1936-02-24

INDUSTRIAL AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice, for Mr. Mackenzie King) moved:: That the report of the Secretary of State for External Affairs for the year ended December 31, 1935, be referred to the standing committee on industrial and international relations.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 6, to repeal chapter 19 of 25-26 George V, an act to establish an economic council.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Mr. POULIOT:: Mr. Speaker, it is very easy to explain the purpose of this bill. It

Questions
is to put the axe of parliamentary control to a dry branch of the dead tree of so-called social legislation.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.
PRIVILEGE-MR. POULIOT	.
Mr. JEAN-FRANQOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege. What I have to say will contain nothing of blame towards your honour; I wish only to direct your attention to the following facts. Early in February I sent a first draft of the bill on the bureau of translations to the clerk of this house, and af-ter I saw the news in one of the local newspapers that the government was opposed to the bill as it was first drafted, the bill was redrafted. Therefore the English and French copies of the bill sent to your honour on Thursday of last week were entirely different from the first draft that was sent to the clerk of the house. What surprised me, therefore, was that your honour's decision was not based on the copies that were forwarded to you but on the altogether different copy that was sent to the clerk a long time before. I would therefore ask your honour kindly to reconsider this matter and render your decision upon the copies of the bill that were sent to you.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I shall look into the matter just drawn to the attention of the house by the hon. member.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. FAIR:: How many cents of each dollar spent on direct relief in 1935 were used up in overhead?


Mr. ROGERS:: It should be pointed out that the cost of administration of relief, in so far as the detailed distribution is concerned, is borne by municipal and provincial authorities and their cost of distribution is not a matter of record with the Department of Labour.
It would doubtless be difficult for the provinces and municipalities to make a statement as to their actual cost of administration since most municipal and provincial departments dealing with direct relief, also deal with other matters of an allied nature, which, however, do not come within the category of relief.
In so far as the federal Department of Labour is concerned, the amount paid out to provinces, municipalities, and other departments of the government, etc., under the Unemployment Relief Act, 1930, the Unemployment and Farm Relief Act, 1931, The Relief Act, 1932, The Relief Act, 1933, The Relief Act, 1934, and The Relief Act, 1935, to January 31, 1936, was 3193,448,739 and the cost of administration to the Department of Labour including salaries, printing and stationery, telegraphs and telephone, travelling expenses, and, in fact, all expenses of administration was $480,112 or slightly less than one-quarter of one per cent.
The amount of the dominion contribution for direct relief including the grants-in-aid was $105,738,928, but as the same staff handles all classes of accounts it is not possible to give the actual cost of direct relief administration by the Department of Labour, the percentage given above, viz. slightly less than one-quarter of one per cent, would however be approximately correct.
farmers' creditors arrangement act-


NEW BRUNSWICK.
Mr. CLARK (York-Sunbury):: 1.	What payments were made for expenses of the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act for the year 1935, in the province of New Brunswick?
2.	How many cases under the act have been completely settled in New Brunswick?


Mr. DUNNING:: ,;
1.	$27,658.03.
2.	To February 1, 1936: 158 cases settled by board of review; 150 cases settled by official receivers as a result of formal proposals; and 83 cases settled by official receivers without formal proposals.


UBALD VEZINA
Mr. WERMENLINGER:: 1.	On what date was Mr. Ubald V6zina, of Beauport, engaged as plumber for the Marine department at Quebec?
2.	On what date was he dismissed?
3.	What were the reasons for such dismissal?


Mr. HOWE:: .
1.	October 10, 1930.
2.	February 13, 1936.
3.	Political partisanship.


PETITE RIVIERE, QUE., HARBOUR
Mr. WERMENLINGER:: 1.	To whom was the contract awarded for the construction of a fishing harbour at Petite-Rivi&re, Gaspe county?
2.	What are the unit prices asked for in connection with each item of such contract?
3.	What was the total price of each item?
4.	What was the total price of the undertaking?


Mr. LAPOINTE (for Mr. Cardin):: 1.	Contract not yet awarded.
2,	3 and 4. Answered by No. 1.
Questions


MICHAEL BEDARD
Mr. WERMENLINGER:: 1.	Was one Michael Bedard, of Boischatel, employed as chauffeur in the Department of Public Works?
2.	If so, on what date did he enter the employ of the said department at Quebec?
3.	Was he dismissed? If so, on what date and what were the reasons for such dismissal?


Mr. LAPOINTE (for Mr. Cardin):: 1.	Yes, engaged as fireman-labourer.
2.	December 15, 1916.
3.	(a) Yes, (b) for political partisanship, .c) February 11, 1936.
!	DOMINION HOUSING ACT


Mr. HEAPS:: 1.	What are the names of individuals, firms or corporations whose applications for loans under the Dominion Housing Act, 1935, have been approved of?
2.	What is the amount of each such loan?


Charles Avery Dunning: 1 and 2. It is not considered to be in the public interest to publish the names of individual borrowers under the Dominion Housing Act.


CANADIAN FARM LOAN BOARD-PROFIT
Mr. MARSHALL:: 1.	What profit, if any, was made by the Canadian Farm Loan Board on operation during each of the years 1934 and 1935?
2.	How were these profits disposed of?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	$59,392.14 for fiscal year ended March 31, 1935. Accounts for present fiscal year not closed.
2.	Transferred to reserve account.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-$80,000,000 LOAN
Mr. MARSHALL:: What were the costs, in detail, incurred by the government in recent loan floated for $80,000,000?


Charles Avery Dunning: All costs of the issue of $80,000,000 Canadian National Railway Company bonds were borne by the company.


QUEBEC POSTAL DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT
Mr. ROBERGE:: 1.	What is the name of the superintendent of the Quebec postal district?
2.	How long has he held such office?
3.	How old is he?
4.	If he is over 65 years of age, why does not the department superannuate him?


Mr. ELLIOTT (Middlesex):: I suggest
that the hon. member amend his question by eliminating No. 4, as it involves a state-

ment of government policy. Subject to that I have the answer.


Walter Edward Foster: Stands.


PUBLIC DEBT
Mr. TAYLOR (Nanaimo):: 1.	What were the funded debt issues, inscribed amounts, of the national debt of Canada; together with yearly totals, as from and including the year 1908 to the latest figures available?
2.	What were the net sums received by the dominion government against the inscribed amounts of the funded' debt issues as in question 1; together with yearly totals as from and including the year 1908 to the latest figures available?
3.	Where sold foreign, what loss or gain developed as a result of exchange on each of the issues above; (questions 1 and 2) ; together with yearly totals as from and including the year 1908 to the latest figures available?
4.	What were the unfunded debt transactions, obligation figures, tiigether with yearly totals as from and including the year 1908 to the latest figures available.
5.	What were the net sums received in sale or other adjustment of the unfunded debt transactions; together with yearly totals as from and including the year 1908 to the latest figures available?
6.	Where sold foreign, what loss or gain developed as a result of exchange on each of the issues1 above; (questions 4 and 5) ; together with yearly totals as from and including the year i908 to the latest figures available?


Charles Avery Dunning: In asking that this question be made an order for return, I point out to the hon. member that, so far as it relates to the new issues each year since 1908, and the proceeds in the markets in which the issues were made, the information asked for can be given. The loss or gain on exchange transactions is not available, as it is impossible to separate exchange on transfers of loan proceeds from other exchange transactions of the government. I also point out that there is a very great deal of work and of expense involved in getting out this information. Perhaps the hon. member might allow it to stand over for to-day and consider whether the information he desires could not be obtained in a less expensive manner.


Mr. TAYLOR (Nanaimo):: Might I have
a conference with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) in connection with it?


Charles Avery Dunning: With pleasure.
Question stands.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. TAYLOR (Nanaimo):: 1. What is the average total, average weekly, of daily balances, outstanding between the

Motions for Papers
three largest Canadian banks in clearing house settlements, in each of the cities of Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver for the six months' period from 1st July to 31st December, 1935, inclusive?
2. What is the average payment, averaged weekly, in clearing house settlements between the three largest Canadian banks in each of the cities of Montreal. Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver for the six months' period from 1st July to 31st December, 1935, inclusive?


Mr. EULER:: It may be found impossible to answer the first part of this question. In the meantime I ask that it stand as an order for return.


HALIFAX COUNTY POSTMASTERS
Mr. ISNOR:: 1.	How many postmasters were changed in Halifax county, Nova Scotia, during the period between August 1, 1930, and September 30, 1935?
2.	What were the names of such postmasters, their locations, and who recommended the changes?


John Campbell Elliott: I understand
that the hon. member who is asking this question wants to make some amendment in the dates. I suggest that subject to those changes this be made an order for return.



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Mr. STEVENS:: For a copy of all correspondence, reports and other documents, appertaining to the dismissal from the staff at the Sorel shipyards of Mr. C. S. Morin, on or about December 2, 1935, together with a statement giving the alleged reasons for his dismissal.



MICHEL BEDARD

Mr. WERMENLINGER:: For a copy of all correspondence and other documents respecting the dismissal of Michel Bedard, as chauffeur in the employ of the public -works department at Quebec, covering the period from October 1, 1935, to date.



UBALD VEZINA

Edgard Jules Wermenlinger: For a copy of all correspondence and other documents respecting the dismissal of Ubald Vezina, of Beauport, a plumber employed by the marine department at Quebec, covering the period from October 1, 1935, to date.



SHAUGHNESSY HOSPITAL, VANCOUVER

Henry Herbert Stevens: For a return showing:

1. The names of the officers and all members of the staff of whatever rank of the Shaugh-nessy hospital, Vancouver; together with the date of the appointment of each person; the amount of salary in each case at time of appointment and salary for the fiscal year 1935-36; and the hours of duty in each case.
2.	The name, title, rank, and duties of the officer in charge.
3.	The number of patients admitted to the said hospital during the years 1930-35 inclusive; and the total number of hospital-days spent by patients in each of the years 1930-35 inclusive.
4.	The total cost of operation, maintenance, and upkeep of the said hospital in each of the years 1930-35 inclusive.



FRASER RIVER BRIDGE

Mr. BARBER:: For a copy of all correspondence, reports, recommendations, orders in council and other documents, in any relation to the approval under the Navigable Waters Protection Act of plans and specifications for the construction of a bridge over the Fraser river at New Westminster, British Columbia.



HALIFAX HARBOUR COMMISSION

Henry Herbert Stevens: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, telegrams, orders in council appointing royal commission, report if any of the said royal commission, copy of the evidence taken by the said royal commission, and all other documents and papers appertaining thereto, in connection with an item appearing in the estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1937, as vote No. 227 and reading as folows:-
"To reimburse Peter R. Jack and Chas. A. Ackhurst, one time harbour commissioners at Halifax, for expenses incurred by them in connection with the inquiry into the administration of the Halifax Harbour Commission in 1930, $3,855.10."
Also a statement covering the expenditures, made by the Halifax Harbour Commissioners, which were involved in the investigation or formed the basis of the appointment of the said royal commission presided over by the late Mr. Justice Orde, giving particulars of the amount involved and the firms to whom the said expenditures wrere paid.
Also a statement indicating the disposition of the matter following the death of the late Mr. Justice Orde.
Also a copy of all letters, telegrams, or other correspondence or documents passing between any member of the government or official of the government and the said Peter R. Jack or the said Chas. A. Ackhurst, or their counsel during the years 1930 up to February 19, 1936.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I have no objection to producing the papers asked for, but I am advised by the officers of the department that it will take three or four months of the full time of one stenographer to do the typing.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I might make a suggestion which would probably lighten the task veiy much. Where the motion refers to a copy of the evidence, which I presume would represent most of the copying, it would be quite satisfactory if a copy of the evidence were laid on the table without going to the trouble or expense of making a special copy of it for the purposes of this return.
Freight Rates on Grain


Clarence Decatur Howe: I am told that the chief difficulty is the last paragraph. There is an immense file of correspondence. Possibly the time could be shortened if my hon. friend would drop into the office and we could discuss what is wanted.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Mr. Perley (Qu'Appelle):
That, in the opinion of this house, the domestic freight rate on grain and grain products moving from any point in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, to a point in any of the said provinces, or from any point, to another point, in any of the said provinces, be adjusted or reduced to at least not more than three cents per hundred pounds over the existing export rates.
Walter Edward Foster: Before we proceed with
this order I might draw the attention of the house to the fact that on Thursday last when this motion was called a point of order was raised; I ventured to suggest a certain opinion, and the matter was postponed until to-day. If any hon. member would like to express his views or discuss the point of order I am ready to hear him before I give a final ruling.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The statement was made that
there is a very material difference between the subject matter of this motion and the subject matter of the bill presented by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid). I looked into the question rather carefully, and I can see very little difference. It seems to me that if the bill presented by the hon. member for New Westminster were to pass there would be nothing left to debate on the subject matter of this motion. I think that the mover will agree that the question to be discussed here is that of the domestic rates on grain moving westward. As far as the interprovincial movement is concerned, it does not seem to me that there is anything to engage particularly the attention of the house. The export rate on grain to Fort William from any point is known; it is the Crowsnest rate. So far as grain moving between the provinces in that direction is concerned the^rate is in no case higher than the Fort William rate. So that I think when boiled down it simply means that whereas the hon. member for New Westminster moved that the domestic rate on 
grain moving westward be equalized with the export rate, this motion provides that the rate on grain moving westward shall be set three cents higher than the export rate. It seems to me that these bills very closely duplicate each other, and that the ruling of Mr. Speaker as first given is entirely correct.


Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, if this
were a matter of legal argument one might understand the observations of the Minister of Railways (Mr. Howe), but it is a question of reading words. All that is necessary is to read the bill and' the resolution. I shall take the bill first. It deals with traffic "moving westwardly from Fort William, and from all points on all lines of railway west of Fort William, to Vancouver, British Columbia and to ports on the Pacific coast." It deals specifically with traffic from Fort William, or points on all lines of railway west of Fort William, to Vancouver, British Columbia, and to all ports on the Pacific coast. The resolution deals with an entirely separate and distinct matter. H the minister would only take the trouble to read the resolution he would not have been guilty of making the observations he has made this afternoon, because he will find that there is no similarity between them at all, and not a scintilla of evidence to support that view. Let us look at the resolution:	"That, in the opinion
of this house, the domestic freight rate on grain and grain products moving from any point"-not Fort William-"in the provinces of"-not Ontario; not Fort William, but "Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia"-that is, traffic moving from those four provinces westward-"to a point"-not Vancouver or Pacific points-"in any of the said provinces,"-that is interprovincial trade -"or from any point, to another point, in any of the said provinces," be adjusted or reduced to at least not more than three cents differential. Now, all one has to do is to read, and I am sure if that is read by the Minister of Railways he will not suggest that these two things are the same.


Ernest Lapointe: Vancouver is not mentioned in the resolution, but surely it is included.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No.


Ernest Lapointe: But "any point" includes British Columbia and Vancouver. I am of the opinion that the ruling as indicated a few days ago by Mr. Speaker is the proper determination of the point of order, not only because the question raised by the hon. member for New Westminster

Freight Rates on Gram
was there first, but because it is a more effective way to come to an effective result. In other words it would be more effective to have a bill than an academic resolution, or, if you like, a pious wish.


Mr. HEAPS:: As a matter of information may I ask which was on the order paper first, the bill or the resolution?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The resolution was on the order paper first.


Mr. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: I sent the resolution to the clerk of the house early in the new year. I notice the Minister of Railways (Mr. Howe) spoke of interprovincial shipment, and suggested that it does not matter very much, but may I say that that is an important part of the argument I wish to adduce. I would point out further that the bill introduced by the hon. member for New Westminster provides for equalization, whereas the resolution provides for an adjustment of the differential down to within three cents.


Mr. REID:: In answer to the question asked by the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) may I point out that no person can put a bill on the order paper until the house meets. The bill standing in my name would have been on the order paper as soon as the dissolution of the last parliament, but I could not do it then.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But it was not.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I should like to have the question answered, if I may, because the question is important whether a bill which comes in subsequently to a resolution has priority, or whether preference should be given the resolution.


Ernest Lapointe: I do not think it is important, because the bill has been discussed.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: May says at page 272:
A motion must not anticipate a matter already appointed for consideration by the house, whether it be a bill or an adjourned debate upon a motion. [DOT]
Therefore a bill cannot be anticipated by any general resolution which has not yet been so considered. That is the entire point for your consideration, Mr. Speaker.


Hon. C. H. CAHAN (St. Lawrence-St. George):: May I reply to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) who called attention to the fact that the bill deals with traffic from Fort William and Port Arthur in Ontario and all points west-


Thomas Reid: And it is grain traffic.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: But the resolution deals with domestic traffic between points in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Certainly there are two distinct classes of traffic dealt with by the bill and the resolution respectively. They are not identical by any means. The right hon. leader of the opposition has stated that the test is this: despite the passage of the bill, the resolution would still have effect if adopted?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I should like to ask the mover of the resolution this question:	Has any
part of his argument to do with anything but domestic rates on grain from the prairies to the Pacific coast?


Ernest Edward Perley: Yes, the interprovincial rates.


Clarence Decatur Howe: There is no movement of interprovincial grain, except to the coast.


Ernest Edward Perley: Yes, there is all sorts of movement from one point in a province to another point. They are shipping grain from the northern part of Saskatchewan to the southern part for feed purposes.


Walter Edward Foster: Does any other member wish to speak to the point of order?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I should like to make my position clear, in the event of there being an appeal from Mr. Speaker's ruling. I do not know what his ruling will be, but I anticipate he will rule that the resolution is out of order. I am inclined to agree that that view is correct, because while the language in the bill is not the same as that used in the resolution, I find that the bill does use the expression-
-from all points on all lines of railway west of Fort William to Fort William or Port Arthur, and to all such traffic moving westwardly from Fort William, and from all points on all lines of railway west of Fort William, to Vancouver, British Columbia and to ports on the Pacific coast, over all lines now or hereafter constructed by any company subject to the jurisdiction of parliament.
To appreciate the significance of those words we must remember that it was some few years ago that the act which made the Crowsnest rates effective was amended to enlarge the original act to apply in large degree to the prairie provinces. The bill of the hon. member for New Westminster seeks to enlarge the original legislation so that it will encompass the British Columbia coast. At the same time, as I read the bill it would apply just as well to all lines in the prairie provinces. The bill may not be
Freight Rates on Grain

worded as clearly as it could be, tout that is a condition which could be dealt with in committee of the whole. I see no difference between the meaning of the bill and the meaning of the resolution, with the exception that the resolution makes a reservation of three cents, and the bill does not. That, again, is a matter which could very well be considered in committee of the whole. If your honour rules the bill out of order I am seeking to make clear my reason for supporting your ruling.


Walter Edward Foster: On Thursday I began to give a decision in this matter which, to-day, I shall complete as follows:
The adjournment of the debate last Thursday on the second reading of Bill No. 2, am act. to amend the Railway Act (rates on grain), meant that the question shall again be considered at a future sitting when the order for public bills will be reached. This is what is called, in parliamentary procedure, appointing a matter for consideration by the house. May, page 272, gives many precedents showing that the discussion of an appointed matter cannot be anticipated by a motion. The bill proposes to extend to the westward traffic, from Fort William to Vancouver and the Pacific coast, the rates on grain and flour agreed to in the Orowsnest pass agreement embodied in its essence as follows in the annual statutes of 1897:
That there shall be a reduction in the company's present rates and tolls on grain and flour from all points on its main line, branches or connections west of Fort William to Fort William and Port Arthur and all points east, of three cents per one hundred pounds.
The order adjourning the debate had been passed by the house when Mr. Perley, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, moved that domestic freight rates on grain products, from and to any point in the province of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, be reduced to at least not more than three cents per hundred pounds over the existing export rates.
There is sufficient similarity in the bill and the motion to confine them to one debate. The domestic rates dealt with in the motion are included in the rates and tolls on grain and flour mentioned in the Orowsnest agreement. The question centralizes on grain rates in western Canada, and debate thereon could not be allowed last Thursday a few minutes after the house had adjourned it to a future sitting. The difference in details between the two propositions may be dealt with by moving amendments when the bill is in committee of the whole, but it is not
	.
sufficient to justify a duplication of the debate. It is a well known principle that the same question cannot be raised twice in the same session.
The main object sought both by the bill and the motion is the reduction of rates on grain and its products moving westwardly in the prairie provinces and British Columbia. They are both intended to put an end to an alleged unfairness in the present rates, and the whole debate, which will be centred on that grievance, must take place on the bill and not on the motion.
As Campion says, in applying the anticipation rule, preference is given to the discussion which leads to the most effective results, and this has established a descending scale. A bill has the right of way and cannot be sidetracked by a motion.
I cannot follow any other course than to decide that the discussion of Mr. Perley's motion is blocked by the adjournment of the debate on Bill No. 2, and for that reason, I have to declare that the motion cannot now be debated and must be struck off the order paper.
This decision does not prevent the subject matter of Mr. Perley's motion from being discussed when the bill is under discussion.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Your honour has not dealt with the fact that the resolution had priority on the order paper. I appeal from the Speaker's ruling.


Walter Edward Foster: The Speaker having declared that the motion of Mr. Perley (Qu'Appelle) is out of order, the right hon. leader of
the opposition (Mr. Bennett) appeals from the decision of the Chair. Is it the pleasure of the house that the decision of the Speaker be sustained?
And the yeas and nays having been called, the ruling was sustained, on division.



BANKS AND BANKING


[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Mr. Coldwell (Rosetown-Biggar):
That, in the opinion of this house, the government be requested to submit for the consideration of this house such legislation as may be neeesSary for the national ownership and control of the central Bank of Canada and the chartered banks.
Walter Edward Foster: Before this motion is proceeded with, I suggest to the hon. member that it might be advisable for him to amend

. Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
his motion, as otherwise I am afraid I shall be bound to declare it out of order as I did the motion of the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) the other day, on the ground that in my opinion if this motion were carried it would involve the expenditure of public money.


Mr. COLDWELL:: I	would ask, Mr. Speaker, that the motion stand until I have had an opportunity of considering the point.
Motion stands.



COOPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH


Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre) moved:: Whereas, the concentration of economic power in the hands of a comparatively small and irresponsible group has failed to provide security and a decent standard of living for large numbers of our people;
Therefore be it resolved, that; in the opinion of this house, industrial, commercial and financial organizations and undertakings that are failing to function in the general interest should be taken over by the appropriate public authorities and operated as public services or cooperative enterprises.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I note you mentioned my name as seconder. I thank you for the compliment, but my name is not attached to the resolution.


Walter Edward Foster: I would draw the attention of the hon. member (Mr. Woodsworth) to the remarks I made on the motion that was presented to the house just before this one, as they will apply to this motion, I am afraid, if it is not amended.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) is seconding the motion, not the hon. member for East Kootenay (Mr. Stevens) as called from the Chair. Do I understand, Mr. Speaker, that objection is being taken to this resolution? If so I would point out that on several previous occasions in this house a resolution of this kind has been introduced without any question whatever. The resolution lays no specific burden upon the government in any way whatsoever. From my standpoint it would be extremely unlikely to add any burden; in fact, I think it would relieve the government of a great many of the burdens it now carries. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that if anything can be properly brought before the house, a resolution of this kind is in order.


Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, I may say on behalf of the government that we have no objection to this resolution being discussed.


Walter Edward Foster: The hon. gentleman may proceed.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Speaking to the resolution, for several years I have introduced a resolution urging a new economic and social set-up, which I have called the cooperative commonwealth, and the need for it is more pressing to-day than ever, especially in view of the disturbed international situation. Again, we have a new house and many of the members have not heard the point of view of our group.
Last year I was able to summon the present leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett), then Prime Minister, as my star witness to the failure of capitalism, and had the legislation of his government implemented the promises of his earlier radio addresses the situation in the house and throughout the country might have been very different to-day. This year I propose to use rather freely the report of the royal commission on price spreads, and although my friend from East Kootenay (Mr. Stevens) did not see his way to second this resolution I gladly accord him recognition of the great benefit he conferred upon the country by taking the initiative in urging that investigation. The present government, of course, is not responsible for the report. Several of the Liberal members of the committee made reservations, one wrote a dissenting report. However, I would point out that the government is decidedly responsible for solving the problems revealed by the report and by the evidence.
That economic power is concentrated in the hands of a comparatively small group is generally conceded, except perhaps by the members of that group. I should like to call attention to a very fine case put forward in a recent book called Social Planning for Canada, with particular reference to the chapter dealing with the structure of Canadian industry. I quote:
There were once more than forty banks in Canada. There are now ten. Of these, the three largest do 70 per cent of the business. The four largest 80 per cent and, though they compete strenuously in service, they present a united front on interest rates.


Mr. McLEAN (Melfort):: Would the hon. member be good enough to tell us who is the author of that book?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am referring to
a book entitled Social Planning for Canada, published by the research committee of the
444	COMMONS
Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth	.
League for Social Reconstruction. I am glad the hon. member gave me an opportunity to state the authorship of this book. The price spreads report states at pages 25 and 26 that of the non-financial corporations, the total assets of 100 of the largest companies increased during the period 1923 to 1933 from $5,095,651,000 to $7,324,323,000, or 43-7 per cent. Excluding five transportation companies, the increase was 83-6 per cent. Then, as I have tried to point out from time to time in this house, we have a system of interlocking directorates. As one writer puts it, our business leaders spread their tentacles over every phase of human life. We are born in their hospitals, we are buried in their cemeteries. In the interval it is they who decide what we shall eat, what we shall drink, what we shall wear, what we shall see, what we shall hear and what we shall smoke.
In my resolution I state that this oligarchy is irresponsible. I do not use that word to mean that it is crazy, although it often acts in a way which in my judgment would show that it is in reality blind to its own ultimate interests. I use the word in the sense that it is not responsible to any duly constituted authority. Industry to-day is self governed. Let me quote from page 13 of the price spreads report, as follows:
It has shown-
Referring to the evidence-
-that a few great corporations are predominant in the industries that have been investigated; also that this power, all the more dangerous because it is impersonal, can be wielded in such a way that competition within the industry is blocked, the welfare of the producer disregarded, and the interests of the investor ignored.
And again:
-the corporate form of business, not only often gives freedom from legal liability, but also facilitates the evasion of moral responsibility for inequitable and uneconomic practices.
I think we are all aware, as is stated in the report, that to a large extent the greatest expansion in our corporations has occurred during this present century. With regard to the ownership and control of corporations the report states that the development of the corporation with its multiple shareholders has made it possible for an individual to own without controlling, and to control without owning. This means that control over the physical assets of the instruments of production and distribution is passing from the property owner to the managerial groups. This is altogether a new and rather menacing development in our industrial, commercial and financial life. The report then goes on to show the various methods by which this condition has been arrived at. We have the

minority control attained by means of the proxy system. Every hon. member knows that at annual meetings it is next to impossible for a small shareholder to obtain any redress or even to get information which it may be necessary he should have. One very significant statement in the report is that very few directors own more than one per cent of the voting stock of the companies they direct. We talk about democracy in politics, but I submit that there is an absolute negation of democracy in our industrial life when only a few directors have any great stock ownership in the companies which they control. The report summarizes the various devices by which minority control is maintained. I should like to quote from the report very briefly in order to bring the whole picture before the house. There is the holding company which owns a controlling interest in the voting securities and in this connection the report reads:
The holding company may also be used to recapitalize the financial structure of one or more enterprises through a substitution of its securities for securities of subsidiary companies.
The report states that almost invariably this is a form of stock watering. It states that the holding company may also be used to pyramid the voting control to give its organizers, with a minimum amount of investment, control over the subsidiary. Without going into the matter in too great detail, I might mention also the devices of non-voting stock and the voting trust. The report concludes by stating:
These facts support the view that the real motive of many consolidations was financial gain to the professional promoter and investment dealer.
And again:
In general, the refinancing schemes were so constructed as to afford the public the privilege of subscribing the requisite amount of cash while endowing the promoters with unhampered control of the new companies.
The whole matter is summarized in these words:
This summary of earnings histories points to the following conclusions:-
(1)	That the refinancing operations were attended' by gross over-valuation of assets and consequent over-capitalization.
(2)	That the so-called bonds, preferred shares and class "A" shares had in many instances no real equity junior to them; in other words, that the receivers of the common stock gave no real consideration to the company for the issue of these shares.
Certain references to corporate practices were made in the evidence but time does not permit my going into the evidence in detail.

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
Several illustrations of corporate practice were given. The first case was that of the Robert Simpson Company, and in this connection the report states:
In creating the security-structure an additional burden of fixed cost of $1,000,000 per annum, was placed on the operating company.
The report refers to two appraisals of the fixed assets of the Canadian Appraisal Company, by virtue of which over $8,000,000 was written into the capital. These are not my *words, these are not vague speculations, they are conclusions arrived at by the commission from the evidence. There was the Burns case involving a write-up of assets for the purpose of establishing a nominal asset value to cover the value of new securities, in other words, stock watering. The report states that this represents a distinctly doubtful case of an investment house misstating the income figures. The report questions the propriety of a refinancing, utilizing these practices at the height of a business boom. It says, referring to this practice:
One of the most flagrant which we have encountered. We wish to condemn without reservation or equivocation such financial malpractice as it illustrates.
If a man steals a loaf of bread he is liable to be sent to gaol, but it is quite possible that a man may steal from the public a million dollars and be regarded as one of the pillars of society. I submit that it is the responsibility of this government to place upon the criminal code such provisions as will enable the public to punish those who have so defrauded society and to seek the restitution of their ill gotten gains.
Another instance was given, that of Canadian Canners, and the reorganization of the company's plant, revaluation and appreciation -at least $6,000,000, equivalent to over 50 per cent of the outstanding capital stock. This is what is said, and I would call this to the attention of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) if he would do me the courtesy of caring for any of these matters. May I ask that he be prepared to consider rather carefully some of these statements, which it seems to me affect fundamentally the administration of justice in this country. With regard to Canadian Canners, the report speaks of an inaccurate statement-a very mild term-of the company's financial position. It declares:
An inaccurate statement of the company's financial position was shown by the balance sheet presented to the shareholders in 1932; this was signed by the company's auditors, only subject to certain vital qualifications. The profits as shown did not in fact exist.
We have all heard of men who were carried off to gaol for selling some little article under
false pretences; we know of men who have been imprisoned for having forged a cheque for a few dollars; and yet here are men in responsible positions, belonging to an organization that is supposed to be above reproach, responsible for the signing of statements in which we are told that the profits as shown did not in fact exist. Take this summary of the situation-again I quote from the report:
Vendors and promoters allot shares to themselves for services and properties contributed to the company at a figure grossly in excess of
any possible intrinsic value	The courts
will force a man who has paid $99 for a $100 par share to contribute the other dollar; they seldom do anything about the man who has contributed a table worth possibly $10 at the absurd valuation of $20,000.
This is not a matter that affects only the individuals immediately concerned; it is a load on the whole consuming, the whole general public, who directly or indirectly must pay a tax because of such practices. In any case, I submit that it is the public that pays. One law for the rich and one for the poor; that has again and again been denied in this house; but I submit that we do not need to go outside the covers of this report for the most adequate evidence that that in fact really obtains.
A few years ago we had a very careful investigation, two or three in fact, into the Beauhamois scandal; but these investigations led to no punishment whatever. They led to no restitution to the public of properties that had been obtained in a scandalous manner, and now we are being besieged by second bondholders who are urging that they have been left holding the bag.
To no small extent does this irresponsible oligarchy control government policy. To the truth of our statement the statute books give the most eloquent testimony. It was only the other day that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) asserted very emphatically that it was not true that property rights took priority over human welfare. I have not time to argue the point in detail, but I suggest that all anyone has to do is to look over our statute books and over Hansard to see the reception which various resolutions and bills have met with, to my knowledge at any rate, in the last fifteen years. You have only to do that to find that property rights are very well guarded indeed but that in a great many instances human rights are callously disregarded.
The situation in Canada is not the result of socialistic experiment. Any of us who advocate anything new along this line are told that it would plunge the country into chaos. I say that the situation we face to-
446	COMMONS
Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
day is decidedly not the result of any socialistic experiments; it is the result of years of capitalist domination. The big business men of this country have had a free hand. I think it is really a curious thing that to-day these big business men come along and tell us that we must not experiment, and try to blame the public for a situation for which they themselves are very largely responsible.
I have tried to point out that we have a small oligarchy that controls the economic situation. I think that is clear from the evidence, and I go further and assert that this system has failed to provide security and a decent standard of living for large numbers of our people. What about the primary producer? I give the results of an investigation that I myself made on the basis of the census figures of 1931. In the census year there were 728,623 farms in Canada and the average income per farm would be slightly less than $700. This figure would include cash income and value of products raised on the farm for consumption by the farm population.	The value of the farm income,
which was already small enough in 1930, had been reduced by one-quarter by 1932. It means that the average farmer to-day receives an income of only around $500 a year. Is that a satisfactory condition for our agricultural producers? The report states:
It is clear that the fundamental problem of the primary producer is finding profitable markets. The difficulty is not that he cannot produce enough goods. Nor is it that, having regard to potential demand and consumption, he produces too much: neither is it that his products are not needed and desired. It is simply that they cannot be sold at a price sufficiently high _ to maintain a reasonable standard of living for the producer nor, paradoxically, bought at a price sufficiently low to permit necessary consumption by ail in need.... At the same time, free competition in the international market is checked on every hand' by tariffs, quotas, exchange, restrictions and embargoes. The primary producer is therefore denied the possible benefits of free competition in the buying markets of the world; is exposed to all the rigours of free competition in production at home; and finally, is subjected to exploitation by outright monopoly or imperfect competition among the domestic purchasers of his product.
... Between the farmer and the consumer there is an immense gap bridged by a chain o-f middlemen each of whom exacts a proportion of the consumer's dollar. In many instances the amount received by the farmer for his product is only a fraction of that realized by this array of middlemen.
I should like to ask what the Liberal government propose to do about this situation. As a matter of fact very few members of the government are in their seats at present; I see the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers),
fMr. Woodsworth.]
the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Michaud) and a few others. I should like to ask them what the government propose to do about this situation which bears so hardly upon the producer. I turn to the Minister of Labour; what about labour? Let me point out to the minister that two-thirds of the working population of Canada are wage-earners; that is, 2,565,000 out of the whole working population of 3,923,000. If agriculture, in which over 1,000,000 people are engaged, chiefly as proprietors, were . eliminated the proportion would be increased to nearly five-sixths. The report points out that each employer starts his negotiation of the labour contract with the bargaining advantage of a mass buyer.
I am not going to plead the cause of trade unionism here, but what about the conditions of labour in Canada to-day? Take the needle trades. I ran hurriedly over the various industries as to which we have evidence in this report. In the needle trades I find that in some Quebec country home-work contract shops the workers receive only five cents per hour. Wage rates are very low; hours are very long. I quote this phrase:
Frank exploitation of labour's weakness has been common.... There are frequent and continuous violations of the laws about employment conditions, hours and wages. Female operatives were sometimes forced to work at such high pressure for continuous hours that the result on health and morals was deplorable.
This is the conclusion:
That labour and wage conditions in this branch-
That is, the needle trades.
-of Canada's industrial activity are such as to merit the most emphatic condemnation. They should not be tolerated in any state that claims to call itself civilized.
I would suggest that the Minister of Labour has a pretty big job on his hands when that statement is made in the report of the price spreads committee, with regard to conditions in this country.
The worker in the clothing industry can expect neither comfort nor security; in many cases, he can, indeed, expect only hopeless poverty.	-
What about the rights of citizenship? We have always taken it for granted that we did not need any laws on our statute books to protect certain rights of citizenship; we thought they were inherent, but these people have no rights, not even the common right of earning a decent livelihood. And what about those employed in the leather and boot industry? In 1931 the average annual

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
wage was $764, while female workers earned from thirteen to twenty ^six cents per hour. Then there is furniture; I am just taking casual sentences. The average weekly earnings in each furniture factory ranged from $3.64 to $14.42, and averaged about $10. So it is with baking, with flour milling. In connection with meat packing, I have underlined this sentence:
The lowest average weekly wages found were $15.89, paid in the Hull plant of Canada Packers. In this plant 39-2 per cent of the employees were paid below the legal minimum for women in Ontario.
Here is another sentence, with regard to fruit and vegetable canning:
-both male and female time workers were paid as low as ten cents an hour.
Then we have the tobacco industry, to which I think so much publicity was given that I need not say very much about it to-day. The report states:
The most striking fact revealed by our evidence on the tobacco industry is the combination of low wages and high profits.
We all know from the press how low were those wages and how exorbitantly high were those profits. Then what about textiles? I quote:
-the average wage rate for all male workers was ten cents per hour-
The report was speaking of M. E. Binz Company, Limited. Then a word with regard to the food chains:
-In the Quebec division three companies had fifty per cent or more of the male grocery clerks receiving less than $10 per week, but three companies had also twenty-five per cent or more of their female employees in this class- hours of labour of employees of food chains are longer than any worker should be asked to endure

Let me call that sentence to the attention of the Minister of Labour and ask him what he proposes to do about it. I have spoken about the situation of the producer and the situation of the labour man. What is the situation of the small business man? In approximately one-third of the retail business of this country the personal factor has largely disappeared; that is the social side.
Economically, the unwarranted expansion in recent years in distributive, as in industrial organizations, has not contributed to the general welfare

What about the consumer? Well, frankly the consumer-and let me point out that we are all consumers-has been cheated all along the line.
-such practices include: false and misleading advertising and marking; misleading statements as to quality of products, including designation of grades of goods likely to confuse or deceive
rather than inform the consumer-short weight and unjust scales-
Again I ask the. Minister of Justice what his department is going to do with regard to wholesale cheating of this kind. Surely that is just as much a criminal offence as anything we have prohibited by statute. Then let us look at the milling interests; although the Minister of Finance is not present I think perhaps he ought to give this house some indication as to what can be done in that industry. In this report the statement is made that the public and not the industry has been bearing the burden of its cost. Take bread; there has been an increase in the spread between flour and bread prices from 2-33 cents per pound in 1916 to 5-13 cents per pound in 1930, which is equal to 4-2 cents per one and one-half pound loaf. Whether we look at it from the standpoint of the producer, the business man, the labour man or the consumer, here we have a situation that is very unsatisfactory, to say the least.
What can be done about that situation? Last year the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) attempted to do something. Most of his legislation seems in a fair way to be put on the scrap heap. What are the Liberals going to do? They are now the government in power. The older economic theories of the Liberals, I think, were fairly well expressed by Mr. E. J. Young, who formerly represented the constituency of Weybum. What did he say with regard to monopolies:
The only effective way to deal with monopolistic organizations is to expose them to merciless competition, which will force them to efficiency or to bankruptcy-
Surely the Liberals ought to understand that it is owing to merciless competition that we have arrived at the state in which we find ourselves to-day. It is by merciless competition that the big fellows have been able to drive the little fellows to the wall.
With regard to export trade-and I think this is a matter that the Liberals will have to consider seriously-this is what Mr. Young said:
In order to dispose of our exports, we must sell them at prices the people of other countries can pay.
To do this, it is necessary to keep our production costs down to a point that will enable us to compete in the markets of the world, with other countries producing similar products.
Are we then to reduce our production costs by driving labour still lower? I ask the Liberals in all seriousness, is that their only solution? I am glad to think that the great Liberal party is gradually getting away from that old laissez-faire policy.
448	COMMONS
Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
Here are some lines that I found not long
ago in the Manchester Guardian. The poem -if it can be called such-was entitled, Lancashire:
.... then came steam
Machines that marched the floor with the measured precision of the planetary system,
And towns that sprawled in muddles of beastliness:
Had hands tender as a lover's for yarn and hard as Cain's for the children they enslaved.
See the woman weaving in that steam-heated shed?
There's a kid coming.
But the Act says she mustn't go on weaving after... .
Oh, it does, does it?
And the Act says the humidity mustn't exceed....
Oh, it does, does it?
Mustn't exceed warm tea. She's stood eight hours:
Is she tired? Oh boy?
They've found how to save the cotton trade;
London chap, he found it. He spent a whole day in Manchester.
Lancashire must reduce her costs and recover the export trade.
Exactly the position stated in the dissenting report of the former member for Weybum. The lines go on:
Lancashire must-Oh, my God.
I know an economist lives in a library and studies trade.
It's the best place. Inside a library you see all trade, and outside you only see part, the part that hurts,
Demand he said, is satisfied from the cheapest supply.
Productive energies which no longer conform to this condition should be transferred to alternative activities.
What sheltered lives these long words lead! Never been soaked with sweat or cold with fear. Never been parts of men, like short words.
Productive energies which no longer-that's me and my mill. Are you getting it?
That is the attitude of finance. I am not accusing the Liberals of callous disregard of human suffering, but I say to them that in view of the deplorable conditions that exist to-day, whatever their theories, this country expects them to take some immediate action to solve these outstanding problems. I think most of them, and I hope most hon. members of this house, will agree with the conclusions of the price spreads commission in this report:
The depression has, furthermore, demonstrated that the strong and the organized are attaining an ever increasing position of dominance in our economic life; that economic power is becoming concentrated. With this concentration, old theories of economic control are proving inadequate.

.	.	. Unregulated competition no longer
guarantees efficiency and maximum production at fair prices. Competition degenerates sometimes into economic warfare where victory may go to the strong, rather than to the efficient. Forces of economic readjustment are often not self-correcting, but cumulative in their efforts. Orderly readjustments may develop into disorderly crises.
I congratulate the Liberals upon having put into the speech from the throne the statement that appears there with regard to the necessity of state intervention under certain circumstances. That is all to the good.
It is most unfortunate that there was no one on the price spreads commission who stressed public ownership and operation. Indeed the commission definitely expressed a prejudice against it. But they did say:
Under present conditions, then, the question is not intervention or non-intervention, but merely the nature and extent of intervention.
I wish we could have had that clearly recognized; we would have had much more illuminating discussions on the hustings in the last election. The report extending over some pages covers various forms of state control, I have time only to enumerate them;
(a)	Protection of private economic activity;
(b)	promotion of private economic activity;
(c)	the encouragement of monopoly; (d) licensing; (e) protection of the public; (f) prohibition of monopoly; (g) government acceptance of monopoly; (h) government toleration of monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic industrial combinations, such as cartels, and, (i) public ownership and operation. It is this last which ia treated so very slightly in the commission's report, but which we believe ought to form a line of policy for this country. This is what the report said:
The extreme example of government intervention is where the government engages directly in the ownership and operation of business enterprise. Government ownership and operation of postal services, schools, and roads provide some of the oldest examples. In violation of extreme individualistic theories, governments nearly everywhere have taken these enterprises out of private hands, sometimes simply because private enterprise could not profitably supply satisfactory service, sometimes because it did not operate to produce maximum social welfare. Public ownership for^ a variety of reasons-to provide a competitive check on private enterprise, to supplement ineffective regulations of monopoly, to control consumption, to provide revenue- has continued to expand until a world survey of such ownership to-day would include every type of economic activity. In Canada governments are directly engaged in such businesses as railways, steamships, street railways, telegraphs, telephones, radio, electric light and' power, water, gas, stockyards, grain elevators, public markets, liquor sales, banking, and insurance.

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. MacNicol
Under these circumstances I submit that we of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party are quite within our rights and indeed in the line of progress in urging that the government itself should take over many of these enterprises. The question is not individual enterprise versus bureaucratic monopoly, but rather whether the inevitable monopoly shall be irresponsible and inefficient as at present, or fascist in type, or democratic. We plead for democratic control in industry. I know that in Canada there is some difficulty in working out our policy owing to the division of powers under the British North America Act as between the provincial and the federal authorities, but I submit that we as a federal parliament could do a great deal more under the British North America Act than we are doing at present. Hon. members will remember the clause by which complete control is given the dominion over- -such works as, although wholly situate within the province, are before or after their execution declared by the parliament of Canada to be for the general advantage of Canada or for the advantage of two or more of the provinces. (92, 10c.)
I think the hon. member for East Kootenay is right in saying that very much more could be done than is being done under that act. Then I urge further, and I trust that some of my colleagues will develop this point, that within the framework of state control there should be the fullest opportunities for cooperative enterprises, both consumers' and producers' cooperatives: I should like also to have emphasized that it is not the goods that we need socialized, but the capacity to produce.
Under a cooperative commonwealth, instead of profits for a few we would give service to the many, to the whole community. We would seek to establish democracy in our every day living. Remember that five-sixths of the non-agricultural working population consists of wage earners. To-day they have no control of the very means by which they live. Can that condition be called democracy?
Especially in view of the international situation, caused we believe to a great extent by the economic forces at work in the world, we urge that it is desirable that we substitute for our highly competitive system one based on cooperation. I wish every hon. member could be induced to read a recent book by H. N. Brailsford entitled, Property or Peace. I firmly believe a fundamental change in our economic system is the only 12739-29
way to bring about lasting peace. Permanent peace can be assured only when the underlying principles of cooperation replace those of competition.


Mr. J. R. MacNICOL (Davenport):: Mr. Speaker, I find it a little more difficult this session to oppose the resolution of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, because-


James Shaver Woodsworth: Within a year or
two my hon. friend will be fully converted.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I would ask the hon.
member to wait until he has heard what I am going to say. I find it somewhat more difficult to speak on this occasion than I did on occasions in the past four years upon which similar resolutions were moved, and at which times I sat in the far comer of the chamber to the right of Mr. Speaker. My difficulty arises not because of the resolution itself-it is just as communistic as was each of the four preceding ones-but because this session I am sitting close to the hon. member and when I look into his gentle eyes, when I observe his kindly smile, his sympathetic countenance, I know that although in my opinion he preaches communism again in this resolution, he is not a communist.
To place my argument on solid ground I shall begin by reading the four resolutions introduced at earlier sessions. Although they have changed somewhat in wording, I would say the import of each is the same. Leaving out the preambles, I refer first to the 1932 resolution, which was couched in these terms:
Should immediately take measures looking to the setting up of a cooperative commonwealth in which all natural resources and socially necessary machinery of production will be used in the interests of the people and not for the benefit of the few.
In 1933 the same words were used. Then, in 1934 the resolution was as follows:
That in the opinion of this house it is desirable that the present system be superseded by one based on the principle of cooperative production and distribution in which human needs should be the first consideration.
Then, in 1935, last year, these were the words of the resolution:
It (the capitalistic system) should be superseded by a cooperative commonwealth in which the profit motive has been subordinated to that of public service and ruthless competition replaced by collective ownership under democratic control.
Then, the resolution now before the house is:
Therefore be it resolved that in the opinion of this house industrial, commercial and financial organizations and undertakings that

450	COMMONS
Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. MacNicol
are failing to function in the general interest should be taken over by the appropriate public authorities and operated as public services or cooperative enterprises.
I wish to compliment the hon. gentleman, because I notice a definite change in his attitude. He gets milder and milder every time he places resolutions of this nature on the order paper, and when a moment ago he interrupted by stating that finally I would find myself "fully converted," or words to that effect, I might have replied that if he continued to get milder he might finally find himself in the Liberal-Conservative party. All the communistic end of his advocacy will be eliminated.


Ernest Lapointe: Congratulations.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I should like to refer to one or two points with which the hon. member dealt. In general his observations referred to the price spreads report and were not directed particularly to the resolution before the house. Something was said about mergers. I am just as much opposed to unwarranted mergers as is the hon. member. An occasional merger may be effected for the benefit of business, but I agree with him that the rank and file of mergers are a menace to the country. I have a clear recollection that the greatest merger in the world is found in soviet Russia, where everything is under the control of the state and there is no private individuality in business.
With the hon. member's observations about stocks I find myself largely in agreement. Many of the stock speculations which took place in the last few years were an outrage on the rights and privileges of ordinary people, and if the hon. member moved a resolution to rectify those abuses I would be pleased to support him. I could give many illustrations of the dire effects of stock speculation in the last few years, and I am one who believes that those speculations had much to do with bringing about the depression.
I agree with the hon. member's observations about the farmers, to the effect that their incomes are too low. On the other hand I disagree with his statements about industry. I know of many industries which during the last four or five years have been operating without a profit and, on the contrary, have suffered great losses. I know presidents and managers, men who own their own plants, who have not drawn a dollar in the last four or five years, whereas on the other hand they have spent large sums of money to keep their men employed.	.

Subject to the hon. gentleman's correction I shall classify the planks of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation platform as set out in the resolutions quoted and in the speeches made upon their presentation to the house. I would classify them under five headings: (1) The socialization of finance including banks, trust companies, insurance companies and financial institutions; (2) the socialization of the companies or services having to do with travel and transportation, such as railways, shipping companies, automobile companies and air travel companies; (3) the socialization of word communication services, either by wire, through the use of telephones and telegraphs, or by wireless.
May I digress at this point to make some observations about telephones. A few days ago I read a news item in the press indicating that the socialization of telephones in Alberta had not been satisfactory, and that consideration is being given to disposing of the system by placing it in private hands. There are other social services which would have been better under the control of private interests, and which will likely cease to be public services and return to private hands.
I continue with the headings: (4) Socialization of natural resources such as timber, water power, mines, lands and fishing.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The Cooperative
Commonwealth Federation has never advocated the socialization of farm lands, in the sense of the government taking them over. We have always held that it is desirable that a person working on his own land should be made secure in his tenure of that land.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am glad to know that the hon. member's platform has gotten away from the socialization of land.


James Shaver Woodsworth: It has never gotten away from it.


John Ritchie MacNicol: May I quote from the speech of the hon. member when speaking to a similar resolution in this house on February 1, 1933:
Last year the United Farmers of Alberta,, in order that there should be no doubt about their ultimate objective, stated their position in very clear terms, adopting the following short definition of a cooperative commonwealth:
"A community freed from the domination of irresponsible financial and economic power, in. which all social means of production and distribution, including land, are socially owned and controlled either by voluntarily organized groups of producers and consumers."
Apparently socialization of the land has now been eliminated from the hon. member's platform.


Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. MacNicol


James Shaver Woodsworth: I am sure the hon. member does not wish to misrepresent me. He has quoted a resolution of the United Farmers of Alberta passed in convention before the organization which I represent came into existence, and I was quoting it in this house at that time as indicating the desire of a great many farm bodies for action along this line.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I will accept the hon. member's explanation. The fifth division of socialization is that mentioned in my hon. friend's resolution, the socialization of industry and commercial services, which would mean, I assume, large factories, flour mills, milk and bread companies and wholesale commercial organizations.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Did the hon. member read the rest of the resolution, may I ask?


John Ritchie MacNicol: It says, such as are failing to function. I could mention many organizations that are failing to function, but it would not be fair for me to do so because they are failing to function not because they are not manufacturing properly, but because of the dire distress of the times, and these companies would be very glad to sell to the government or anybody else that would take them over.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The resolution says "failing to function in the general interest."


John Ritchie MacNicol: I have divided up in that way the five main groups of the objectives of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation as set forth in the various resolutions and in the speeches made at the time of their presentation, and I say, Mr. Speaker, that that is nothing more or less than communism minus violence. I again quote the hon. gentleman's words and will ask him to oorreot me if I misinterpret him. In the same speech that he delivered in this house on February 1, 1933, speaking to the motion then before the house, he said:
Let me say that we must distinguish clearly between the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and communism. It is quite true that both believe in a changed social order, in a new economic system. The communists are convinced that this can ibe brought about only by violence. They think it cannot be done in any other way. We believe that it may come in Canada by peaceful methods.
Then there was an interruption, and my hon. friend continued:
Mr. Woodsworth: It may very well be that force may prove inevitable.
I certainly do not for a moment think that the hon. gentleman would either advocate or countenance force in any way whatsoever, but if such a changed system comes about by violence, it is communism one hundred per cent.
Now I want to quote to the house what the communists themselves say, and may I point out that in reading over their platform I find many words and phrases identical with the words and phrases used in the various speeches to which I have alluded. I have in my hand a book written by M. J. Olgin, Why Communism?-Plain Talks on Vital Problems, which says this of communism at page 14:
We propose, in brief, that all resources, all land and buildings, all manufacturing establishments, mines, railroads and other means of transportation and communication, should be, not private property, but the common property of all those who work. We propose that production be made to serve the needs of those
who work	We hold with science that
production and distribution of goods can be planned to avoid anything resembling the crisis in capitalist society. Planned economy on the basis of common ownership without any class division is called communism.
Then I quote from page 18:
V hen we communists speak of a society organized on the basis of planned production and distribution we mean something entirely different. What we have in mind is very simple. It is clear-cut. Take over from the private owners all natural resources, all mines, factories plants, railroads, ships. Turn all this into national property administered by the workers under a soviet state. Do away with production for profit. . . Make it your purpose to increase productmn. Employ the best services ot scientists to improve your machinery and
your methods of work	The output of
industry is sure to increase	Increase
production still more by further improving machinery and methods according to the latest data of science	 Under a system of communism nothing would go to the private owners of land and capital because there would be no such owners, and everything would go to the working people because everybody would be a worker.
I have left out many sentences and have just quoted the platform of communism.
In another book issued by the communists, the Program of the Communist International, is a further elaboration of their platform, pages 38, 39, 40, 41, as follows:
1.	The starting point of this great economic revolution is the expropriation of the landlords and capitalists.
2.	The confiscation and proletarian nationalization of all large private capitalist undertakings (factories, works, mines and electric power stations) and the transference of all state and municipal enterprises to the soviets.
3.	The confiscation and proletarian nationalization of private capitalist railway, waterway, automobile and air transport services.
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4.	The confiscation and proletarian nationalization of private capitalist communication services (telegraphs, telephones and wireless).
5.	The confiscation and proletarian nationalization of all large landed estates in town and country (private, church, monastery and other lands) and the transference of state and municipal landed property including forests, minerals, lakes, rivers, etcetera.
6.	The confiscation of all property utilized
in production belonging to large landed estates, such as:	buildings, machinery and other
inventory, cattle, enterprises for the manufacture of agricultural products (large flour mills, cheese plants, dairy farms, fruit and vegetable drying plants, etcetera).
7.	The proletarian nationalization of private banks (the entire gold reserve, all securities, deposits, etcetera. . . )
8.	The nationalization of wholesale trade-
It will be noted that that is in the resolution now before the house-commercial organizations:
-and large retail trading enterprises (warehouses. elevators, stores, stocks, etcetera).	_
9.	The repudiation of state debts to foreign and home capitalists.


James Samuel Taylor: Might I ask
the hon. gentleman if he has read the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation manifesto?


John Ritchie MacNicol: I have already developed it under five different headings.


James Samuel Taylor: I cannot understand why the hon. gentleman should quote the communist manifesto.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I gave it a few minutes ago and you can give the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation manifesto if you find it any different from what I have given.
Let me go a little farther in a comparison of communism and C.C.F .-ism. I have here a newspaper clipping dated at London, Ontario, July 20. 1935. It is headed United Front Backs C.C.F. The subheading reads:
Endorsation Given London Candidate for Federal House.
E. 0. Hall, C.C.F. candidate in London for the federal election, last night received the endorsation of a United Front conference.
The United Front has been described and pronounced as a communist organization. Later on I shall give a complete list of these organizations.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Would the hon.
gentleman permit me to say that the national and provincial councils of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation have distinctly repudiated the proffers of the so-called United Front?


John Ritchie MacNicol: I have read that, but the fact remains that your committee in London accepted the backing of the United Front.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I have no knowledge of that, and I do not believe it is true.


John Ritchie MacNicol: 
James Shaver Woodsworth: May I say-


John Ritchie MacNicol: I must ask the hon. gentleman not to interrupt me here; I have only a few minutes left and there are some other things I should like to say. Let me quote from page 39:
The Communists were instrumental in organizing the unemployment councils which, together with other workers, fought for every crumb of bread for every employed.
Well, this country has been slowed up by interference on the part of such councils; they have caused no end of harm to the workers, and as a worker of twenty-five years' experience I certainly do not welcome communistic unemployment councils. At page 51 I read:
We communists say it is the duty of the workers to fight against capitalist terror, against manifestations of fascism, against the oppression of other nations. We say it is in their interests to fight. We appeal to the class interests of the workers and the exploited masses of the populati''n. Stand guard. Offer

resistance to capitalist terror. Fight for your right to organize, to assemble, to strike. Break the capitalist dictatorial rules directed against you. Do not submit. Strike back. In unity is your strength.
The encouragement thus held out to men, to dissuade them_ from assisting honest industry in carrying out its honest purpose, which is to provide employment and if at all possible some return for capital, is a doctrine which should not be advocated in the country or in this house. At page 59:
A time comes when there is demoralization above, a growing revolt below; the morale of the army is also undermined. The old structure of society is tottering. There are actual insurrections; the army wavers.. Panic seizes the rulers. A general uprising begins.
That is the method that is always followed, in the advocating of uprisings. My time is nearly up but there are two more quotations which I wish to read so as to give the house an idea of what the communists think of religion. I am often amazed at the attitude of some clergymen-and I have the highest regard for the clergy; indeed, I often said to myself if I had my life to live over I would be one myself, but I would not be in politics. Of course, every man must decide for himself and I have no reflection to cast on any clergyman who goes into politics; that is his business, not mine. But in the revelations that came out before the congressional commission at Washington in its investigation into communism it appeared that the communists were very strong against religion and all that it stands for. In that connection I would quote two paragraphs from this book. But before I proceed to do so, I must express my surprise at the attitude of certain men in our universities. I am not so much surprised at certain professors, because they usually talk to young men and young women, though of course not many of them advocate unsound theories. I have the highest regard for the majority of them, but we have a few political professors-


An hon. MEMBER:: Where?


John Ritchie MacNicol: I have no reference to anyone in this house, because hon. gentlemen were invited to come into it. But I have in mind those who in the universities are teaching the rising generation many things along communistic lines which they should not be taught. At page 53 of the Program of the Communist International I read:
One of the most important tasks of the cultural revolution affecting the wide masses, is the task of systematically and unswervingly combating religion-the opium of the people.

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. MacNicol
The proletarian government must withdraw all state support from the church, which is the agency of the former ruling classy it must prevent all church interference in state-organized educational affairs, and ruthlessly suppress the counter-revolutionary activity of the ecclesiastical organizations.
Then on page 67:
The mighty social power of the imperialist state, with its auxiliary apparatus-schools, press, theatre and church-is primarily reflected in the existence of confessional and reformist tendencies among the working class, which represent the main obstacles on the road towards the proletarian social revolution. The confessional, religiously tinged tendency among the working class, finds expression in the confessional trade unions, which frequently are directly connected with corresponding bourgeois political organizations and are affiliated to one or other of the church organizations of the dominant class (Catholic trade unions', Young Men's Christian Association, Jewish Zionist organizations, etc.). All these tendencies. being the most striking product of the ideological captivity of certain strata of the proletariat, in most cases, bear a romantic feudal tinge. By sanctifying all the abominations of the capitalist regime with the holy water of religion, and by terrorizing^ their flock with the spectre of punishment in the *world to come, the leaders of these organizations serve as the most reactionary units of the class enemy in the camp of the proletariat.
Now I care not what its denomination may be, the church that is honest in its convictions -and I believe they all have been-has done a great work throughout history, and when I find an organization designed to destroy the church in all countries I am opposed to it. As I said at the outset, I do not believe that my friends to the left are communists, nor do I believe they would advocate violence. On the other hand let me repeat that they cannot continue to talk as they have been talking, stirring up the masses in this country, without causing trouble.
I know a great many things are wrong, and I will support anything that will help make them right. The hon. gentleman mentioned a number of changes that I would support, but revolution is not the way to bring about reform, nor can it be brought about through the destruction of the capitalistic system. I may tell my hon. friends that it is not the capitalistic system that has caused the trouble; it is the violations of the capitalistic system, and these can be wiped out by law. I have no fault to find with the true principles of the capitalistic system; time does not permit me to enumerate them, but they are worthy. I would be prepared to go a long way in order to stop the practices referred to by the hon. gentleman, those violations of the capitalistic system, but I am not prepared to destroy the
whole system because some rascals have exploited the public when they should not have been allowed to do so.
I am glad to know that there has been some measure of reform attained in connection with many of the vile stock-market practices to which the hon. gentleman referred. I am ready to support unemployment insurance; I have supported it, and I believe it should be introduced in this ocuntry. I suppose I should not mention it to-day, but I hope that when the supreme court gives its judgment it will be in favour of the principle of unemployment insurance. I would break up the dishonest trusts mentioned by the hon. gentleman. There may be an occasional trust that is financially sound, but I would break up the great trusts that are throttling the workers, and return them to their component parts. I would lower interest rates; they have been too high, but that is not the fault of the capitalistic system. That is something that has been permitted by law, but the law can eradicate that. Then I would do something to save the homes of the workers in the cities, just as we have taken steps to save the farms. I would shorten hours; I would improve working conditions and I would abolish sweat shops. These were permitted under the capitalistic system, but they constitute a violation of that system that never should have been permitted. I would also protect the interests of small business men, to whom the hon. gentleman referred. I agree with him when he says small business has been throttled, but it can be protected by law.
The hon. gentleman mentioned something about the consumers. In England I have read they have a consumers' council, and any one who buys goods for which he thinks he has been overcharged can go before the public prosecutor representing the consumers' council and register his complaint. I would go so far as to advocate something of that nature in this country, so that people who feel that they have been gypped can appeal to a public prosecutor, who will take steps to prosecute whoever has gypped them. I have no doubt that may people are gypped on prices.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would make every effort possible to provide work for the working men. In my time I have had a lot to do with work. I have heard men talk about labour who I know have never had a thing to do with labour. I have had to do with many thousands of working men in my time, and I am only too willing to do everything possible to raise their standards, alleviate their trials and provide work for them. Many men wlio talk about labour and industry cannot, from
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their background, have much practical knowledge of what they are dealing with, except possibly from reading. I talk about labour after having served in industry from the bottom to the top, having had to do with many thousands, of working men over a good many years, so I believe I should be able to say something about it.
That is all I have to say for the moment, Mr. Speaker, but I stand by the capitalistic system. I agree, however, that many of its principles have been grossly violated, and I will support any legal measures to eliminate those violations and bring capitalism back to where it was and where it should be, operating in the best interests of all the people.


Mr. POOLE:: May I ask the hon. member a question? If he believes so much in the capitalistic system, I should like to ask him why we cannot distribute the goods that we produce.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I will answer that question. After the resolution dealing with this matter was debated in this house last session I went home. I went to. have a tire on my car repaired; I did not feel disposed to buy a new one, and the garage man said to me, "You did not support the resolution of Mr. Woodsworth in reference to distribution, taking from the rich and giving it to the others." I said, "Never mind repairing my tire; take a new tire off that rack and put it on my car free of charge. You want to distribute other people's goods. I want that new tire put on my car free of charge." He said, "Oh, no, I cannot do that." I said, " You are advocating that grain be taken out of the granaries of the farmers and given freely to those who need food," just as I heard someone advocate the other day that coal should be taken from those who have it and given to those who have none. So I said, "You just take that tire off the rack and put it on my car free of charge; if you believe what you preach you will do it." I do not know the business of my hon. friend who asked me the question, but if he believes in that principle and deals in coal or grain, let him take his coal or grain or whatever it may be and distribute it without charge.


Eric Joseph Poole: That does not answer my
question, and I challenge any member of the government to answer it.


Mr. J. A. BRADETTE (Cochrane):: Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that this is a thought-provoking resolution, and in some ways it was well presented by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth). The only feature one might deplore in that presentation is the fact that

at times a certain amount of bitterness appeared to be displayed, and I do not believe that is conducive to a really national and constructive spirit in dealing with the very important problems which have to be faced at the moment.
I well remember that during the last campaign our good friends of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation had a great big motto. They depicted the fifty big shots of this dominion, and with hatred and bitterness they tried to spread all through the north, if not through the whole of Canada, the thought that the so-called wealthy men were being absolutely unfair not only to the people but also to the country that had allowed them to amass their wealth. I do not think that sort of thing helps the national situation. I also remember that my Cooperative Commonwealth Federation opponent, who by the way was a personal friend of mine, strongly criticized me because I had the audacity to meet and shake hands for the first time with Mr. Noah Timmins, the genial head of the Hollinger mines. That was the first time I met Mr. Timmins; it was also the last time, because since then he has gone to his reward. At that time I did not think that criticism was worthy of the cooperative commonwealth party.
We should realize that we must be fair not only to all sections of our people but also to the so-called big interests for some of them certainly play the game. Just at this point I should like to allude to a booklet that was issued by the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, again dealing with the so-called fifty big shots. I must tell my hon. friend the leader of that party that personally I have never had an opportunity of meeting any of these big shots, but judging by the booklet members of his party must have fraternized with them a good deal for they want to create the impression that they know them. In this booklet, which is entitled Who Owns Canada, at page 12 the fifty big shots are enumerated, with their names, their places of birth, their ages, their professions, their religious denominations, their education, their bank directorships and the total assets of the corporations with which they are connected. If my addition is not in error, according to this statement these fifty big shots control some S97,000,000,000 of wealth. It seems incredible that any such statement should be made by a party supposed to be working for universal suffrage and hoping to be given the political leadership of this country.

Cooperative Commonwealth

Mr. Bradette
Everyone who is familiar with the economic affairs of this dominion or who follows the publications of the bureau of statistics realizes that our national wealth does not amount to $25,000,000,000 but in this booklet just for the sake of exaggeration these fifty big shots are said to command $97,000,000,000. Such statements are absolutely unfair, and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation has overstepped the mark in bringing out that old war horse during the last by-election campaign in Assiniboia, accusing the present Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) of being in the pay of the Standard Oil and under the guidance of the so-called big shots when he went to Washington during the great war. That statement is libellous and they know it. A discussion of this nature is bound to do some good as long as we keep within the confines of truth, but wild statements such as these will not bring about a realization of all our dreams and a solution of our deep and multiple problems. Everyone wants prosperity and happiness; we want to do away with sharp practices, dishonesty and all the other evils that were revealed by the price spreads commission, and the present government has fully grasped the situation and is going to take action to correct the shortcomings shown by that commission as far as our commerce, finance and industry are concerned.
It is not my intention to single out any industry, but an allusion was made by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre to the sorry plight of the retail trade. I can speak of that with knowledge because I happen to belong to that calling. No doubt we have sinned ourselves. Take my own case; when we turned our business into a limited company we had $65,000 on our own books as credit extended to our customers. Most of them are honest. On the other hand in many cases customers do not want to pay for goods they have received. I must state here that we saw that none of our customers ever went hungry. Sharp practices are not confined to any class of the population. It is an impressive ceremony when we open every sitting of the house with the Lord's prayer. I believe in the full application of that divine prayer lies the solution of all our problems. In a former session the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) mentioned the great lessons to be learned from the sermon on the mount, and the great fundamental principles that were then enunciated are just as alive to-day as they were then. It is doubtless true that the wealthy people of this country have sinned against the
present social order, but it might do some good to look at matters fairly and recognize that the so-called other classes of people have at times sinned also.
I have listened many times to hon. members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group building up a case on behalf of a cooperative commonwealth federation by singling out a particular case of misery and want, but I also could build up a case, showing that some of the misery is not always caused by the present social order. During last Easter recess I happened to be at my home on Good Friday and a settler whom I have known for a number of years came to me and said, "Joe, I have already received $30 direct relief in April, but it is all gone and I need $30 more to carry me through the month, because I have a wife and seven children. I telephoned the relief officer and he gave this man another $30. This was Good Friday. On Saturay night this father of a family was in gaol; every cent of that money given to help his wife and children was Bpent by himself for liquor. It is all very well to make a case against the so-called big shots and to single them out, but we have to live under the present order. I know I am on dangerous ground when making such a statement, and it might not be very popular, but duty compels me to tell the truth. All classes of our people have to some extent sinned and in some degree are responsible for the present situation.
My hon. friends want to bring about a new order. During the last election campaign I was interrupted by a Cooperative Commonwealth Federation adherent. I said to him, "What are you going to do while you are building up your new order? You want to destroy the present capitalistic system and put in a better one." He said, "Yes, we are going to have a working man's government." But when a man is elected to parliament, whether he is a minister or a professional man or a farmer or a mechanic, no matter what occupation he may have been engaged in, he has to leave it for months if not for a number of years while he occupies his seat in the House of Commons, so surely in this chamber we are all, in the full sense of the term, working men. We all want to see the present anomalies and injustices-and they are very numerous- done away with. I do not hold any brief for the capitalistic system or for any individual capitalists, but this system is not the result of pure hazard; it has not been built up over night it has developed out of the experience of human beings during the centuries, yes, for thousands of years. It reflects
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the aspirations, the passions, the vices, the infirmities and, indeed all the qualities of humankind. No one doubts that it needs reform, but no one will dare to say that nationalization of all our social and economic and industrial activity is the simple formula that will solve all our problems. These problems are not peculiar to Canada; they affect the whole civilized world.
Let me refer for a moment to one line of activity that is supposed to be nationalized in Ontario. I do not say this in a disparaging way. Is nationalization always fair to the people? I say no. Ontario has had public ownership of hydro for nearly thirty years, but in northern Ontario, although we have contributed a large share to the provincial treasury to help the hydro commission in the southern section of the province, we have to depend upon private capital and private enterprise for the development of the great water powers of our northern section, and even to-day new mines do not get their power from the Ontario Hydro Electric Commission but the risk has to be taken by private enterprise. IV e in northern Ontario have paid to some extent-and we are supposed to be glad to do so-towards the millions of dollars supplied by the provincial treasury to bonus rural lines to the well-to-do farmers and to furnish power to the industries in the southern section of the province. I mention this in order that the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre may see that even nationalization is not always fair to ail sections of the population.
The same state of affairs is shown by the present radio situation. When the bill for national control of radio was brought in I voted for it with both hands because I believed then and believe now that great national service should belong to the people. Perhaps I was selfish to some extent, because I realized that in the larger centres of population like Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, etcetera, they were getting good radio service under private ownership, and I am sorry to say now that under nationalization of the radio and that service will be extended to everyone-the people of northern Ontario and Quebec, although they have to pay $2 a year for a licence, are even yet not getting the service to which we are absolutely entitled.
Governments have all the infirmities and vices of human beings and very few of their good qualities. History teaches that lesson to whoever wants to read it. Some public services, such as the Department of Justice, are clearly subjects for national control; no one would think of having the administration of justice left to private initiative and enterprise. The same applies to the post office,

public health and national defence. But surely it was never intended under British institutions, with the mentality of the British nations, that the government should take control of all industrial and economic activity and the supply of all social wants; such a situation would be absolutely impracticable and is foreign to the thought of the Canadian people. We all remember what happened in England, the great revolution brought about following the middle of the last century by the invention of steam power. Can anyone visualize what would have happened if when the steam engine was invented, the British parliament had nationalized its development and had invested hundreds of millions of pounds so as to develop that new invention? Further, can anyone visualize what would have happened and what attitude the government would have taken when some time later the internal combustion engine and electric motive power were invented? Do hon. members think for one moment that the government would have been elastic enough, after having invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the steam engine, to throw that money away, scrap all its antiquated machinery and take on the development of the later invention, as private enterprise has done? No, because such matters are governmentally and humanly impossible. I suggest these are points worth remembering when we are discussing matters of this kind.
I well remember that during the session of 1934, in a discussion of the bullion tax mentioned in the budget, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre rose in his place and suggested that we should nationalize gold mining in Canada. I asked him some questions when, later on, I spoke on the budget debate. First I asked him what gold mining he was going to nationalize, those on a dividend basis or those not on a dividend basis. What about new ventures? What about prospecting? What about new finds?
I remember well what happened in Ontario in the great silver camp at Cobalt years ago when the provincial government decided to try to control one of the silver mines. That effort was one of the greatest failures we have known, and I believe the principle applying in that instance would apply to any government going beyond its proper activities.
The work of a government is not creative; in my opinion its duties and powers are legislative. Can any hon. member visualize governments, wherever they may be, in the provinces or here at Ottawa, inventing developments of steam engines or radio? Can anyone visualize a government creating and bringing up to its present perfection the great
FEBRUARY 24, 1936	[DOT]	459
Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Bradette
automotive industry in Canada? No; the primary duty of a government is to take accomplished facts, and on those facts to build up and to legislate for the happiness and prosperity of the nation it governs. The minute we establish a bureaucracy-and I am using the word in its full sense-and the moment we have full authority in all matters, economic, industrial, social and financial, then what will become of the individualism of. the British people? I say that we shall become merely automatons.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has often pointed to the great prosperity of Russia. He must know the horrible price the Russians have paid for that measure of prosperity. The trouble has been that some of their reforms have been made too quickly; the people of that country have been too impatient, too ruthless. When I hear of a bacteriologist dealing with bacteria and germs in carrying out his experiments and learn that those germs are killed by the millions and billions I do not worry very much and I am inclined to believe they rather like it. When I hear that a biologist is experimenting on dogs and sheep and learn that those animals have lost their lives in the process of experimentation then I begin to worry a great deal. But when I see new experiments on new social systems, w'hen I find that those performing the experiments, those using the knives of vivisection, are using them not on dogs or sheep or germs, but on human beings, and when I see the state of affairs in Spain, Germany and Russia, where hundreds of thousands of human lives have been lost in these new social experiments, I begin to shiver, and highly protest against such experiences.
In beginning my observations to-day I said some good could come from a discussion of this subject. In these times no one is in a position to stand on a pinnacle and say: Because I am wealthy and because this world has been good to me I am away from all the backwaters and the turmoil of the depression. That man must come down into the valley and see what the people are suffering, what are their aspirations, what they expect. The same principle applies to the people living in the valley. To some extent and in some way all of us must realize that we have a duty to perform towards ourselves and towards the state. Unfortunately however those great problems will never be solved by extreme radicalism, advanced socialism or communism, because, as the previous speaker (Mr. MacNicol) has said, no matter how much the Cooperative Commonwealth
Federation tries to divorce itself from the communist party it cannot do so. I watched the operations of that party in the Kirkland lake section during the last campaign, and I came to the one logical conclusion, namely, that socialization has only one result and that result is a state of communism.
As I stated before, the time is not ripe, and I hope will never be, to have socialism in Canada. Some great duties have to be performed. Only a few days ago I listened with a great deal of interest to a good speech delivered by Sir Edward Beatty in which he stated that the business men of Canada must be ready and willing to sacrifice, to realize fully their duty and obligations; they must listen to the murmurs of the people, attempt to cooperate with them to the greatest extent . and come down from their high estate.
During the last five years every section of our population has been seriously affected by the depression. During the first two years, however, some people thought they were specially privileged. But the longer the depression lasted the more pronounced was the decrease in the number of privileged ones. The question before us is not so much that of the destruction of personal initiative nor that of the equalization of wealth, but rather one of a better distribution of wealth and the application of those economic and Christian principles whereby we may do away with poverty. No one can be spared from the strenuousness of the present times. There used to be a time when it was considered that poverty was a necessity, but to-day under a capitalistic system and due to human inventiveness poverty could be destroyed throughout the world. What we want to do is to bring it to the point where the so-called common people will have full rights of citizenship and access to the good things in life, with drastic changes in our present distribution system.
I have no time this afternoon to propound certain theories that I have in mind, but again I appeal to the house that in a discussion of a resolution such as this we must try to remain within the truth, and not endeavour to set one section of the country against another. I believe the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation wants to be fair, but is he acting like a true Canadian when he tries to impute to every wealthy man in Canada an unfair attitude towards those less fortunate? That is not always the case. A few days ago the hon. member for East Kootenay (Mr. Stevens) referred to reforms
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which had been accomplished by one of the larger corporations of the city of Montreal. He indicated that they had made amendments to their method of procedure with effects beneficial not only to their own customers but to themselves.
I can well remember when three years ago in northern Ontario we had a lumbermen's and buishmen's strike. On that occasion I went to the manager of a big corporation and said, "You are not playing the game with the men who are working for you; you are not giving them fair wages; you are not giving them decent living quarters; you are selling your goods at too high a price, and I must remind you that you are not in the retail trade, but in the lumber business. You should sell your goods to your working men at least at cost." A year ago last fall we had some trouble again in the Cochrane and Iroquois Falls section. I went to one point at which a strike had been called and to which strike breakers had been sent. Upon that occasion I found that the men had been given a decent living; that they had a reading room; that they were satisfied with the food, and that they had an opportunity at least once a week to state through their own organizations their grievances before the heads of the company. You could not take those men away. Some of them had been working for that company for two years, were absolutely satisfied with their lot and would not go on strike.
This is not the time for those corporations to make enormous profits, but it is time for those men in elevated positions to come down from their high pedestals and attempt to underetand the Canadian people and find out what their aspirations may be. I must repeat however that the solution will never, never be found in rash measures. It will never be found in a policy which makes automatons of the Canadian people. Can we visualize the advancement of the British empire if government had been supreme in matters of private interest? It is true that at the present time we have sufficient machinery to do the work we require to do, and if we apply it properly, do away with all sharp practices. The hon. member for East Kootenay stated that the price spreads inquiry disclosed that some concerns were selling their products on short weights. There are laws as old as the hills on the statute books of Canada and on those of all civilized countries stating that giving short weight is contrary to law. It is a criminal offence, and there is certainly nothing new about it. We are not so much

in need of new laws to place on our statute books, so far as that point is concerned, as of the fuller application of the laws we have. Certainly we have sufficient machinery to make these people act fairly, and we must deal with them more drastically and make them more aware of their duty to the public.
May I repeat that I believe some thanks ought to be given to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre for affording this opportunity to members of parliament to deal with problems facing us at the present time. Faced with these great problems some people would tell us that we should not even smile, but we must smile, Mr. Speaker, even in times of stress because we are struggling towards something better. These are times to cultivate courage and fortitude. Even during the war humanity found it possible to go forward. There is no doubt that we have been suffering along with the other peoples of the world, but we are seized of the exact situation and are endeavouring to go to the root of the trouble. We must not be impatient, and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre must remember that if a new socialistic state were erected in Canada to-morrow he would still have our present day problems on his hands and they cannot be solved overnight or by a miracle. Spain became impatient a few years ago and turned to a socialistic experiment. So did France over a century ago when the slogan was equality, liberty and fraternity. What kind of fraternity had they? The fraternity of the guillotine. What kind of equality had they? The equality of the graveyard, and conscription in the army. And so far as freedom is concerned their armies had to face the rest of Europe. About the same thing happened in Russia.
I listened very attentively to the address of the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. He said that if' he were in power he would not socialize the land, but, Mr. Speaker, if you socialize industry, the financial institutions and the economic life of the country, there is only one thing that the farmers will get, and that is the nationalization of the land; you cannot get away from it. That is what happened in Russia, and that point is worth considering.
I do not doubt the sincerity of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. He has done a lot of good in many ways; he has blazed the trail in some directions, but sometimes one can overstep the mark and undo the good work that has been done in the past, I have no advice to give him because he has had

Cooperative Commonwealth-Miss Macphail
a larger experience than I have, but I would say that to pit one class against another is not conducive to a healthy national situation in our country. Rather do I believe in the adherence of mutual respect and closer cooperation on the part of all classes and all walks of life, young and old, wealthy and poor, because the goal to reach, although hard, is worthy of attainment.
Miss AGNES C. MACPHAIL (Grey-Bruce): Mr. Speaker, reading over the resolution standing on the order paper in the name of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth), I find it says:
That, in the opinion of this house, industrial, commercial and financial organizations and undertakings that are failing to function in the general interest should be taken over by the appropriate public authorities and operated as public services or cooperative enterprises.
I do not see anything very alarming in that wording. I am always interested in the eloquence of the hon. member who has just taken his seat (Mr. Bradette) but I would suggest that he do not exercise himself unduly over the radicalism of this resolution. It seems to me a very sensible and certainly not too radical resolution, and I want to address myself more particularly to the latter portion of it relating to cooperative enterprises.
These resolutions spring upon one, and I am more and more coming to the conclusion that the only way to be able to speak to them is to have a lot of speeches already prepared and put away in cold storage. I have not got around to doing that, and so I cannot make in any sense a prepared speech. But increasingly I am coming to believe in the cooperative approach to the solution of many of our Canadian problems.
For a long time we have heard with a great deal of interest of the success of cooperative producers' societies in Denmark and Sweden, and of cooperative consumers' societies in Great Britain, but it is only recently that we have found in Canada examples that promise to have the strength and inspiration of the Danish and British experiments. We have in this country a very interesting organization called the Cooperative Union, which seeks to bind together all the consumer cooperatives and to carry on educational work among them. In their publication of January this year I find this statement on the front page, which puts
the aim of the cooperative movement better than I could unaided:
We must seek to show that all our institutions. no matter how splendid and no matter how proud we may be of having played a part in their creation, are merely a means to an end. The end is the freeing of men and women from economic and social thraldom.
That is putting it very well. Everyone must admit that our economic system has caused economic and social slavery, and I do not think anyone in the house would care to defend the conditions we have at the moment when we see on the one hand great wealth, and on the other extreme poverty which is causing decay and degradation. Even those who are most keen for the capitalistic system-and I am not one of them -must pause before they eulogize it as it has been working out these last few years.
Now I want to speak for a moment on the cooperative movement in Denmark and of their educational system launched by such well known men as Grundtvig and Ivold. Only last week a leader in the Folk School movement, Doctor Peter Mannicke, visited this city. I am sorry to say that in the capital of Canada he had an audience of little more than two hundred people to hear his inspirational address. Nevertheless the Danes have done tremendous things in awakening the spirit of their people to unselfish and idealistic living. Our new governor general made a speech at Upper Canada College in Toronto the day before yesterday, in which he used these words, " A college should not only turn out gentlemen but aristocrats," and he defined an aristocrat as one who seeks to give more to life than he takes from it. The Danes have been doing that for a long time. They have been turning out aristocrats until to-day they might almost be said to be a nation of aristocrats in the sense that they seek to give to life more than they take from it. And the bread they have cast upon the waters has returned to them one hundredfold. They have built up their country to the point where it evokes our admiration.
The story of Denmark is quite familiar, but I think it would not hurt to take a moment to say that they have in that country 1,388 cooperative dairies, representing ninety per cent of the farms and eighty-six per cent of the cows, and the turnover in 1932 was 8116,000,000. They own and control sixty-one cooperative bacon factories representing seventy per cent of the farms and seventy-five per cent of the hogs, and in 1932 the turnover was $95,000,000. They have 700 cooperative egg-collecting stations, representing twenty per cent of the farms and twenty-five per cent
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of the hens, and the turnover in 1932 was $3,500,000. One could go all the way through and mention their cooperative efforts in other commodities, their credit associations and their units of consumer cooperatives.


Charles Avery Dunning: That splendid work in
Denmark could not be described as socialistic, could it? It is cooperative effort on a capitalistic plan.


Miss MACPHAIL:: Shall I read the resolution again? The last three words of it refer to cooperative enterprises.


Charles Avery Dunning: I thought the hon. member was referring to Denmark.


Agnes Campbell Macphail: I think cooperation
that functions in the interests of the people so organized, is not capitalistic in the sense in which I defined capitalism.


Charles Avery Dunning: It certainly is not socialistic.


Agnes Campbell Macphail: I think it is another approach to socialism even if it is not state dominated. It is socialistic in the sense that it serves the people rather than creates profits for the benefit of the few.


Charles Avery Dunning: It certainly serves two

Miss' MACPHAIL: The Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) is a very fine speaker and possibly later on, he will make his speech to which I shall enjoy listening.
Sweden has given us an example which I believe will interest hon. members. During the campaign I noticed an article which I was glad to cut out because during a time like that we are glad to read anything that is at all sane. This reads:
A considerable measure of public ownership, plus highly developed cooperative organizations, have combined to save Sweden from the worst effects of the economic crisis which is devastating purely capitalistic countries. An experiment in a managed currency, and a strong trades unionist movement, are other factors.
The article then goes on to show how the activities of these organizations had saved the people of Sweden from the worst results of the world depression. The power of the cooperative movement was shown by one instance. A great salt manufacturing establishment in Great Britain had never paid union wages to its workers in spite of the fact that the workers had striven very hard to get such wages through organization and other methods. They finally communicated their difficulty to the Swedish Cooperative Wholesale Society, which happened to be the largest

customer of the salt manufacturing establishment. The cooperative society told the manufacturing plant that if it did not agree to pay union wages to its workers they would cancel all their present orders and would give no future ones. The result was that union wages were paid. This shows that economic power is the greatest power, and this is something that all radicals should remember To give some comfort to the Minister of Finance, I might say that Sweden is now contemplating state trading in gasoline, oil and coffee.
We have heard much of the cooperatives in Great Britain. Most of us know the story of the early pioneers who started in an almost insignificant and undignified manner. To-day there is a membership of something like 7,000,000 people, a little better than one-half of the families in Great Britain belonging to cooperative societies of one kind or another. When cooperation becomes as extensive as that one can see its power. In addition to retail and wholesale consumer activities, the cooperatives in Great Britain have subsidiary activities such as banking, insurance, shipping, printing and publishing, newspapers and so on.


Charles Avery Dunning: True cooperation.


Agnes Campbell Macphail: Just about as far as anything could be from some of the organizations with which the Minister of Finance has lately been associated. I had feared that Canadians did not possess the right mentality or outlook for cooperation similar to that practised by the British or the Scandinavian people. However, I came across a very interesting book outlining the cooperative activities being carried on in the constituency of Antigonish-Guysborough. I should like to have heard the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough (Mr. Duff) eulogize this experiment rather than myself. . Some years ago I met Doctor M. M. Coady who, with two other associates, was the originator of this great educational and cooperative movement. The university of St. Francis Xavier has turned itself into a great leader of the people in the eastern section of Nova Scotia. This university has not considered itself as a place where a few people could go to receive the advantages of the accumulated learning of the ages; it has considered itself a school which should give leadership to all the countryside, towns and villages as well as the open country. Reverend J. J. Tompkins, Professor A. B. MacDonald and Doctor M. M. Coady were the three people who had most to do with the organization of this great experiment in adult education and cooperation. I should like to read a short statement by Doctor Gustav

.	Cooperative
C ommonwealth-M r.
Euler
Francis Beck of the Carnegie Foundation. Speaking before the school for the blind in Halifax, Doctor Beck said:
You have a set-up in this province in Antigonish at St. Francis Xavier University, which in my opinion, is the boldest and most constructive attempt to conquer the depression, that is going on anywhere in the world.... In eastern Nova Scotia is one of the most amazing example of adult education ever undertaken anywhere.
That statement should make the people of Antigonish and of Nova Scotia very proud. This cooperative movement was not launched hurriedly. For five years an intensive educational campaign was carried on. Mass meetings were addressed by Doctor Coady, followed by Professor MacDonald who specialized in organization. Small study groups of from five to fifteen people were formed and these were helped by the extension department of the university. A local leader was chosen who conducted the meetings which were held week by week, but every four weeks someone from the university would come and address a meeting of the study groups in some central place. This work was carried on for a considerable time before cooperatives were finally formed. By that time the people had some idea of the obstacles which would have to be overcome. They had the longer view of cooperation and were not expecting great results to occur immediately. After much study there have been set up in that district nineteen lobster factories and fish plants. They started with three which were increased to twelve, then to seventeen and then to nineteen. They have eighteen stores and buying clubs. The credit unions number forty-five. The study groups number 940 with a steady and regular attendance of 8,460. Four hundred and fifty general meetings were held with an attendance of 27,000. Before that there was at Sydney Mines a great cooperative known as the British Canadian cooperative. It began in 1907 with a capital of $343, and had in 1929 a turnover of $1,750,000. It now owns a store with four branches, a bakery, a pasteurized milk plant, and a tailoring establishment, and undoubtedly this furnished the inspiration that led to the setting-up of a number of consumers' cooperatives. But they did some other rather remarkable things, among them these:	They pooled their orders for
fertilizers, with a saving of $75,000 in three seasons, and from the head of the lakes they chartered a ship with flour and feed, whereby they believe they saved $8,000. But the point I want to make is that they did not embark on the whole enterprise with the idea that it was only a material undertaking; what they
set out t.o do was to study the needs of t'he people and the way in which those needs could be met. In this experiment at Antigonish, led by the university of St. Francis Xavier, they have kept the people and the needs of the people foremost, everything else having revolved round that central idea.
I know the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) and I believe that is his ideal. While hon. members may not agree with him-and sometimes I do not-I have never doubted that what he does seek to do is to serve the people in the best possible way. He hopes that to them will come happier days, and ultimately a time when all the people will have access to the learning and to the amenities that are now the privilege of the few.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


William Daum Euler: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) who introduced the resolution were here I would compliment him upon the moderation with which on this occasion he discussed it, and also the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNieol), who followed him in much the same vein, though his views were diametrically opposed to those of the mover. I should like also to compliment the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Bradette) who continued the debate on a very high plane. It would be out of place, of course, for me to attempt in any way to read a lesson to the house, but while the hon. member for Cochrane was speaking it did occur to me that, since every hon member, regardless of party, has a sincere wish to deal with these difficulties and evils which have crept into our social system, if we could carry on our debates giving each other credit for sincerity and a desire to cooperate for the good of all the people of this country, perhaps we might escape the sometimes justifiable criticism that some of the newspapers direct against hon. members because of little bickerings which occasionally take place in this chamber.
The adoption of the resolution moved by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre would in my opinion have very far-reaching effects; in fact I do not think my hon. friend would deny that it would be preliminary to, if not the first instalment of, the creation or introduction of the new social order which he has been advocating for a good many years. The resolution states that concentration of
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economic power has failed to provide security and decent standards of living for many of our people. I take it that in these words he has meant to express both cause and effect, and that the reason why many people are not able to maintain a decent standard of living is this concentration of economic power. Then the hon. member proposes, as a cure, that where financial, industrial or commercial organizations fail to function in the public interest they should be taken over by the government and operated as public services or cooperative enterprises.
I imagine that there is no member of the house who will not admit that there are great concentrations of capital in this country; nor, I think, will anyone say that in some instances at least, although not in so many as a number of hon. gentlemen have stated, this economic power or concentration of capital is not sometimes applied, contrary to the public interest. But I cannot follow my hon. friend when he goes so far as to suggest that the proper remedy is to socialize these enterprises and industries. After all, the whole issue contained in the resolution, in its essence, is how we shall deal with the evils which have been spoken of and which are admitted, I think, by practically everyone; whether they shall be corrected by way of the introduction of the socialistic state, which is what this ultimately means, or whether we shall employ some other remedy such as the correction of our present system where we find it to be wrong.
Without discussing the principle at the moment I would say that if the resolution were adopted and we were to act on it there surely would be a good many practical difficulties in working out the scheme. In the first place I imagine there would be decided differences of opinion as to when any organization might be regarded as not functioning in the public interest. But let us suppose we did agree that a certain organization was not functioning in the public interest, just where would we start if we attempted to apply the remedy proposed here? We will say, for example, that it is decided and agreed that a great departmental store in Toronto or Montreal or elsewhere is not functioning in the public interest. Under the resolution the government would have to step in, take over the whole business and conduct it, not temporarily but permanently. Or we will say that a great industrial organization, perhaps a steel company, or a coal company in the maritimes or in western Canada, or one of the chartered banks or perhaps a chain of stores, is declared to be conducted in a way contrary to the public interest. We then would be obliged to take over these isolated 
enterprises and operate them, as I said before, not temporarily but permanently, as public enterprises. It seems to me that would be entirely impractical. I think someone once said that a state cannot exist half slave and half free, and the ultimate result of taking over isolated businesses of this kind would be either that they would revert to private ownership or all would have to be socialized. I do not think there would be any escape from that. I dread to think of many of the lame ducks that probably would fall under the control and operation of the government.
The hon. member made no suggestion as to how the acquisition of these concerns would be financed. I am sure the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) would have some questions to ask as to just where the money would come from, but I should like to know from my hon. friend whether in fact these enterprises when taken over by the government would be paid for. 1 recall that during last session, when my hon. friends of the Copera-tive Commonwealth Federation were advocating their cause, I spoke to one member of that group, a gentleman for whom I have a very high regard, and said, "You are now asking the people of this country to place you in power. It is therefore fair to ask you what you propose to do in carrying out your policy and just exactly how you would begin." "Well," he said, "we would begin by nationalizing the essential industries of the country." I did not press him to state what he regarded as being the essential industries of the country, but I did say, "Would it be your intention to pay for these industries?" "Yes," he said, "we would pay for them and then we would tax it out of them again." So much with regard to the financing of this proposition.
I would have a certain sympathy for the resolution if it did not go as far as it does, and that is the chief criticism I have to direct against it. I can conceive of a situation where to take over the operation of an essential industry, employing perhaps hundreds or thousands of men, which industry was using its powers to crush its working men or to take undue profits out of the consumers, might be worthy of consideration by a government. If in the exercise of its powers such an industry decided to close its shop or to have a lockout on the premises I can imagine it might be in the public interest and in the interest of the employees of that concern that the government should temporarily take over and operate such a business, but only until such time as an investigation could be held and the matter satisfactorily adjusted.

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Euler
Something has been said about public ownership. After all, though all may not agree with me, I believe that what we call cooperation, cooperative societies and other organizations under public ownership, are a development of the socialistic principle, and I see nothing wrong in designating it in that way. My views as to public ownership are pretty well known in the house. On many occasions I have stated my belief in the value and propriety of public ownership with regard to great public utilities. I have always been of opinion that those great public services upon which depend the prosperity and convenience of great masses of the people and which lend themselves very readily to the purposes of monopoly, should be controlled if not owned by the people themselves. In this country we have made considerable progress in the way of public ownership. In the municipalities, especially in Ontario, the people usually own their gas and electric light plants, waterworks, street railways; in the provincial field we have the hydro; we have liquor stores and certain other enterprises, and in the dominion we have gone into public ownership on a rather large scale which I need not specify. And I do not anticipate for a moment that we shall stand still in that connection; I believe still further progress may be made.
While there is criticism, especially at this time, in connection with some great public enterprises which I need not mention, and abuses have arisen in connection with them and the principle of public ownership is blamed for the partial failure, that is no proof that the principle itself is wrong. There are those who seem to think that public ownership is a cure for all the abuses that may exist under private ownership. I am not a believer in that. Those who say that public ownership is a perfect system are only deceiving themselves and perhaps others. My mind is still quite open with regard to further development of the public ownership principle. In recent years-perhaps not during this session, and I am rather surprised at that-we have heard a good deal about the benefits of individualism-,, the term "rugged," usually being added, and it is praised as a very desirable thing. People say that governments should keep their hands out of business; that what business wants is less orders from governments and more orders from customers. To some extent I believe in that principle. Personal liberty is very precious; surely everyone must agree that a reasonable degree of personal liberty is one of the greatest possessions of the people of any civilized democracy, and it is some-12739-30
thing we shall not lightly give up, even for the satisfying of a theory. But in saying that I would also say that in some cases government intervention in business is an absolute necessity and duty.
What form should this intervention take? My hon. friend and his party suggest that it should take the form of the establishment of a socialistic state. Others believe that public ownership should be confined pretty well to the operation of public utilities, and that so far as other business is concerned, business which can best be carried on by personal attention and personal initiative and the element of profit if you like, we ought to confine ourselves to the correction of abuses which arise under private ownership rather than seek a complete change in our social order. That is my thought. But I emphasize again that there are occasions- and they exist to-day I believe-when it becomes the duty of government to intervene if a great business organization takes advantage of its power to oppress its workers or exploit the consumer. And if we have not statutes which enable the government to intervene-I do not know whether we have or not-it becomes the duty of government to enact such laws so that it can cope with the situation.
That is really all I have to say on the matter. Conditions may change with the progress of time, but I still believe it is worth while not to upset the system under which we live, but to make an earnest effort to correct the abuses by action of parliament. It may be that some day the views of my hon. friends of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation will meet with public approval in Canada. I go so far as to say that they will grow in strength if governments do not recognize that it is their duty to make earnest and successful efforts to cope with the evils of which my hon. friend complains. This government has every intention of meeting its obligations in that regard. I do not think the people of this country are ready to go to the extent of the measures proposed by my hon. friend, though I believe he proposes them in all sincerity. For the reasons I have given I would say that the government cannot accept the resolution.


Mr. C. E. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: In
rising to speak to this resolution may I say first that I appreciate the attitude of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) in his endeavour to cooperate with all parties in a constructive program. I wish also to commend the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party (Mr. Woods-

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Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Johnston
worth) for his efforts towards the betterment of human society. Whether his views are in accord with our own way of thinking is a different matter, but constructive criticism at all times makes for the good of mankind, which is what we are after. However I do not think a debate on C.C.F.-ism versus Conservatism or Socialism is a very constructive attitude to take in the house. We are all of opinion I am sure that conditions should be rectified, and it is for that purpose that I stand here now to offer a suggestion or two on this question of the socialization of industry. Personally I am, and I think my party are, adverse to the socialization of industry. We see no advantage in that.
Turning to the resolution, it begins by saying:
Whereas, the concentration of economic power in the hands of a comparatively small and irresponsible group has failed to provide security and a decent standard of living for large numbers of our peo-ple;
So far I believe the resolution is quite correct. Through concentration of economic power we have arrived at the disastrous condition that we find ourselves in to-day, and if we concentrate our efforts on that one point I think it would improve our chances of success and be for the betterment of all. Then there is the remaining part:
That, in the opinion of this house, indus- . trial, commercial and financial organizations-
I should like to omit financial organizations for a moment in my argument-
1-and undertakings that are failing to function in the general interest should be taken over by the appropriate public authorities and operated as public services or cooperative enterprises.
That part I do not agree with; I think it is wrong. I admire the courage of the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation; it takes courage to stand up and express your ideas, whether right or wrong. But we do not agree with the socialization of industry for various reasons. The suggestion conveyed is that industry is at fault. The function of industry is to produce, and I think if we look over our industrial system we find that production is not at fault. I think all hon. members will agree with me when I say that we are producing an abundance of goods; the fault does not lie there. The very fact that in the west we have a large number of cattle which we cannot consume and must ship to the United States to be consumed there shows emphatically that we are not suffering from lack of production of stock in the west; there can be no doubt about that.
Then, we are not suffering from lack of production of coal; we have plenty of it in

the west. We are not suffering for want of many commodities which we produce in western Canada. What we are suffering from is the fact that we cannot exchange those products for articles produced in the east. I believe the greatest concern in connection with industrial control lies in manufacturing; that is one of the industrial matters with which we are most seriously concerned. If we look at the industrial field we find no lack of goods produced; in fact some industries are so well equipped with modern machinery that they have to close down because they cannot get rid of the goods they are producing. Production is efficient, and we cannot say that the fault lies with production. Whatever the fault may be I think it does not lie there. Only a few days ago in this city of Ottawa I was in one of the dairies where they had introduced a new machine which would displace eight men. So we see that by the introduction of modern machinery it is possible to produce much more than we are producing, and therein does not lie the difficulty.
The fault does not lie with our people here in Canada, although many of the unemployed were told last year that they would not work if they were given an opportunity. I beg to differ with that statement, because I believe the majority of people unemployed are not of that calibre; they have endeavoured to their utmost to gain employment. So, if lack of manpower is a factor, then we have no difficulty in that regard. That, however, is not the difficulty. Speaking of unemployment I am reminded that not many days ago a job was advertised over in Hull, and so many people applied for it that it was necessary to call out the police to keep the crowds back. In a short time the job was filled, and such a large crowd had assembled that the police had to be used to keep the people away. Under those conditions you cannot say that the unemployed would not work if they had the opportunity. The fault does not lie there.
I believe, sir, the difficulty with which we are faced to-day is one of distribution. Having heard the Minister of Trade and Commerce, I am convinced that he is sincere in his endeavours to ameliorate these conditions to the best of his ability. That is his problem, and I wish him well in his work. I repeat, however, that the difficulty arises in connection with the distribution of the goods. If the government can devise a way to distribute those goods-and they are going to endeavour to do so

then, to a great extent, they have solved the difficulty. In fact, if they can work out a method whereby they can distribute the goods we produce I believe I may state definitely that they have solved the diffi-

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Johnston
culty. The very fact that we are shipping goods out of Canada when we have hundreds of people in this district suffering from starvation and requiring food and shelter is significant that our difficulty does not lie abroad; it is right here in our own country. That is where we must cultivate our market, before we look to outside markets. Does it not seem ridiculous to attempt to obtain foreign markets for our wheat when there are people in this city who do not consume as much wheat as they could consume?
Only last Saturday a young fellow came to my door, and he was not a 'bum, by any manner of means. He did not have a place to sleep,1 or anything to eat. Thinking he might be one of those whom I had heard described, namely, one of the men who would not work if given the opportunity, I called the mayor of this city and asked him about the case of this young man. He told me that there were several cases like that, cases of young men who were very much in need. He suggested that I telephone the Union Mission and, taking his advice, I telephoned as directed. I learned that the story the young man had told me was true. We arranged to get a bed for him that night, and he told me that he would be only too willing to go out to work. This type of men should be cared for and should not be forced to accept charity, when we have in Canada many men who, while they do not, from the standpoint of either manual or mental labour, earn the money they receive, yet receive large dividends. I am not blaming them for that. I do however blame the system under which that condition of affairs can exist.
The distribution of goods is the one evil with which we have to contend; it is an evil which does not lie with the producers. It is not the fault of the producers that distribution is not effective. The only purpose of a producing plant is to produce goods. If the producers received a fair commission for their work I do not think, as the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Bradette) has said, they would begrudge a portion of the profits going to the suffering people. Whether he be a rich or a poor man, if he were at all intelligent he would not endeavour to rob the common people, a procedure which in the long run would not be to his advantage. As the Minister of Trade and Commerce has said, we cannot expect to carry on in a country which is. half slaves and half free men and we must admit, sir, that the unemployed people are practically slaves. I do not know in what other way they could be described.
In that regard, therefore, the minister and I are in full accord when we agree that we cannot carry on a government in this or any other country unless we change that system, and change it right away. I am sure he has a very strenuous task on his hands.
I said a moment ago that the producers were not to blame. I believe it would be safe to say that the producers do not own the goods they produce. That statement may sound a little absurd on the surface, but in the majority of cases the producers are producing goods on borrowed money, and if they cannot sell those goods to consumers they must go bankrupt. I believe that is sufficiently clear, and it is also clear that they do not even own the goods they produce. . They did not intend to own them. They could not eat all the goods they produced; they could not wear all the shoes they produced, and in the final analysis those goods belong to the people; the consumers own them. Unless those consumers are provided with purchasing power-and I do not care in what form you have it-unless they are provided with purchasing power, I cannot see how we shall solve the difficulty. If 'the Minister of Trade and Commerce and the government, or any other body, can put that power into the hands of the people, possibly through public works or through developments in industry, they have solved the difficulty. They have promised the people of Canada at least to some extent to alleviate their distress, and if they can do that they will be going a long way. However they must put that purchasing power into the hands of the people so that they may buy goods from those who produce them for consumption.
Now we come to the question of distribution. I think no one will deny my statement that there are a great many abuses in our system of distribution, and that once we solve some of these abuses of the distributing system in our capitalistic organization or, as the resolution has so aptly put it, "economic power," then we have got to the bottom of our difficulty. The great trouble that I see is lack of a proper demonstration of government control. I believe it would be foolish for the government to go into business, from the standpoint of government business.
Electricity has been mentioned to-day, and that brings to my mind a government-owned electrical power plant in the United States, the Tennessee Valley Power Association, which by efficient management can sell electricity for industrial purposes for eight mills per kilowatt hour. That is getting the rate down to a point at which people can use electricity.
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In the west we pay ten cents per kilowatt power; in addition there is a little meter on the wall and when a man comes to read it we are charged $1.50 for that, in addition to a few other charges. Yet this organization in the United States can sell the electricity it produces at eight mills per kilowatt hour for industrial purposes. In the west we have many electrical appliances that we could use if we could only get power more cheaply, but the cost is so high that when we go from one room to another in our homes we have to turn out the light. I know that people down east do not have that problem, and if we were provided with purchasing power so that we could use that electricity for lighting, vacuum cleaners, stoves and engines, we would be using ten times as much as we are to-day. But we cannot use it because we have not the ability in the form of purchasing power.
I am told that in some industrial plants in Montreal which used to employ a great deal of help they have introduced machines for rolling cigarettes, for instance, and that they can roll 700,000 per day. That is quite right. At the same time this displaces hundreds of workers. But the producers are not to be blamed for introducing such a machine; it is something commendable to introduce a new type of machine which will displace labour. That is the purpose of a machine, and the only purpose as I see it. But when such a machine displaces large numbers of people, to whom does the profit which that machine makes belong? Is the producer going to throw those people out on the street and say to them, "I am a millionaire running this factory, and I am making a profit of one million dollars a year. But now I am going to instal a machine that will make my profit two million dollars a year and that will throw out of work hundreds of men." That is a mistake of policy, not a mistake from the producer's standpoint, and the government should be strong enough and willing enough to go to the producer and say: You cannot do that because it is the wrong system. You must take the earning power of that machine and distribute it among those workmen that it displaces. In some way or other producers should be made to compensate their workmen who are thrown out of work as a result of the introduction of these new machines. Can we simply allow these men to be thrown out on the streets and say to them: You are charity-seekers; you are bums? It is no fault of theirs that they are thrown out of employment, and the government has a responsibility towards them. I do not care if the government look after them through public works or through the development of industry, although I would ask:

What is the Use of developing industry further when our industrial plants are now producing more than we can use? We have to sell our goods in foreign markets, while the very commodities we ship out of the country we need right here in Canada. That does not seem like good business to me. The trouble is lack of government control.
Look at the automobile industry, not the producing end of it, because everyone will agree that many more automobiles are produced than can be sold. There is no reason why the factories should not run day and night, if necessary, but at the present time they are producing many more automobiles than we can possibly use. Let us, however, consider that industry in relation to the tariff. We shall never solve our difficulties by a higher or lower tariff for the simple reason that the government does not control tariffs. There again we have lack of government control. In the west last year we paid $1,244 for a master Chevrolet sedan. What do we pay this year? There has been a reduction in the tariff since last year, but we pay $1,244. Since I came to Ottawa I went into the Chevrolet rooms on Sparks street, and I asked the price of the same car in this city. The price is a little lower than in the west, and I asked the agent what the same car cost here last year. He said, "The same price. There was a reduction of from two to fifteen dollars after the new tariff came into effect, but you will remember that last year we raised the price in the fall twenty dollars." There, again, is lack of government control.
I think of that industry at Sherbrooke which the government is investigating, and quite properly so. I do not say that the government should take over that industry, but we saw what happened when the government intervened. The plant had been closed down throwing hundreds out of work, but as soon as the government announced that there was to be an investigation the plant was opened up again. The owners knew that government pressure was going to be applied. But I doubt whether the whole trouble has been removed; that remains to be seen. I hope the government does the right thing, and if upon investigation it is found that conditions need rectifying I hope it will see that they are rectified immediately.
Last year we had what is called the Stevens investigation, which found many abuses existing in the industrial system. Yet the government to my knowledge has done nothing to rectify those abuses. The government, of course, does not need to go into an automobile industry and say how much air shall be

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Johnston
put. into a tire or how many bolts shall be used in an automobile or dictate the proper way of putting a burr on a wheel. That is technical work that technicians are hired for. But it is the business of the government when they find that abuses exist in the tobacco industry, for instance, or in other industries that were investigated by the Stevens commission, which cost the country hundreds of thousands of dollars, to see that those abuses are rectified.
What happened in connection with the tobacco industry shows what will happen when these industrialists know that the government will investigate unfair conditions and act upon the results of that investigation if there is anything found to be wrong in the industry. The hon. member for East Kootenay (Mr. Stevens) on his own initiative went into different industries and pointed out unsatisfactory conditions. The owners of those industries knew there was a latent force behind his warning when he pointed to conditions that should be rectified, and they rectified some of the conditions themselves, but they did not rectify the giving of a bonus of $65,000 to men already in receipt of salaries of $25,000 and $30,000 a year. There again is a wrong principle, a principle that should be corrected.
I repeat: We do not want the government to take over every business in the country, because no government controlled industry will do as well as will a privately controlled industry. A man who puts his own capital into a business is going to see that he gets a good manager, good mechanics and good machinery, and he is going to take proper care of the upkeep of his plant. We have had some experience of government owned business, and we know it is not as efficiently conducted as is privately owned business. Suppose that some of these industrial plants refuse to operate in the most efficient manner. Then it might be necessary for the government to take control of them for a time at least, but only in case of necessity. Some people may say that these industries are not making excess profits. I think the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) said that they were not making such huge profits; that the industrialists were not all millionaires. That might be very true, but nevertheless we know that in this present century, under our present system, there is a great deal of depression and men are suffering from lack of sufficient food and clothing. No one is satisfied with conditions as they are at present.
Dealing further with this question of profits, I should like to quote from a newspaper article
dated Ottawa, December 20. This article states that the dividends paid by Canadian textile firms totalled 116 per cent. These were profits and I contend that 116 per cent profit is entirely too high. This does not infer that the business is not profitable, just the reverse. It is stated that the highest wages paid by this industry were $15.71. This is the fault of the system; it is not the fault of the producing plant. It might be the fault of the management, and this might be an instance where government control could be applied very efficiently. It is stated also that the profits of six companies were $2,580,000 more than they were in 1929. Here is another instance where government control could be applied most effectively. It has been stated that our plants are not modernly equipped, but I noticed an article the other day headed "Canadian steel marches on." I venture to say that nowhere in the world can you find an industry better equipped than this one. I am told that this industry uses ninety-three per cent of Canadian materials, a fine record.
Prohibit entirely, if you will, goods coming into the country; make your tariff walls as high as you like; this does not bother me. If you want to protect your market, well and good, but do not erect tariff walls to protect the men who are already exploiting the people. When a condition like this is found to exist, it should be rectified. Have your tariff walls to protect your markets, not your financiers. This again is a question of policy. The other day at the Chateau Laurier I listened to a very intelligent speech-excuse me, I should not say "intelligent" as it was the most uneducational speech to which I have ever listened. I think the gentleman who made the speech had an "honourable" before his name, but I do not think it was very honourable of him to refer to the Premier of Alberta in the terms in which he did. I think everyone respects the Premier of Alberta for both his religious and economic beliefs and I do not think it is fair to refer in a derogatory manner to a man who is 3,000 miles away and cannot speak for himself. If he had been there I am sure he would have made the speaker feel like a fool. This man attacked the Premier of Alberta because of his efforts to better the conditions of the people while right beside him sat a gentleman who is about to alter the policy of one of the greatest financial institutions in the Dominion of Canada, The speaker did not say a word about him because he was sitting right beside him. What is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.
I should like to read from a little booklet entitled: Stevens' Booklet or The Book That Bennett Banned-Complete Text of Stevens'
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Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Johnston
Talk. Our main difficulty lies in the control of policy and not in the control of production. Our problem is the merging of these large distributing and financial corporations. These octopuses have got hold of our distributing system and are choking the very life blood out of us while we sit back and let them do it. One paragraph in this booklet is entitled: Powerful Groups Dictate Price, and reads:
At the same time, by -this process of merging, there have been erected powerfully strong groups which are able to dictate prices to the person who sells, whether it is the farmer selling to a packer or a tomato grower to a canner, or a boot and shoe or clothing manufacturer to a big distributor, with the result that the producer of foods is forced to sell his goods not on the market where merit and value will prevail, but where the price is dictated by the person who buys.
I can say this, I think, with absolute confidence, generally speaking, that because of the domination of certain retail institutions in this country, the price is fixed at the ultimate end, when it goes to the consumer. They say, we want an article that will sell at $16.50 or $40, or $50, or $10 as the ease may be. We want an article that will sell at that price.
That is their start, and when they take overhead, and their overhead has been enormously increased, wages and this, that and the other thing in distribution until they get clear.	_
Then they say, "That is what is left for you, Mr. Farmer, or Mr. Manufacturer; do what you can with it."
One of our greatest difficulties is the control of policy. This has nothing to do with manufacturing. Our industries are efficient and if we continue to permit the men who produce to sell all the goods they produce, they will make more profit and be able to sell at a fair price because of their increased turnover. I should like to make one more quotation from this booklet. There is a paragraph entitled A Bull-dozing American Buyer, which reads:
In 1930 they paid 33 cents a pound for this flue-cured tobacco in western Ontario, which was a profitable figure.
In 1931 they brought a man up from the United States called Lea, who had been used to buying tobacco from negroes in the south, and was a typical bull-dozing American buyer. They brought him up and put him in charge of buying in Canada, and in the fall of 1931 they just cut rates that they paid the grower down sharply from 32 cents and 33 cents to 19 cents.
That was a case of interfering with the policy of a company; it had nothing to do with the manufacturing of that product; the policy was changed to take it out of the producer and put it into the hands of the profiteers. That is the wrong attitude to take and I cannot see where we can make any headway unless we get away from such antiquated ideas.

There are many dangers in the nationalization of industry and some of the arguments heard to-day are valuable in that they show a way to avoid these dangers. We want constructive, not destructive criticism. The resolution refers to the concentration of economic power. When administration is consolidated with producing and distributing you have an amalgamation which it will be very difficult to break. Unless the government intends to go into business they will have to be very careful; they may have to take over all these different industries and do the best they can with them. They may have to take them over at a great loss, just as they had to do with the railways, unless precautions are taken against the conservation of these economic powers. When the government takes away the power of an individual to look after his own plant and substitutes someone who is working for a salary and who is not concerned with whether or not the business prospers, then it is looking for trouble. Political pull will also enter into the question, and we all know that such practices are being carried on and probably will be continued as long as we live. When we have distribution, producing and everything else concentrated in the hands of the government, there will be a possibility of all kinds of deception, more so than if it controlled merely the policies of these industries.
The other evening I noticed a newspaper article entitled Term in Prison for Operators of Pepper Pool. We read that two promoters have been sentenced to a year while a third has been given nine months. That is one way of exercising control. There is no use, when you find an offender against a policy, having the judge give him a calling down or something of that sort. You must do something such as they did in France in connection with the Stavisky swindle; they made the swindlers pay back the money that had been stolen. I suggest to the government, so far as controlling policy is concerned, that whenever such revelations are made as were made by the Stevens commission they should say to the guilty parties: You have abused the privileges we have given you and you shall therefore pay back to the public the money that you have unfairly taken from them. And if a year or two in gaol on top of that were added to the punishment, I do not think it would be long before we would have industries producing and distributing in a very efficient manner. That, I believe, is our solution.

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Douglas


Richard Bedford Bennett: May I say to the hon. gentleman that the city of Calgary, some time ago, was buying power at five and a half mills per kilowatt hour.


Charles Edward Johnston: Where I live we pay ten cents per kilowatt hour.


Mr. T. C. DOUGLAS (Weybum):: I rise to support wholeheartedly the motion of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth), that in the opinion of this house industrial, commercial and financial organizations and undertakings that are failing to function in the general interest should be taken over by the appropriate public authorities and operated as public services or cooperative enterprises.
Before dealing directly with the resolution I should like to break a lance or two with the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Mac-Nicol), who made some observations this afternoon. That hon. gentleman gave a long list of organizations which he declared to be communist bodies, without substantiating that assertion. I tried to ask him a question but he was too busy quoting to answer me. I should like to ask him, through you, Mr. Speaker, what authority he had for saying that these were communist organizations.


John Ritchie MacNicol: All of the eleven or more I named have been declared by Mr. M. J. Olgin to be communistic organizations with headquarters in the United States. M. J. Olgin is the author of the book from which I was quoting, and he is one of the chief communists in the United States. So far as the organizations in Canada are concerned, they have been pronounced communistic in consequence of- investigations carried on in the courts of Ontario.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I asked for the authority and I have yet to receive it. An investigation by a court in Ontario declaring that they were unlawful bodies does not say that they were communist controlled or dominated. Some of these organizations were never heard of before. I have in mind two-one the Christian Social Order and the other the League against War and Fascism-two organizations which I doubt that my hon. friend, if he were outside the protection of the bouse, would dare to describe on a public platform as belonging to the communists.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The League against War and Fascism is one of the organizations named by M. J. Olgin, a prominent communist in the United States, and the other was declared, after court in\ estigation in Toronto, to be communist.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I repeat: I should be glad to have the hon. gentleman make his assertion outside the protection of this house.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am not afraid to make these accusations outside the portals of the house.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I think these organizations would be more than likely to sue the hon. gentleman for libel. His only basis for the statement was that these organizations were opposed to capitalism and everything that capitalism stood for. I do not know anything about them, but the mere fact that they are opposed to capitalism and all that capitalism stands for hardly makes them communistic. I have under my hand a copy of the first address made over the radio by the previous Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Bennett). It was delivered a year ago last January, and I am sure there can be no objection to my reading a part of it. I do not read it in any derogatory sense, because I believe these speeches will go down in Canadian history among some of the great classics of Canadian oratory. I quote:
This economic system of ours is something that most of us have never stoipped to think very much about. Before the war there was no great occasion to. After the war, when the system was rushing uncontrollably toward the 1929 abyss, I imagine there were not many who were much concerned'. Now, alas, we have reason enough to worry; and still more reason, therefore, to do our best to end the cause of all this worry and trouble and to free our minds for happier things. It is a tragedy of these times that men and women, boys and girls, whose minds should be given to constructive pursuits, find themselves handicapped and harassed by the uncertainties of life, and prevented, by the anxieties of this present situation, from giving their best to the things which are most worth while. ... If you examined this capitalist system, you would appreciate more fully some of the facts which underlie the transcendent fact that times have changed, that old conditions are no more, that something new has come into our social and economic life, and that this new element, this new force, insistently demands recognition. And I am compelled to add, you would realize more clearly the folly of some men who try to ignore this irresistible truth.
If all those who are opposed to capitalism are to be classed as communists, then I am afraid the right hon. the leader of the opposition must come under that scathing indictment.


Ernest Lapointe: He would come under section 98.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Perhaps the amended
section.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The hon. member for
Davenport also went to a great deal of trouble
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Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Douglas
to point out that certain movements were anti-religious, a fact which he decried. I do not think he was trying to draw the illogical inference that those of us who support this movement are anti-religious, but nevertheless the connection is very subtle and as the statement goes out to the country the inference will be drawn that, socialism and communism being, as the hon. gentleman says, the same thing, though an elementary knowledge of economics will show that they are not, then the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation must be anti-religious. May I point out-and I think I have some small knowledge of this subject-that Christianity and capitalism have not gone together, and that being a Christian does not necessarily mean being a capitalist.


Mr. DUFF:: You would not get very far
with Christianity without the capitalist.


Mr. DUUGLAS:: The world had Christianity long before it had capitalists, and it will have Christianity long after some of the gentlemen opposite supporting capitalism have passed away.


William Duff: We are all capitalists.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I appreciate the orderly
reception from across the floor; it jibes very well with the general conduct of hon. gentlemen opposite.


William Duff: Speak for yourself, John.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: In order to show that
Christianity and capitalism have not gone hand in hand, I wish to quote from the Pope's encyclical Quadragesimo Anno at page 32:
In the first place, then, it is patent that in our days not alone is wealth accumulated, but immense power and despotic economic domination is concentrated in the hands of a few, and that those few are frequently not the owners, but only the trustees and directors of invested funds, who administer them at their good pleasure.
This power becomes particularly irresistible when exercised' by those who, because they hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that reason supplying so to speak, the life blood to the entire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of production., so that no one dare breathe against their will.
This accumulation of power, the characteristic note of the modern economic order, is a natural result of limitless free competition which permits the survival of those only who are the strongest, which often means those who fight most relentlessly, who pay least heed to the dictates of conscience.
This concentration of power has led to a three-fold struggle for domination. First, there is the struggle for dictatorship in the economic

sphere itself; then, the fierce battle to acquire control of the state, so that its resources and authority may be abused in the economic struggles. Finally, the clash between states themselves.
And this, Mr. Speaker, I suggest ultimately means war. I quote one more statement, on page 35:
If these changes continue it may well come about that gradually the tenets of mitigated socialism will no longer be different from the program of those who seek to reform human society according to Christian principles.


Sir EUGENE FISET:: Amen.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The hon. gentleman says amen. I am sure it is not meant irreverently, but when the head of one of the greatest churches on the face of the earth makes a statement like that I hope the hon. gentleman who said amen means it much more than the tone of his voice would imply. I would direct your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the statement of another great church, the Toronto general conference of the United Church of Canada, made in 1933:
It is our belief that the application of the principles of Jesus to the economic conditions would mean the end of the capitalistic system; by the capitalistic system we mean that order of things under which capital, which is a vital factor in the economic field and represents the part of the economic product used as a means to further production, is owned and administered by individuals and' special groups with a view ito their own profit.
Our contention is that capital, especially in those large scale forms that are essential to the life of the whole people, should be owned and operated instead, not for private gain, but in the services of the general good.
If all those who are opposed to capitalism, the present concentration of wealth and the exploitation of the masses, are said to be anti-religious, the two statements I have just read certainly ought to offset that theory. Strange to say, the other day I received a copy of the Saskatchewan Liberal, which is always worthy of perusal, and in one corner I find a quotation from one of the greatest preachers on the north American continent. I refer to Reverend Doctor Harry Emerson Fosdick, of New York, who says:
If our capitalism can so adjust itself to the new circumstances that it can achieve such devotion to economic processes to the welfare of all the pepole, even the least of them, then capitalism can go on. If not, there is nothing on earth that can save it, and nothing in heaven that will try to.
I submit that to you, Mr. Speaker, as the statement of a Christian gentleman who could not be called either a communist or an atheist.
The hon. member for Davenport was kind enough to say some very nice things about the bon. member for Winnipeg North) Centre

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Douglas
(Mr. Woodsworth). He said that he believed in the sincerity of the hon. member, as I think we all do. Then he went on to say that the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre was a reformer, and that in all social and physical revolutions the great danger had been the reformers. I want to repudiate that statement. In every time of social transition the danger has been not the reformer but the reactionary. The hon. gentleman chose rather an unfortunate historical analogy.


John Ritchie MacNicol: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I cannot allow the hon. gentleman to put words into my mouth. He is quoting statements which I did not make at all.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: What was the statement?
I /Should be glad to have it.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am sure Hansard has recorded it.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: In that case we shall have to leave it to Hansard. My notes say that the hon. gentleman pointed out that the reformers, especially in the ease of the French revolution, were the ones who led to slaughter and bloodshed. I would suggest that the French revolution was rather an unfortunate analogy to adopt. It was not the reformers who caused what later became a blood bath; it was the reactionaries, who held off a necessary and inevitable period of change so long that when the thing blew up the reformers could not control it and the revolutionaries took complete control.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That is what I said.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: But it was not the reformers who were to blame; it was the reactionaries. When his ministers came to Louis XVI and asked him to make necessary constitutional changes he said, " No. After me the deluge." But the deluge came in his time and Louis lost his head, not that he used it much while he had it but he was never the same after he lost it. So I say that instead of using that analogy to frighten us, the government should feel that unless changes are made all the time, in keeping with the times, even those of us who desire reforms may be pushed aside by others more violent and less responsible.
If I remember correctly the hon. member foi Cochrane (Mr. Bradette) also paid a very fine compliment to our leader, but he said that we were in too much of a hurry.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I said that you were too impatient. That is quite different.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Very well; I accept the correction; the hon. gentleman said that we wanted things done too quickly; that we must be prepared to wait. I am quite sure that there are thousands of people throughout Canada to-night who, if they were in receipt of a federal indemnity, would be quite patient too and quite prepared to wait a long time for social changes. But there are people who are seeing the years slip by, who are becoming more hopeless and whose future is becoming blacker and more uncertain. Can one wonder that they are impatient; can one wonder that they look to the House of Commons to do something more than merely say that we are too impatient because we want these changes brought about?
The resolution says that there is a concentration of economic power, which is the underlying cause of much of our economic distress to-day. It is hardly necessary to place before the house a great many figures. We hear so many figures cited here that they become almost meaningless, but I should like to place before the house one or two statements made by responsible and well known men. I have, for example, a statement made by Sir Andrew MacPhail in his little book Essays on Politics:
We are told that we are living under British institutions, but in reality we are not. We are living under the government of an interested class, who find a party in power and keep it there until it becomes too corrupt to be kept any longer, when it seizes upon the other party and proceeds to corrupt it.
I have also a statement by Professor W. E. Munro, professor of history at Harvard, in his article Money Power in Politics:
Only a small part of what we call government is conducted in the open. Of itself a government initiates nothing, it merely responds more or less tardily to the urgings that are put upon it by industrial organized groups, who have definite interests ito serve and who are aggressive in supporting them. Those interested groups work within the ranks of party organizations. Indeed the chief function of the party system is to furnish a cover for the political activities of groups which desire to keep their true objectives invisible.
I quote from a gentleman who will be well known bo hon. members opposite, Mr. David Lloyd George:
Unless representative government is to be entirely discredited a new system must be adopted. At present the president of the Bank of England wields a power that makes kings and premiers mere pigmies. He works with the hidden hand of Wall Street whose secret diplomacy in Europe and elsewhere makes an open mockery of the nations' representatives. Up to the present the owners of the vested interests have been so powerful In both the old parties that those clearing the road have failed to cut through the toughest and sturdiest obstacles.
4	COMMONS
Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Douglas
Then from a man who ought to know the picture from the inside, a former president of the United States, Mr. Woodrow Wilson, who said:
A comparatively small group of men control the water power, railroads, banka, prices, and the larger credits of the country. There is hardly a part of the United States of America where men are not aware that secret private interests have been running the government. It is now- a government, by, for and of, big business, with its completely subservient employees in the White House. Yes, and invisible government has erected itself above the forms of democracy.
One more quotation, from a very unusual source, an editorial in the Bankers' Magazine of August 26, 1924. This remarkable statement says:
Capital must protect itself in every possible manner through combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages must be foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When through process of law, the common people have lost their homes they will be more tractable and more easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of government, applied by a central power of wealth under the control of leading financiers. A people without homes will not quarrel with leaders. History repeaits itself in regular cycles. This truth is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capital to govern the world.


Malcolm McLean: I would ask the hon. member his authority for these words. Who is the author of that quotation?


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I have already stated it
-an editorial in the Bankers' Magazine, of August 26, 1924.


Charles Avery Dunning: What Bankers' Magazine?


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The United States,
printed in Idaho.


Malcolm McLean: Reprinted in the Idaho Leader.


Charles Avery Dunning: And repudiated a dozen times.


Malcolm McLean: Not a word of truth in it.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: It goes on:
thus dividing the voters through the political party system we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions ot no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd. Thus by discreet action-


Malcolm McLean: On a point of
order, Mr. Speaker, is it in order for the hon. gentleman to read an alleged extract from a paper which does not exist and for which he can give no authority?


Walter Edward Foster: If the hon. gentleman takes full responsibility and states his authority I think he has the right.


Charles Avery Dunning: The paper does not
exist and never did.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The statement was never published.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I read this statement in
all good faith. If the statement is fictitious I am quite prepared to withdraw it-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Withdraw it.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: -but I am Scotch enough that someone will have to show me the facts. I have before had to follow figments of the imagination of some hon. gentlemen opposite and have not found them altogether reliable.


William Duff: It is a poor sample of Scotch; you need some soda.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: As the resolution points out, I believe the underlying difficulty of our time has come from the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. The last speaker made the mistake, along with some others, of believing we are advocating the taking over of all property. Economists from the beginning of the study of that science have recognized that there are two classes of property:	public property and private
property. It is easy to define the difference, public property being any property the control of which enables one person to exploit others; private property being any property which a man may have for personal use and the like of which other persons may have by giving similar money or wealth in exchange for it. We may take as a typical example of one class any natural resources, or the banking system, or the transportation system; these are public things; they are public goods because we cannot each have one. They are goods by which, if a few persons control them, they thereby control the means of livelihood of the rest of the nation; "the man who controls the means by which I make a living, controls me," said one economist, and that is still true. Private goods, on the other hand, are goods which any of us may own. I may own a motor car; any hon. member may own one if he has sufficient funds to purchase it. But my having that private property does not in any way interfere with the liberty of any other individual. In considering the resolution of the hon. member we must keep this difference clearly in mind. When we talk about public ownership we have in mind these public goods which lend themselves to monopolistic control.

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Douglas
I can illustrate in no better way what we are facing to-day than by outlining something that was written a number of years ago but has proved a very accurate prophecy of our economic set up. I refer to the parable written by Bellamy called The Water Tank, in which he pointed out that we might imagine our economic system as being like a vast water tank to which all the people of the country were bringing water, the water they bring being either the goods they produce or the services they render. But that tank is owned by a certain group, call them capitalists or any name you please. Those who bring their pails of goods or services to the tank must accept the price that is given to them by the owners. Say it is one dollar or one unit of any kind of money. They put their goods into this tank. But when they want to take goods back out of the tank they are compelled to pay what these men like to charge them. Say it is two dollars. Someone says that the spread is too great.
I submit that figures bear out the statement that for the past number of years producers and labourers have never received enough for what they have put into the economic system to enable them to buy the same amount from it. Take any commodity; take wool for example; in the southern part of Saskatchewan this fall we were selling wool at five to eight cents a pound. It takes five pounds of wool to make a suit of clothes; it is granted that it has to go through many processes, but the spread between five pounds of wool at five to eight cents a pound and twenty-five dollars for a suit of clothes or fifty cents for a pair of wool socks is too great. Farmers were selling feed wheat at twenty-five cents a bushel before the price was fixed, but in buying cereals people were paying as much as ten times that amount. Pork was selling in Saskatchewan a year and a half ago at six cents a pound, but bacon wrapped up in cellophane sold in the cities at forty to forty-five cents a pound.
The same is true of wages. I have figures appearing in Social Planning for Canada which indicate that in 1929 the average wage in the manufacturing industry in Canada was $1,045. The textile industry employing 105,594 workers recorded an average wage of $818. In coal mining the average wage was $869.76, and in the tobacco industry $644.11. Agricultural labourers' wages averaged $627 for male workers and $465 for female workers. Income statistics for 1931-and ninety-six per cent filed returns-show that nearly 2,000,000 male Canadian wage earners averaged $927 per year, while 528,000 female workers reported $560 per year. I submit that even in the very best of
times, and even with production so geared up, much better than it is to-day, at no time was the worker who was putting in services or the primary producer who was putting in goods getting enough for what he was putting into the economic system to enable him to buy the same amount back.
What was the result? There could be only one. If you had twice as much, or even only fifty per cent as much more going into a tank as you have coming out of it there can be only one result, and that is that the tank will run over. That is exactly what we find throughout the civilized world to-day; the economic tank is running over. Apparently there is an abundance of goods, not more than we can consume but certainly more than we are able to consume because of lack of purchasing power. All round that tank stand people who have poured the goods in. The people who produced the goods and services are doing without those goods and services because they never got enough for putting the goods or the service in to buy them back again. And so the farmers who grow grain are seeing their cattle die for want of feed; the men who work in factories making shoes see their children going without shoes or obtaining them from a relief office.
Wherein lies the solution? Some have offered as a solution that we ought to push the tank over and let the water run out. Whenever I hear that solution suggested I understand why it was that the monkeys passed the resolution of censure on Darwin because he had said that man came from a monkey, and the monkeys contended that was an insult to their intelligence. The idea of destroying goods is contrary to all common sense and all the ethics of civilization.
The other suggestion made particularly by hon. members opposite is that we ought to have freer trade. I am in favour of freer trade-but wherein lies the solution? No matter how many tanks of goods and services we exchange, if the people who produce those goods and services are not getting enough to buy them back you are bound to have a surplus in the economic tank. We believe the solution is this: The solution lies in these people owning and controlling the tank. Remember that when I speak about the tank I am talking about public goods, not private goods. I am talking of those industries, the control of which would mean the control of the economic livelihood of the common people.
The hon. member who spoke before me said that he did not agree with the socialization of industry. I say that there is no other way by which we can give back to the people anything in exchange for what they have put intc
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the tank. They cannot buy it back unless they control the tank. It is not enough to get tickets to buy the water back out of the tank. You may give plenty of tickets, but unless those tickets have some relation to what is in the tank they would not be worth the paper they were printed on. There must be a relationship between the goods put in and the tickets put up to buy the goods. In other words there must be managed currency. Every unit of money that comes out must correspond to the unit of goods in the tank to be purchased. However we may go into this matter in greater detail when the banking system is being discussed at a later date.
We have drawn this distinction between public goods and private goods. In the realm of public goods the resolution suggests that where such public goods are not functioning in the general interest and where they are being used to exploit the masses they shall be taken over and operated cooperatively by the people in a system of public ownership, with a view always to giving back to the producer and labourer enough to buy back what they have created.
In reference to private goods we have never suggested public ownership; I must make that clear. The last speaker said something about the fact that we cannot control all business, and if I am misinterpreting what he said, he will correct me, I reply that we are not suggesting the control of business. There is no reason why the government should run a little shoe store here or an ice cream parlour there. They are not monopolistic. Only where a monopoly exists do we say that there should be government ownership. When we come to consideration of private goods we say that consumers' and producers' cooperatives ought to be encouraged with a view to making it possible for the people who produce goods and those who consume them to have something to say about the price that they shall either receive for producing or pay for consuming. We submit that is not economically unsound and we maintain that instead of criticizing this resolution by throwing names at it, and instead of merely waving it aside by stating that it is anti-religious, or communistic or going to hurt individualism, hon. members should realize that to-day we are faced with the greatest tragedy in human history. There are millions of people in the civilized world with no gainful employment, and yet there is a great abundance of goods not being consumed, despite the fact that there are people with the capacity to consume those goods. The machinery of production is not being utilized. We have suggested 
a solution. We invite constructive criticism, but we suggest that those who criticize what we have placed before the house should suggest an alternative to our resolution.
For these reasons I ask hon. members to support the resolution which states that the industrial, commercial and financial organizations and undertakings that are failing to function in the general interest should be taken over by the appropriate public authorities and operated as public services or cooperative enterprises.


Mr. SLAGHT:: I wonder if before the hon. gentleman concludes, having admitted that he is an authority on church matters and, as I understood him, on Scotch-or the Scotch -and on water dams, he would make clear to the house whether under his plan he proposes to take over and operate the churches as a cooperative enterprise?


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I shall be very glad to answer the hon. member's question. I thought he would have been able to follow me, as what I was saying was not at all involved. I mentioned that there were two kinds of goods, and that the public goods are the only ones we propose to take over. Public goods are those which lend themselves to monopoly; private goods are goods which any person may have. I was not aware' that there was any monopoly of churches. If the hon. member has been to one recently he will be quite aware of the fact that anyone may go to one and anyone may start one.


Mr. G. E. WOOD (Brant):: Mr. Speaker,
I beg the indulgence of hon. members for, I hope, a few moments, to enter into the discussion of this resolution. I trust hon. members will bear with me. No doubt I shall find it as difficult as I believe other hon. members have found it to speak in this chamber ; we realize the House of Commons is a difficult place in which to register one's opinions. I envy the ability of hon. members opposite to marshal their facts in such an admirable fashion, and I sincerely wish I had the ability to do so. I envy them for the manner in which they can quote the classics and such like to bear out the ideas they express, whether they are their own or somebody else's, but through you, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say to the house that I represent the riding of Brant which I will be modest enough to say is one of the good agricultural counties of Ontario. I myself as a working farmer feel that I am fairly representative of the majority of the people who live in that particular constituency, and I wish to take this

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Wood
opportunity of stating how I think my people would look upon this resolution if the house saw fit to adopt it.
In the first place I would say that the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) has practically eliminated the farmers from his splendid scheme. It is my opinion and that of the people I represent that if you have an economic program that does not take account of the problems of the farmers it is headed for disaster, and so far as I am concerned I intend to stay and fight to the last ditch for the sons and grandsons of those great old pioneers who came out here and built homes for themselves in the stubborn forest. The resolution is proved unsound from the very fact that it leaves out of account about one-half of the population of the country.
I appreciate the remarks of the hon. member for Grey-Bruce (Miss Macphail). She has been long enough in this chamber to be astute enough to overlook what I regard as the important part of this resolution, and she fixed her attention upon the last two words of the motion, to substitute the cooperative method of doing business for the competitive. She absolutely left out of consideration the important part of the resolution; I do not know why. No doubt she has her reasons, and I am not going to criticize her for that. Indeed I commend her for it, and I am heartily in accord with what she has said in regard to cooperation. I have been a cooperator myself; I have invested a considerable amount of my hard earned savings on the farm in furthering the cause, and some of it has not come back, but nevertheless I was very glad to do it for the cause, and I still have faith that cooperative enterprise is something we should encourage.
I have noticed that these private members' resolutions allow one a great deal of latitude, and that is why I thought I should like to take this opportunity of getting my feet on the ground and, taking my place as Liberals who have represented the riding of Brant always have done, try to make some contribution to the national life of this country.
The first thing we should do before we propose to apply a remedy to the conditions complained of in this resolution, which sets out the disabilities under which we are suffering, is to endeavour to discover the cause of those conditions. Let us find out where the trouble lies that has brought about that state of affairs which makes necessary so drastic a resolution as this. In my estimation there have been two reasons, and the process has been going on for a long time. I think it could be simmered down to this, that our
present conditions are largely due to economic nationalism, which has obstructed the ordinary channels of trade; and, second, to the fact that government has lent itself to extravagance. You will quite understand, Mr. Speaker, that farmers are not blessed with an abundance of this world's goods, and any money we can save is saved only by our being frugal and paying our way as we go.
I contend that if governments had followed the same principle on which the prosperous farmers in old Ontario or even in the county of Brant have worked, and had lived within their means, we would not have had the conditions that are facing us to-day. After all, wealth is the result and product of labour, and you cannot have hundreds of thousands of men unemployed in this dominion without -the national wealth being impaired in consequence. When these men are not working they are not producing wealth.
The farmer is in rather a peculiar position.
I think it was said by one of our labour men that labour is not a commodity but is a consumer. Well now, a farmer is not a commodity; he is a producer and a consumer too, and because of the fact that he is in this dual position economically, he has a dual responsibility. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre made the statement that the average farm income is five hundred dollars. The reason the farmer is receiving only five hundred dollars is that when he sells his products on the open markets of the world, those markets name the price, and there is also deducted from the price that the farmer receives all the overhead charges of extravagant government, high taxes, and all the rest of it that goes into our economic life. The farmer takes that reduced purchasing power and goes out into the restricted markets of this country to buy the necessities for his family, and reflected in the price of everything he buys are those high taxes, high duties, and the high costs of extravagant government. Think of the immense debt upon the people of this country and the obligations we have to meet. A large portion of the wealth that we produce has to go to help meet those obligations, high taxes, and extravagant governments, and that is very largely responsible for the condition of affairs we have to-day.
I would say to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre that if he cannot bring forward a system that will embrace all elements of society, farmers, industrialists and everyone else, in its economic structure, any other system is economically unsound and will not get the support of the great bulk of the people whom I have the honour to repre-
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sent. We have a lot of people unemployed in this country, and some hon. gentleman has said that things would be better if we could only get these men back in employment and earning a living.
I was glad to hear the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) give the assurance to parliament that the government is determined to correct some of these evils. True I believe there are corrections to be made, but I also believe each one of us as an individual citizen must make his individual contribution. People are too much inclined to come to the government for assistance. We have corporations coming to the government and asking to be relieved of this and that; others want relief from unfortunate investments. The result is that as a government we are spending too much money, and the farmer, being in this dual position that I mentioned a moment ago. finds his purchasing power destroyed and himself unable to buy the things he would like to buy, in addition to meeting his necessary obligations.
I had occasion to look through the parliamentary directory the other day, and I noticed that not many of the members in the southeast corner of the house are farmers. Most of them are school teachers and they have enjoyed the high standard of living which has been brought about by the system of special privileges and which has, as it were, alienated a larger portion of our people to the industrial centres. The wealth has been taken away from the wealth creators of this country; their purchasing power has been so impaired that they are not in a position to buy the things they would like to buy such as electricity, bathroom equipment, radios and all the rest of those conveniences that are considered necessary in the city. I hope I may be pardoned for being a little personal, but I want to say that I am a grandson of an old pioneer who came from Scotland. I notice the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) has enough Scotch in him to be proud of it.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Nationality; I insist that that should be clear.


George Ernest Wood: He is the first Scotchman I have ever seen who was not proud of the fact. I was going on to say that these gentlemen enjoy those conveniences which they claim are necessities of life, but which we look upon as being luxuries. If the purchasing power of the farmer can be restored; if he is able to sell his goods and have some money to spend, he will keep the workers in the factories employed. As I started to

say, I am a grandson of one of the old pioneers and still living on the homestead. I have no radio in my home; I have no furnace and I have to take a bath in a wash dish when I want one during the cold weather. But I am happy under those conditions and I would not substitute my ideals of Canadian citizenship for anything of which I have heard from the opposite side of the house. I believe the old capitalistic system can be put in its proper place by applying good common sense, and there seems to be so little at the present time.
I would say to the government, of which I have the honour to be a supporter: Give back to the money lenders of the country the money that belongs to them and let them seek a reward for their money in the development of industry. Let them supply the products of industry to the consumer at a lower price, but do not allow them to hide behind a protective tariff and pay their workmen a lower rate than that to which they are entitled for the product of their labour. We must have a fair exchange of services. We think we can bring about a happy condition of affairs without attempting to tear down the economic life that we have developed.


Mr. LANDERYOU:: The hon. gentleman opposite said that we should live within our means, both individually and as a government. Is that correct?


George Ernest Wood: Yes, but of course there are exceptions to every rule. I know exactly what the hon. member is going to say.


John Charles Landeryou: That is just like saying that if a frog had wings he would not bump himself when he jumps. During the war how could we-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


John Charles Landeryou: Mr. Speaker, under our present financial system how could we have conducted the war without going into debt? How could we have conducted it by living within our means? That is a question I should like to ask.
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): Mr. Speaker, this is a very bad place to offer $25 without having it in hand. Last year I offered $25 of good Canadian currency to the then Postmaster General, Mr. Sauve, in order to purchase a certain island, but he refused it. Perhaps he was from Missouri. I want to tell my hon. friends that they should not make any offers without having gold in hand, and gold is hard to get at the present time. I have just received from the Department of Finance some very interesting statis-

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Pouliot
tics. These show the amount of currency that we have in Canada. Reports are published monthly in the official gazette of Canada, and I recommend to my hon. friends in the leftist corner the reading of that gazette as well as the acts concerning finance, banks and all that. They will also find the reports of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) most fascinating and instructive.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: The hon. gentleman is dealing with ancient history. We left that quite a long time ago.


Jean-François Pouliot: I understand the hon. gentleman is the leader of the group in the far corner. If they read all these things to obtain learning for themselves they did not share their knowledge with their constituents. I am sorry for their constituents because of that.


John Horne Blackmore: How can we tell the hon. gentleman anything when he will not listen?


Jean-François Pouliot: I am sorry; I was busy answering some letters of my constituents. I pity the constituents of my hon. friends who listened to them and believed them during the election. What I intend to read will prove very dull to those who have read it already, but it might be useful to put it on Hansard as a record. I intend to give the amounts in the current and savings accounts of the chartered banks during the past six years. I shall not impose upon the house by giving the figures for each month, but I shall give the figures for January and June of each year. These figures will give the house some idea of the money at the disposal of the public in the chartered banks of Canada.


Mr. WOODS WORTH:: Would the hon. member be good enough to relate this particular subject to the motion under discussion?


Jean-François Pouliot: I am always glad to answer the hon. member for whom I have a soft spot in my heart.


Charles Avery Dunning: You could relate almost anything to this resolution.


Jean-François Pouliot: Most of the discussion has been in connection with the capitalistic system. Every man who has a cent in the bank is a capitalist. Every man who buys a victory or a dominion bond is a capitalist, and these bonds are purchased with money from the banks. It will be most interesting to see what amount is available in the deposits in our banks. This will give my hon. friend an opportunity to attain his end and achieve the object of his resolution. Perhaps he is still in favour of nationalizing the banks.
I asked him some questions but he did not tell as much as our hon. friends in the leftist corner have told their constituents. However, I will read this statement; it is official, having been published in the official gazette, and I am sure it will interest my hon. friend in the highest degree:
			Current	Savings
Date	accounts	accountsJan.	31,	1929..	. .$674,000,000	$1,525,000,000July	31,	1929..	.. 692,000,000	1,453,000,000Jan.	31,	1930..	.. 644,000,000	1,439,000,000July	31,	1930..	. . 605,000,000	1,402,000,000Jan.	31,	1931..	. . 556,000,000	1.428,000,000July	31,	1931..	.. 561,000,000	1,451,000,000Jan.	30,	1932..	.. 506,000,000	1.368,000,000July	31,	1932..	. . 462.000,000	1,363.000,000Jan.	31,	1933..	.. 445.000.000	1,382,000,000July	31,	1933..	.. 501,000,000	1.379,000,000Jan.	31,	1934..	. . 475,000,000	1,350,000,000July	31,	1934..	.. 504.000,000	1.360,000,000Jan.	31,	1935..	.. 529,000,000	1.412,000,000July	31,	1935..	.. 553,000,000	1,427,000,000That is	the last	one I have received. Well,	
it is the old story. In the first year there was a little over $2,000,000,000 in the banks and now it is approximately $2,000,000,000. It has been going up and down a little for several reasons; for one thing, credit was tight for a certain time. At any rate, we have now $2,000,000,000 in the banks. How many accounts there are, I have not yet ascertained, but I shall try to get the information as soon as possible.
I ask every hon. member to look at that tabulation, which will appear in Hansard tomorrow. It will show that there is practically as much money in the banks now as there was in 1929, when theories such as those advanced by hon. gentlemen in the leftist corner would not have been accepted by the people, because at that time the people were not in despair. People are inclined to believe such theories, though they are without foundation, because they are at present in despair and they say: We will try anything. That is a great mistake.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Is that why they put the present party in power, because they were willing to try anything?


Jean-François Pouliot: Will the hon. gentleman please repeat that? I did not hear his remark.


Abraham Albert Heaps: My hon. friend said that the people were willing to make any experiment.


Jean-François Pouliot: Before making experiments we must come down to brass tacks and face facts. That is why I commend the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) so highly for what he has done, and I am very much surprised that it has not appeared in the speech from the throne. I refer to the classification of
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the unemployed according to trades. That is what he is going to do and it is a most important policy of the government. We are at rock bottom and we have to make an inventory of things so that we may be able to build from that foundation upwards. I repeat, we are bound to face facts, and we do not care about theories until we are familiar with the facts which it is our duty to study. We have every opportunity to study those facts through the different organizations and different departments, and I for one do not accept offhand the theories of any economist in any other country. Why? Because those people enunciate such theories on the basis of facts that are different from those we have to deal with in Canada. We must study the real life of Canada to see what can fee done, and this may take a long time. No one can reach the moon or give it to anyone; that is absurd. We have to face the situation as it actually exists and remind the people that these are hard times. We must ask everyone who has any constructive suggestions to make to bring them forward.
No one can promise more than he can give. This is not a time to disappoint the people by telling them that we can do more than we know can possibly be done; we cannot say: We will do this and that, whether we can or not. We must first study the situation very carefully and then build on the rock bottom. The policy of the late government was far from being successful. They ruined the country with experiments and this government has to build on those ruins left by its predecessor. Every time a member asked questions of the late government there was an unsatisfactory answer; in the last parliament it was impossible to get information. The invariable answer that came from the lips of the then Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) and of every one of his colleagues was: Wait and see; the government has nothing to tell. Whenever the question was asked as to what was the policy of that government, the house was told to wait and see- words full of wisdom.
Well, times have changed; this party has to do something for the welfare of the Canadian people, and it is expected that when it does propose something it will do exactly as it promises. I pity from the bottom of my heart the good people of Alberta for the experiment they are now making. One might just as well give the moon; one might just as well give the planetary system to each of the constituents of hon. gentlemen in the leftist corner.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Jean-François Pouliot: My hon. friends laugh; I
am sure they were laughing to themselves when they spoke to their own people. It is a pity they have not whiskers behind which they could laugh more heartily. But, sir, the facts are there and we must face them. If they are ready to cooperate with their colleagues in the house on both sides and study the situation as it is, well and good. Believe me, sir, we on this side are ready t-o consider any suggestions that may come from hon. gentlemen in the far corner, provided those suggestions have some basis. I have, however, never believed in castles in the air. They look very fine; sometimes we see them in a mirage and walk very far to find them, but when we get there we find nothing at all.
Well, sir, I shall let the figures speak for me, and hon. gentlemen opposite will see that they are official. This is the money of the Canadian people, their savings, in the banks. Money is not burned or destroyed, except when it is replaced; a man may lose his money, but it goes into the pockets of another man. There is very little difference in the amount of money in the banks now. Why does it not circulate as it did previously? The first requisite for prosperity is not the creation of money or inflation, but the circulation of money. That is an elementary truth. Why do not the people spend their money now? They are starting to do so, but during the last five years they have been sitting on their money because they had no confidence in the former administration and were waiting for better times.


John Charles Landeryou: I should like to ask how much money the unemployed were sitting on.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Jean-François Pouliot: I am ready to answer anyone, but I shall have to ask the hon. gentleman to speak more distinctly because of the poor acoustics of this chamber.


John Charles Landeryou: I am sorry if the hon.
gentleman did not hear me. I should like to ask how much money the million unemployed have been sitting on for the last few years.


Jean-François Pouliot: I am not a teacher, as my hon. friend may be, but for the moment I shall become a teacher and explain the matter to him very plainly.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Might I suggest-^


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Jean-François Pouliot: I will answer one first, and then the other.

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Pouliot


James Shaver Woodsworth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask what relation this talk by the hon. member has to the resolution now before the house. Apparently he is taking the opportunity-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I say that apparently he is taking the opportunity to address himself to the group to my left and not to the resolution under discussion.


Jean-François Pouliot: As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) is older than the other hon. member I shall answer him first. Whenever he and his associates bring in plans to this house they bring them in without telling us how they may be carried out. Is this to be done by God? Is he God?
I do not believe so. If his plans are to be put into operation this must be done by money and the money will have to come from the banks or else the government will have to bring about inflation for that purpose. If I can show that the plan of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre will never succeed because the people lack the confidence to subscribe to it, will he be satisfied? It is all right to suggest to the government that something should be done, but who is to pay for it? What taxes would be imposed upon the Canadian people for that purpose?


John Charles Landeryou: I ask that my question be answered, as to how much money the unemployed have been sitting on.


Jean-François Pouliot: I am sorry I have not two tongues; I have one and I try to make the best of it. I am explaining the situation to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. When he and his group have proposed anything in the house they have never suggested to the government a way to pay for it. The cost must come from the pockets of the Canadian people. That is what the hon. gentleman told me last year in regard to his former scheme. I asked how it was to be paid for and he said that it would be paid for by the Canadian people who had money in the bank. It would not be paid for by the unemployed of whom the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Landeryou) speaks, who have to be supported by the state. I hope I have answered the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, but if he would like any further explanations I am ready to give them to him at any time.


James Shaver Woodsworth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I simply ask that the hon. gentleman try to preserve order in the house and that, as is usual, he confine himself to the matter under discussion.


Jean-François Pouliot: I will say nothing unpleasant of my hon. friend, but I remember that he is an apostle of free speech and one day, when he rose to a point of order, he objected to my answering him. However, that is enough of that.
Now I should like to answer the question of the hon. member for East Calgary, and I shall try to put the answer in a way that he will understand. Money has been idle because the people have not had confidence. I come from a rural district. In my constituency there are people who have $1,000, $2,000, $5,000 or $10,000 to spend on certain improvements to their houses, for the construction of barns or for the purchase of something for one of the family. They did not spend their money during the past five years because they were waiting for better times; they were sitting on their money for fear of the future. That is why money has been idle. Now my hon. friends come along and tell the people, "We will give you $25 a month." This has not been done yet. Mr. Aberhart has been in power for quite a long time now; he came into office last August and said, "I will realize my objective within eighteen months." But his assets are frozen now. If he tries his schemes in February or March they will be frozen too and the people will have to wait a little longer.


Charles Edward Johnston: Mr. Speaker-


Jean-François Pouliot: If my hon. friend has something to ask I shall answer him in due course;
I am ready to answer anyone. One reason why people are not spending money now is because they fear the schemes of the hon. gentlemen in the leftist corner. They are not sure what will happen to the banks; they are not sure what will become of their money, so they are sitting on it. So the plans of my hon. friends in the leftist corner-and at this time I include the members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation also-are most dangerous; they represent one reason why money is not now circulating. They inspire fear in those who have a small amount of money, for when they speak against capitalism they speak against the ownership of $100, $500, $1,000, $2,000 or $5,000 by men who have saved that money through hard work and who are not going to throw it into the air or into the water.


John Horne Blackmore: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


John Horne Blackmore: I rise to a point of order. Is everything that can be said in defence of this group to be called out of order?

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Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: The hon. gentleman will state his point of order.


John Horne Blackmore: First of all we want to know whether everything we have to say is going to be called out of order.


Jean-François Pouliot: Say it first.


John Horne Blackmore: I do not see why $25 was ever dragged into this discussion tonight, because we did not say anything about it.


Jean-François Pouliot: I have spoken of the
$25, and probably the hon. gentleman objects to it because he has not shown it to me.


An hon. MEMBER:: Is this destructive ridicule or Liberal cooperation?


Jean-François Pouliot: Ridicule is apparent at
times, and it is enough to show the true nature of the thing in order to have it recognized as ridiculous by all those who know the inside of it. That is why I regret so much that the plan advocated by the hon. gentleman has been believed in by so many people of the good province of Alberta. I am ready to answer any question that is put by the hon. gentleman.
Well, sir, to sum up, there are facts that cannot be ignored, and there is the history of the world which shows that in certain times false prophets have appeared; the Bible mentions that and it is a very good book. They have been believed for some time, but as Barnum said, one can deceive some of the people some of the time, but it is impossible to deceive all of the people all of the time.


Mr. JAQUES:: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question? Does he say that there were two billions of money lying idle in the Canadian banks?


Jean-François Pouliot: I will give the figure to
the hon. gentleman, and if he wants to ask any other questions he is welcome. This is the last report I have received of the chartered banks; it is for July 31, 1935. My hon. friend can probably find later ones in the official statistics in the library. On July 31, 1935, the total of current accounts was $553,000,000 and of savings accounts, $1,427,000,000, which makes approximately $2,000,000,000.


Norman Jaques: The point is: It is lying
idle.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Norman Jaques: I thought that was what
the hon. gentleman said. The reason it is lying idle is that people are afraid to invest it.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Jean-François Pouliot: I may tell my hon. friend one thing, that the current accounts are accounts that do not bear interest; that is something which is known to everyone except some professors or teachers. This money goes from account to account. If my hon. friend gives me a cheque for $25 from Mr. Aberhart on a bank in Alberta and I put it into my bank it is just a matter of cross entries in books and the total in the banks will remain the same, provided Mr. Aberhart's cheque is good. On the other hand you see there is $1,427,000,000 in the savings accounts.


Frederick George Sanderson: Order.


Charles Avery Dunning: I do not desire to enter the debate, but I am sure it has been noticeable to you, sir, that of late when any speaker sits down some one rises to ask a question. It is against the rules of the house for the member questioned to take the occasion to make a second speech. I have no particular reference to my hon. friend; I think it has occurred with reference to every speaker today, that after he has concluded his speech and therefore exhausted his right to speak he is asked questions and is placed in the position of breaking the rules of the house by making a second speech and sometimes a third and a fourth. I am afraid that the decorum of the house suffers, and I respectfully ask a ruling.


Jean-François Pouliot: This time it was the sixth.


Frederick George Sanderson: The point taken by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) is well taken. In future I hope hon. members will observe the rule; those who have spoken once in the debate may not speak again, but several hon. members have spoken a second and third time.


Major James William Coldwell: I did not intend to participate in this
debate to-night, but I feel that since the resolution was introduced by the leader of this group, and we have wandered somewhat afield from the intent and purpose of the resolution I should like to say a few words. The resolution has been described as communistic in its nature. I look down the avenues of time and turn over the pages of history and I am reminded of how not far from where I was born and just over a century ago a man who became one of the greatest leaders of his time, Benjamin Disraeli, sought election to the British House of Commons for the city of Taunton. At that time terms were applied to him very similar to those that are applied from time to time to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth). But call-

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Coldwell
ing names does not refute an argument or destroy an idea, and although to-night there has been some amusement at the expense of hon. members to my left, let me point out that while I disagree with their thesis and their policy, nevertheless they are here because a large section of the Canadian people are dissatisfied with things as they are. That is the reason for their presence and ours in the house.
A short time ago a speaker said that if one had a constructive suggestion to offer in connection with the matter now before us it should be offered. This afternoon the hon member for Grey-Bruce (Miss Macphail) referred to the social experiments taking place in Sweden and the Scandinavian countries. From time to time too we hear a great deal about Russia. Russia is sometimes thrown at us in derision. But we of British birth and British ideals are closely akin to the Scandinavian peoples. The Russian experiment is perhaps peculiar to the type of people who inhabit eastern and central Europe, but the Scandinavian activities are of interest to the people of our dominion and of the British commonwealth of nations because the people of Scandinavia are so nearly akin to ourselves.
I have in my hand a clipping which appeared in the London Economist a short time ago. Sir Walter Layton, the editor, who was for a considerable time the economic adviser of the League of Nations, in making a recent survey of Canadian conditions said:
The question many people in Canada ask to-day is why the economic life of the country which has such vast and varied resources, cannot be so organized as to provide reasonable sustenance for 10,500,000 people when Sweden another country in northern latitudes with a much smaller area and little first class land, manages to support 7,500,000 people without condemning any large portion of them to serious privation.
To-day as I listened to some hon. members, another reference to Sweden, which I shall quote, came to my mind:
The Swedes do not recoil in alarm when some stump speaker shouts, apropos of a measure under debate, "That's socialism!"


Charles Avery Dunning: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order may I suggest that the hon. member in quoting must state his authority.


Major James William Coldwell: I am quoting from the New York Herald Tribune.


Charles Avery Dunning: An editorial?


Major James William Coldwell: No; an article by Lewis Gamnett in which he reviews a new book.


Mr. JOHNSTON (Lake Centre):: What
date?


Major James William Coldwell: I have not the date. It continues:
They know that every community welfare measure since the first public park was opened and the first toll road was taken over by the state and made free has been greeted with that identical retort by spokesmen for licensed greed. The Swedes settle back calmly and ask: "Does it work?"
It seems to me that the question we have to ask about the system under which we are living is, first of all: Does it work? Then, if a proposal is placed before us we should ask ourselves if it is probable that the proposals would work in the country in which we live, and if it has worked elsewhere. If it has, then I venture to say that it is worthy of study. I have often thought that we could learn much from other countries if we would study what they do rather more intimately than has been our custom. I hope that if the present administration is unsuccessful in meeting the urgent and pressing needs of the Canadian people it will look into conditions existing in other countries and as far as possible endeavour to find in those countries lessons which may be applied to the country in which we live for the benefit and general good of our citizens. If the administration will do that, it will have made a great contribution not only to Canadian affairs but to world affairs also.
To-day in the reading room of the House of Commons I happened to pick up the December issue of the Economic Journal, a publication edited by John Maynard Keynes, the great Liberal economist of Great Britain. True, John Maynard Keynes may be a little to the left of some other Liberal economists, but I believe he is regarded as the outstanding progressively Liberal economist in Great Britain. In that magazine we find an instructive and somewhat difficult article written by Professor Durbin on the theory of value. The article concludes with these words, which I should like to quote:
What is urgently required in economic theory to-day is the extension and variation of our institutional postulates in order that economists may formulate and solve the problems of rational calculus in an integrated economy.
That may be a difficult sentence, but put into the plainest of English it means simply that what we need to do is so to organize and plan our economic life that we may make intelligent and measured progress. That is our problem.


Mr. MARTIN:: Are we to conclude from
the hon. member's observation that he regards Mr. Keynes as the authority behind the resolution?
484	COMMONS
Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Coldwell


Major James William Coldwell: I have not suggested
anything of the kind. I have simply given the author of the quotation, to show that the magazine from which I have quoted is one of repute and edited by a man well known to all of us. I am not contending that Mr. Keynes even takes the responsibility for articles appearing in the magazine.
We have a growing consensus of opinion in the world that we cannot continue to drift, but that intelligence must be brought to bear upon the economic and social problems with which we are confronted; that through the use of that intelligence we must find the solution for the difficulties with which we are surrounded. Sometimes I feel vexed when I hear people refusing to discuss such problems. I do not contend that everything I believe is absolutely correct or sound, nor do I -believe that ideas held by other men are *unsound and incorrect. I believe however -that out of the clash of ideas may come *policies which could be moulded to assist the Canadian people, and the people of the world generally, in finding a way out of the morass of despair into which we have fallen.
Several times to-day the problem of new machinery and inventions has been mentioned. Some say that this is the cause of all our difficulties. I say that the difficulty lies in the fact that we have not organized our economy to the point at which we may utilize the machinery of production in industry, on the farms and elsewhere in order that those machines may be a blessing instead of a curse. Again to-day on several occasions we have heard interjected into the debate some observations on money. That is a problem sufficiently large to be discussed separately. Again and again we hear the cry go up: It cannot be done! Again and again we hear about constitutional difficulties in the way of making progress. A few days ago I happened to read the comments of a well known American concerning those who place constitutional and other difficulties in the way. I refer to* Rexford Guy Tugwell, one of the advisers to the present President of the United States. His words are:
The mediaeval dialectician who argues about the most constitutional method of dealing with a volcano is a greater menace to society than the worst type of agitator.
I do not believe in chaos; I do not believe in violence; I do not believe in disorder, and because I do not believe in those things I am anxious to see the government and the people of Canada grapple with these great problems and meet them in such a manner that we shail avoid the difficulties that might otherwise

come to the nation in which we live. May I point this out, that not forever are men and women in middle life and beyond going to be denied the means to live in a land where there is abundance; and still less are those thousands of young men and women growing up in our midst going to stand by and be denied the opportunity to live, to marry, to settle down, to build homes, to lead natural, normal lives, without making striking and effective protests. And Mr. Speaker, I appeal to the government, even if it thinks some of the suggestions we are making from this corner of the house, some of the suggestions that are contained in the resolution put forward to-day are unsound, at least to consider them, and if after mature consideration it believes them to be so unsound as to be impossible of achievement, then I say to the government that it is its duty to bring down alternative proposals that will meet the situation which confronts us.
The Scandinavian countries can teach us many lessons. We heard this afternoon of their great cooperative institutions. I would add that in Sweden, for example, instead of the government taking over bankrupt industries, bankrupt facilities mismanaged by big business, as we and other nations have had to do from time to time, it has taken over and organized some of those great profitable industries which have become monopolistic in their nature and which therefore ought to be a matter of public concern. It has organized those industries in order that the proceeds from them may assist the government of Sweden in financing its general activities- liquor, tobacco, and now it is proposing to take over gasoline and coffee. Things that have become monopolistic in that nation, yielding high returns to the groups that control them are taken over by the government in order that they may be utilized and controlled for the good of the people of Sweden.
During the whole of this depressed period, from 1931 to 1936-and the monthly reports of the Midland Bank of England will justify this statement-the value [DOT] of the Swedish kronen internally has varied less than two per cent, whereas throughout the rest of the world internal and external currencies have been fluctuating from low depths to higher points and back again from time to time. About a year ago in the monthly report of the Midland Bank I saw a graph depicting the fluctuation of Swedish internal exchange from 99-5 to 101-5 per cent of the par level, almost a straight line, while in Britain the value of the internal pound has gone up to tall peaks and then down into deep valleys. Why? Because in 1931 the social dem-oorats and the farmers

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Landeryou.
of Sweden, representing the people and controlling parliament-and quite recently I may say they were returned with a larger support than, ever-intervened to control the economic situation and took over the intelligent supervision of the Swedish financial system. They called in those economists from the universities who are sometimes treated elsewhere with derision and said to them: It is your job to stabilize the purchasing power of the people of Sweden. And they did that very thing. In spite of the fact that during the period to which I just referred Ivor Kruger, Swedish multimillionaire, committed suicide, shaking the financial world to its foundation, the fluctuation in Sweden was less than two per cent.
May I suggest to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), for whose ability I have the greatest respect, that he inquire into just exactly what was done in the little kingdom of Sweden, and why it is that unemployment there has been reduced from a comparatively high figure in 1931 and 1932 to less than one per cent of the population at the end of 1935. The last figure I saw for the kingdom of Sweden was that out of a population of some seven and a half millions of people only forty-three thousand were unemployed. That is a tremendous achievement. We are a country in many respects similar to Sweden. We are an exporting country; so is Sweden. It is true that we export different commodities. We export wheat; they export lumber. We failed to find a market for our lumber from the maritime provinces and British Columbia until a comparatively short time ago, but Sweden by means of trade relationships which she instituted, largely through the control of the country's economic structure, was enabled to trade to the advantage of her people.
I was going to quote from recent statistics in relation to Sweden, but I shall not do so to-night because the debate has already proceeded for a long time. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that if we are going to speak we should try to lay before the House of Commons something which is constructive, something which, while not perhaps, in the eyes of the government, applicable to the present situation, may yet induce the government to consider and present proposals of a different nature, designed to grapple with the conditions that surround us.


John Charles Landeryou: Mr. Speaker, the greatest condemnation of the present economic system lies in the fact that it has failed to provide economic security for the great mass of Canadian citizens. I do not believe we can solve the problem by
socializing the means of production. People to-day are not interested so much in who owns the means of production as in who is going to own the commodities produced. I feel that we should socialize the products of the machines, not by confiscation or socializing the means of production, but by placing sufficient purchasing power in the hands of the people to equate the selling price of the goods and services for sale. I believe that in doing that we shall solve the problem of adequately distributing the goods that are produced and the services that we can render. If in any economic system production is not reflected adequately by purchasing power in the hands of the people, then it is a stupid system. We must provide through the paying of just wages to those who render services to production; we must provide through the paying of just prices to those who create or produce the raw material necessary to the creation of wealth; we must provide as a supplement to the wages, salaries and commissions paid a national dividend and thus assure to the people by placing in their hands sufficient purchasing power the ownership of the goods that we can produce in such large quantities.
A complete analysis of our economic system will disclose the fact that its true purpose is to provide goods and services for the people as they require them, when they require them and where they require them. We should analyze our economic system and try to understand its component parts or factors. I should say that the two main factors are production and distribution or consumption. Under production there are a number of factors. In order to produce, a country must have favourable laws of nature. Canada is blessed with favourable laws of nature. Canada also has natural resources in abundance from coast to coast. We must have also a knowledge of the scientific methods of production. This is even more important than labour. If you took the modern machinery that we have in Canada to the heart of Africa, if you had on the one hand the negro labourer and on the other, blocks of gold, you would not be able to turn out the goods as we do in this country. This cannot be done because that important factor is missing. In Canada we have a knowledge of the scientific methods of production. Then we must have labour, whether it be solar or human energy. In this country we use machine power more than we use man power. Another factor necessary in production is this thing called money. People are wondering where it is all coming from, but no matter where it comes from we must
486	COMMONS
Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Landeryou
have it in our system, so that we may pay wages, salaries and commissions and thus establish the cost values of the goods produced.
I should like hon. members to carry their minds back to the period of 1914-18 when Canada enjoyed such prosperity, when our economic system was going full blast within the framework of the existing financial system. During that period there was made available to the producers plenty of credit or money. Fear had vanished from the financial world; they were not afraid to invest their money in creating wealth because they knew there was an effective demand or market for. it in the war. Millions were poured into production to create wealth; they were unafraid that purchasing power would not be sufficient to pay for it. They knew that the entire Dominion of Canada stood behind the promise to pay for the goods produced. Our economic system was speeded up with money actually reflecting our collective ability to produce and deliver goods.
If we analyze our system of distribution we realize that here also there are many other factors. Transportation and communication in this country is possibly second to none in any place in the world. We have an elaborate system of distribution in our warehouses and storage tanks, and in our method of selling goods at retail. We have a wonderful system of weights and measures. To facilitate the distribution of goods we must place in the hands of the people sufficient- money to complete the economic cycle; we must place in the hands of the people sufficient -money with which to purchase the goods we have produced. We realize more and more to-day that this is the factor that is missing; we have not sufficient purchasing power in the hands of the people to buy the goods produced. If we are going to solve this problem we must place in their hands that purchasing power.
When we go into a store and see goods piled on the shelves we do not feel that there is a shortage of the measures of weight or of distance. We know that as long as the goods are there the man selling them is not going to say that he is out of yards or out of pounds. People do not run out of yards, a measure of distance, or out of pounds, a measure of weight, as long as there are goods piled up on their shelves. But how many people go into the stores and look at the goods -there just as they would go into a museum and look at the articles displayed there, which they would like to 'buy if only they had the money. I contend that it is just as foolish for people to say that they have no money to buy the wealth which can 
be produced in such large quantities as it is to say that there is a shortage of yards or pounds. Surely we can find some means of providing for the producers sufficient credit that they can go ahead and turn our natural resources into consumable goods in sufficient quantity to saturate the markets of this country, and create a surplus that can be shipped -out in exchange for goods not- naturally produced here. Surely we can find some way of placing in the hands of the people sufficient purchasing power to ensure that they can own the goods -that are produced or imported in exchange for our surplus values. That is a problem we have to solve, the problem of distribution. I suggest that there is no better way of solving this problem than to finance consumption, t-he same as we financed the destruction of goods during the war. Millions of dollars were poured out during the war to finance the destruction of goods. I say that we should pour money into the creation of wealth and into the hands of the people in order that they may consume goods. Until w-e d.o that we shall fail to solve our economic problem.
This question of money is continuously being brought up. Where is all the money coming from? We have been told that money must be based upon the intrinsic value of gold and silver, or it must be based upon some other source like financial credit. But I say that money is nothing more or less than a system of figures to give us the information necessary to carry on our economic system. Not necessarily must money be based upon the intrinsic value of gold and silver; but it should actually reflect our collective ability to produce and distribute wealth. If we had a block of gold as big as this desk in front of me, I would not know nor would any other member know how much money we had until we had weighed that gold and multiplied it by the value placed upon it by international financiers and government officials working in cooperation with them. And then you would have a figure by means of which you might calculate how much money you had. The only way you can find out how much money you have in a piece of gold is to weigh it and multiply it by the value placed upon it, whether it be $26 or $50 an ounce. I suggest that money, whether it is stamped upon a piece of gold or a piece of silver or a piece of paper, is only a figure after all, and we should not use this system of figures to figure the common people out of everything they produce. I say that our monetary system should be actually based upon our ability to create wealth and should reflect any increase in that ability to create and distribute wealth and render services.

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
The period of the war to which I referred was a period during which an enormous debt was piled up, but I believe we can produce and distribute wealth under a monetary system that would not create debt. This can be done. From time to time, as legislation is brought down and motions made in the house, we shall do our utmost to point out to hon. members that we have a financial system that will adequately take care of the economic system, and I trust that we shall be given consideration as we do this from time to time.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, in the very few minutes that remain this evening I should like to refer to one or two matters that have come up in the course of the debate. First of all, I suggest that unless these discussions are going to range over the whole field of economics it is desirable that the Speaker should rather. rigidly restrict the speeches to the subject matter of the resolution.


Charles Avery Dunning: Is my hon. friend
seriously suggesting that in connection with resolutions of this type it is possible at all to restrict private members in their discussion? This is a very important matter and I ask the question in all seriousness.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do suggest that. That is why I objected to the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) quoting some bank statements which were all very well in their place-I had no objection to their being placed on Hansard-but had no immediate relevancy to the resolution before the house.


Charles Avery Dunning: The resolution proposes to take over the financial institutions.


James Shaver Woodsworth: But amounts of
money in the banks have no particular relevancy to the resolution. In the same way, I do not know that the doctrines of social credit to which we have just listened have any particular relevancy to the resolution before us. I respectively submit that we are going to get into a bad tangle if on private members' resolutions, specific in character, we are allowed to wander over the whole field. At the same time, it seems to me that we ought to accord some consideration to the newer members of the house who are not very familiar with the rules. I know some have spoken when they were rather out of order; but though I have no particular sympathy with the specific doctrines of some of the members to my left, I felt rather sorry that some hon. gentlemen should attempt to take advantage of their ignorance of the rules of the house. With regard to a matter of this kind, I think the Minister of Trade and
Commerce (Mr. Euler), in his usual restrained and courteous manner, put the matter very well when he pleaded that we should give fair treatment to whatever resolution might be brought forward.
I can assure newer members of the house that as I think most of the older members have come to believe, we in this particular group are quite serious about these resolutions we bring forward. They may or may not be right, but we believe them to be right and have been advocating them now for a number of years across the country. I am glad that apparently we have reached the stage at which personal abuse will not be resorted to as a means of meeting an argument. I was rather sorry that the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) should have seen fit to take up the time of the house trying to connect the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party with the communists. I have been quite frank to admit that the communist stood for quite a new social order, but-


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend does not intend to finish to-night?


James Shaver Woodsworth: No; but, as the
hon. member for Davenport recognizes, our method of attaining our end is different. It seems unfortunate that communist tactics and program should be emphasized in a debate in which we have come forward with an altogether different proposal.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Tuesday, February 25, 1936