attempt to develop on any important scale the growing of soya beans in Canada. I should be pleased to be able to believe that we could add another product to what is produced from the top six inches of our soil, and particularly so important a product as the soya bean, but up to now-


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Will the hon. gentleman allow a question? Is he sure that soya beans can be raised only in a country that produces corn commercially?


Mr. BRADETTE:: Surely. Any farmer
knows that.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Certainly in Manchuria
they are producing soya beans in large quantities. They have a country very similar to our own northwest, very similar indeed to Alberta.


Charles Avery Dunning: I was endeavouring broadly to indicate the kind of farming country in which it can be produced. I cannot say definitely to my hon. friend that, Manchuria is or is not capable of producing corn. Of course I do know that it does produce large quantities of the soya bean.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Enormous quantities.


Charles Avery Dunning: I have enough confidence in the enterprise of Canadian farmers in every province to know that, with the aid in connection with this matter that has been given by experimental farms from one end of Canada to the other in the last twenty years, if it had been practicable commercially, enterprising Canadian farmers would have been growing soya beans at the high prices that have prevailed and are likely to continue to prevail during the next few years.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Has the minister any
report on the results the farmers have had in western Ontario-Essex, perhaps, Elgin, Norfolk and Lambton-in raising soya beans?


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am not sure that they raise them in all those counties, but a gentleman to whose little factory the leader of the opposition has referred told me that quite a number of farmers in western Ontario are now raising soya beans, and I wondered whether the minister could say what quantity is being produced.


Mr.   AVOOD@: I think I can answer the hon. member, not statistically but from a practical standpoint. A few years ago a neighbour of mine tried the experiment of

Supply-Pensions
growing soya beans. He had very good success in, I believe it was, the year 1930, because it was a very warm summer, a protracted fall, and a dry season; everything was favourable to the growing of soya beans. He became very enthusiastic. But since then his attempts have been a failure, and I have seen many failures in my own community in the last five years. I would say that you cannot get an average of one crop in five - years. You can grow crops for ensilage purposes, hay and feed-and it is valuable feed- but you cannot produce it as a bean proposition. You might be able to do so if you confined it to the two counties of Essex and Kent, but I doubt whether it would be considered a valuable farm crop elsewhere.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
Grant to Canadian Legion, $9,000.
Hon. C. G. POWER (Minister of Pensions and National Health):: This is an item which was inserted in the estimates of 1928 as a result of a report of a parliamentary committee of that year which provides that the Canadian legion, for the purpose of looking after its service bureau, should receive a grant from the government, of, at that time,
S10,000,	since reduced to $9,000. The Canadian legion make a report annually indicating the amount of money which they have expended. They are supposed to put up dollar for dollar.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Do they put up dollar for dollar on this account?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Abraham Albert Heaps: May I ask the minister if any other returned soldier organizations do similar work and receive grants from the government? Is the legion the only body that receives a grant, or have requests been made on the part of other soldier organizations for similar grants?


Charles Gavan Power: No such requests have been made to me since I came into office.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Grant to Last Post fund, $60,000.
James Shaver Woodsworth: Would the minister explain how this fund has been administered during the past year?


Charles Gavan Power: Does the hon. gentleman wish me to give him the details of how the fund was started?


James Shaver Woodsworth: No, I think we know that in a general way. I had reference to the recent administration.


Charles Gavan Power: As the hon. gentleman knows, this is a voluntary organization subsidized by the government. It looks after the burial of ex-service men who die without funds, and it also looks after the placing of markers on their graves. It was started in 1922-23, and the amount paid out in that year was 89,271.59. In 1931-32 it rose to 840,000, and I think in the supplementary estimates of 1934-35 an additional sum of 820,000 was provided. This work is carried on under regulations laid diown by order in council. I have not the order in council with me, but it is rather lengthy, containing all the regulations governing the subsidy paid by the government to this organization.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Would the minister say how many cases are covered by this expenditure?


Charles Gavan Power: During 1934-35, the latest figures available, there were 606. As my hon. friend can well imagine, the number of burials is gradually increasing. The number has increased as follows:
1922-23	 83
1930-	31	
3621931-	32	
4301932-	33	
5231933-	34	
5391934-	35	
606
I have not the figures as to the number of burials from March 31, 1935, to December 31, 1935, but they are very easily procurable.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Can the minister say whether these burials have reached their peak now, and whether the number is likely to decrease?


Charles Gavan Power: No, I am afraid not. We all have to go that way pretty soon-


Abraham Albert Heaps: Which way?


Charles Gavan Power: I hope to be with my hon. friend; I do not know just where. The number of deaths among ex-service men is increasing very rapidly.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Who are eligible or what class is eligible, to take advantage of this fund?


Mr. JACOBS:: The dead.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not intend to make light of this subject at all.
Supply-Pensions


Charles Gavan Power: The Last Post fund will pay a maximum of S50 for the funeral and a maximum of S'25 for the grave to provide a respectable sepulchre for indigent veterans, that is, veterans who cannot be buried otherwise. As the hon. gentleman knows, the department looks after the funeral expenses of indigents who die in departmental hospitals, and this fund has to do with ex-soldiers who are indigent and who die outside of the hospitals.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Could the minister give us the number of those to whom this assistance had to be given during the past year?


Charles Gavan Power: I have not the figures for 1935 but I have them for the fiscal year 1934-35, when they totalled 606.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Just one other question in regard to this item. Christie Street hospital, Toronto, was in my riding, though it is not in it nowr. The cemetery largely used is the soldiers' plot in Prospect cemetery. I was just wondering what means the government uses in directing from whom the caskets shall be purchased, or does the government make any direction in that regard? If so, what is the standard of the caskets used for the bodies of those whose families have to obtain this relief?


Charles Gavan Power: When soldiers who have no other resources die in departmental hospitals the department looks after their burial. The choice of the casket and of the undertaker is left to the relatives of the soldier. A certain amount of money is provided, I think S75, to look after the expenses of the funeral.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Do I understand that if a soldier dies at the hospital his relatives are permitted to send for their own undertaker? My information is to the contrary, that the undertaker is selected by the department.


Charles Gavan Power: My information is to the effect that the relatives of the soldier are allowed to choose the undertaker. Perhaps my hon. friend will remember that in 1932 or 1933 General Ross, the then member for Kingston, discussed this question at great length. I think at that time the minister, Hon. Murray MacLaren, laid down the rules which were to be followed. I have not those rules before me, but my recollection is that the relatives of the deceased soldier were permitted to choose their own undertaker and that the department simply furnished an amount of S75. Perhaps my hon. friend will remember that General Ross objected to the practice which had existed up

to that time of calling for tenders from undertakers. I think his resolution was along that line.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am very glad to hear that it is the practice of the department at the present time to permit the relatives to select their own undertaker.


Mr. BROOKS:: I should like to ask as to
the time within which an application must be made after the death occurs, in order to take advantage of this fund. I recall that a few years ago the application had to made almost immediately, and if that was not done no benefit was obtained. I was wondering whether or not that regulation has been changed, because it has worked a great hardship on many people who were not aware of the existence of the Last Post fund, and by the time they obtained the information it was too late to take advantage of it.


Charles Gavan Power: Of course my hon. friend will understand that this fund does not operate under the control or jurisdiction of the department; it is a voluntary organization. There are local committees set up in different towns and districts, having their own regulations governing applications. I should say that in the normal course of events an application for assistance from this fund must be made immediately. I speak subject to correction, but I am under the impression that it does not very often happen that a refund is made to the relatives after the funeral has taken place. I should not think that would be the case, because it must be remembered that this is a fund for persons who die indigent.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: That is exactly the point.
Everyone who dies has to be buried. Whether the friends or relatives of a deceased soldier have funds or not, he is buried, but it is too late then to take advantage of this fund. I know of a number of cases in my own province. As the government is making a contribution to this Last Post fund, there should be a regulation allowing persons to take advantage of it even after the burial. I think the regulation is too strict.


Charles Gavan Power: I shall be very glad to
provide my hon. friend with a copy of the regulation.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I have seen the old regulation.


Charles Gavan Power: I am informed that there
have been some changes; I will provide my hon. friend with a copy.


Mr. WOOD:: I represent a constituency
in which there are some five thousand Indians.

Supply-Pensions
My attention was recently drawn to the fact that the right of participation in the Last Post fund has been withdrawn from the Indians owing to the fact that they are wards of the government. I should like to know why that was done. These men did their bit; when they were asked to go over the top they were not asked whether they were Indians or what they were. They were just British.


Charles Gavan Power: Representations have been
made to the Last Post fund along the lines mentioned by the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Wood). Without being able to be definite on the subject I assume that the reason for some distinction being made between Indians and other ex-soldiers is that, the Indians being wards of the government-


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: And already provided for.


Charles Gavan Power: -and already provided for
by the Department of Indian Affairs, the administrators of the Last Post fund did not consider they were indigent. But I know that the Last Post fund has always provided $25 for a marker, the funeral expenses presumably being looked after by the department which has the special care of the Indians. I may add that recently the matter has been brought to the attention of the department, and discussions are going on with the Department of Indian Affairs.


Mr. McIVOR:: I have officiated at funerals at which the type of burial outlined by the minister was quite in evidence. It was a comfort to the wife and family to know that their husband or brother or father having been overseas and his earning ability considerably lessened, and it having been perhaps impossible for him to get any pension, at any rate he did not have to be buried as an indigent. It was a little bit of comfort and perhaps an evidence of appreciation on the part of the government to give at least a funeral of a much lower standard than that of the ordinary artisan.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: My understanding is that
it is not the government that gives the funeral; it is the Last Post fund.


Mr. STEWART:: I understood the minister to say that this is an organization to which the government makes a contribution, and that these payments are made from the funds of the organization. Could the minister tell the committee what other sources of revenue the organization has besides the contributions from the government, also whether they render a statement of their expenditures to the minister or the department?


Charles Gavan Power: I am informed that they
are not asked for a statement, but I know they have other sources of revenue. In Ontario a grant has been made by the legislature for the past four years to cover the cost of administration, and so forth, and each municipality is required to pay $15 towards the cost of burial of anyone residing in the municipality for a period of not less than three months who would otherwise have been a public charge. In the cities of Montreal, Westmount, Outremont, Verdun and Lachine, twenty-five per cent of the cost is paid in similar circumstances by the municipality. In Quebec the provincial government has made a special grant for the purchase of the "field of honour" of $1,000 per annum for ten years from 1928. This is extraneous to and not applicable to current burials. In Manitoba the provincial government makes a grant of $500 a year applicable to administration. In Alberta $400 a year for the same purpose is divided between the two branches, north and south. No other branch has any grant so far.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: There are private subscriptions to this fund?


Charles Gavan Power: Oh, yes.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Have the government had
a statement of receipts and expenditures from the organization?


Charles Gavan Power: There is a representative
of the department on the board, Mr. Scam-mell, the secretary of the department. We do not receive any statement as far as 1 know.


Abraham Albert Heaps: No check is kept of the
money that the government gives to this organization?


Charles Gavan Power: The statement of the fund is audited by chartered accountants, and the representative of the department checks it.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Can the minister give
the total expenditures of the organization during the year, without the details?


Charles Gavan Power: I have no doubt I could
readily obtain it from the headquarters of the fund.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: It would seem that as
the government makes the contribution it might naturally and without any discrimination expect to receive from the organization a copy of its annual statement, or some information as to whether the whole amount is needed, and so on.


Charles Gavan Power: As far as I am aware this
vote has always been considered a very
Supply-Pensions

excellent thing. I have never heard any criticism of the grant. I do not think any government since 1922 has considered it advisable to ask for such a statement, but if the committee thinks it should be had, I will take great pleasure in asking for a report.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I do not want the minister to think that I am criticizing the expenditure at all. It has been made all these years, as he has said. I think it is a very worthy and proper thing that the government should make this contribution. But in the ordinary course, without desiring to limit their activities or be critical in any way, and there being a representative of the department on the board, one would think that the department for its own satisfaction, not necessarily to disclose it to the house, would like to have some report or statement of the activities of the organization. I want it to be understood distinctly that in speaking in this way I am not criticizing the work of the organization or the contribution that is made; I merely suggest that it might be well to have some statement. I know my hon. friend's leader lays down very strictly the principle that parliament should have supervision of the expenditure of moneys voted, and it is a sound principle. So that without limiting their activity or interfering with their discretion, which I am sure is wisely exercised, I think it would be well for the minister's own satisfaction if he had a statement of their receipts and expenditures and their activities and methods.


Samuel William Jacobs: That is, you do not expect the declaration of a dividend.


James J. Donnelly: Can the minister tell us anything about the regulations for the administration of this fund? Is it possible, after the death of a man in an outlying district, to obtain funds from the Last Post fund, and if so under what conditions?


Charles Gavan Power: Application is made to the officers of the fund, and the matter is considered by them, without reference to the department. I am not aware of what principles guide them in their decisions, but I do know that there are regulations, a copy of which I shall be pleased to give the hon. member.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I believe I am a life member of the Last Post fund in the city of Montreal, and I am sure that the funds of the organization are administered with the utmost efficiency and care. There is a careful audit of the expenditures, and I believe there will be no difficulty in the officials of the depart-

ment gaining access to the audited statements of expenditures for each branch of the Last Post fund. In fact I understand that expenditures are brought to the notice of government officials, and, perhaps tacitly, passed or approved by them.


James J. Donnelly: It is my understanding that after a funeral it is impossible to get any amount from this fund. I suggest that the minister would do well to look over the regulations and ascertain whether or not it would be possible to have certain amendments made. There have been instances of funerals in connection with which the need for assistance was apparent, and I believe in such instances some funds should be distributed. Justice should be done in those cases.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Are moneys from the 860,000 allowed only to ex-service men who served overseas with the Canadian forces?


Charles Gavan Power: My understanding is that it is allowed to men who served in the imperial forces, and I believe also to those of the allied forces.


Mr. TAYLOR (Nanaimo):: Shall we receive a copy of the balance sheet of the Last Post fund?


Charles Gavan Power: I shall be pleased to forward it.


James Samuel Taylor: As a matter of principle I suggest it should be left with the department. There should be information indicating the manner in which the $60,000 is spent.


Charles Gavan Power: At a later time when I am dealing with estimates, I shall produce a document giving the information.


Mr. DOUGLAS:: What is the procedure with respect to the burial of indigent soldiers? A number of officials of the legion have not known the proper steps to take, and as a result many indigent cases have had to be referred to local charitable institutions.


Charles Gavan Power: In every province and in most large municipalities there are committees of which members of the legion usually form a part. I am afraid it would not be possible for me offhand to tell the hon. member just what person he might call on the telephone in the event of an emergency, but I imagine at all points in Canada, with the exception of a few outlying districts, the committees must be readily accessible. Although Saskatchewan does not subscribe

Suppl y-^-Labowr
to the fund, I believe Alberta does. I have no doubt that before entering into a commitment they must have assured themselves that committees in the province were functioning.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I know of instances where officials of the legion experienced difficulty in obtaining assistance, in some cases not being able to get it at all. I know that imperials have been refused assistance from the fund. Of course there may have been some technicalities, but the officials did not seem to know the proper procedure. Action had to be taken by local charities.


Abraham Albert Heaps: In view of what the minister has said, may I take it for granted that men belonging to the imperial forces are eligible?


Charles Gavan Power: Yes.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I should like to have a definite answer, in case of any difficulties arising in the future.


Charles Gavan Power: I shall check up in the matter, but I am almost certain. One can be sure of nothing, except death. Upon looking up the record I find that the Last Post fund was organized under a dominion charter to prevent the pauper burials of any persons who had served in His Majesty's or allied forces. I believe that answers the hon. member.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I officiated at the funeral of a person who died in Weyburn, but for whose funeral we could obtain no assistance. This man was a member of the imperial air force, but local contributions had to be raised to meet the necessary expenditures.


Charles Gavan Power: If the hon. member will give me the information privately I shall be pleased to forward it to the officers of the Last Post fund, and ask for an explanation.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I shall be pleased to do so.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Conciliation and Labour Act, $30,000.
John Ritchie MacNicol: How is this money spent?
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour): Mr. Chairman, this appropriation is to meet the cost of printing and publishing the Labour Gazette, which, as hon. members are aware, is the official organ of the department, and also to pay the salaries of persons employed as Labour Gazette correspondents. The salaries of these persons, most of whom are in the lower category, range from $120
to $300 per annum. At present there are forty-three Labour Gazette correspondents. Other small payments are made from the vote for wage surveys and statistics, and for the conciliation of labour disputes. The vote covers certain other publications of the department.


Abraham Albert Heaps: In the last fiscal year how many disputes has the department attempted to conciliate?


Mr. ROGERS:: Does the hon. member refer to the number of disputes investigated?


Abraham Albert Heaps: And the number of boards appointed.


Samuel William Jacobs: That has nothing to do with the cost of the Labour Gazette.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Possibly not, but it has to do with the Department of Labour.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The hon. member's question might more properly be answered under the vote for the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act. That is to say, this item covers only incidental expenditures connected with the work done by conciliation officers of the department. It is the policy of the department by that means to settle as many disputes as possible through the good offices of the conciliation service. Under the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act boards are set up from time to time, but I would remind the hon. member that that is a separate item.


Mr. COLDWELL:: May I ask who are
the persons employed? Are they officers of the trades and labour councils, or just how are they appointed?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Does my hon. friend refer to the correspondents of the Labour Gazette?


Major James William Coldwell: Yes.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Where possible the correspondent has some connection with the employment service in the place where he resides, but there is no rigid requirement in that respect.


Major James William Coldwell: That is, they are
usually government employees of a province or under this department?


Norman McLeod Rogers: In a number of cases the
correspondents are directors of employment offices in the various provinces.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Does the department in any way, shape or form restrict the character of its investigations? For example, a request

Supply-Labour

comes to the department in a case where a dispute is likely to occur. If the men or women employed by such a concern do not strictly come within the limits of the Lemieux Act, does the department take any action?


Norman McLeod Rogers: As I pointed out a moment ago, this item does not cover the work done under the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act. I think, however, I understand what my hon. friend desires in the way of information. When the department receives notice of a threatened dispute, the conciliation officers of the department are placed at the disposal of the parties to the dispute. We have, for example, a chief conciliation officer in Ottawa; we have a representative in Montreal, one in Toronto and one in Vancouver, each operating within a particular geographical area, and whenever a dispute occurs the services of these officers are made available if the parties are agreeable thereto.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Irrespective of whether they come within the jurisdiction of the act or not?


Norman McLeod Rogers: They need not necessarily come within the jurisdiction of the act.


Samuel William Jacobs: I have always been mildly opposed to this expenditure for the printing of the Labour Gazette. I do not know any person in Canada to-day who reads it.


Abraham Albert Heaps: There is one here.


Samuel William Jacobs: Well, I suppose we have to consider my hon. friend as a person, but does he think we ought to spend $30,000 to contribute to his education?


Abraham Albert Heaps: Yes, I think it is worth it.


Samuel William Jacobs: Multiply that by ten million and we would have quite a large expenditure. No person, I say, talking by and large, really reads the Labour Gazette, and I have always been opposed to the cost of it. If we had cut out this item when I first opposed it we probably would have saved half a million dollars by this time, which we could use to very good purpose. I think the information which my hon. friend from Winnipeg North (Mr. Heaps) gets out of the Labour Gazette he could easily get out of the daily papers if he reads them every day, which I know he does. There is nothing new in it, so far as I can see. I have never learned anything from it, and I am amenable I suppose to some form of education. I receive it on my table every Saturday, or whenever it comes out, and I understand it comes out very regularly; but I have yet to learn that it contains any information for the people of

this country which would justify the expenditure of the large sum which has been expended upon its publication up to the present time.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I do not want to hold
up this item, but I do not notice any salaries for conciliators included in it.


Samuel William Jacobs: We are talking now of the cost of printing the Labour Gazette.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Pardon me; I heard the minister say something about the salaries of conciliators, and I wondered if any of them received salaries under this item.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The salaries of conciliation officers are under another item-civil government salaries.


John Ritchie MacNicol: This item is largely for printing the Labour Gazette?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Very largely for that and certain other publications-the annual report, a report on labour organization in Canada, and a report on labour legislation in Canada.


Samuel William Jacobs: What is the circulation of the Labour Gazette?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The number of free copies issued in 1935 was 5,086, and paid copies 4,676.


Samuel William Jacobs: Is that to regular subscribers?


Norman McLeod Rogers: For the most part to free subscribers, representatives of labour organizations, universities and libraries. Those who subscribe pay twenty cents a year. I do not know whether my hon. friend is one of them.


Samuel William Jacobs: No, I pay nothing.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I have no objection to the passing of this item. May I ask what is the cost of printing the Labour Gazette each year?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The cost of printing in 1935 was $18,538.73.


Samuel William Jacobs: That is the cost of printing? That does not take in the editing or the correspondents.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That does not cover the amount paid to the Labour Gazette correspondents.	.


Samuel William Jacobs: The cost is $30,000 all round,
as I understand it.


Major James William Coldwell: Are the payments to the correspondents made to the body with which the correspondent is connected within the province, or are they paid directly to the correspondent?

Agriculture and Colonization


Norman McLeod Rogers: They are paid directly to the individual who is the correspondent in each particular case.


Major James William Coldwell: In Saskatchewan civil servants are forbidden to receive remuneration for work they do outside of their regular duties, and I was wondering how you got around that.


Mr. MacINNIS:: I am afraid my hon. friend from Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) is not very well acquainted with the Labour Gazette. He says he gets it every week-


Samuel William Jacobs: I never read it.


Angus MacInnis: I understand that it comes out once a month, at least the edition I get is published monthly. I am quite satisfied that it can furnish to those who read it a liberal education-I do not mean an education in the affairs of the Liberal party.


Samuel William Jacobs: A C.C.F. education.


Angus MacInnis: It contains a great deal of valuable education, and if proper use is made of it I do not think that $30,000, or whatever the amount may be, is too much. I am glad that the minister has handed a copy to the hon. member for Cartier, so that he will now be better acquainted with it than he was before.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I can see no more reason for cutting out the Labour Gazette than for cutting out other publications, such as the Commercial Intelligence Journal, for example, which goes out to the business men of this country, and above all the Canada Gazette, which contains so much padding that one never knows where to find anything.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At six o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Thursday, March 12, 1936