1936-03-16

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

Mr. VENIOT:: 1.	What waters did the Vigil patrol in 1934?
2.	From what base did the Vigil operate in 1934?
3.	What was the cost of this patrol boat, including wages of crew and the daily allowance for subsistence of each member of crew?


Mr. LAPOINTE (Quebec East):: 1.	Bay of Chaleur.
2.	Caraquet, NR.
3.	The cost of the patrol boat Vigil for the calendar year 1934 was $1,916.70 plus $1,720 wages of crew and daily allowance for subsistence of each member of the crew, from the beginning of May to the 19th October, when she left Caraquet to proceed to Halifax, a total of $3,636.70.


PICTOU, N.S., PREVENTIVE SERVICE
Mr. McCULLOCH:: 1.	What vessels in the preventive service engaged in patrol work had their base at Pictou, Nova Scotia, in the years 1933, 1934, and 1935, respectively?
2.	What was the cost of operation of each of them, respectively, in each of the said years?


Mr. LAPOINTE (Quebec East):: 1.	Baroff.
2.	Calendar year 1933	$	12,092 09"	"	1934	
9,559 73"	"	1935	
10,193 57
In addition to the above the Baroff called for an establishment of 14, as follows:
Per day
Chief skipper	$	5 00Skipper	
4	00Warrant engineer	
4	60
Chief engine room artificer, 2nd
class	 3	75
Engine room artificer, 1st class. 3	45
Engineman	
2	45Cook steward	
2	65Ship's cook	
1	95Petty officer	
2	50Leading telegraphist	
2	252 able seamen	
1	952 ordinary seamen	
1	50
Questions


QUEBEC POSTAL SUPERINTENDENT
Mr. TREMBLAY:: 1.	Has the Post Office department an automobile or automobiles at the disposal of Mr. S. Tanner Green, postal superintendent of Quebec?
2.	If so, for what purpose, since when, and what was the total outlay by way of purchase and upkeep of such automobile or automobiles, including the salary paid to chauffeur or chauffeurs?
3.	What was the total cost of upkeep of such automobile or automobiles during each of the last five years?
4.	For how many post office inspections were such altomobile or automobiles used during each of such years, and what are the names of such post offices, inspected each year?


Mr. ELLIOTT (Middlesex):: 1.	Yes-one.
2.	(a) Use of district superintendent and staff of district office for inspection and investigation purposes.
(b) Total cost since 1912, including purchase and upkeep and chauffeurs' salaries- $67,310.42.
Prince Edward Island
Nova Scotia	
New Brunswick.. ..
Quebec	
Ontario	
Manitoba	
Saskatchewan	
Alberta	
British Columbia.. ..
l'ance oardien, que., postmastership


Mr. WERMENLINGER:: 1.	What was the name of the postmaster of ;he parish of l'Ange Gardien?
2.	Until what date did he remain postmaster >f the said parish of l'Ange Gardien?
3.	When was he dismissed and why?


Mr. ELLIOTT (Middlesex):: 1.	Ubald Laberge.
2.	February 26, 1936.
3.	By order in council of January 21, 1936, n account of active political partisanship.
boiscpiatel, que., postmastership


Mr. WERMENLINGER:: 1. What was the name of the postmaster of the parish of Boischatel?
3.	1931-32-11,973.59.
1932-	33-82.186.14.
1933-	34-$1,711.96.
1934-	35-$2,054.20.
1935-	36-$1,771.55.
4.	This automobile is kept at headquarters to be available for inspections of post offices, investigations in connection with post office robberies, fires and emergency work of any kind. Records are not available of individual cases in which this car was used during the period mentioned.


CHEESE BONUS
Mr. BERTRAND (Prescott):: '.. What amount was paid on cheese bonus during the months of January, February and March, 1936, to date?
2. What amount of such bonus was paid in each province during the said period?


Mr. GARDINER:: 1. January.. ..		$25,530 76
February..		24,108 40
March.... ,		Nil
January	February	March! 689 67	S 27 82	$ Nilnil	nil	Nil58 25	nil	Nil3.297 41	3,705 10	Nil19,398 41	18,295 52	Nil610 85	882 28	Nil172 47	21 40	Nil1,065 01	1,035 30	Nil23S 69	140 98	Nil2.	Until wrhat date did he remain postmaster of the said parish of Boischatel?3.	When was he dismissed and why?


Mr. ELLIOTT (Middlesex):: 1.	Laureat Vezina.
2.	December 26, 1935.
3.	December 26 1935. The post office was removed to a more central location.


INSPECTION OF CANNED SALMON
[Stage Direction]
' Mr. REID:
What were the total numbers of canned salmon inspected during the respective calendar years 1932 to 1935, giving the numbers passed as Canada grade A, second quality, and those rejected as being unfit for human food?
Mr. MICHAUD:: Number
inspected
cases
1932		 1,228,124
1933		  1,265.059
1934		 1.573,980
1935	 1,380,243
* Of these 4,595 were packed in Grade B cans.

Second
Certificated	quality	Condemnedcases	cases	cases1,217,075	8.815	2,2341,247.096	17,413	5501,539,066	28,2.08	1,1521,342.489	37,624	129
Pensions and Soldiers' Problems


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. REID:: 1.	What quantities or number of fresh salmon caught in British Columbia waters were exported to the United States during the year 1935?
2.	What were the varieties of such salmon, the prices paid by the United States interests and the months in which such fish were exported?


Mr. ILSLEY:: Return tabled herewith. MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


ACME, ALTA., POSTMASTERSHIP
Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: For a copy of all correspondence, reports, telegrams, photostatic copies and other documents in the possession of the Post Office department regarding the dismissal or retirement of Mr. Arthur Wheeler, postmaster at Acme, Alberta, and the appointment of his successor, Mr. Meek.


CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD
Sir GEORGE PERLEY (for Mr. Bennett):: For a return showing:	(a) the number of
bushels of wheat sold per day by the Canadian Wheat Board since the 1st day of December. 1935;	(b) the number of bushels
of each grade so sold; (c) the price per bushel of each grade so sold; (d) to whom the said wheat was sold; (e) the point at which the wheat so sold was stored at the time of sale; (f) the extent to which the wheat so sold has been exported from Canada.


Hon. W. D. EULER (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: There is some doubt whether it is in the public interest to supply all the information that is asked for in this motion. I might inform the house that it is the intention of the government, probably on Wednesday, to move the appointment of a committee to investigate the operations in connection with wheat under government guarantee. The securing of this information would take probably two weeks. It is expected that by the expiration of that period the committee will be engaged in this work, and probably a good deal of the information asked for in the motion would be obtainable in the committee.


Mr. STEWART:: Let it stand.


William Daum Euler: I was wondering whether
under the circumstances the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) might be prepared not to press the motion. If he does I would say that it might be passed subject to the reservation that such information will be supplied as is available and as it may be deemed to be in the public interest to produce.
Sir GEORGE PERLEY; I think that is quite fair. If the minister would provide such information as he can right away, and the rest of it-


William Daum Euler: It will take at least two
weeks.


George Halsey Perley: -at as early a date as possible-


William Daum Euler: We are not agreeing to
supply all of it, but such as is obtainable cannot be obtained before two weeks. By that time the committee will be acting. Under the circumstances would not the leader of the opposition be satisfied to leave the obtaining of the information until such time as the committee meets? The right hon. gentleman is a member of the committee.


George Halsey Perley: This is information the leader of the opposition would like to have in order intelligently to discuss the matter when it comes up in the house. Under the circumstances I suggest that the motion stand until to-morrow.
Motion stands.


PENSIONS AND SOLDIERS' PROBLEMS
Hon. C. G. POWER (Minister of Pensions and National Health) moved:: That a special committee be set up to which shall be referred such matters connected with pensions and returned soldiers' problems as the house may deem advisable and that rule 65 be suspended' in relation thereto; that the said committee be empowered to send for persons, papers and records, to examine witnesses for evidence, to print such papers and evidence from day to day, as may be ordered by the committee for the use of the committee and members of the house, and to report from time to time. The committee shall consist of the following members, to wit: Beaubier, Betts, Brooks, Cameron (Hastings South), Emmerson. Fiset (Sir Eugene), Green, Hamilton, Hartigan. Isnor, Lapointe (Matapedia-Matane). Lennard. Macdonald (Brantford City), MacLean (Prince), MacNeil, McLean (Melfort), Marshall, Mulock, Mutch, Poole. Power, Reid. Ross (Middlesex East), Streight, Thorson, Tremblay, Tucker, Wilton.


Hon. C. H. CAHAN (St. Lawrence-St. George):: Mr. Speaker, I understand that
this is a standing committee for the present session only and, secondly, that the resolution authorizes the committee to investigate only such matters as are subsequently referred to it by the House of Commons.


Mr. POWERS:: That is correct.


Mr. POULIOT:: Before the motion is decided upon may I place before the house one important fact, namely, that children of
National Harbours Board

returned soldiers born after April, 1933, do not receive a pension. I suggest there is a discrimination against those children, and I hope the committee will take the matter into consideration.


Charles Gavan Power: Now that the hon. member has finished his speech I will not ask that he be called to order.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Charles Gavan Power: That the name of Mr. Queleh be substituted for that of Mr. Poole on the special committee on pensions and returned soldiers' problems.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Marine) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following proposed resolution:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to provide for the constitution of a board to be known as the national harbours board, with jurisdiction to administer and control public harbours in Canada, and to provide for the salaries of the members of the board and of the officers, clerks and employees of the board, for the creation of a national harbours trust account and for the expenditure of moneys therefrom, and for advances for the purposes of the proposed legislation.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the favourable consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance) moved that the house go into committee to-morrow to consider the following proposed resolution:
That it is expedient to provide that the members of the judiciary, and the members of the military, naval and air forces of Canada, and of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, other than enlisted men, shall be liable to pay a special income tax of five per cent upon their salaries received during the fiscal year
1936-37. in addition to any other tax payable under the act.
fMr. Pouliot.l
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the favourable consideration of the house.
Jean-François Pouliot: Mr. Speaker, I strongly object to this motion.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Mr. LAPOINTE (Quebec East):: It is not debatable.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I draw the hon. member's attention to the fact that the motion is not debatable.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Mr. Mackenzie King:
That the standing committee on privileges and elections be instructed to inquire into, study and report on, the usages, customs and practices respecting the status of the Speaker of the House of Commons during the period of time which may elapse between any dissolution of the House of Commons and the assembly of a new parliament, and in particular the rights, prerogatives, privileges, jurisdiction and duties ordinarily and' customarily exercised by the Speaker under such circumstances in previous years in Canada;
And, also, the status of clerks, officers, messengers or other persons attendant on the House of Commons, distinguishing between such persons as are permanent officers and such as are temporary and those whose duties are of a sessional character;
And the right and proper procedure to be adopted with respect to the retention or dismissal of any such employees;
And that the committee have power to call for persons, papers and records, to examine witnesses for evidence, to print such papers and evidence from day to day, as may be ordered by the committee for the use of the committee and members of the house, and to report from time to time.
Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: I understand the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) does not expect to be in the house this afternoon, and would like the resolution to stand until he is here.


George Halsey Perley: Yes.
Motion stands.



BANK OF CANADA

[Stage Direction]
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance) moved that the house go into committee to-morrow to consider the following proposed resolution:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to amend the Bank of Canada Act so as to

Relief Camps
increase the capital stock of the bank, to provide that certain shares thereof shall be purchased by the Minister of Finance out of the consolidated revenue fund in order to assure ownership of a majority of the shares by the government, to increase the number of directors, and to provide for election and appointment of directors in such manner as to assure voting control of the board by directors appointed by the government.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the favourable consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The Canada-France convention concerning the rights of nationals and commercial and shipping matters which was signed on May 12, 1933, and approved by this parliament by chapter 30 of the acts of parliament for the year 1933, has recently, according to press reports, been approved by the French Senate. I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether any steps have been taken in the matter of exchanging ratifications of this convention by the governments of Canada and France.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Like my hon. friend, I shall have to look at my notes before I can
answer this question. I shall endeavour to give an answer at the next sitting.



UNEMPLOYMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. ANGUS MacINNIS (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day are called I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers). In a Vancouver paper which arrived this morning I notice a news item indicating that a number of men who have left unemployment relief camps to seek work in Vancouver are stranded in that city and are refused readmission to the camps. I understand that the relief camp bureau which takes applications from homeless single men in Vancouver has been closed, and that the men now coming into the city cannot make application to go into the camps.
The provincial and municipal governments, as previously, have refused to accept any responsibility for these men. Would the minister outline the government's policy in the matter?
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend was kind enough to advise me of his intention to ask this question, and I have also read the newspaper item to which he has referred.
In carrying out the policy which was outlined to this house on February 26, no more men are being admitted to the relief camps either in British Columbia or any other part of Canada, the intention of the government being to close the camps at as early a date as possible. To admit or readmit men to the camps would defeat the object of the arrangements already made.
In the meantime, until the camps are closed, the personnel, formerly receiving 20 cents a day, are receiving in addition to their food, clothing, tobacco, medical attention and other perquisites, an allowance of $15 monthly.
It appears that a small number of men having left the camps of their own accord, prior to the announcement of (he new policy, are now represented as being stranded in the city of Vancouver. This matter had already been brought to the attention of the government by the premier of British Columbia, and Minister of Labour for the province, as well as by the mayor of Vancouver, and perhaps I may read the reply sent to his worship on March 14, which was as follows:
Labour department most unwilling to create precedent by departure from policy of no admissions to camps. Cannot make too plain that black list has nothing to do with policy as no applicants of any kind are being admitted anywhere in Canada. Statistics indicate that local relief problem already lightened to extent 500 or 600 men by dominion policy as records indicate that fewer men to that number have left camps this spring in search of jobs in competition with local relief cases. Men refuse to leave camps because of new policy of refusing readmission. Under circumstances consider it advisable that city and province care for these 60 odd men temporarily pending further negotiations if necessary.
I may say that in the communications received from the city of Vancouver it was represented that the number of men stranded was in the vicinity of 65, and in the newspaper report it was represented I believe as being nearly 175.
Prior to December 1, the province received a grant in aid from the federal treasury of $150,000 monthly, which was increased as from December 1 to $262,500, during the months of December, January, Februaiy and

Seed Grain Distribution

March, for the purpose of assisting the province in discharging its responsibilities for the relief of necessitous persons within its borders, it being provided by the order in council authorizing the grant that the province should assist the municipalities financially to such extent as may be necessary, this increase having been made following the representations made at the dominion-provincial conference of December 9th-13th.



ANTIGONISH-GUYSBOROUGH BY-ELECTION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): Mr. Speaker, on the orders of the day, may I read the following message from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia?
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia,
March 16, 1936.
J. Ralph Kirk elected by acclamation two o'clock this afternoon. Please tell the boys.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. A. PELLETIER (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner). I am sorry I did not have the opportunity to give him notice because the matter has just recently come to my attention, but perhaps he can give me an answer to-day. In the seed price list of the Alberta Seed Growers' Association, it is stated:
In order to promote the distribution of pure seed the dominion Department of Agriculture will pay the freight on all shipments of registered or certified seed made before March 2, 1936, under the following conditions:
Then follow the conditions, and this further statement is made:
Buyers are urged to order early as free freight is not available after March 2nd.
On the other hand, a person who had already applied for seed-[DOT]


Walter Edward Foster: Order. I do not think that is a proper question to ask on the orders of the day. It should be put on the order paper.


René-Antoine Pelletier: I should like to know if the government cannot get the seed grain in question ready for shipment before this free freight offer expires, and what is the purpose of offering a concession if it will not be of use to all who wish to procure good seed?


Walter Edward Foster: Order.



WAYS AND MEANS


[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of ways and means, Mr. MePhee in the chair.
Customs tariff-306. Marble, sawn or sand-rubbed, not polished; granite, sawn; paving blocks of stone; flagstone and building stone, other than marble or granite, sawn on not more than two sides: 20 per cent.
Mr. DUNNING:: The effect, Mr. Chairman, is to bind the intermediate tariff with respect to the item.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What is the United States
tariff on the same product?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is one dollar per cubic foot.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Can the minister give us
an estimate of the comparative burden of the United States tariff of one dollar per cubic foot and our twenty per cent tariff?


Charles Avery Dunning: The item covers so many different kinds of stone, having so many different values, that it is very difficult to make a comparison between the United States specific duty, which applies to marble sawn or dressed, over two inches thick, and the various items in our own tariff. It is quite impossible to make a comparison with any accuracy.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Suppose the minister restricts the comparison to the duties on one commodity, say marble sawn or sand-rubbed.


Charles Avery Dunning: Answering further my
hon. friend's previous question, I find that in 1933, on the then prevailing values the United States duty of one dollar per cubic foot was equivalent to thirty-five per cent ad valorem, but it depends, of course, upon varying quantities of materials of different values. I did not quite catch my hon. friend's other question.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It is partly answered. I
asked if for purposes of comparison between the United States and Canadian tariffs the minister would restrict his reply to marble sawn or sand-rubbed, not polished. I understood him to say that according to the records of a year ago the United States duty was equivalent to thirty-five per cent ad valorem.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, approximately so.
That is as nearly comparable as we can get it.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Does the stone under
this item infer a comparison between Indiana limestone and Queenston stone?


Charles Avery Dunning: No.

Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I gathered from what
the minister said that the item in the American tariff with which we are seeking to make a comparison is a comprehensive item. Has he the wording of it?


Charles Avery Dunning: No, the item is restricted. In the United States tariff the item is marble, sawn or dressed, over two inches thick. That makes it very difficult to make a comparison with our item, which is:
Marble, sawn or sand-rubbed, not polished; granite, sawn; paving blocks of stone; flagstone and building stone, other than marble or granite, sawn on not more than two sides.
It is comparable only in one item.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What is the American
rate on the other items?


Charles Avery Dunning: Granite, sawn and dressed, is part of it; that is sixty per cent ad valorem. That is the only part I have separate from the rest.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Is there not an American tariff on building stone going into the United States from Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: The item is No. 234c of the United States and reads:	.
Freestone, sandstone, limestone, lava, and all other stone except marble and granite suitable for use as monumental or building stone, hewn, dressed or polished, or otherwise manufactured, 50 per cent ad valorem.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What is the United States
rate on marble less than two inches?


Charles Avery Dunning: I would point out that
it is difficult enough to find items in the Canadian tariff and it sometimes requires a little work to find comparable items in the American tariff. When the items are comparable I shall be glad to give them, but I am afraid it is almost impossible to search through the whole tariff, especially when some items comprise so many different varieties, sizes and definitions.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: In negotiating this agreement with the United States it would be assumed that the Canadian experts would make some inquiry so as to elicit a comparison on each of these items. Otherwise it would be almost impossible to determine whether or not this is reciprocal in its terms.


Charles Avery Dunning: I think I can say that our experts left no stone unturned in that regard.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: It does seem that they have not succeeded in keeping these comparable items in anything like the same schedules of duty.
12739-71*


Charles Avery Dunning: That was not the object.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: That was not the object?


Charles Avery Dunning: No. This is not a reduction in duty.	.


Mr. ROWE (Dufferin):: Only in the Canadian tariff.


Charles Avery Dunning: This is not a reduction at all; it is a binding of the intermediate.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I cannot understand the minister when he says there is no reduction. Previously the rate was 35 per cent and it is now 20 per cent, so that there is a reduction from 35 to 20 per cent.


Charles Avery Dunning: Which is the same reduction as was contemplated by my hon. friends opposite when they made the offer which they did of the Canadian intermediate tariff. That is why I said there was no reduction.


Percy John Rowe: Did you get a
fifty per cent reduction?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Surely the hon. gentleman will not persist in that argument. We endeavoured to secure reductions in the United States tariff which it is now abundantly clear this government never obtained.


Percy John Rowe: That is why we did not accept them.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: We do not want to discuss this matter all over again, but the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) made it perfectly clear that that was a basis of negotiation. It was not an absolutely binding offer of the intermediate tariff; it was to depend on what we were to get in return. Apparently in connection with this item we are getting nothing in return.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The trouble with hon. gentlemen opposite is that they pay no attention whatever to schedule II, which shows what we are getting in return. They always make comparisons between the item in schedule I and the corresponding item in the American tariff. The corresponding part of schedule I is to be found in schedule II, and I shall be very much surprised if my hon. friends object to that schedule.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Can the minister in that schedule' find a corresponding item to flagstone and marble, sawn?

Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I may not
be able to find a corresponding item for that minute item; I am referring to the more important categories of commodities which are bound so far as we are concerned.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: We can find reductions in some other classes of goods, but there is no comparison between similar items.


Mr. SENN:: The Prime Minister has said that this is a minute item. Will he give us the importations?


Charles Avery Dunning: The imports under this item amounted to 5,437 hundredweight valued at $2,217.


Percy John Rowe: Could the minister give us the exports?


Charles Avery Dunning: Not separately recorded.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 326a. Articles of glass, not plate or sheet, designed to be cut or mounted: 10 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: This is a reduction in the rate.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is this type of glass
manufactured in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: No. The imports last
year were valued at $147,000, of which $17,000 came from the United Kingdom, $76,000 from the United States, $9,000 from Belgium, $20,000 from Czechoslovakia, and $13,000 from Japan. This material is not available in Canada in domestic production. It forms the raw material for a very considerable industry of mounting and cutting in Canadian glass cutting and jewelry houses.


Percy John Rowe: What is the rate for this item under the empire trade agreement?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is not included in the empire trade agreement, but the countries of the empire will automatically be given this rate.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Will this reduction mean a gain in the trade with Czechoslovakia or will it mean a gain in the trade with the United States? These central European countries will be placed in exactly the same position as the United States with regard to this item.


Charles Avery Dunning: Quite. The United States has had the big end of the trade up to now.


Mr. HEAPS:: As this reduction goes below the preference given to Great Britain, is it not likely to have some effect on the amount of British goods imported into Canada?
JMr. Stewart. 1


Charles Avery Dunning: I answered that question a moment ago. This item is not included in the empire agreements, but automatically the empire countries will receive this rate.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Is not the reduction of the rate to 10 per cent likely to give a greater preference to the United States than to Great Britain?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is difficult to answer that.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What is the present tariff on imports from the United Kingdom?


Charles Avery Dunning: The present rates are 15 per cent, 20 per cent and 22^ per cent.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The British preferential
would be 15 per cent?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, but now it comes down to 10 per cent.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: After this schedule is passed.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-345. Zinc dust, strip and sheets; zinc plates for marine boilers; sal ammoniac shimmings and seamless drawn tubing of zinc: free.
Hugh Alexander Stewart: This item was free all the way across?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes; this is binding the free entry.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-350. Wire of all metals and kinds, n.o.p.: 30 per cent.
Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is this a reduction?


Charles Avery Dunning: This binds the intermediate. The rates are 10, 30 and 35 per cent. The imports last year totalled $177,000 of which $142,000 came from the United States. Our exports are not separately stated.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: With respect to the United States, this binds the old intermediate?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: Does this cover wire for fencing on farms?


Charles Avery Dunning: All metal wire not specified in the schedules. It includes practically all, other than that of iron, steel, aluminum or precious metals.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: The minister said that $142,000 came from the United States out of a total of $177,000. Where did the rest come from-the United Kingdom?

Canada-UJS. Trade Agreement


Charles Avery Dunning: Chiefly from the United Kingdom, yes.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: This items covers, I believe, wire that is used in the manufacture of nails.


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff

351. Wire, single or several, covered with any material, including cable so covered, n.o.p.: 27J per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: This item covers an article that is made by several large electrical manufacturing companies in Canada. Have any of these companies made representations for or against the reduction?


Charles Avery Dunning: Neither the commissioner nor myself can recall any protests. Of course, manufacturers of all kinds are constantly making representations along two lines-one, that the duty should be reduced on whatever happens to be their raw materials; and, two, that the duty should be increased on whatever they have to sell. We may have some general representations in that connection, probably along the line of reducing duties on the raw material of that particular industry; but certainly if there had been any violent protest against the item I should have remembered it.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The minister says that manufacturers are all the time making two different requests, one for a reduction of duty on their raw material and one for an increase in the duty on the things they have to sell. I regret to say that the manufacturers are forced into that position. When a manufacturer's product suffers a reduction in duty he is compelled to look for a reduction in the cost of his raw material. It seems that one manufacturer is pitted against another as to costs in many of these items.


John Gordon Ross: What was the duty on this item in 1930, before the change of government?


Charles Avery Dunning: It was the same; there has been no change except in wording. I always like to give my hon. friend from Davenport some comfort with regard to the industries of the country, and I may tell him that the imports under this item last year amounted to 8111,000-and remember, we are binding the intermediate tariff. There was a total production in one class of 8939,000; in another class, SI,416,000; a third class, 890,000; a fourth class, 8299,000; a fifth class, 8172,000; a sixth class, 8185,000; another class, telephone cable, $423,000; armoured cable,
8496,000; cord, heater and lamp fixture wire, 8550.000; and all others, $1,269,000. This is production in Canada. I have not added up these items but I think they come to something like 85,000,000 of production as against
8111.000	of imports. '


John Gordon Ross: The minister says, "Remember, we are binding the intermediate." Are we binding it so that it cannot move up?


Charles Avery Dunning: So that it cannot move up.


John Gordon Ross: Good.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 362. Electro-plated ware, n.o.p.: 30 per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: For what reason did the minister go below the intermediate in this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: Our imports last year included giltware and totalled 8393,000-from the United Kingdom, 8244,000, and from the United States, 8132,000. Of nickel-plated ware, included in this item in future, the total imports were 879'3,000-from the United States, 8535,000; from Germany, 8108,000; from the United Kingdom, 882,000; from Japan, 842,000. It should be borne in mind that these figures have no reference to kitchen or household hollow-ware of nickel, most of which would be dutiable under an entirely different item.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: You are now placing the United States on the same basis as the United Kingdom.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Our imports from the United States were nearly five times as much as from the United Kingdom.


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I took the respective figures, 8535,000 and 8108,000. Will the minister explain that 8535,000.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is nickel-plated ware alone-8535,000 from the United States and
882.000	from the United Kingdom. As regards the other part of the item, there was
8244.000	from the United Kingdom and
8132.000	from the United States.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: As I understand it, they will both come under this classification.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: So that as regards one branch of it I was half right anyway.

Canada-US. Trade Agreement


Abraham Albert Heaps: Has the minister the figures of production in Canada of a class of goods similar to those just enumerated?


Charles Avery Dunning: The statistics of production include this class of ware with a number of others and it is impossible to separate them.


Abraham Albert Heaps: It seems that we are putting a rather high tariff on a class of goods of which I believe only a small quantity is produced in Canada.


Charles Avery Dunning: There is quite a large production in Canada.


Abraham Albert Heaps: What lines are produced in Canada comparable to this class?


Charles Avery Dunning: This is the n.o.p. item; it is extra. It is marked "ex", which means that it is a new definition of something which formerly was in the n.o.p. item of this classification of the tariff. Consequently the statistics, conforming as they do with what the tariff has been up to date, do not give us information with reference to this new classification.


Abraham Albert Heaps: It is evident however that quite a large amount of this class of goods is imported into this country from the British Isles.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Abraham Albert Heaps: And it appears that in this item the minister has practically wiped out the British preference.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Not only wiped it out, but put a handicap against the importation of British goods into this dominion. Before very long it may be necessary for the Minister of Finance to be helping to negotiate a new agreement with Great Britain, and I think it will not do us very much good if Great Britain observes that on goods capable of being exported by her to this country, the preference she formerly had has been wiped out as a result of the agreement between this country and the United States.


Charles Avery Dunning: Let me be perfectly clear on one point. No article on which Great Britain was given a preference under the empire trade arrangements has been interfered with in the slightest degree. In making this treaty obviously we were making a treaty with the United States. We are not now proposing to alter the British rates of duty on any articles. As to what may be done in that regard, I am afraid my hon. friend will have to await the budget.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: But the hon. gentleman must admit at once that the British tariff was a British preferential tariff. It may not have been bound in the agreement which was made, but in making the reduction in favour of the United States which is now made, the preference which Great Britain previously enjoyed with respect to this item, ex. 362, electro-plated ware, n.o.p., is entirely wiped out, and the hon. gentleman has taken this step towards encouraging imports from the United States in competition with imports of the same article from the United Kingdom.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Is not this reversing the principle that the hon. gentleman as Minister of Finance in 1930 laid down and expounded so eloquently, his desire to transfer trade from the United States to Great Britain. The effect of reductions such as this will unquestionably be the other way round, to transfer the trade that we are now doing with Great Britain, the mother country, to the United States. It seems a complete reversal of policy.


Charles Avery Dunning: I should like my hon. friend to quote my exact words rather than his own interpretation of them.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: My interpretation is
correct.


Charles Avery Dunning: Because in the 1930
budget I nowhere mention the United States or any other country. I did mention Great Britain.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Yes-very much.


Charles Avery Dunning: But I did not at any time advocate the transfer of trade from the United States to Great Britain.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I think my hon. friend misunderstood me. I believe he stated very clearly that he hoped that that would be the effect of his budget in>
1930.


Charles Avery Dunning: No, I indicated then, as I hope to indicate again, that our object is to trade with those who are willing to trade with us, and to show favours to countries which are willing to show favours to us. I did not mention detrimentally then, nor shall I in the future, I hope, any country as one against which we are directing a tariff war. That is not a principle which this government desires to follow. But I am pleased to gather from the member for Leeds (Mr. Stewart) that I can look for some support if on behalf of the government I do introduce a reduction of the British tariff with respect to this article.

Canada-UJi. Trade Agreement


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Wait and see.


Percy John Rowe: What is the rate
on that item into the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Forty-five per cent on
nickel ware, which is part of this item.


Percy John Rowe: What was it formerly?


Charles Avery Dunning: That is the nearest comparable item.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-367. Watch cases, and parts thereof, finished or unfinished: 35 per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: The duty placed on watch cases by the late government resulted in cutting down the importations, which in 1931 were $142,000 and in 1935 only $42,000. We have some fairly substantial watch case factories in this country employing quite a number of highly paid workers. I was just wondering what the effect was going to be on Canadian employment through reducing the tariff on watch cases from 45 per cent to 35 per cent.


Abraham Albert Heaps: If the minister is unable
to answer my bon. friend who has just asked a question-


Charles Avery Dunning: I did not gather that a
question was asked. What was the question?


John Ritchie MacNicol: I remarked that the
tariff of the recent government-


Charles Avery Dunning: I got that part of it,
but what was the interrogation?


John Ritchie MacNicol: The question is, has the
minister tabulated or estimated the effect on employment in Canadian watch case factories of which I know a number, of reducing the tariff from 45 per cent to 35 per cent?


Charles Avery Dunning: Well, the production
last year, after all the efforts that my hon. friends opposite had made under a 45 per cent tariff, was only $202,000 worth.


Percy John Rowe: Quite a lot of
watches.


Charles Avery Dunning: I venture to say it did
not pay a great amount of wages to a large number of men, the total production being only $202,000. In the view of the government 35 per cent is adequate.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am inclined to think
that the labour would represent not less than 40 per cent, and would more likely be, in a business of that kind, in which precious metals are used, as high as 50 per cent. A hundred thousand dollars is a fairly substantial bill of wages.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I do not know whether the
minister can say how many men are employed in Canada in the making of watch cases. My information is that there are not very many. I want to protect the men employed in the industry, but I notice that in industries which get the higher protection the workers usually have the lowest wages. All I can say is that they will receive thirty-five per cent protection, and there is something radically wrong with any industry that cannot exist in Canada on a thirty-five per cent duty.


Percy John Rowe: Why not make
it free, then?


Mr. DEACHMAN:: I suggest that the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol), who has put forth this argument a number of times, should bring forward a table showing the number of men employed in, say, 1922 and from then on to 1930. At that time we had a change of government. Tariffs went up more sharply than they did at any previous time in Canadian history, and the result was the sharpest reduction in the number of men employed that ever took place in any similar period of time. I think my hon. friends ought to provide these records. Let us get down to a definite examination of cases, and then I hope, if it can be shown that the lower tariff does actually increase the number of men employed, my hon. friend from Davenport will sit on the same side with me not only physically but politically, that he and his friends may see the light which will lead us to a great deal more employment than we have had in the past, and that they will abandon a policy which has stifled the trade of the country.


John Ritchie MacNicol: There is no possibility
of my sitting on the same side politically as the hon. member for Huron North (Mr. Deachman). My life has been associated with employment. The interests of the workers are my interests. But as far as I can figure from his record, the hon. gentleman who has just spoken has had little to do with employment, and on that score he and I are as far apart as the poles.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Can we get the rate of
duty on these articles going into the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes. I am sure my hon. friend will be pleased with this one. The United States rate of duty oh watch cases, gold and platinum, is seventy-five cents each, plus forty-five per cent ad valorem. If they are of silver, the United States rate is forty cents each and forty-five per cent ad valorem. If they are of base metal with no precious metal, the rate is only twenty cents each and forty-five per cent ad valorem.
Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement


Mr. YOUNG:: The hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) says that his life has been associated with employment. I must say that under the policy of the previous government in the last five years he must have had a most uncomfortable life.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-388.	Iron or steel angles,
beams, channels, columns, girders, joists, tees, zees, and other shapes or sections, not punched, drilled or further manufactured than hot rolled, weighing not less than 35 pounds per lineal yard, n.o.p.; piling of iron or steel, not punched or drilled, weighing not less than 35 pounds per lineal yard, including interlocking sections, if any, used therewith, n.o.p.: $3 per ton.
Mr. EDWAUDS:: Is there any change in this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: No. It is binding the intermediate tariff.


Abraham Albert Heaps: If I remember correctly, this was one of the items put on the free list for British preference in 1930.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, that is correct.


Abraham Albert Heaps: The intention, I assume, was to encourage British trade with the dominion. Could the minister give the imports under this item from Great Britain from 1930 on?


Charles Avery Dunning: I will find them. The. tariff history of the item is that it was free in May, 1930; in September, 1930, it was SI under the British preference, and under the imperial conference agreement of 1932 it was again reduced to free under the British preference. The imports from the United Kingdom were:
1931		 $228,000
1932		 271.000
1933		 184,000
1934		 104.000
1935		 236,000


Abraham Albert Heaps: The figures of the imports from the United States might be interesting for purposes of comparison.


Charles Avery Dunning: The imports from the
United States were:
1931		 $3,482,000
1932		 1,882,000
1933		 380,000
1934		 340,000
1935		 697,0Q0


Mr. EDWARDS:: I suggest that shows
what the empire trade agreements have done for imports from the United Kingdom as compared with those from the United States.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am afraid it is hard to demonstrate anything from those figures.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I note there has been no change in the duty, but my information is- I speak subject to correction-that the Algoma Steel mill at Sault Ste. Marie has recently commenced to roll channels, girders, and so forth, of about the weights mentioned in this item. Am I correct in that? If I am, I fancy this change may be disastrous to the industry as far as channels of that weight are concerned.


Charles Avery Dunning: This is binding the existing rate. No industry has the right to go into production of an article on the assumption that parliament will raise the duty. I think my hon. friend is correct in stating that some mills, one at any rate, is now rolling beams up to and including 15 inches in depth. They undertook that under this duty.


John Ritchie MacNicol: And they have not protested?


Percy John Rowe: Is the duty about the same entering the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: One-fifth of a cent a pound.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: That would be $4 a ton.


Mark Cecil Senn: This is a specific duty, and I suppose the value of these goods varies from time to time. Can the minister say what this would be as an ad valorem duty?


Percy John Rowe: We give the United States an advantage, bringing their iron and steel in here at S3 while we pay SI to them.


John Gordon Ross: I cannot get that argument. It is to the Canadian people we give the advantage when we cut the tariff, not the United States. Surely the people of this country have some rights. The hon. member for Davenport speaks about helping different industries, but probably if this S3 were cut off it would help some of the industries he is trying to help.


Percy John Rowe: That is still
harder to understand.


Charles Avery Dunning: If my hon. friend will put down these figures we may work out the percentage: $52,000 of duty paid on imports valued at $697,000, Canadian imports from the United States.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I know incidentally, in connection with the public works construction program wherein we specified that Canadian material should be used as far as possible,

Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement
that some of the Canadian mills were making very strong efforts, which I think were fairly successful, to supply Canadian requirements along these lines. Has the minister any figures of production?


Charles Avery Dunning: The total Canadian production of structural shapes of all kinds last year was worth SI,104,000.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Could the minister give the figures for the year before?


Charles Avery Dunning: I am sorry I have not that here.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Is there any export of these to the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: No, of course not. It would not matter what the duty was. My hon. friend, having been minister of public works, knows I am sure that no matter what the United States duty was, we could not possibly ship this material in there and hope to compete with their highly developed and extensive mass production of steel.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am glad to hear that recognition by the minister of the fact that the Canadian manufacturer cannot, with his output, hope to compete with the larger plants in the United States.


Charles Avery Dunning: In the United States market, I said.


John Gordon Ross: If that is the case it is a very good argument for our not trying
to shelter an industry that is uneconomic in this country.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Abraham Albert Heaps: A good deal has been said about protecting the manufacturer; perhaps I might say a word about protecting the workmen in the industry.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Are they not protected now?


Abraham Albert Heaps: No, they are not. Some of the factories in which these products are made have been mentioned this afternoon. I recall that we have had to protest in this house about men having to work in these steel mills 102 hours a week, seven night shifts of thirteen hours, and sometimes twenty-four hours at a stretch every second week.


Charles Avery Dunning: In the production of this item?


Abraham Albert Heaps: Of steel goods. I am speaking of a few years ago in Nova Scotia. I think it has been ended now, but I know that at this Algoma factory the conditions are not too good. It is impossible for the men in the Algoma steel mills to organize. They are paid low wages, and while I have not with me the figures showing the wages in the United States as compared with those in Canada, I venture to say without fear of successful contradiction that the wages paid at this particular mill are lower than those paid for the same class of labour in the United States. On top of that we give them a high protective duty. I do not know what it amounts to on a percentage basis.


Charles Avery Dunning: About seven per cent.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Then there is what amounts almost to an impossibility of shipping goods here, which provides additional tariff protection to these firms producing goods in Canada. I suggest that when we speak about giving protection we ought to consider the conditions pertaining among employees in industry. The steel industry has been a black spot in this country so far as labour conditions are concerned. I am satisfied from my knowledge that employees in Canadian steel mills are still working for extremely low wages and those who own the industry have been pretty well protected. The two terms are not synonymous, because when the word "protection" is used in this chamber we refer to the protection of the manufacturer, and only the manufacturer. With one or two exceptions, we have not as yet had protection for the men employed in the industry. Anyone who wishes to inform himself as to the effect of the tariff upon highly protected industries need only look through the evidence given before the price spreads commission to understand the conditions in the industry. Evidence was given as to furniture, steel, clothing, textile and other industries. When hon. members in any part of the house talk about giving protection to an industry I suggest their first consideration ought to be not those who own the industry or who have made the capital investment, but those who form the most important part of the industry; they ought to see that the workmen receive the protection to which they are entitled.


John Gordon Ross: And the people
who buy the goods, too.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: That is the underlying
principle of the protective tariff, the whole principle upon which it is based.
nos
Canada-UJS. Trade Agreement


John Gordon Ross: It does not
work.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: It is developed for the
purpose of giving work to Canadians rather than to people in other countries. I believe that in every province there is machinery, if it is used, to see that labour gets a fair return. I am glad to say that in recent years in Canada that matter has been followed up with a view to making it certain that labour shall get its fair share of the returns. We are making progress along that line all the time. If hon. members would go back and read the statements made when the protective tariff was established they would find that the underlying principle was the establishment of industries and the employment of labour in Canada.


Robert John Deachman: I should like to know what my hon. friend means when he uses the word "underlying"; did he not make a mistake?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: No.


Robert John Deachman: Did he not mean the "lying" principle behind it? Protection never has increased wages, and it never can. The natural and inevitable result of increases in tariffs, whether in Canada, Great Britain or any other country, has been reduction in wages. If hon. members wish to see an application of it, or to know how it works, they need only examine protection as it was applied in the year 1930, when the hon. member for Leeds was part and parcel of a great effort to raise the tariffs. I give the committee figures as to the wages paid in Canadian industry in 1930 and 1933, the latter being the last year for which we have figures. In 1930 the total wages paid in Canadian manufacturing industries amounted to 8736,000,000, while in 1933, after the most drastic conceivable application of the principle of protection, wages had dropped to $465,000,000. I am amazed to find hon. members speaking favourably of protection.


An hon. MEMBER:: What an argument!


Robert John Deachman: It never has improved wages, and the hon. members for Davenport and Leeds know it.


Charles Avery Dunning: Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order. We are discussing the details of item 388, in connection with which no change in the tariff is contemplated. There is a binding of the intermediate tariff as it relates to the United States. I submit that the committee of ways and means is not a

proper place for a general discussion of the principle of protection or free trade. We are confined by the rules of the house to a discussion of the item called. If you wish, I shall quote the rule.


Robert John Deachman: Surely that applies to other hon. members.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Robert John Deachman: I am discussing the point of order. Surely when hon. members argue that the tariff must be raised or maintained because it gives an increased volume of employment, it remains for us to explain that the increase in tariff does not do that.


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. McPhee):: Item 388 has already been carried.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I am amazed to hear the observations of the hon. member for North Huron (Mr. Deachman). I assure him that he is quite mistaken in the conclusion he draws from the amounts of wages paid in 1930 and 1933.


George Washington McPhee: Order.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Without following the
matter any farther I suggest the hon. member ought to get information as to the rates of pay.


Robert John Deachman: The price spreads commission report gives the information.


George Washington McPhee: There is no item before the committee. Item 388 has been carried for the last ten minutes. We have been discussing something which is not before the house.


Mr. STIRLING:: Call something.


George Washington McPhee: Item 394.
Customs tariff-394. Axles and axle bars, n.o.p., and axle blanks, and parts thereof of iron or steel:
(b) For other vehicles, n.o.p.: 30 per cent.


John Ritchie MacNicol: While the reduction in item 400 is not very great, in 1931 we imported $909,000 worth of products from the United States, and in 1935, on account of the tariff increases of the Bennett government, the imports were valued at only 5226,000. I quite agree that a lowering of the duty would please the hon. member for North Huron.


Robert John Deachman: What right has the hon. member to say that?


John Ritchie MacNicol: Because it will give less employment. He is not interested in giving employment in factories; he shows no indication of any interest in the employees.

Canada-US. Trade Agreement


Robert John Deachman: I rise to a point of order, I protest against the statement of the hon. member.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I have the floor.


Robert John Deachman: I am speaking to a point of order.


George Washington McPhee: Proceed.


Robert John Deachman: I protest against the suggestion of the hon. member that an increase of imports will please me. It is not for that that I contend. I contend that an increase of imports means an expansion of exports and an expansion of trade.


John Ritchie MacNicol: What I had started to say was that the hon. member would be pleased, because a lowering of the duty would eventually reduce employment in Canada.


Robert John Deachman: That is wholly false.


Mr. BRADETTE:: I should like to answer the argument of the last speaker.


Charles Avery Dunning: Is the hon. member speaking on axle bars?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Yes. In the last five years we crippled the lumber and mining industries and practically all industries.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Did some hon. member mention the places where axle bars are made?


Charles Avery Dunning: I can tell the hon. member that over $2,000,000 worth of them were made last year in Canada, and a total of $395,000 worth was imported.


Abraham Albert Heaps: What firms in Canada manufacture these axle bars?


John Ritchie MacNicol: They are manufactured in Hamilton and Guelph.


Percy John Rowe: What is the duty?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: One at a time.


Percy John Rowe: I thought the hon. member for Davenport had answered the question.


Charles Avery Dunning: Will the hon. member accept that answer?


Abraham Albert Heaps: Yes.


Percy John Rowe: I thought possibly it was more favourable than the answer the minister might have given. What is the duty on this item going into the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: The rate is six-tenths of a cent per pound, and if there are alloys the rates vary with the alloy.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: The minister says the
intermediate tariff binds the item. That means that although the general and the intermediate tariff may be raised or lowered, this particular item, being specially mentioned in the schedule, would not come within any up or down revision of the intermediate tariff.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is within a possible
downward revision.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: A possible downward
revision?


Charles Avery Dunning: But not upward.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: It cannot be raised under any circumstances?


William Daum Euler: The tariff on none of these items in the schedule can be raised.


Charles Avery Dunning: Not during the currency of the agreement. When we come to schedule II it will be seen that the United States has given a similar undertaking to Canada with respect to a long list of commodities.


Mr. KINLEY:: After all you are simply
fixing the intermediate tariff, and on basic materials like iron and steel I think it is a splendid thing to do in the interests of stability.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am glad to hear that.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I am speaking in the
interest of having a steel industry in Canada.


Mark Cecil Senn: Are any of these axles and
axle bars used in agricultural machinery?


Charles Avery Dunning: They might be in tractors, but tractors are not manufactured in Canada. In the main this item relates to axles for automobiles and machinery of that type.


Mr. GLADSTONE:: I should like to have
from the minister a definition of the term, "axle bars" and "axle blanks" as related to the automobile industry. As I understand it, axle blanks are axle bars cut to length and to some extent shaped. Both these articles under the intermediate tariff carry a duty of thirty per cent, and apparently neither is subject to drawback, but there is a drawback of ninety-nine per cent upon flat spring steel, steel billets, and steel axle bars when used in the manufacture of springs and axles for vehicles other than railway or tramway vehicles. I should like to know whether by any means automobile manufacturers are able to secure this drawback on axles or axles partly manufactured.


Charles Avery Dunning: The Minister of National Revenue is not in the committee at the moment, and a question on the administration of this item is difficult for me to answer
Canada-US. Trade Agreement

There are some seventeen different operations possible between the blank and the finished article, depending on the type of finished article desired. As to the point of application of the drawback, I am afraid I shall have to consult the Minister of National Revenue before answering my hon. friend's question. The matter has been before the tariff board and will be clarified, I hope, in due course.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-400. Fittings, of iron or steel, of every description, for iron or steel pipes and tubes: 274 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: This is binding the intermediate.


John Ritchie MacNicol: This is the item I referred to a moment ago, through error. In 1931 the importations were $909,000, and in 1935, $226,000.


Percy John Rowe: What tariff do we pay going to the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: If they are of cast iron, 25 per cent; if of steel, varying rates depending on their use. Alloys also complicate the item.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What is the range?


Charles Avery Dunning: From just below thirty to forty-five per cent ad valorem.


Mark Cecil Senn: Is there a large amount of these fittings entering Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend from Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) gave the importations just a moment ago.
Mr! HEAPS: What is the production in Canada of the same class of goods?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is divided into several different classifications, as follows: cast iron and steel pipe and fittings, $451,000; cast iron pipe and fittings, $367,000; malleable iron fittings, $743,000; steel pipe fittings, $299,000; wrought iron pipe fittings, $46,000. The total of these items represents our Canadian production. Our total imports were $227,000, and our total exports amounted to $86,000.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Our imports, I assume, were from the United States.


Charles Avery Dunning: Practically altogether.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-402a. Woven or welded wire fencing, of iron or steel, coated or not, n.o.p.; wire cloth or wire netting, of iron or steel, coated or not: 30 per cent.	'
John Gordon Ross: What was the tariff of the United States and other countries on this item in 1930?


Charles Avery Dunning: In 1930 the rates were 18 per cent British preference, 27 per cent intermediate, and 30 per cent general. Today, prior to the coming into force of this agreement, the rates are 25, 35 and 35 per cent.


John Gordon Ross: The rate is a great deal higher than it was in 1930. This item covers wire fencing which is used on farms all over this country.


Charles Avery Dunning: Not to any great extent under this item. This is the n.o.p. item. There is another item covering farm fencing.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: This is a reduction of five per cent?


Charles Avery Dunning: From 35 to 30 per cent.


Mr. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: What is the United States duty?	-


Charles Avery Dunning: There are two items, one of which is galvanized wire used for fencing, half a cent a pound. The rates on the other item vary, depending on the number of wires to the lineal inch, from 25 to 50 per cent ad valorem.


Ernest Edward Perley: What was the rate prior to the agreement?


Charles Avery Dunning: Half a cent a pound, representing from 25 to 40 per cent ad valorem.


Ernest Edward Perley: Practically no change.


Charles Avery Dunning: Practically' none.


Percy John Rowe: We export a considerable amount of wire fencing, do we not?


Charles Avery Dunning: There is no separate record of exports.


Percy John Rowe: We are exporting to the United Kingdom eight times as much wire as W'e did before the conference agreement.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is just one item in the wire tariff.


John Gordon Ross: If this wire can
be exported to the United Kingdom, what good reason can be given for a tariff protection against our own people?


Percy John Rowe: The minister told you a while ago.


John Gordon Ross: What did he
tell me?


Percy John Rowe: He said they could manufacture in such tremendous quantities in the United States.

Canada-U\S. Trade Agreement


John Gordon Ross: I am talking
about exporting to the British Isles. If we can manufacture these goods in Canada and export them to the British Isles, is there any good reason why the Canadian manufacturers cannot sell them in this country without a protective tariff?


Percy John Rowe: That was due
to the Canada-United Kingdom trade agreement.


Mr. LENNARD:: In many cases they are
manufacturing in Canada because they are enabled to take advantage of the British
preference.


John Gordon Ross: From my hon.
friend's remarks I take it they are using the tariff to soak the Canadian people so that they can export goods from Canada. That has been the policy of my hon. friends for years, and that is what I am protesting against. Surely if a manufacturer in Canada can export wire or anything else to be sold in the markets of the world, that same product can be sold to the people of this country at the same price.


Percy John Rowe: So it is.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: My hon. friend is
departing from the ruling of the chair. What about wheat? Isn't wheat sold in the markets of the world cheaper than it is sold in Canada?


John Gordon Ross: No, we do not
sell wheat cheaper in outside markets than it is sold in Canada.


Charles Avery Dunning: This item is not wheat; it deals with wire. I should like to say to the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) that while I am pleased to accommodate him by furnishing information which I know will be used as the foundation for a great number of speeches-his questions indicate that-I do want to put in a caveat against being misrepresented. In answering the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Ross) a moment ago, the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe said that the minister had told him a moment ago. What the minister said was that we could not hope to export steel shapes, such as described in this item, to the United States to compete with the steel industry of that country. I want that made quite clear; that is what the minister said and not something else.


Percy John Rowe: That is quite
clear. I am glad to have the enlightenment.


Charles Avery Dunning: So long as we understand each other.


Percy John Rowe: That is very
different from what the minister said several years ago in this house, and it is different from the countervailing policies of 1930 on this same item. He said he would make our tariffs the same as those of other countries.


Charles Avery Dunning: The countervailing principle of 1930 did not apply to this item, for obvious reasons. I believe in that principle, and I believe that this country and the United States may yet be wise enough to develop it.


Percy John Rowe: No sign of it
here.


Charles Avery Dunning: They will endeavour to
secure from each other equal privileges with respect to the commodities which flow north and south across the line. I believe in that principle to-day as much as I believed in it then. But steel is not a commodity which in the very nature of things can flow freely north and south across the line. Surely that is a matter of common sense.


Percy John Rowe: Not when they
charge 33i per cent higher duties.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is not a matter of
the duty.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-407a.	Chains, of iron or
steel, n.o.p., and complete parts thereof: 30 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: This is binding the intermediate.


John Gordon Ross: What was the
tariff in 1930?


Charles Avery Dunning: The rates have stood
for a long time. This item was revised following the imperial conference in wording only.


John Ritchie MacNicol: What kinds of chains
are covered by this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: This covers practically
all kinds of chains. Item 406 covers coil chain, coil chain links, including repair links, and chain shackles, of iron or steel. Apart from that exception, the item includes all kinds of chains.


John Gordon Ross: Logging chains?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What are the rates on
chains going into the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: From seven-eighths of a cent a pound to four cents a pound, according to diameter.

Canada-UJS. Trade Agreement


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That would be about 30
or 40 per cent.


Charles Avery Dunning: I cannot work out these things; I have not the ad valorem rates handy.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409b. Cultivators, harrows, seed-drills, horse-rakes, horse-hoes, scufflers, manure spreaders, garden seeders, weeders, and complete parts of all the foregoing: 12J per cent.
Customs tariff-409c. Ploughs; farm, field, lawn or garden rollers; soil packers; complete parts of all the foregoing, 12J per cent.
Customs tariff-409d. Mowing machines, harvesters, either self-binding or without binders, binding attachments, reapers, harvesters in combination with threshing machine separators including the motive power incorporated therein, and complete parts of all the foregoing, 12J per cent.
Customs tariff-409e.
(i)	Spraying and dusting machines and attachments therefor, including hand sprayers; apparatus specially designed for sterilizing bulbs; pressure testing apparatus for determining maturity of fruit; pruning hooks; pruning shears; animal dehorning instruments; and complete parts of all the foregoing, 12J per cent.
(ii)	Fruit and vegetable grading, washing and wiping machines and combination bagging and weighing machines, and complete parts therefor, 5 per cent.
Customs tariff-409f. Hay loaders, hay tedders, potato planters, potato diggers, fodder or feed cutters, ensilage cutters, grain crushers and grain or hay grinders, for farm purposes only, _ post hole diggers, snaths, stumping machines and all other agricultural implements or agricultural machinery, n.o.p., and' complete parts of all the foregoing, 12J per cent.
Customs tariff-409g. Incubators for hatching eggs, brooders for rearing young fowl, and complete parts of all the foregoing, 12J per cent.
Customs tariff-409h. Hay presses and complete parts thereof, 12J per cent.
Customs tariff-409i. Scythes, sickles or reaping hooks, hay or straw knives, edging knives, hoes, pronged forks, rakes, n.o.p., 12J per cent.
Customs tariff-409j. Fanning mills, pea-viners, corn husking machines, threshing machine separators, including wind stackers, baggers and self-feeders therefor; complete parts of all foregoing, 12§ per cent.
Alexander MacGillivray Young: What was the tariff in 1930 on this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: There are a number of
items covering agricultural implements, ranging from item 409 to item 409k. Item 409b, now under discussion, prior to 1930, was free, 7i per cent and 7^ per cent. Item 409c was free, 10 per cent and 10 per cent; 409d, free, 6 per cent, 6 per cent; 409e, free, 10 per cent, 10 per cent; 409f, free, 10 per cent, 10 per cent; 409g, free, 10 per cent, 10 per cent; 409h, free, 10 per cent, 15 per cent; 409i, free,
[Mr. Dunning. 1
15 per cent, 20 per cent; 409j, free, 10 per cent, 10 per cent; 409k, free, 17i per cent, 17? per cent. Except for one or two clarifications in the wording, of no material consequence, this group as an entity was last revised in the budget of the special session of September, 1930, at which time a uniform rating of free, 15 per cent and 25 per cent was applied throughout the group with the exception of sub-item (ii) of item 409e, which was free, 10 per cent and 10 per cent.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Has tihe minister the values
of the imports from Great Britain and the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: The imports for the
fiscal year 1934-35 amounted to $664,000, of which $608,000 came from the United States. The remainder came from the United Kingdom and Sweden. The import figures for the fiscal year 1928-29 showed a total of $17,784,000, of which $17,008,000 came from the United States.


Abraham Albert Heaps: In other words, the preference given to Great Britain has not proved very valuable to them.


Charles Avery Dunning: On some items it has
been of little value.


John Gordon Ross: Has the minister the exports of these articles to the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Implements enter the
United States free of duty, and I hope my hon. friends will note this fact for the speeches they are preparing. We exported $1,038,000 to South Africa; $664,000 to the Argentine; $603,000 to the United States; $594,000 to the United Kingdom; $125,000 to New Zealand and $118,000 to Australia. The remainder of a total of $3,567,000 went to some forty or fifty other countries. Back in 1928-29 we exported a total of $15,800,000.


Percy John Rowe: Can the minister
give us the imports from the United States and other countries for 1931?


Charles Avery Dunning: I gave them for 1930.
For 1929-30 the total imports were $13,809,000. of which $13,006,000 came from the United States.	-


Mr. COLDWELL:: To what countries did
the exports of 1928 go?


Charles Avery Dunning: They went to practically all countries of the world. I will answer in that general way and will look it up in detail a little later. They went to forty or fifty countries-a very wide distribution.

Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement


Abraham Albert Heaps: Can the minister give the figures of total production of that class of goods in Canada in those years?


Charles Avery Dunning: The last figure I have is for the calendar year 1934, $6,277,000.


Abraham Albert Heaps: What are the exports? *


Charles Avery Dunning: The exports will be made up by fiscal years, whereas production statistics are on the calendar year basis.


John Gordon Ross: Here again hon. gentlemen are exercised over the manufacturers of these commodities, though the minister has shown us that we can ship these goods to practically every country in the world, whether there is a tariff against them or not; yet there must be protection on them so that they may be sold to the Canadian people.


Ernest Edward Perley: Can the
minister tell us whether the hon. member for Moose Jaw or others have made representations that these items be free?


John Gordon Ross: I am willing to make the representation now and I hope the minister will take it into serious consideration when the budget comes down.


Percy John Rowe: What were the imports under this item in 1931 and 1935?


Charles Avery Dunning: We are speaking of the whole group of items.


Percy John Rowe: The minister might give us the figure for 1935.


Charles Avery Dunning: I have already given that. With regard to the question asked by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar-


Mr. COLD WELL:: I was particularly interested in ascertaining the exports of Russia in that year, 1928.


Charles Avery Dunning: This particular volume covers the last five years and it goes back only to 1931, in which year we do not appear to have exported anything to Russia.


Major James William Coldwell: It has been stated that our Canadian companies were able to sell their implements in Russia at a very much lower rate than they could sell them in Canada, and I wondered why they required protection.


Charles Avery Dunning: I will now answer the question asked by the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe. Does he want the exports to the United States or generally?


Percy John Rowe: Generally.


Charles Avery Dunning: I rather think my hon. friend was referring to imports.


Percy John Rowe: I was asking for imports.


Charles Avery Dunning: Total imports in 1931 were 816,495,000; in 1932, 83,315,000; in 1933, $2,208,000; in 1934,	$2,283,000; in 1935,


Percy John Rowe: What are the exports for the same years?


Mr. GOLDING:: Is it possible for the minister to give the total sales of agricultural implements in Canada in 1930 and in 1935?
I am interested to know the total business done in those two particular years.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am afraid that question goes beyond the information available. The nearest I can give is the total production for each year. First, I will deal with the exports. Someone has asked for the total exports for the five years, and these are the figures:	1931, $7,100,000;	1932, $2,400,000;1933,	$1,300,000;	1934,	$1,800,000;	1935,
$3,500,000. If it is any comfort to my hon. friends who are getting speeches ready on the awful effects of the agreement-


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I rise to a point of order. I quite agree with the hon. gentleman that we must keep to the items in a reasonable way, but the provocative interjections he makes do not tend to facilitate discussion.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is hardly a point of order. I will apologize for being provocative and the last member to whom I should like to be provocative is my hon. friend. Certainly I have no idea of holding up my own items, but to have the ceaseless repetition of questions-[DOT]


Percy John Rowe: On the point of order-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Percy John Rowe: I am speaking to the point of order. The minister has twice referred to me, evidently pointing to me in connection with the remark about asking questions purely for the purpose of preparing speeches.


An hon. MEMBER:: Is it not true?


Percy John Rowe: He is not right. As a matter of fact, his remarks are provocative and I quite agree with the hon. member (Mr. Cahan) that they will not expedite the consideration of the agreement.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is quite true; my hon. friends can hold me up as long as they like. I would point out, however, for the benefit of the rest of the committee, that
Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement

these questions which are being asked of me on every item-and they are quite properly asked; I make no complaint of that-take up the time of 245 members of the house and involve on my part constant reference to small print in statistical records which are public property, available to and, I believe, in the possession of every hon. member. If in connection with the 750 tariff items which are affected I have to give this information in answer to constantly reiterated questions, then hon. members must expect to be here quite a time, and if they were sitting in my place I think they might possibly suggest that the volume be handed over to some of the members who are asking the questions. In the interest of getting on with the business of parliament, where a public record is available, is it good business for the country for hon. members, in connection with 750 items, to ask continually the same type of question, the answer to which in every instance is a matter of public record in documents that are available?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Mr. Chairman, it seems
to me that the very same procedure which my hon. friend the minister is complaining about was adopted in connection with the Canada-United Kingdom agreement. We sat here for weeks and weeks talking about it. I submit that every hon. member is entitled to have placed on Hansard the facts about these items.


Charles Avery Dunning: Of course you have.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: And I do not understand that the minister is complaining about that.


Charles Avery Dunning: Not at all.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: And I would like to
point out that this afternoon the minister has made excellent progress. There is no intention, no disposition to obstruct. But I do say that the house and the country are entitled to full information.


Charles Avery Dunning: Quite right.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: And the minister has not raised any objection to giving it. Therefore I cannot quite understand his last remark.


Charles Avery Dunning: Well, I am accused, Mr. Chairman, of being provocative, and I was giving that as just a slight reason-


Hugh Alexander Stewart: That was on a different
matter.


Charles Avery Dunning: -for some slight provocation. If my hon. friends do not care to
[Mr. Dunning.1
receive the remark I made in the jocular spirit in which it was made, I will not make it any more. But it is evident that hon. members are creating material for campaign purposes, and I think that is quite right.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I think that statement is
quite improper, and an additional provocation, and if that sort of provocation is going to continue, these items will not go through very speedily. I suggest to the hon. gentleman that, with his usual good nature, he should give the specific information asked for as information where it is available, and he has expert assistance at his elbow. But I suggest that, when he is giving it, these provocative statements and suggestions do not facilitate the passing of the items. I am only too anxious to assist him in passing them.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Just to pour
a little oil on the troubled waters, may I say to my hon. friend from Leeds (Mr. Stewart) with -respect to the items in the United Kingdom agreement that we did not have any chance to discuss them at all until the bill in its entirety had passed; very little time was taken up with those items.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Does the right hon.
gentleman say that at no stage of the agreements did they have a chance to discuss them?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes. At no
stage of the bill respecting the agreement. What happened was that later on when the Minister of Finance went into committee of ways and means in connection with the budget, we discussed some of the items there, but the resolution with respect to approving the agreement went through without any discussion of the items; also thereafter the first, and the second reading, the committee stage and the third reading of the bill approving the Canada-United Kingdom agreement went through without any discussion of the items. The whole matter was settled before any items were discussed. When we came to deal with relative items in ways and means we simply threw up our hands, the procedure being a useless one, and we did not discuss them at any length.


George Halsey Perley: But surely my right hon. friend got all the information he asked for when this matter was under discussion. All we are asking for now is to have full information with regard to these different items put on the record so that we will know the facts as they are.

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We took the view that what was on record already was on record and we could get the information there: we did not try to have it reproduced ad infinitum in committee.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I want to assure the hon. Minister of Finance that he has not provoked me in any way.


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


John Ritchie MacNicol: As a matter of fact, at different times I felt like getting up and congratulating him on his good humour and courtesy. Personally I have not seen anything wrong with his attitude. I assume we are taking up all these agricultural implement items-some eleven-together.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, all together.


John Ritchie MacNicol: What I have to say now will, as far as I know, cover the eleven items. There are quite a number of members in the chamber, Mr. Chairman, who will not be able to say anything for or against these items: the member for York North (Mr. Mulock), the member for Brantford (Mr. Macdonald), the member for Victoria (Mr. McNevin), the member for Perth (Mr. Sanderson)-he is not in the chamber-the member for Oxford (Mr. Rennie), and the member for Wentworth (Mr. Lennard); he is all right.


Mr. McNEVIN (Victoria. Ont.):: Which member for Victoria does the hon. member refer to, because I happen to be member for Victoria?


John Ritchie MacNicol: I refer to the member from Lindsay, where agricultural implements are manufactured. You will not get up and deny that, I think.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: I understood you to say that those members were not in the house.


John Ritchie MacNicol: No; I said: The hon. members for those ridings *will not rise in their places, I imagine, and defend the reduction of duty on agricultural implements from 25 per cent to 12^ per cent.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: Perhaps you had better wait until the discussion is over.
the effect that our manufacturers of agricultural implements are able to sell in the foreign market and on that account should not receive protection at home. The reason they are able to compete in world markets is that they have for themselves the best home market in the world, that is the market of their own country. On account of having such a large production for the home market they are able to produce at a fairly reasonable rate, and I believe they are able to compete outside of Canada. I have said before, and I want to say again that I believe if manufacturers of agricultural implements-and I will confine my remarks to them because that is the subject under review-have a good business and are employing men, the more men they employ the better it is for the farmers living in the districts adjacent to their plants. That, sir, is the American view. The American newspapers are patting this agreement on the back everywhere, figuratively speaking. I want to read two or more editorials from large cities and towns in the United States in which there are important agricultural implement factories. The first I will refer to is Chicago. The Chicago Times has this to say:
If the trade pact will sell more of our coal, agricultural implements, oil, radios, automobiles, and such in Canada, it is only reasonable to believe that our own men and women who produce these things will have more money to buy more of what our own farmers raise.
That is the argument I make at all times. If factory workmen are not working they cannot buy from the farmers roundabout. If they make wages from the production and the sale of agricultural implements they can purchase from the neighbouring farmers.
Unfortunately perhaps the manufacturers are a little to blame for the fact that most members from the west are very bitter against them. If the big manufacturing implement companies would move a plant to Moose Jaw, a plant to Saskatoon and plants to other points throughout the west, the people roundabout would observe the benefits of having large numbers of workmen in factories adjacent to them.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: If they would move the
price down it would help a lot.


George Halsey Perley: They have.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Very well, I will. I first Mr. MacNICOL:	This not only will bring
want to say something to the hon. member the price down but may wipe them out of for Moose Jaw (Mr. Ross). I have a high business. Another town which makes large regard for the hon. member. He has a quantities of agricultural implements is great deal of ability, and I believe he is out Muncie, Indiana. I have been over there to get information. He said something to and I know what the plants are like. This 12739-72

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement

is what the Star of Muncie says in an editorial:
The new schedules are expected to add largely to the volume of manufactured articles we may expect to sell to Canadian customers. That will be a distinct advantage to all in this country.
An advantage to farmers and everybody else. That is the truth. Then the Register of Des Moines, where there are very large agricultural implement plants-


George Washington McPhee: Order.
I think my hon. friend is out of order.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Why am I out of order?
The	CHAIRMAN	(Mr.	McPhee):	Citation 306.


John Ritchie MacNicol: We are discussing item
409.


An hon. MEMBER:: Let the chairman
give his ruling.
The	CHAIRMAN	(Mr.	McPhee):	Youare reading extracts	from	American	newspapers	bearing on proceedings in this	house.
Citation 306 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms states:
It is not in order to read articles in newspapers, letters or communications emanating from persons outside the house and referring to, or commenting on, or denying anything said by a member or expressing any opinion reflecting on proceedings within the house.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am not doing anything in that regard. Newspaper items have been read here ever since I came to this house.


The CHAIRMAN:: These are items from newspapers in the United States reflecting on proceedings in this house.


John Ritchie MacNicol: In what way?


George Washington McPhee: That is my ruling.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Are we not allowed to quote an editorial?


George Washington McPhee: Not reflecting on this agreement.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I personally am reflecting on the agreement. Are we to be denied our rights and privileges?


George Washington McPhee: No; the hon. member himself can do what he likes.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Then I will state this, that newspapers of various cities in the United States, a number of which I have before me and would quote, including Chicago, Moline and other American cities where they have large agricultural implement factories, all say 
that the new business from sale of agricultural implements made in those cities will mean work in their factories and give better prices to the farmers of the surrounding districts. And that is true, that is what we argue. I respect the opinion of hon. members on the other side; I am not going to enter into an altercation on another man's opinions, but I make this statement, that if in Hamilton, Orillia, Woodstock, Aurora where they make very fine implements, and other Ontario towns and cities where they manufacture agricultural implements, there will be employment, if, however, we import another $30,000,000 or $40,000,000 worth-perhaps another $10,000,000 worth would be more correct-there will be less employment.


Charles Avery Dunning: If it is true, as my hon. friend states, that exporting implements from the United States to Canada in large measure will help the workmen in that country and the farmers in that country, the converse must also be true, I presume my hon. friend will admit, that if we export more agricultural implements from Canada to the United States this will help Canadian workmen.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Exactly.


Charles Avery Dunning: Then I know how pleased my hon. friend will be to know that during the month of January, the first month in which this agreement was in force, our exports of farm implements to the United States practically doubled as compared with January,
1935.	In January, 1935, we exported $174,000 worth, and in January, 1936, we exported $319,000 worth. But there is nothing strange about that; it follows the general trend of exports in the months of January and February with respect to our exports to the United States since the coming into force of the agreement. For instance, our total exports of domestic products to the United States in February, 1935, was $15,500,000; in February,
1936,	it was $22,000,000, an increase of $6,500,000, and that is the highest recorded figure for February since 1930.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I assume the minister would find a substantial increase in 1935 over 1934, and in 1934 over 1933, because I would be very sorry to think the world is not getting back on its feet, so naturally the increase of production continues. I do not see any particular argument in that. I remember in 1924 when a very similar plan was in operation in this country, that a large delegation came to Ottawa on September 4, and presented facts- and figures-I cannot say whether they were right or wrong; all I have

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
is the record of their having been presented- showing that as a result of the then very low duties under the then Liberal government some twenty-five agricultural tool and implement factories had closed in the preceding two years. The authority for that is the submission of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association to the employment congress in Ottawa. I hope I am wrong but I feel that we are going directly into the same situation again. I cannot for the life of me see how this country can hope to build up industry on the lines we are now following. One line of industry has the duties cut down; it then proceeds to beg the government to reduce duties on the materials entering into its products. The result is that there is no stability whatever in manufacturing. I cannot see how manufacturers can continue unless there is stability. One government lowers duties; another raises them until the heads of these firms hardly know where they are going. Many companies-I will not say agricultural implement makers but they are probably in the same boat-have reserves; they are compelled to keep large reserves that are not working that would work if there were stability of duties on the lines of the goods they manufacture. If they were assured of stability for ten or fifteen years they would not need to keep such large reserves but could put that money to work and give employment.
Despite what the hon. member for North Huron (Mr. Deachman) says, though I respect it, I am not interested in what he says; he and I are as far apart as the poles. My life has been spent with workmen; I do not suppose he would know whether workmen were going backward or forward. A few minutes ago some attack was made on industry in this country, and there may be one or two or three that do not play the game; you always find that, whether it be doctors or lawyers or people engaged in any line of business-perhaps not among farmers; I do not want to say an unkind word about them. But in the rank and file of industries in this country there is a feeling of respect between the men and their employers that is not surpassed in any country in the world. I have had a great deal to do with industry and I have never come into contact with the men I hear denounced in this house. I would like the names of these firms to be read out. Someone said not long ago when the matter of steel was under discussion that such conditions exist there. I can explain that there is a branch of the steel industry in which men have to work too long hours, because the blast furnaces cannot be run on schedule. But the great steel plants that I know, and 12739-72J
the agricultural implement plants, do treat their men right as far as it is possible to do so. I am one of those who defend the workingman on every platform; I have been one of them for many years and their interests are mine. I cannot help but feel that cutting the duties on all this large range of items is going to affect the workingman in the towns and cities in this country in which agricultural implements are manufactured. I hope I am wrong. I am thinking of the men who work in the plants; I know they have had a very hard time.	[DOT]


An hon. MEMBER:: In the last five years.


John Gordon Ross: I have a great deal of regard for my hon. friend and I believe he is absolutely sincere in what he says, but I differ from him in opinion on many things. He said that in the agricultural implement industry after the tariff was cut in 1924 a great many plants were closed down. The facts are these, that in 1925, after the tariff was cut, we produced $24,000,000 worth of agricultural implements in Canada. For the following years production was:
1926		 $38,000,000
1927		 42,000,000
1928		 41,000,000
1929		 40,000,000
1930		 26,000,000
Then in 1931 we put on more tariff and production dropped to $11,000,000, and in 1932 to $5,500,000. Another argument the hon. member used was that because we had the best home market for agricultural implements therefore we could export to other countries of the world. Hon. members opposite have always argued the other way. They have stated that we need a protective tariff for these goods because we have not a home market, and the people who did have a good home market could ship into this country.


John Ritchie MacNicol: You never heard me
say that.


John Gordon Ross: Then the hon.
member differs with his colleagues. The fact that we have a good home market for agricultural implements surely does not mean that we should put a high tariff against them and charge our people more for their implements.
Then the hon. member said that if one of the agricultural implement plants happened to be in Moose Jaw possibly I would see eye to eye with them. All I have to say is that there are industries in Moose Jaw, as well as in other parts of western Canada, and as the hon. member for that city and constituency
Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement

may I say that if any of those industries are being protected to a point detrimental to the Canadian people as a whole, I would ask the government here and now to take off the protection.


Abraham Albert Heaps: May I say a word to the
lion, member for Davenport. I have no doubt that he is sincere in his effort to help the working people of Canada, and that he believes that by the imposition of high tariffs Canadians will be provided with steady employment. Of course the reverse argument would be that in countries where there are no tariffs there would be no employment. Such is not the case. I would point out that there is very little relationship between high tariffs and employment. If high tariffs provided employment then surely between 1930 and 1935 there would have been no unemployment in Canada. In those years we increased our tariffs to almost unknown heights.
In the hon. member's observations he seemed to have three ideas to place before the committee. The first was that in the United States there is almost unanimous opinion in favour of the agreement. I do not think he is quite correct in assuming that the little pamphlet from Chicago which he has in his possession represents the opinion of the whole of the United States. From reading journals and papers of the United States I know there has been a strong volume of opinion in opposition to the agreement. In the month of January, when the terms of the agreement were made public, they went so far as to threaten legal proceedings to upset it, their allegation being that the President of the United States was not properly exercising the powers conferred upon him. Evidently the statement the hon. member is attempting to convey, namely, that people in the United States are unanimously in favour of the agreement, is not quite in accordance with the facts.
Then the hon. member spoke about the stabilization of the tariff. I have never known him to be in favour of a stabilized tariff, and this is the first occasion I have heard him advocate this in the House of Commons. To my knowledge he has always voted against stabilization. Between 1930 and 1935 he voted in favour of increases, a procedure which did not have the effect of stabilization. Apparently his idea, of a stable tariff is one whereby it will remain at its present high level. In his view, so long as we keep on increasing it there will be no difficulty, but if we attempt to decrease it we ought to take steps to bring about a stable tariff.
His third .point had to do with benefits created by certain industries establishing

themselves in some of our western cities. He said that if one of the implement companies would establish itself in Saskatoon or Moose Jaw-*


John Ritchie MacNicol: Regina and Saskatoon.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I will come to Regina, later. He said that if one of these industries would establish itself in a western city it would confer upon that city almost untold benefits, and that some of the harsh feelings held by western people concerning eastern manufacturers might be softened. May I tell the hon. member that western cities are full of these factories, and some of them are not the boons or blessings he supposes. May I point out an incident of the last few years. The city of Regina was very anxious to have a General Motors' factory locate at that point, and offered attractive concessions. I believe the city gave some relief from taxation and, if I am not mistaken, provided the company with a cheap site. Probably hon. members from Saskatchewan could give more details than I could. I do know however that instead of being a blessing the factory in Regina is probably the very reverse. While they are operating three or four months of the year and during that time provide employment, it costs the city far more in relief expenditures to keep the employees during those long periods when they are not engaged in the plant. What happened in Regina has happened at different points in western Canada. One might gather from the observations of the hon. member for Davenport that the manufacturer in Canada is a kind of philanthropist, and that he operates his factory simply to give employment to workmen.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Nonsense.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I think one might draw
that inference from the hon. member's observation. I say that they aTe nothing of the kind. The manufacturer will open a factory or a workshop wherever he sees an opportunity of selling his wares. The labourer is only a secondary consideration. The opportunity of selling wares was the motivating power behind the opening of the plants in Regina and other parts of western Canada. The chief point we have to remember is that no amount of tariff can provide jobs in Canada for the working people. I am speaking in the aggregate, and admit that here and there one may find an isolated case in which high tariff protection may create a factory and give employment. In the long run, however, it may do more harm than good. It may be true that while in some

Camda-U. S. Trade Agreement
cases we might send money to the United States, it comes back in other directions. I suggest that it comes back by means of the tourist traffic. This traffic has become one of the greatest industries of Canada, and in one of the last years for which we have the figures we derived approximately $200,000,000 therefrom. In more prosperous years we received approximately $300,000,000.
When we are discussing this matter I believe we should have in our minds a clear perspective of t>he meaning of tariff protection. I suggest that so far as labour is concerned it means very little, but that it means a great deal to the owners of industry. As the hon. member for Davenport has said, I believe sometimes that if in days gone by the owners of industry had been a little more considerate of their employees there might not have been feelings created against them.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Does the hon. member
think for a moment that every manufacturer has succeeded in making money? Have not many of them failed?


Abraham Albert Heaps: The tariff has nothing to
do with that question. However, if high tariffs permit the manufacturer to become prosperous, then surely the past few years have indicated that high tariffs have not been able to do anything for manufacturers in Canada.


Major James William Coldwell: And hundreds of thousands of working people on relief.


Mr. MULOCK:: The hon. member for
Davenport has asked what the hon. member for York North thinks about the reductions in the duty on farm implements. I am in favour of the reductions; that is what I think of them. I tell him that, because the farmers of Canada, if they wish to get rid of their surplus products, have to compete in the markets of the world. If they are going to do that they have to be placed in a favourable position to compete with the farmers of other countries. If we are going to hold them up on the cost of their farm implements and necessities of life, we cannot expect them ito ge,t along very well in competition with other countries.


Mr. MACDONALD (Brantford):: Mr. Chairman, I do not intend to speak at any great length, but there are one or two matters I should like to bring to the attention of hon. members. It has been said to-day that there was a great increase in the production of farm implements in Canada from 1923 to 1930. I believe there was also a great exportation of farm implements during that period, and
that exportation was going, not to the United States but largely to European countries. Some hon. gentlemen may say: Why not continue to export to European countries? The answer is that European countries have so raised their tariffs that it is impossible to-day for the Canadian manufacturer of farm implements to export to those countries. He has no foreign market to-day; his market is the home market alone.
Considerable mention has been made of the price of farm implements. I would draw attention to the fact that the system in vogue in Canada to-day in the sale of farm implements entails considerable expense. There are many manufacturers who make their goods and then turn them over to sales people throughout the dominion; those sales people pay the manufacturer for the goods, and that is the end of it so far as the manufacturer is concerned. But in the farm implement industry the manufacturer is not only manufacturer but sales agent as well. The farmer pays directly to that manufacturer. The manufacturer makes his implements, and turns them over to some agent, say in western Canada; that agent sells to the farmer, and the farmer then gives a note to the manufacturer. Not only that, but under the laws of our provinces it is necessary for farm implement manufacturers to maintain warehouses and supply parts for every implement they sell over a period of ten years. That is one reason why the farm implement manufacturer is in a different position entirely from that of the manufacturer of practically every other manufactured commodity in this country.
A great deal has been said about high tariffs, but after all, we have in this trade agreement a tariff of 12J per cent on farm implements. Some may consider that a high tariff, but personally I do not consider it so. I consider it a reasonable tariff.
Some hon. members have said that the manufacturers should give a little more consideration to the farmer. Probably it would be well if that worked all round. Probably each of us might well give a little more consideration to the rest of us. I think each one of us thinks too much of his own particular constituency rather than of the interests of the dominion as a whole. We should look at this country as one great dominion, with the interests of one part being the concern of all. In that way only can we advance.
We cannot compare tariffs to-day with tariffs in 1923 because conditions throughout the world have so changed that we are living to-day in an entirely different world so far as economic conditions are concerned. I hope we shall all view tariff questions reasonably
Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement

with a view to getting this country back on its feet, not only getting the farmers back on their feet, not only getting our manufacturers busy in their plants again, not only having capital return to this dominion, but putting workmen back to work and doing all we can for the good of the country as a whole.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: I am in full accord with this reduction in the tariff on agricultural implements. I would say further that when you compare the price of agricultural products with that of agricultural implements, the price of agricultural implements is too high and out of all proportion to the price of farm products to-day. I think I am correct in stating that agricultural implements enter the United States free, and therefore our Canadian manufacturers have that potential market at their doors. I think that 12J per cent should be ample protection for them.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Too much.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: Yes, perhaps too much. I understand from authoritative sources that our implement manufacturers sell their products to the farmers of Russia and of other countries at a lower price than they sell to the Canadian farmer, and yet in selling our farm products we have to sell in open competition on the markets of the world. For that reason I am one hundred per cent behind the government in this reduction in the tariff on farm implements.


Robert John Deachman: With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a word to my hon. friend from Brantford City (Mr. Macdonald) who is particularly interested, as I am, in the development of the home market. There is a difference of opinion between myself and some other members of this house as to the best way to develop the home market, but I think it is very easy to demonstrate the best way, and I now proceed to do so.
In 1922 we had a home market in Canada for 120,000,000 worth of agricultural implements-I am giving figures from the bureau of statistics. In 1930 that home market rose to $38,000,000. Then we got the kind of tariff which my hon. friend from Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) suggests would give us stability, but unfortunately in this case stability passed out of sight almost altogether, for in 1931 the consumption of agricultural implements in Canada dropped from $38,000,000 to $12,000,000.


John Ritchie MacNicol: What year?


Robert John Deachman: In 1931 the apparent consumption of agricultural implements in Canada was $12,000,000. I am taking production, plus imports, minus exports.


Percy John Rowe: Give us the world consumption.


Robert John Deachman: Are we dealing with the tariff of the world or the tariff of Canada? What will the Chairman say if we drift all over the world? In 1930 the consumption in Canada was $38,000,000; in 1931, $12,000,000; in 1932, $6,000,000; in 1933, 6,000,000; in 1934, $8,000,000. The darkness deepens as the tariff rises.
Now I will take the imports of agricultural implements. We have heard protests from some hon. members that lowering the tariff would lead to increased imports from the United States, and consequently to a decrease in production of Canadian agricultural implements, but I want to give the committee the facts. In 1927 our imports were S26,000,-000; in 1928, $39,000,000; in 1929, $31,000,000. Of course, hon. members who differ from me politically will throw up their hands in holy horror when I give those figures and ask: What happened to the poor Canadian workman? Well, Mr. Chairman, in the three years in which our imports were highest the employment of Canadian labour in the production of farm implements was also highest. Those were the years 1927, 1928 and 1929. In those years wages and salaries amounted to S13.000.000, $13,000,000 and $14,000,000. When the tariff was raised to the highest point ever known in Canada, wages dropped to $3,000,000, $3,000,000 and $3,000,000. These figures show that as imports rose, employment and prosperity increased and the Canadian people were happy. Does this answer the hon. member for Davenport?


John Ritchie MacNicol: No. The hon. member is forgetting all about the depression.


Robert John Deachman: I am dealing with agricultural implements. I have just shown my hon. friend that in 1929 the production of agricultural implements resulted in wages of $14,000,000. My hon. friend says that he does not care what I say, but, alas, I care what he says. I am not worried about the ninety and nine sheep that are safe in the shepherd's fold; I am worried about the one that went astray. I have listened to the very interesting remarks of my hon. friend, but I think he is a splendid illustration of what might be called the last stand of unshaken valour. Hon. members will recall the words

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
used by Victor Hugo in describing the three houses which the British held as a last resort at the battle of Waterloo:
They were the last stand of unshaken valour rather than the maintenance of an important position.
My hon. friend is quite a fighter but he does not realize what is in the best interests of this country. Therefore, he cannot express what he does not know. One word as to his little book. I enjoyed that little book very much and if I had been chairman I would not have stopped his reading it.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I should like to read more.


Robert John Deachman: There are some splendid things in it which I am going to use upon the public platform. It demonstrates the fact that a reciprocity agreement would be of benefit to the United States and also of benefit to Canada. It is the mutual interest of both nations that we are legislating for in this agreement. Were it not to the mutual benefit of both parties I, for one, would not want to support it because I know that by mutual benefits we go forward to prosperity, but by the attitude of my hon. friend we go backwards, as we have done since 1930.


Thomas Miller Bell: I should like to draw attention to the fact that this particular tariff is still maintaining what I think is a particularly vicious principle, that is that Canadian [DOT] users of agricultural implements are made to pay the costs of production and overhead so that the surplus can be supplied to their competitors at a price below what Canadian users pay. To my mind that is subsidizing the competitors of the Canadian producer, and as such it is an utterly vicious principle. When the budget is brought down, I should like to see the whole thing -wiped out in connection with implements. We were told a few moments ago that if factories were to be found in some of our western cities this might change our attitude. A few moments ago the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Heaps) referred to such a factory in western Canada. In 1929 or 1930, certain people thought that this might happen if such a factory were erected in the city in which I happen to live. But what actually did happen? The factory was erected and while the corporation maintains the machinery and heats the building, the citizens of Canada and the citizens of that city have to maintain five or six hundred men who were brought in there to work in that factory until the factory can open up again.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is it an agricultural implement factory to which the hon. member is referring?


Thomas Miller Bell: I am talking about an automobile factory.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The hon. member is out of order.


Major James William Coldwell: I was using that to illustrate the whole system of protective tariffs. I should like to see the subsidies being paid to our foreign competitors removed entirely, and that is what I urge in relation to tariffs, and what I shall urge when this matter is considered at a later date.


Frank Exton Lennard: A short time ago the minister complained of items being held up, but I should like to draw his attention to the fact that for the last thirty-seven minutes we have heard from practically every group but the Conservative party.


William Henry Golding: Perhaps I might be permitted to offer a suggestion to hon. members. The question of tariffs was thoroughly discussed during the recent federal elections and if ever a government received a mandate to reduce tariffs, this government did. So far as I am concerned, I am going to urge the government to reduce tariffs all along the line. In view of what the hon. member has said, I suggest that we close this discussion on tariffs and get on with the business.


Mr. BLAIR:: I contend that we have given too much assistance to the manufacturers of farm implements. Hon. members from Toronto can make inquiries similar to those I made. I have gone through the Massey-Harris plant many times. I asked the foreman there why the plant was not running and he told me that the plant was too large for the necessities of the country. He said that the plant had been built to supply the foreign trade; that thousands of implements used to be sent out of the country, but that now the business was confined to Canada. He said that the plant was so large that it cost too much money to run it; that it did not pay to run the plant until they had thousands of machines to make. He told me that they were using sixteen tons of coal per day just to turn over the machinery in order to keep the shafts from warping.


Percy John Rowe: That is what he will be doing again.


John Knox Blair: I might say to the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) that when I was in his riding one of his lieutenants told me that he was one of the strongest men for reciprocity there was in the dominion.


Percy John Rowe: That did not have much effect there.
Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement


John Knox Blair: He told me that there was no more zealous supporter of reciprocity than the hon. member.


Percy John Rowe: This is not reciprocity.


John Knox Blair: I told him that I thought this was only camouflage; that we were having a manifestation of pure and simple camouflage from the hon. member who is now interrupting me. If the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) will go through the Massey-Harris plant he will find out that what I say is true.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I have gone through that plant many times.


John Knox Blair: This machinery could be built much cheaper by erecting smaller factories in the outlying towns of the provinces. It does not pay to operate a combine on fifty acres and it does not pay to operate such a large plant for the production of a small number of machines. A smaller plant which was more adapted to making the different types of machinery could get along with fewer men and the costs of the implements would be lowered. Much has been sacrified to the implement makers of Canada. We have a mandate from the people and it is high time that something was done. Before the election the Conservative party tried to make out that they were in favour of reciprocity, but that was pure camouflage.


Jean-François Pouliot: Put them in the lethal chamber.


Percy John Rowe: I do not want to hold up the items unnecessarily, but I think the minister will agree that there are at least ten items going through at the one time. The principle of protection is involved all the way through this agreement. It is an amazing spectacle to see the position in which the government finds itself with free traders to its left, free traders to its right and protectionists at its back. There is also the problem of saving industry which must be considered when the budget is brought down.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: They are all as one on this agreement.


Percy John Rowe: The Prime Minister certainly could not have been in the house if he says that they are all of one mind on the agreement.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: They are.


Percy John Rowe: We have heard those who say that the agreement is low enough to give the farmers cheaper implements; others to his left say that the duties

should be -wiped out altogether. The hon. member for Brantford is much fairer than the others, for he suggests that both sides should be taken into consideration. He spoke very cautiously. He did not suggest that the tariff should be raised but I know he would hesitate to propose any reduction in it. It is obvious therefore that there is a great difference of opinion on the opposite side in regard to this particular item. The hon. member for Moose Jaw would no doubt say, "Hear, hear" to the removal altogether of the duties; I am sure he would approve the wiping out of the 12J per cent.


John Gordon Ross: Hear, hear.


Percy John Rowe: The hon. member for Brantford is one of the fairest-minded of the new members; he is popular in the district from -which he comes, and I know his position is entirely different. I am not pressing him for an answer, but I know he realizes that so far as the city of Brantford is concerned there is another angle from which the question is to be viewed. I rather admired the courage of the hon. member for Victoria, Ont. (Mr. McNevin). I believe he would say, "Hear, hear" to the wiping out of the tariff altogether, the removing of the 12| per cent, notwithstanding what the consequence might be to the city of Lindsay.


An hon. MEMBER:: Speak for yourself.


Percy John Rowe: The hon. member for Huron-Perth himself said-


William Henry Golding: Said what?


Percy John Rowe: -that he was in favour of lower tariffs all along the line.


William Henry Golding: I said that I would urge a reduction in duties all along the line and I stand by that statement.


Percy John Rowe: That is what I said.


Mr. DONNELLY:: Speak for yourself.


Percy John Rowe: I have no doubt that the hon. gentleman who has just interrupted would also wipe out the duties altogether.


James J. Donnelly: Surely.


Percy John Rowe: It is quite apparent therefore that there is a variety of opinion on the other side.


Mr. McLEAN (Melfort):: I have been called to order, Mr. Chairman. Is the hon. gentleman now in order in his catechism?


George Washington McPhee: Proceed.

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement


Percy John Rowe: Thank you. With reference to the agricultural implement situation in Canada, there are "some features that undoubtedly stand out, and I am delighted to say that I find myself in agreement with some hon. gentlemen across the floor. I wish I could agree with the Minister of Finance, because I like him very much, more than he likes me, I think. At any rate, I agree with the hon. member for Brantford; there are two sides to the question. 1 represent people who buy farm implements; I am myself a purchaser of farm implements, and I may add that in my riding there are no manufacturers, no manufacturers in iron and steel at any rate. Having said this, let me add that I agree with the hon. member for Brantford when he says that all factors must be taken into consideration. Now I am wondering what is going to happen, who is going to benefit very much by this item. I have listened to the hon. member for York North and I presume he would favour wiping out the tariff of 12j per cent.


William Pate Mulock: Why doesn't the hon.
gentleman speak for himself and tell us where he stands?


Percy John Rowe: If the hon. gentleman will listen he will have no doubt where I stand on this item. I have been trying to tell the committee that I am more or less in agreement with the hon. member for Brantford, in that there are two sides to the question. We must not overlook the fact of the gradual development of Canada's industrial life, down through the years, by means of the policy of protection, including protection on farm implements. The industrial life of the country has developed through a reasonable fiscal policy, a policy of reasonable protection which has provided employment to large numbers of our citizens. That fact is admitted on the other side, because the government has maintained the tariff. Industry has endured the gibes of hon. gentlemen opposite when they were in opposition, but it has certainly enjoyed their protection, in practice, when they have been in power.
As regards the effect on the implement industry and on the home market, some of the figures kindly placed on Hansard by the Minister of Finance this afternoon reveal a gradual development since 1931. My hon. friend from Huron North has referred to a steady increase in purchases from 1922 to 1930, and that is true. We were riding on the crest of a wave of world prosperity. The increase was gradual through those years, but the increased consumption of farm implements in Canada contrasted unreasonably with the
increased percentage of consumption of foreign manufactured goods. Prior to 1930 we were importing at different times as much as we produced.
The Prime Minister lowered the tariffs between 1922 and 1930, and what happened? Some hon. gentlemen have told us that they are interested in the consumer; the hon. member for York North declares that he is interested in the purchaser of farm implements. I was buying implements in those years, and I think he will agree that the price of implements increased when his party lowered the tariff. Importations increased and the percentage of foreign production gradually came up year by year. After 1930 the tariff was increased, and I can recall members from western Canada appealing to the governments of the day, particularly to the Prime Minister, in 1931 and 1932, on the ground that the farmers, both west and east, would be called upon to pay higher prices. Well, as a purchaser of farm implements, I know that prices were and have been lower. And now we have the amazing spectacle of a member of the government asking for an investigation to find out why farm implement companies should have the privilege of raising prices when the Liberal party has the courage to reduce the tariff again.
So far as the effect on trade is concerned, this is a matter which I think should be taken seriously into consideration. The Minister of Finance has been good enough to give us the figures, and we find that since the increase in the tariffs our exports have increased, to 83,567,000 last year. Since the imperial agreements went into force our exports to the British market have doubled. In 1935 we exported 83,567,000 worth; and in 1931, before the tariffs were raised, we imported approximately $16,500,000 worth of agricultural implements and exported, I believe, less than 81,000,000.


John Gordon Ross: It was 87,000,000.


Percy John Rowe: That was in 1931 and 1932.


John Gordon Ross: 1931.


Percy John Rowe: The result has
been, that even during the year of depression referred to, we imported the product of a foreign workshop to the tune, even at my hon. friend's figures, of approximately 89,000,000 or $10,000,000, goods that could have been made in Canada, giving employment to additional workmen. At the same time the farmers of York North as well as those of Dufferin paid more for their farm implements than they did when they were
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buying them from manufacturers in the city of Brantford. If	there are	two sides tothis; if it will help manufacturers and labour men in the cities who are waiting and wondering what is going to happen; if it will help farmers by developing the home market, and if it will keep in this country millions of dollars which would otherwise go to a country to which we have to send to pay	our	debt,	a million	dollars everyday the sun rises, then I say that this question should be very gravely considered. If it would reduce prices to the farmers, I would be willing to suggest that the duty should be lowered still more. But I have had three experiences in this house; I have watched	the	price	go up when the tariffwent down; I have watched the price go down when -the tariff went up, and I have watched	the	price	again go	up when the
tariff again came down. So surely three times is out.
Mr. MeLEAN (Melfort):	Mr. Chairman,
I should like to ask the hon. member how long implement prices stayed down in the period he speaks of, that is 1932 to 1933. How long did they stay down at the time tariffs went up?


Percy John Rowe: They stayed down from the time the then Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) raised the tariff until the time my hon. friend's party came into power, or after they came into power.
Mr. MeLEAN (Melfort):	That is not
what your own government's records say.


Percy John Rowe: Yes it is, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. MeLEAN (Melfort): No.


Percy John Rowe: They stayed in
effect until this winter. Hon. members shake their heads. Can the hon. member tell me when prices went down?
Mr. MeLEAN (Melfort): I will answer my hon. friend's question. According to the price spreads committee's report, which was published by the government he supported, after the tariff went up farmers got so poor they could not buy at those prices, so the implement companies reduced them by twenty per cent discount to enable them to buy. In 1934 prices went up again through the withdrawal of the companies' discount until they were about ninety-six per cent of the 1930 level. The figures are in the price spreads report.


Percy John Rowe: I want to correct
the hon. member. With all respect to him, while prices may have been discounted in

respect of implements sold in the west, the price of farm implements in eastern Canada did not rise until very recently, about three months ago. The price list was out, I think, on February 1.
Mr. MeLEAN (Melfort):	Was the discount withdrawn?


Percy John Rowe: The discount
may have been withdrawn as far as western Canada is concerned, but it made no difference to the price in Ontario.
Mr. MeLEAN (Melfort):	The price
stayed in force in Ontario?


Percy John Rowe: The price stayed
in force in Ontario; evidently it made no difference. The hon. member for Huron North (Mr. Deachman) has evidently stayed true to form. He seems to have clung fast to that old dusty doctrine of free trade, which has been thrown out of the back door by every other country in the world. This afternoon, when I listened to him, I thought it would be interesting to hear him speak for his colleague the member for Brantford (Mr. Macdonald), and see the excellent reception he would get if he made the same kind of speech in the city of Brantford.


Robert John Deachman: I accept the invitation.


Percy John Rowe: So far as the
principle is concerned we have had a good lesson in this country. We have watched developments when the government changed: we remember when the Minister of Finance opposed the policy of brick for brick, and said that it would absolutely ruin the agriculture of this dominion.


Charles Avery Dunning: So it would.


Percy John Rowe: I ask him now: Will it?


Charles Avery Dunning: We are not putting into effect a brick for brick policy.


Percy John Rowe: No. I submit that my hon. friend is not putting into effect a brick for brick policy. He is putting into effect a policy of six American bricks for one Canadian brick. He tells us that we ship our implements to the United States free. Did we not ship them free before? Can the hon. minister show me one item of the whole present Canada-United States agreement, one item in the seven hundred, wherein he secured free entry into the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: We will come to schedule II by and by.

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
Mr, ROWE (Dufferin): The silence of the hon. minister gives consent to that. The hon. minister laughs it off because he knows he is not securing to the Canadian people in this agreement a single free entry into the United States market.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is simply not so.


Percy John Rowe: Well, Mr. Chairman, I leave it to the Prime Minister to tell us if he has secured one.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend knows that one of the conditions that limited the president in his negotiations was that the United States tariff was not to be cut by more than 50 per cent. We got the full value


Percy John Rowe: He says that he got full value; did he say, In rare cases? He certainly did not get full value all the way down the line. You gave the 700 items in the intermediate tariff. You went further, and in the glass item which was discussed a short time ago you cut it five per cent lower than any rate that this country has ever given to the United Kingdom. You went beyond the basis of negotiations in that item, and you have not even reached a basis of negotiation in more than a very few and rare cases. So I submit that while the United States president had the power and right without submission to congress of reducing the tariff 50 per cent, there are very few instances of his exercising that right. Why, we have not a reciprocity pact with the United States; we have not a brick for brick policy.


Charles Avery Dunning: Of course we have not.


Percy John Rowe: Certainly we have not. We have a lopsided unfavourable trade agreement that this opposition, when it was in power, refused to accept, and which the present Prime Minister was afraid to refuse.


An hon. MEMBER:: Ask the former
minister. *


Percy John Rowe: You can ask any former minister you wish. Ask the leader of the government. The hon. member twits the opposition to-day because of the basis of negotiation. There are plenty of bases for negotiation. I do not know whether he has traded horses as often as I have. If you have a horse you may trade, but you do not trade it for a donkey.


Charles Avery Dunning: When my hon. friend was trading horses, I bet he never asked for less than he expected to get.


Percy John Rowe: I certainly would not ask for less than I expected to get. But I would not take less than I ever expected to ask.


Charles Avery Dunning: All right; we will let it go just at that.


Percy John Rowe: Surely, in view of the concessions which were given, which have been reviewed down to date, we should not have accepted less than what the Prime Minister has suggested the president had the right to concede, a 50 per cent cut in most of the other items.


Charles Avery Dunning: Why did you not ask for it in your basis of negotiations?


Percy John Rowe: How do you know it was not asked for?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is there.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: May I ask, on a point of order, what item we are on?


Percy John Rowe: Mr. Chairman, I call it six o'clock.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: While we are on this item regarding agricultural implements, may I point out that they now go into the United States free?


Percy John Rowe: Yes.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: Then what has my hon. friend been arguing about for the last quarter of an hour?


Percy John Rowe: I suggest to my hon. friend from Saskatoon, and the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister have conceded, that they have secured no free item into the American market under this agreement.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: What about agricultural
implements?


Percy John Rowe: They were always free.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


George Washington McPhee: Shall items 409b to k pass?


Ernest Edward Perley: I assure, you, sir, no hon. member is more anxious than I am to see a lower price on implements for the farmer in western Canada. However I am
Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement

somewhat confused after listening to the discussion this afternoon. I heard the statement of the finance minister with respect to the exports of agricultural implements during the months of January and February-


Charles Avery Dunning: Only for January, for implements alone.


Ernest Edward Perley: -after the agreement came into effect. I listened to views on protection, free trade and lower duties on implements and I must say I am confused. It would be interesting if the minister could give us the figures wdth respect to the export of implements to the United States by the different firms, chiefly the International Harvester, Massey-Harris and Cockshutt.	,


Charles Avery Dunning: I cannot give that.


Ernest Edward Perley: If the International Harvester figures more largely than the others, that might be the cause of increase in price. From what we heard from the other side this afternoon I would expect some hon, gentleman to move that all these items in the implement list foe made free. They seem to be in favour of that. Why do they not have the courage to move it?


An hon. MEMBER:: Why don't you?


Ernest Edward Perley: 
Charles Avery Dunning: I think the committee will understand that the information I gave is collected by the department which has to

do with recording the statistics of exports, and those statistics are not issued in a form to show the individual exporters. Volume and total, yes, but I have never heard of export statistics showing the name of each exporter.


Ernest Edward Perley: There should be some way of tracing it. It is very confusing when we see that there has been a reduction in duty and an increase in price and an increase in exports. I should like to know how that came about.


Mr. NEEDHAM:: I have been much interested in this discussion. After hearing both sides, this is the way I have it sized up; is there a difference in cost of manufacturing farm implements in Canada and in the United States? May we take it that there is not much difference in the cost of manufacture. Then, according to this agreement there is to be a duty of 12i per cent. Some Canadian firms import implements and others manufacture them in Canada. Those importing will have to pay the 12J per cent; the firm manufacturing in Canada does not have to pay that, so it has a 12^ per cent advantage. Following that along, the biggest evil I see is this:	When the farmer buys the
implement from a Canadian manufacturer there is 12^ per cent not put into that machine. Then that machine is bought on time and a note given and on the note he is charged that 12J per cent that never went into the machine. Hon. members can figure what that extra cost is to the farmer.
We have heard quite a bit about exporting Canadian farm implements and selling them for less than they are sold for at home. Therefore the manufacturers have 12| per cent advantage selling in another country; that 12J per cent is a subsidy from the Canadian farmer to a farmer in another country.
Another feature that I hope will be taken into consideration, is the cost of maintenance of farm implements, or repairs. We know the condition of the west fairly well, and very few new implements will be bought out there this year; repairs constitute the big item. I have a letter this morning from a farmer I know who ordered a repair part which is shown at SI in his price list with the machine. It comes from the United States, but he has to pay S2.40 although it was listed at $1. I would gladly support the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Perley) that all farm implements should be absolutely free.


An hon. MEMBER:: He did not move that.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I am sure we are all very much interested in the remarks of the hon. member for Qu'Appelle. He suggested that

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
some hon. member on this side might move that the tariff on these implements be removed altogether. We only wish that that was our privilege to-day, and that it was the situation in which we find ourselves. We are dealing with an agreement which has to be either accepted or rejected.


Ernest Edward Perley: You have
power to lower it.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: The hon. member knows
very well that in connection with this item it is not possible to move that it be lowered. Either we are or we are not going to accept the agreement.


Ernest Edward Perley: We cannot
raise it.


Mr. McGREGOR:: Does the hon. member
wish to say that he would not accept it, if we took the duty off farm implements altogether?


Alexander MacGillivray Young: The hon. member issued a
challenge to the hon. member for Moose Jaw. I would reply that we are prepared to remove the duty entirely, but I shall speak in greater detail about that feature in a moment.
When I spoke previously I said that I was prepared to support the agreement because I believe it is a step in the right direction. In the last few days I have listened to the observations of hon. gentlemen opposite. I am more than pleased to meet the hon. member for Davenport in any part of this building, because outside the chamber he is most congenial.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Thank you.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: But when the hon. member enters the chamber something seems to happen to him. He changes, and appears to be filled with fear. I am afraid if he does not get some relief he will wake up dead some morning.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That would be terrible.


Ernest Edward Perley: What is the
item under discussion?


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I am talking about agricultural implements.
Mr. MaGREGOR: Does the hon. member insinuate that the hon. member for Davenport is an agricultural implement?


Alexander MacGillivray Young: The hon. member who has
just spoken knows him better than I do. Last October we had an election.


Ernest Edward Perley: You told us that before.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: The election extended from ' coast to coast, from Halifax to Victoria, and what did it show? It showed that the people were sick and tired of the special privileges accorded by the last government. They simply put that government out of office in a manner the like of which has never before been seen in Canada. What was the chief issue between the two major parties? The chief issue was on this very item, the tariff.


Ernest Edward Perley: But the
farmers have had their eyes opened since then. They know the difference in the item now.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: There was a by-election in Assiniboia and the hon. member got his eyes opened out there.


Ernest Edward Perley: The farmers
expected lower priced implements at that time.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: The hon. member for
Qu'Appelle does not seem to agree with the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, although apparently they fought the by-election together. However, I am glad the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar has had his eyes opened. One of the real issues on election day concerned the very item we are now discussing.
Hon. members opposite ask: What about world conditions? I wish to say that in connection with agricultural implements Mr. Cordell Hell-no, Hull-


Ernest Edward Perley: That is very good.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: Well, I will not bother about a letter or two, when I speak about a gentleman in the United States. They have so manipulated the alphabet that I should be permitted to mix up one or two letters. Mr. Cordell Hull of the United States said that they were the first to institute restrictions in trade and that they now wish to undo what they had done. It is very fortunate indeed that this country of Canada, lying alongside its great neighbour, was given an opportunity in October last to put into office a government with a policy which permitted it to deal with the United States government, and permitted it to be ready to deal with the governments of other countries. We are in a position to undo the damage which has been caused not only in the United States and Canada but in other countries of the world.
We recognize that the cause of the difficulty lies in the very defect we are now trying to remedy by means of the trade agreement. I should like to go a step further and say that
Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement

if ever a government in Canada had a mandate to a very large extent to reduce the tariffs of this country, that government is the present one. I have one further observation to make about agricultural implements. Day after day we have heard hon. members opposite say that if we reduce our tariffs, immediately something will happen to our workmen. I take it that means that the competition is going to be so great that they cannot meet it. A few days ago we had an example where, when duties were reduced, prices immediately went up. Is there any hon. member opposite who will argue that the reduction in duty was the cause of the increase in price.


Ernest Edward Perley: We want to know that. What was the cause?


Alexander MacGillivray Young: Will any hon. member stand in his place and argue that, in the light of all the arguments they have made to the contrary in the last two or three days? May I say that every hon, member in this chamber knows that was not the reason. The agricultural implement representatives in this country have thrown out a challenge to the government and to parliament. I take it that is what their action amounts to. They say that the tariffs have gone down, and therefore they will increase their prices. It is an invitation to the government to remove every last vestige of tariff on agricultural implements.
We have gone through very trying times in Canada. Why? Simply because we have been cursed with extensive trade restrictions, the most extensive the country has ever known. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle states that there is only a fractional difference between the tariffs of the last administration and those of the present one.


Ernest Edward Perley: That is right.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: Then I say that the hon. member knows nothing about fractions. He knows perfectly well that he has not considered the poundage and yardage duties, and all other restrictions', price fixing duties and that kind of thing. These restrictions have been so great that they could be described as being the heaviest Canada has ever known. I believe that in view of the warning the Canadian people issued last October no government hereafter will dare to impose such heavy restrictions.
Not only am I behind the reductions in the schedule to the agreement, but I invite the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the government as a whole, to go at least as far as did the Dunning budget of May, 1930. a time when he said that the tariff was low,

completely the duties on agricultural implements.
I should like to speak on other items in the schedule, but I understand that under the rules I must confine my observations to this one. My remarks upon this occasion would apply to many other commodities we are trying to manufacture in Canada; I believe we could successfully manufacture them, even without this so-called protection. I feel that in this country we have some of the greatest natural resources in the world, and we have some of the finest people. It is an insult to our intelligence to listen to the speeches of hon. members opposite when they suggest we cannot successfully compete with other countries. One would think the Canadian people were not capable of taking their place among the nations of the world.


Ernest Edward Perley: We listened to the other side this afternoon.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I can see where I am looking. I am not blind.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Look behind you.


Alexander MacGillivray Young: I hope that hon. members who are criticizing will look back to October and ask themselves what the people of Canada expect, I say to the government that they ought to heed the voices of the people. Not only must we go as far as the agreement has gone; I trust we may go the whole way towards removing completely the duty on agricultural implements.


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Chairman, we
have had a lot of discussion of these items, and I should like to know just what position we are in. May I move for the reduction or elimination of the duty on any of these items? A reduction in the duty seems to be generally supported in the house, and if it is in order I would move that the items 409b, 409c, 409d and 409f referring to certain agricultural implements be made free.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: I rise
to a point of order, Mr. Chairman. The entire question of the prices of agricultural implements has been referred to the standing committee on agriculture, and therefore any discussion of the question is completely out of order until the committee reports back to the house.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: To return for a moment to agricultural implements and the remarks of my hon. friend from Huron North (Mr. Deachman), he quoted certain statistics of the production of agricultural implements at a time when he said that the tariff was low,

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
and gave figures showing that at that time employment in the industry in Canada was at a very high figure; then he went on to give figures to show that when the tariff was higher, employment in the industry was much lower. But there are other factors than the tariff that must be taken into consideration. There is the fact, for example, that in our great wheat growing area there was a vast dry belt, where there was a succession of crop failures, with a consequent reduction in purchasing power. He must also remember that there was a closing of the markets of the world to exports, over which situation Canada had no control. But all these factors my hon. friend conveniently leaves out of the problem. Surely he cannot convince even himself that the only factors that should be taken into consideration in determining the ratio between employment and production is the tariff, because anyone can think of half a dozen factors that must be taken into consideration.


Major James William Coldwell: May I have your
ruling, Mr. Chairman, on the point which I raised?


George Washington McPhee: Will
the hon. gentleman please write out his motion?


Charles Avery Dunning: Mr. Chairman, on the
point of order, while I am unable at the moment to find the rule, I am quite certain that a motion of this sort must be preceded by a message from His Excellency the Governor General and introduced by a member of the government.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I think, Mr. Chairman, you
will find that in the past motions have been made to reduce tariffs, which motions have usually been accepted by the chair, and if there is a motion now to reduce the duty on any particular item I think it ought to be accepted, even though it might alter the terms of the agreement.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: On the point of order,
Mr. Chairman, and in answer to the Minister of Finance, on the arguments that have been adduced here to-day it does not follow that a reduction of the tariff would necessarily affect the revenue, unless the tariff was eliminated altogether.


Charles Avery Dunning: Mr. Chairman, citation
552 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms seems to make the general principle quite clear. It says:
Though it is the function of the committee of ways and means to impose rather than to repeal taxes . .. amendments, therefore, can be proposed to substitute another tax, of
equivalent amount, for that proposed by the government, as, for instance, a proposal to substitute probate and legacy duty on real property as an alternative for an inhabited house duty, the necessity of new taxation, to that extent, being already declared on behalf of the crown.
The general principle is made quite clear there. Citation 553 goes on to say:
When it appeared from the debate that an amendment proposed to a resolution reported from the committee of ways and means would increase the charge, the Speaker ruled the amendment out of order.
This question arose in the house in 1929 when Mr. Coote, then a member, introduced a motion that in the opinion of the house the tariff on motor trucks should be reduced, and he was ruled out of order on the ground that private members cannot make recommendations about particular tariff duties. So I would submit, that motions of this sort must be preceded by a message from His Excellency the Governor General and be moved by a member of the government. Of course the motion would have the effect of reducing the revenue.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Before you give your ruling, Mr. Chairman, which I believe is already known, I think the question as to whether the tariff is really a tax-


Charles Avery Dunning: I have not any doubt about it myself.


Abraham Albert Heaps: The fact is that when the tariff was decreased the price of commodities went up, and you might argue that to decrease the tariff still more would send prices still higher. But apart from that, it appears to me that the whole question is whether a tariff duty comes in the category of a tax. I do not think it does, and I believe we should have the right as private members of this house to substitute a lower basis of tariff duties or to change the tariff structure when the tariff is before the committee, because otherwise nothing can be done to amend the tariff except upon the recommendation of the minister himself.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Chairman, may I say just a word with regard to this motion being made at this particular time. As the committee is aware, we are considering an item in a schedule to an agreement which has been signed on the part of each of two countries. We are not in the position of the committee of ways and means considering budget items in the ordinary course. We are considering whether or not we shall accept *this agreement in its entirety or so alter it as to make its acceptance impossible. The agreement has been signed by the Secretary

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
of State of the United States on behalf of the United States, and by myself on behalf of Canada. It was signed on the understanding that both in the United States and in Canada an effort would be made to have the agreement accepted in its entirety in the form in which it was signed. The President of the United States has since proclaimed the agreement and it has the full force of that proclamation in the United States at the present time. I should feel that it would be a distinct violation of the terms of the agreement itself and the basis upon which it was entered into were we at this time to seek to alter any of its particulars. We must either accept the agreement as a whole or we must realize that if we are going to alter it in any particular it may have the effect of rendering the entire agreement invalid. I am, as respects the duties on agricultural implements, rather of the same mind as the hon. member who has made this motion. I should like to see the duties on agricultural implements reduced further and perhaps at a later time in this session I shall try to use what influence I have with the Minister of Finance to see if he may not reduce them. I cannot say whether he will or not, but I think my bon. friend would be only prejudicing that for which he stands if he presses his motion at this time. If that is done, I shall have to ask the committee to reject the motion, should it not meanwhile be ruled out of order.


Thomas Miller Bell: It will be recalled that before I made my motion I asked if it were permissible to introduce such a motion. I was told to put it in writing, after which time it would be considered. That is what I did. It struck me to-day that we were having an interminable discussion upon these matters and that there was a large body of opinion in this committee in favour of eliminating these particular duties. I felt it would be in the interests of the people of the dominion, at least of those whom we represent in western Canada, to see if the government would not accept a motion of this description and eliminate the duties on all farm implements. I have before me a report compiled by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) showing what the tariff costs the various parts of Canada. In 1931 the tariff cost the province, a part of which I represent, over $25,000,000. Let us bear in mind that of the total area of cultivated land in Canada amounting to 73,000,000 acres, 55,000,000 acres lie between the great lakes and the Rocky mountains. I recognize the mandate that the government has in relation to freer trade, and it seems to me that this would be an initial step which would be welcomed by the people in the farm-
[Mr. Mackenzie King l
ing communities of Canada generally and particularly in the prairie provinces. I was hoping that the motion might be accepted and that it would not interfere with the agreement. However, if this is an agreement to which there are two parties, if an agreement has been consummated, then I recognize the Chairman's ruling as being correct.


Abraham Albert Heaps: The ruling has not been made. If citation 556 has not been read, I think it should be read into the record. It has a bearing upon the position taken by the Minister of Finance, It reads:
The house can make amendments which diminish the amount of reduction of taxation,-[DOT]


Charles Avery Dunning: Diminish the reduction.


Abraham Albert Heaps: That is exactly what the amendment proposes. The rule continues:-
-or postpone the day when the reduction takes place, although the amendments may increase to that extent the charges proposed to be levied upon the people.
So long as an existing tax is not increased, any modification of the proposed reduction may be introduced in the committee on the bill, and is regarded as a question, not for increasing the charge upon the people but for determining to what extent such charge shall be reduced.
I suggest that the proposed amendment comes within the scope of citation 556. Whether this is the correct time to introduce the amendment is quite another matter. I assume the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) thinks it might be as well to let the Prime Minister attempt to use his influence upon the Minister of Finance, that it might be better to await that day when his influence upon the minister will be such that probably he will agree to the reductions asked for by the hon. member.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As I understand it, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) appreciates the importance of the agreement being maintained in its entirety, and is prepared to withdraw his amendment for that reason.


Major James William Coldwell: As I understand it, this is a treaty.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is right.


Major James William Coldwell: It is then a treaty which cannot be varied. In that case I imagine the Chairman will rule the motion out of order. On the other hand, if the motion is in order, I would press for its acceptance.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not saying that the motion is not in order or is in order; I am simply saying that as the leader of the government responsible for the agree-

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
ment I should have to ask the committee to vote down the motion of my hon. friend should it come to a vote, I would not do this because the committee might not be sympathetic with what he has in view, but because this is not the time to do what he is proposing should be done. I would feel it would not be in my hon. friend's interest to prejudice his own case by having this committee take the action which would, I believe, be taken for the sake of preserving the agreement.


Thomas Miller Bell: I voted in favour of the agreement as I believed it to be a step in the right direction. It does not go far enough. However, if we are to prejudice the agreement by voting in favour of this amendment, I am quite willing to let the matter stand in the hope that the government will make provisions for these reductions when the budget is brought down.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: The
amendment should be either withdrawn or voted upon. The hon. member cannot dictate the policies of this parliament.


George Washington McPhee: I take it that the hon. member is in favour of what the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have said, and does not press his motion.
Amendment withdrawn.
Items 409b to 409k, both inclusive, agreed to.


Thomas Miller Bell: One other point occurs to me at this stage. If it is unwise or impossible to vary this agreement in any particular, why should we proceed with this interminable discussion?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The answer to that is in order that the committee may thoroughly understand its merits and, should there be any, its demerits.


John Gordon Ross: I think the discussion has been very valuable. The more hon. friends opposite fight against this thing, the more they bring out the fact that tariffs are not of any use to the Dominion of Canada. The more they fight this thing, the more reason there will be-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Charles Avery Dunning: Even with our own colleagues I think we must insist that there is absolutely nothing before the committee.
Customs tariff-409-1. Traction ditching machines (not being ploughs) and complete parts thereof, free.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 409m, ex 409n, ex 428. Internal combustion traction engines; traction attachments designed to be combined with automobiles in Canada for use as traction engines; complete parts of all the foregoing, free.
Percy John Rowe: What are the duties going into the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: I have some more information to give on this item, particularly with respect to the discussion which has just occurred. The intention is to make all these items free. They formerly carried a tariff of partly free and partly 25 per cent, according to value. There is no comparable United States item.
Items ex 4091, ex 409m, ex 409n, ex 428 agreed to.
Customs tariff-409n. Portable engines with boilers, in combination, for farm purposes; horse powers; complete parts of all the foregoing, 15 per cent.


John Ritchie MacNicol: In spite of anything that has been said heretofore, I want to say a word or two for the boiler makers in Stratford, London, Waterloo and Hamilton, of whom there are quite a number. There are four large plants making portable engines with boilers. I note that the duty has been reduced to 15 per cent. At present and for some time past the four large companies I have in mind are having and have had a very severe struggle. They have endeavoured to keep numbers of men at work in the hope that business would improve, and some of them have crippled themselves to some extent. Now that business is picking up, we find that the duty on this line of machinery is reduced from 25 to 15 per cent. I have had a good deal to do with boiler making and I hope that the boiler makers will be able to carry on under this reduction, we cannot do very much; our hands are tied. The men themselves will suffer.


Abraham Albert Heaps: What are the importations
from the United States under the item?


Charles Avery Dunning: There is no recorded data on this item.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: If I may refer to the
previous item, internal combustion engines, I should like to have the imports.


Charles Avery Dunning: They are under three different items. The imports under one item are 81,708,000; under 409n they are $88,000; under 428 they are $333,000.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What are the figures of production in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: There is no production in Canada.



Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement


James J. Donnelly: The chief importers are the manufacturers themselves, are they not?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409q. Complete parts for repairs, under regulations prescribed by the minister:
Ex (i) For the machinery enumerated in tariff item 409e (ii), 5 per cent.
(v) For the machinery enumerated in tariff item 409k, 10 per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Why are the duties in
these two sub-items below the intermediate?


Charles Avery Dunning: These are repairs for certain implements under item 409e. It is a question of bringing repair parts into reasonable relationship with the new duty on the complete machine.


Percy John Rowe: Have repair parts
for farm implements been considered?


Charles Avery Dunning: These very items are with respect to parts of certain farm implements.


Percy John Rowe: I thought they
were for the engines.


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-410-1. Ore crushers, rock crushers, stamp mills, grinding mills, rock drills, percussion coal cutters, coal augers, rotary coal drills, n.o.p. and complete parts of all the foregoing, for use exclusively in mining, metallurgical or quarrying operations, 20 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: This binds the intermediate tariff on these items.


Percy John Rowe: What are the
imports from the United States, and the duties?


Charles Avery Dunning: Under ore crushers the
imports from the United States are 8256,000; percussion coal cutters, $878; rock drills and parts, 8399,000. That means that in the full tariff item total imports from the United States amounted to 8656,000 last year. There are no figures with regard to stamp mills and grinding mills, but in connection with rock and ore crushers and rock drills the production in Canada was 873,000 and $381,000 respectively. The effect is to bind the intermediate tariff. There is, in addition, logging machinery, imports of which from the United States were 8391,000. I am afraid I jumped to the next item; I should cancel that last figure, which has no bearing. I do not appear to have the United States tariff on comparable items; they will probably come under the item carrying 27| per cent going into the United States.


Mark Cecil Senn: Is there a great production of this class?


Charles Avery Dunning: I have given the figures: 8381,000 of one item and 873,000 of another. That was what we manufactured last year.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Has anything come in from
Great Britain under this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes; under one part of
the item, 8156,000; under another part, 85,000; under another part, 8150,000.


Joseph Needham: Under what item does
well casing come?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is not in this agreement.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-411a.	Machinery, logging
cars, cranes, blocks and tackle, wire rope, but not including wire rope to be used for guy ropes or in braking logs going down grade, and complete parts of all the foregoing, for use exclusively in the operation of logging, such operation to include the removal of the log from stump to skidway, log dump, or common or other carrier, 15 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: I must correct what I
said in reply to the hon. member for The Battlefords. While well casing is not in this schedule, it is of course affected by the agreement owing to the fact that the agreement extends the intermediate tariff to the United States. It will not appear specifically in schedule II, but it will be affected by the general reduction in the intermediate as against the United States. With respect to the item now under discussion, imports from the United States were 8391,000 out of a total of 8401,000. The effect of the item is to bind the intermediate, which is 15 per cent.


George Halsey Perley: Are these commodities manufactured in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: There are no statistics
available for Canadian production.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.	.
Customs tariff-412a. Machinery and apparatus, n.o.p., viz.: gun and mould apparatus for making press rollers; machines and apparatus for making electrotypes and stereotypes, engraving machines, photo-engraving apparatus, machines for graining metal plates, machines for sensitizing metal plates, machines and apparatus for transferring by photographic processes to plates or rolls for use in lithography, rotogravure and printing, machines for addressing and wrapping newspapers, magazines, periodicals, pamphlets and catalogues, and machines for embossing, bookbinding, bronzing, creasing, scoring, cutting, perforating, punching, gathering, gumming, pasting, jogging, numbering, patching, slitting, rewinding, ruling, sheet-piling, stitching, stripping or varnishing, when for use exclusively by printers, book-

Cancida-U. S. Trade Agreement
binders, manufacturers of stereotypes, electrotypes and printing plates or rolls, paper converters, and by manufactures of articles made from paper or cardboard; and complete parts of all the foregoing not to include saws, knives, and motive power, 5 per cent.
Customs tariff-412b. Flat bed cylinder printing presses, to print sheets of a size 25 by 38 inches or larger, and complete parts thereof, machines designed to fold or sheet-feed paper or cardboard, and complete parts thereof, 10 per cent.
Customs tariff-412c. Typecasting and typesetting machines and parts thereof for use in printing offices, free.
Customs tariff-412d. Offset presses; lithographic presses; printing presses and type making accessories therefor, n.o.p.; complete parts of the foregoing, not to include saws, knives and motive power, 10 per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: May I suggest that you take 412a, b, c. and d? The four items are all inter-related, all printing items.


Percy John Rowe: Their rates are different, though.
Mr. MacNICOL; They are all for the same purpose, all printing machinery.


Percy John Rowe: No change on 412a.
Mr. MacNICOL; I note that from 1931 to 1935 we imported about nine million dollars' worth of this machinery, if I have totalled my figures up properly from the trade returns.


Charles Avery Dunning: I cannot find any figures that would appear to confirm that.
Mr. MacNICOL; Well, I have them before me, I think. I am speaking of importations from the United States.


Charles Avery Dunning: Oh, the totals for five years on all those items?


John Ritchie MacNicol: Yes. Does the minister want me to read them? There is a long list of them.


Charles Avery Dunning: If you have the figures there from official sources, of course I will accept that.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Yes. I have them from pages 611 and 612. When I was speaking on Friday last of printing machinery being imported I had in mind, as well as the machinery for magazines, the machinery for printers' advertising. While little, if any of this machinery is made in Canada as far as I know, it strikes me that you are going to have a very substantial reduction in your revenue if you bind the intermediate tariff. It does help the printers, I have no doubt, but so many of these items mean a reduction of revenue that I just wondered how the finance minister is going to make up all the reductions that are now taking place.
157.10 -734


Abraham Albert Heaps: May I ask the minister if he can give us the figures of the importations under these various items from Great Britain?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes. Under 412a. from Great Britain, $59,0(10; under 412b, $1,807; none under 412c, and $184,000 under 412d. This binding of the intermediate on these four items does represent a reduction in duty from the formerly prevailing general tariff on items of interest to the producers of the magazines which we were discussing the other day, particularly item 412a, which reduces a former duty of 10 per cent to 5 per cent; 412b, from 15 per cent to 10 per cent, and 412d, from 15 per cent to 10 per cent, the others binding free entry which already exists.


George Halsey Perley: This represents a reduction in these items which will reduce the preference given to Britain.


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


George Halsey Perley: Because the
British preference was free. Now you are giving the United States the benefit of the intermediate tariff, which reduces the advantage which Great Britain had regarding these four items. Is that not so?


Charles Avery Dunning: Well, that is true, with
respect to the whole of the schedules, of course.


George Halsey Perley: Quite so.


Charles Avery Dunning: The margin to Great
Britain in any case was, of course, the margin between the intermediate and the British preferential tariff. The bringing of any country into the intermediate was contemplated, of course, in the agreements.


George Halsey Perley: That is hardly
a fair way of putting it, when the importations practically all came from the United States before, as I understand it-


Charles Avery Dunning: Very largely.


George Halsey Perley: -under the
general tariff, and they had to pay the general tariff. Therefore these reductions, giving the United States the intermediate tariff on these four items, would surely prejudice the manufacturers in Great Britain who have been exporting their goods to this country under these items, would they not?


Abraham Albert Heaps: I think the previous speaker is quite correct, although the reason I asked for the information with regard to the amount of imports from Great Britain was to try to find out what effect the decrease in the tariff against the United States would have upon British imports. We
Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement

find that they are so insignificant in comparison with importations from the United States that personally I do not think it will have any great effect upon British machinery coming in under this item, but it may have some adverse effects in respect of some of the other items which have been passed earlier in the afternoon.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The minister said that
the lowering of the duty on this line of machinery, which is a very substantial line, will help the printers of American magazines.


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Canadian magazines.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I was just going to say
that my information to-day is that some twenty-five of these magazines are going to or are considering ceasing publication in this country, and that a number have already ceased.


James J. Donnelly: Does not the hon. member think it will put the price up? Apparently it does in agriculture.


Percy John Rowe: There is plenty
of secondhand machinery.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Has the minister any information about whether any of these magazines that so far have been printed in this country, are ceasing publication here?


Charles Avery Dunning: I said the other day
when the item was under discussion that my information was that a considerable number of them were continuing to publish in this country. If my hon. friend from Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) is right, and twenty-five are ceasing publication, that would leave about twenty-five being printed here.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Has the minister not
received a communication along that line?


Charles Avery Dunning: Not to my knowledge.
I have received individual communications regarding the interests of this particular Canadian publisher and the interests of that Canadian publisher who was publishing some of these American magazines, but I have no definite information from any of them as to the precise number that are ceasing publication in Canada. I have information that some magazines are remaining. Liberty, I believe, has given public intimation that it is continuing Canadian publication. The Street and Smith publications, a large number of magazines printed in Canada, gave public notice in their magazines that they

are continuing to print in Canada. But I prefer not to give information without being absolutely sure of it. I am fairly certain that not all of them are withdrawing, and if my hon. friend's figures are right there would still be twenty-five American magazines publishing in Canada.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I heard that there had been a meeting of printers in Toronto on Saturday.


Charles Avery Dunning: I cannot hear at all.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Well, I don't want to rattle the windows.


Charles Avery Dunning: Oh, it is not my hon. friend's fault.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I could rattle them if I wanted to speak out. I heard that there was a meeting at Toronto on Saturday and that some communication had been sent to the government intimating that a considerable number-my information was, approximately twenty-five-had to cease or were about to cease publication. In fact the printers themselves do not want the information published because they doubtless are afraid that others may fall into line. For my part I Lope the publication continues in this country and if this lowering of duty 5 per cent will induce them to stay, well and good, because the minister says that this machinery is not made here anyway. I do not see any objection to the reduction.
Items 412a, b, c and d agreed to.
Customs tariff-413. Machinery and apparatus of a class or kind not made in Canada, and parts thereof, specially constructed for preparing, manufacturing, testing or finishing yarns, cordage, and fabrics made from textile fibres or from paper, imported for use exclusively by manufacturers and scholastic or charitable institutions in such processes only, 5 per cent.


George Halsey Perley: Would the minister give the figures of the importations of these goods from Great Britain and the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: From the United Kingdom, S694.000; from the United States, 82,222,000. Scattered importations of small amounts from Germany, France and Switzerland.


George Halsey Perley: I do not want to labour the point; it has been brought out so many times, the way in which this agreement prejudices the producers in Great Britain. I know on some items there is not a great deal of difference, but on this item this agreement takes away half the advantage which

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
the manufacturer in Great Britain had as compared with the manufacturer in the United States. I am afraid my hon. friend will find that the proportion of imports from the United States will be greatly increased in comparison with the figures he has just given.


Charles Avery Dunning: This is the second time my hon. friend has raised that point, and I must of course point out that no trade agreement with the United States or any other country would have been possible, either by the government of which he was a member or by this government, which did not grant to the other contracting party our intermediate tariff and most favoured nation provisions. It was always contemplated, of course, when the empire trade arrangements were made that other countries might in time receive the benefit of the Canadian intermediate tariff. That is inherent in the negotiation of any trade agreement with any country outside the British empire.


George Halsey Perley: I appreciate that; I only want to call attention again to the fact that this is taking away half the advantage which the British manufacturer had in connection with this item.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Is there anything in the agreement dealing with the tariff on textiles coming into this country from the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Incidentally to the granting of the intermediate and the most favoured nation tariff. There is nothing in schedule I, which is the binding schedule, that binds Canada with respect to textiles.


Abraham Albert Heaps: If the Prime Minister were in his seat I would request him, as I did before, to use his influence with the Minister of Finance on a future occasion to see if something might be done along this line.


Charles Avery Dunning: I may tell my hon. friend I am very susceptible to that kind of influence.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-414c. Adding, bookkeeping, calculating and invoicing machines and complete parts thereof, n.o.p., 20 per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Will the minister give
the amount imported into Canada during the past year?


Charles Avery Dunning: Imports from the United Kingdom, $239; from the United States, $652,000; and from Switzerland, $11,000.


Percy John Rowe: Any manufactured in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: There were 1,026 adding machines^ manufactured in the calendar year 1933, which is the latest I have, valued at $107,000. There is no comparable item in the United States tariff.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: The minister says that
there is no comparable item, I assume he means one with this wording. But the Prime Minister told us that there were several categories or groups of items in the American tariff, a smaller number than in ours. Under what group or category would this fall, and what would be the rate there?


Charles Avery Dunning: The American tariff is
not so detailed as is the Canadian. The best guess we can make-it is a guess-is that these machines would come under United States tariff item, machinery n.o.p., which carries 27| per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs	tariff-415.	Electric vacuum
cleaners and attachments therefor; hand vacuum cleaners; and complete parts of all the foregoing, including suction hose, n.o.p., 20 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: This is a binding of the intermediate tariff at 20 per cent. Imports of electric vacuum cleaners were: From the United Kingdom, $14,000; from the United States, $21,000, and from Sweden, $74,000. Sweden is the largest exporter to Canada; there is one particular vacuum cleaner of which Sweden has a monopoly.
There are in addition, hand vacuum cleaners and attachments and complete parts of vacuum cleaners: From the United Kingdom, $2,000; from the United States, $274,000, and from Sweden, $167,000.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What is the Canadian production?


Charles Avery Dunning: Canada exported to the United' Kingdom, $230,000 worth of electric vacuum cleaners and parts; to the United States, $3,000; to the Irish Free State, $38,000; to Australia, $12,000 and to New Zealand $6,000.
Our Canadian production of vacuum cleaners, parts and attachments in the calendar year 1934, which is the latest information we have, was $1,549,000.


Percy John Rowe: What is the duty entering the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: The item there we assume to be, machines having as an essential part an electric unit, which 'as my hon. friend will see is not strictly comparable. The rate is 35 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
Customs tariff-415a. Refrigerators, domestic or store, completely equipped or not:
(i) Electric, 30 per cent-
John Ritchie MacNicol: I would like to say
something on this item, because it is not one on which the intermediate tariff is bound; it is considerably below the intermediate tariff. We have in Canada several very fine electric refrigerator plants; the one I am most familiar with is in London; it has been producing quite substantially. If my figures are correct, we imported in 1931 over 82,000,000 worth of electric refrigerators, and in 1935 only 8171,000 worth. The reason for the falling off was partly that the duty placed^ on them by the late government was a fairly good barrier against importations into this country of such equipment that can be made here.
I am wondering what will happen to two or three first class refrigerator plants, in view of the heavy reduction in duty. Then, what will the effect be on the industry manufacturing motors? I have in mind a certain motor plant in Brantford. All these Canadian plants are manufacturing small motors such as could be used in refrigerators, electric vacuum cleaners, adding machines and the like. I was told by a motor manufacturer, whose name I shall not state, that they are going to have a difficult time, because they must compete with very large plants in the United States. I have visited a number of the plants. The American plants are much larger than those in Canada, and they can keep motors of all sizes in stock, including eighth horse power, quarter horse power and motors of varying sizes. The volume in Canada, however, is not sufficient to permit the Canadian manufacturer to keep a stock of all kinds of small motors on hand.
While I hope they will be able to struggle through, I must say that I am very much alarmed, despite what some hon. members opposite say about my anxiety for the working man. I cannot help anxiety for him, because I have been with him a quarter of a century or more. However, I hope my fears may be dispelled, and that the men working in these motor industries may not be out of employment.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-415b. Washing machines, domestic, with or without motive power incorporated therein: complete parts of washing machines, 25 per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: I realize that we cannot do anything about this, because I notice that the item merely binds the intermediate tariff. I read that in 1929 Canada imported slightly less than 25,000 washing machines, whereas in

1934 she imported only 1,400. In the last five years Canadian workmen in plants at Toronto, Hamilton, Stratford, London, St. Mary's, Fergus and other Canadian centres have been given a large amount of employment in the manufacture of washing machines.
I hope they may still be able to earn their living, but this does not seem to be a very fair way to treat them. We find that the duty is being reduced ten per cent against that business in this country which, during the last five years, has been developing.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What is the duty on
the comparable item to the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is 35 per cent.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What about Canadian
production?


Charles Avery Dunning: Canadian production of
washing machines, hand or power driven, for the calendar year 1934 amounted to 84,079, valued at $3,820,000.


Alexander McKay Edwards: What portion of those
were shipped to empire countries?


Charles Avery Dunning: We exported $349,000
worth to the United Kingdom and 828,000 worth to New Zealand.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Nice business.


George Halsey Perley: What were the
imports from the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: They were valued at


William Ross Macdonald: Both
washing machines and motors are manufactured in the constituency which I have the honour to represent. I must say that there are some fears in my constituency concerning washing machines. The reduction has caused some concern, but there is greater ,concern in the possibility of cheap washing machines being dumped into this country from the United States, thereby underselling the Canadian manufacturer. That is the greatest fear. If that were done it would cause a certain amount of unemployment. I trust the government of the day will see to it that these cheap machines are not dumped on the Canadian market at sacrifice prices to undersell the Canadian product. If they are not so dumped I believe the washing machine business may continue, but if the market is flooded with cheap machines from the United States our industry could not stand up against them.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
Customs tariff-424. Fire engines and other fire extinguishing machines and chassis for same; complete parts of the foregoing, n.o.p., 30 per cent.
Hugh Alexander Stewart: What is the rate of duty into the United States on these articles?


Charles Avery Dunning: Probably 27i per cent.


Abraham Albert Heaps: What were the importations into Canada last year?


Charles Avery Dunning: There were none.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Why do we have the high tariff?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: To keep them out.


Abraham Albert Heaps: When I served on the city council in Winnipeg I remember that in connection with the purchase of fire engines we were practically in the hands of American concerns located in Canada, and I believe the situation is still the same. I believe a reduction in the item would give some help to the municipalities compelled to buy this type of machinery. The manufacturers could well afford to sell at a price lower than they are asking at the present time, and they could get along with less protection than they are getting.


Charles Avery Dunning: My last budget made this item free under the British preference. It is now placed at ten per cent. However I shall keep the hon. member's representations in mind.


Abraham Albert Heaps: No fire engines are imported from Great Britain?


Charles Avery Dunning: Oh, yes, many of the best come from there.


Abraham Albert Heaps: But there are no importations?


Charles Avery Dunning: Not last year.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Nor for quite a number of
years?


Charles Avery Dunning: I would not say that.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I can remember the difficulty we had about ten or eleven years ago when I had something to do with tenders for this class of equipment in Winnipeg.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Could the minister give the imports?


Charles Avery Dunning: There were no imports last year.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Has he the production?


Charles Avery Dunning: Last year the production in Canada was valued at $221,000.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-424a.	Hand fire extinguishers and sprinkler heads for automatic sprinkler systems for fire protection, 30 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 427. Machinery and apparatus for operating oil sands by mining operations and for extracting oil from the sands so mined; complete parts of the foregoing, free.
Mark Cecil Senn: Is this machinery of a class or kind made in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is not made in Canada.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: This is a new distribution of item 427?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Mark Cecil Senn: I should like to bring to the attention of the minister a matter which may lead hon. members to the belief that I am in favour of this item and, as it is of a class or kind not made in Canada, so I am. However the item is in these words: "machinery and apparatus for operating oil sands by mining operations." I understand that that would refer to gas well outfits, drilling outfits, pipe wells, and so on.


Charles Avery Dunning: No; it is for operating oil sands. It has particular reference to the tar sands of northern Alberta.


Mark Cecil Senn: But they have to be drilled for.


Charles Avery Dunning: No; it is more like a quarrying operation. I wish the hon. member for that constituency were in his seat as he could probably tell us, but the operation is quite unlike any other oil or gas operation, I am informed. It is really cutting out the face of the river bank where the oil sands are.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Wras any of this machinery imported from Great Britain?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is a new item entirely.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Not a new item entirely because item 427 covered four or five different classes which are now distributed among these various items.


Charles Avery Dunning: In the sense that item 427 covered all machinery not named, my hon. friend is right.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It covered four or five of these extracts from it which are now being distributed and described separately.

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, and this is being done in order that there can be no question that machinery which is to be used for the extraction of these oil sands will be free.


George Halsey Perley: But the question asked was whether any of these machines were brought in from Great Britain.


Charles Avery Dunning: None has come in from anywhere as yet.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What were the imports under the old item 427?


Charles Avery Dunning: Under the basket item?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Yes.


Charles Avery Dunning: 
Abraham Albert Heaps: Mr. Chairman, are we considering all these four items together?


Charles Avery Dunning: No; we are just about to pass the item for machinery for the oil sands.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 427. Combination fishpreparing machines, designed for heading, finning, splitting, gutting and cleaning fish; complete parts of the foregoing, 10 per cent.
Abraham Albert Heaps: The minister stated a moment ago that quite a few million dollars' worth of imports came in under these various items.


Charles Avery Dunning: No, under these and hundreds of others, included in the basket item for machinery.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Can the minister give us any idea of the imports under these separate headings?


Charles Avery Dunning: No, because these items did not exist separately. They were part of the general basket item.


Abraham Albert Heaps: The reason I ask is that I observe that in all these items the British preference is being more than wiped out. When you figure our close proximity to the United States and the distance from Great Britain, this really means that a preference is being given to the United States, and I was just wondering whether there was a comparable item anywhere in the tariff or any information available to show our importations from Great Britain under these items.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend understands that the great bulk of that $6,000,000 worth of imports or thereabouts under the basket item 427 will still continue to carry the same rates of duty as now. All we are

doing here is taking out of item 427 these half a dozen items, because they cover classes of machinery which now lend themselves to a separate classification. It is always desirable in a tariff to reduce the number of what are called basket items, n.o.p. items, as far as possible. They always constitute a very large proportion of the importations in any event, and it is desirable to reduce these basket items if for no other reason than to be able to give just the sort of information which 'the committee is constantly asking for to-night, because it is useful that we should know what is imported, and it is impossible to get to know the various importations under a basket n.o.p. item. But certain distinctions have now developed so that it is possible for us to break down the n.o.p. item to the extent of the separate classifications shown here, and in future we shall know just exactly what happens with respect to these particular five or six items. But with respect to the basket item 427, the great bulk of the machinery coming in under it will continue to carry the duties that are imposed in the tariff at present.


George Halsey Perley: I quite agree with the minister regarding basket or omnibus items. It is always well to have them subdivided as much as possible. But here you are taking some eleven or twelve different items out of the basket item 427, and the United States is being given a very substantial preference on these items as compared with the past, so it is only natural that the members would like to know how large have been the importations from Great Britain which will be affected by these duties.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend understands two things, first that there are no statistics kept separately for these different items in the basket item, and, second, that the concessions here given to the United States so far as rates are concerned apply also to Great Britain.


George Halsey Perley: I appreciate that.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: But it puts Great Britain and the United States on an equal footing whereas before Great Britain had a preference.


George Halsey Perley: A very substantial preference.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: So it does make a great difference from that standpoint. I was going to ask the minister the rate of duty on similar articles going into the United States. I assume that one of the corresponding items would be the one mentioned by the minister a short time ago carrying a duty of 27J per cent.

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement


Charles Avery Dunning: Practically, but there is really no comparable item.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: And the other rates on machinery are higher than 27i per cent?


Charles Avery Dunning: If it is electrical machinery the rate might be 35 per cent.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is it possible that the experts who are advising the government had no appreciation and made no investigation of the volume of business that would be covered by these items? I cannot conceive of that being the case.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am afraid the answer is that the information is simply not available because there is no separate recording. Any information the department had with respect to any one of these items came casually with respect to firms or persons who had at some time or other imported within the limits of the basket n.o.p. item. The imports have not been important in volume in any event.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I am afraid that the study by the experts was not very carefully made with respect to these items.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: It seems clear that there has not been a full appreciation of the benefits of the United Kingdom agreement or of the attitude which Great Britain will take in connection with its renewal because in these items there is a clear intention, and the equally clear result, of depriving Great Britain of the very substantial preference which she had in these items, and surely she will take that into consideration when she comes to renew the trade agreement.


Charles Avery Dunning: I might point out to my hon. friends opposite that shortly after the negotiation of the empire agreements the intermediate tariff was granted to Germany, and in granting that intermediate tariff to Germany a great opportunity was given to her for competition with the United Kingdom in machinery, of which Germany is a very capable producer, and in which she is a strong competitor of Great Britain. I might ask the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan), who is smiling at me so genially, if information was gathered at that time as to the precise effect of individual items in the n.o.p. machinery items, which is a very important item now, as it was then, before granting to Germany the intermediate tariff which gave them quite an advantage over Great Britain as compared with what had been the situation formerly?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I cannot say as I had nothing to do with negotiating the agreement with Germany. With respect to the Canada-
France agreement, we went into every item very carefully, with respect to both the items in the intermediate tariff and to those in connection with which special preferences by way of discounts from the intermediate tariff *were given. The minister will notice that in connection with this item 427 we are reducing a former 35 per cent ad valorem rate to free in one case, 10 per cent in another, free in another, 5 per cent in another, 25 per cent in another, 5 per cent in another, 15 per cent in another, free in another and so on. These are very substantial reductions in favour of the United States and one wonders what the effect will be. Neither the minister nor I can form any appreciation of what the result really will be.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: In connection with this
item 427 the British preferential was 15 per cent, or 12J per cent better than the intermediate. In this particular item it is made free, so that the United States and Great Britain are now placed on the same basis, whereas formerly Great Britain had an advantage of 12J per cent. The second item in this group does not show as great a reduction, as the rate from the United States is now 10 per cent. However, the advantage to Great Britain has been reduced. Remarks to be made with reference to the third group are the same as those made with reference to the first. In connection with the next group, the rate is now 5 per cent. The previous difference between the British preferential and the intermediate was 12J per cent, but Great Britain and the United States have now been placed on the same basis. In connection with the next group, the former spread between the British preferential and the intermediate was 12| per cent, and the same applies to practically all the other items in this group.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Are we taking all of
item 427 together.


Charles Avery Dunning: The discussion has surrounded them all.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I should like to refer
particularly to motor-driven combination units. A manufacturer in Toronto came to see me with reference to the possiblity of some consideration being given to manufacturers of motors who supply motors for a lot of this equipment coming in from the United States. I know it is too late to do anything, the agreement being signed, but I should like to bring this matter to the attention of the minister. The tariff on the motors themselves is fairly substantial. A large proportion of the machines covered by

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
this item are motor-driven, and I should like to know if the motors are to be allowed to come in at the same low rate mentioned in the item. If they are, it will be too bad for the motor manufacturers in this country.


Charles Avery Dunning: This item covers motor-driven sprinklers, front and side sweepers and gatherers, for use in sweeping or cleaning streets or highways. They are not made in Canada.


John Ritchie MacNicol: A lot of bakery machinery is motor-driven, and I should like to know if the motors are to be allowed to come in at this low rate. If motors are imported separately they must pay a higher rate of duty and if they are allowed to come in under these low rates it would seem to be penalizing the motor manufacturing industry.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It applies to the motor
combined with the machine.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am familiar with some of these machines, and in certain instances you could not imagine the motor as a part of the machine. The Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Usley) is not here, but I imagine that this would be a matter of customs administration. If the motor is obviously a part of the machine, I should imagine it would come in under this item; if it is not a part, then it would be considered as a separate motor.


John Ritchie MacNicol: A lot of them have only a stand on the machine upon which a motor can be placed. This will mean that the American producer of this line of equipment will take very good care that a motor is built in or attached to the machine. He will then not only be selling his machine, but be selling a motor as well. These motors should be made by Canadian workmen in Canadian factories.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Is there any of this street
cleaning equipment made in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


George Halsey Perley: I think we would get on better if we took up just one item at a time. The minister made a reference to the Canada-German agreement by which they were given the intermediate tariff. That is quite true, but look at the difference between these new proposals and what was done in connection with Germany. In that case the rate was reduced from 35 per cent to 27i per cent, but this item with which we are dealing now comes in free. In other words, the whole

35 per cent is being taken off. Not only that, but I understand Germany will get the benefit of these reductions without giving us any compensation in return.


Charles Avery Dunning: Germany is not a most
favoured nation.


George Halsey Perley: I am glad to
hear that. However, this rate will be given to all the most favoured nations. I know nothing can be changed, but it seems extraordinary to make an agreement with the United States to reduce duties from 35 per cent to free.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: When did Germany cease
to be a most favoured nation? Was it about six months or a year ago?


Charles Avery Dunning: Germany never was on
the most favoured nation basis; she has never gone further than the intermediate.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Charles Avery Dunning: Now we have the regenerated cellulose items, after the item in connection with street sweepers. I cannot identify these different items by number, inasmuch as they are all the same number- 427. Each one will have to be called.
Customs tariff-ex 427. Motor-driven combination units, comprising sprinklers, front and side sweepers and gatherers, for use in sweeping or cleaning streets or highways, free.
Customs tariff-ex 427. Machinery and apparatus enumerated in tariff item 412a, when for use by manufacturers of articles made from regenerated cellulose or cellulose acetate; complete parts of such machinery and apparatus, not to include saws, knives, and motive power, 5 per cent.
Customs tariff-ex 427. Motion picture projectors, arc lamps for motion picture work, motion picture or theatrical spot lights, light effect machines, motion picture screens, portable motion picture projectors complete with sound equipment; complete parts of all the foregoing, not to include electric light bulbs, tubes or exciter lamps, 15 per cent.


George Halsey Perley: Where do these motion picture projectors and so forth come from, from Great Britain or the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: We have no record but we know that they come largely if not entirely from the United States.


[Stage Direction]
Items agreed to.
Customs	tariff-ex	427. Veneer-drying
machines, and complete parts thereof, 5 per cent.
Hugh Alexander Stewart: What are the importations of these machines and from what sources?

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement


Charles Avery Dunning: I cannot give that information; these items are all 427.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 427. Bakery machinery and apparatus, viz.:-Combined suction-type sack cleaner and dust collector; flow meters with automatic or manual control for measuring of water; dough dividers, five-pocket capacity of 100 pieces per minute to eight-pocket capacity of 160 pieces per minute; combination mechanical eight-pocket roll divider and rounder, when combined with overhead dry bun proofer; adjustable roll moulder, with capacity of 100 rolls per minute; mechanical tray-type final steam proofer; trough elevators; automatic tray-type bread coolers; automatic pan-greasing machines; automatic measuring-knife type cake depositors; automatic breadwrapping machines; automatic bread-slicing machines; automatic wafer-making machines; rotary biscuit-moulding machines; automatic steel band biscuit plant, including combination rotary moulding and cutting machine, automatic tunnel-type travelling-band biscuit oven with cooler, and automatic biscuit stacking machine with packing table; steam-tube heated draw-plate ovens of one or two decks; travelling tray ovens, single or double lap; travelling tunnel-type ovens, with plate, chain, rod or wire-mesh conveyer; synchronized oven feeders; and complete parts of the foregoing, 15 per cent.
Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I notice that Germany was
off the most favoured nation basis on March 11, 1933. It appears that she received from Canada the most favoured nation treatment up to some time prior to that date, when she went on the intermediate tariff.
Mr. DUNNING; My information is that Germany was a most favoured nation many years ago and denounced her treaty with Canada in that regard when Canada first introduced the British preference in 1897. She regarded that as a violation of the treaty and she has not had the most favoured nation arrangement with Canada, but in 1933 arrangements were made whereby she received the benefits of the intermediate tariff.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 427. Milk clarifiers and complete parts thereof, free.
Percy John Rowe: Do we manufacture these in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 427, ex 446a. Wire stitchers and staplers, either hand or power type, but not including motive power; complete parts of the foregoing, 5 per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Are these machines not made in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: Not this kind.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 427. All machinery composed wholly or in part of iron or steel, n.o.p., of a class or kind not made in Canada; complete parts of the foregoing, 20 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: This is the remainder of the basket item of S6,000,000 all told, from which previous items have been withdrawn. As will be seen, the provision here is to impose a duty against the United States, in regard to the rest of the n.o.p. or basket item, of 20 per cent if it is of a class or kind not made in Canada.


Percy John Rowe: What is your definition of a class or kind not made in Canada, if it is not 10 per cent.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is a matter for customs administration; I cannot answer offhand. It has been in the item for years.


Percy John Rowe: But it has never been interpreted before, and I understand that the government's policy is to interpret, as of a class or kind not made in Canada, anything that is not produced to the extent of 10 per cent in Canada.


Charles Avery Dunning: Of course, my hon. friend is mistaken in saying that it has never been interpreted. It has always been necessary to interpret it in relation to each individual shipment, and it has been interpreted in various ways by various customs administrators down through the years. The government is considering some standard which can be universally,, applied in order to determine what constitutes manufacture in Canada.


Percy John Rowe: It is not yet a definite policy of the government.


Charles Avery Dunning: I did not say that.


George Halsey Perley: In its arrangement with Japan has not the government defined the meaning of class or kind not made in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: In general terms.


George Halsey Perley: I understood the minister to say that it had not been defined; my understanding was that it had been.


Charles Avery Dunning: It has not yet been defined in law.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Without too much trouble, can the minister give the history of this tariff item 427 as regards any revisions that have taken place in the last five years?


Charles Avery Dunning: Revisions in the content of it or in the rates of duty?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: The rates.

Camda-U. S. Trade Agreement


Charles Avery Dunning: 
John Ritchie MacNicol: That item was raised?


Charles Avery Dunning: Oh, very much.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I want to speak on that. The result of that item was the creation of a good deal of work in Canada. I myself went to see equipment being made in Galt, in Brantford, in London, in Toronto and in Dundas. I have in my hand a photograph of a very large machine made at Dundas, in Canada's premier plant of this nature, the John Bertram and Sons Company Limited. The parent factoiy of this machine is at Brooklyn, New York, but to sell their equipment in the old country market they arranged with the Bertram company to make for them their machines in Canada. Of this line I believe they made eight. This is a very large machine. It will roll paper 306 inches wide and it will slit it in lengths; it will roll it at 3,000 feet per minute. That machine sold, I am told, in the neighbourhood of 530,000 or more. That meant a lot of labour to Canadians; Canadian machinists, motor makers, switch makers, moulders and other erectors in iron and steel. I am convinced that that item gave many many thousands of man days' labour in the last few years to Canadians who would not have had work in this country but for that item. As I see it, this reduction from 35 to 25 per cent is very substantial, and it is quite probable, although I hope not, that much of this equipment that was sent over to Canada to be made by Canadians will now be sent in here fully completed or, if it be still possible to do so, it will be shipped direct to Great Britain. I wonder how Canadian manufacturers are going to be encouraged to make the necessary investment and to provide labour to Canadians to make all these lines of equipment, which total up to six million dollars or more, as the minister has said. For my part I think we are going the wrong way about this whole matter. I think our objective should be to induce Canadian manufacturers to make as much equipment as they can in this country and so give employment to other Canadians.


Frank Exton Lennard: In this connection, and in connection with the firm of Bertram and Sons of Dundas I may say that two American concerns, who happened to be negotiating with that firm, have asked that those negotiations be held in abeyance because of the reduction in these particular items.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is very difficult in arranging a tariff to suit everybody. I do not think there is any item of the tariff on which I have had so many requests from manufacturers for reductions as I have had in regard to this item of machinery which manufacturers generally require to use in the manufacture of other commodities. It is a most difficult thing to strike a happy medium. My hon. friend from Davenport (Mr. Mac-Nicol) talks about men who would be employed through putting the duty on this item higher, but the great majority of manufacturers in Canada are asked for reduced duties on machinery which they must use to produce the commodities they manufacture. We think we have struck the happy medium in the arrangement with respect to these two items which are now before the committee.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Naturally they are compelled to ask for a reduction on the machinery they buy, when the product they sell has been cut to the bone by the lowering of duties.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Might I digress for one moment, because apparently my mind was confused. I had some knowledge of the arrangement between Canada and Germany, and I find that order in council P.C. 598 of March 31, 1933, which granted the Canadian intermediate tariff to Germany, contains this paragraph, No. 4; it is on page 244 of the blue book dealing with customs matters:
4. That it has accordingly been arranged with the German government to exchange the conventional tariff of Germany in return for the intermediate tariff of Canada for a period of nine months from April 1, 1933

And since continued on the same terms.
-subject however to termination in the event that the rates of the intermediate tariff cease to be the lowest rates accorded by Canada to the natural or manufactured products of any foreign country. In the event of such earlier termination both countries will protect legitimate trade against hardship that would result from a sudden withdrawal of the lower tariff rates.
I think the impression that I got at the time was that while by order in council we granted the intermediate tariff to Germany, nevertheless we arranged that if we gave a lower rate of tariff to any other foreign country, and we did not concede that same

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
rate to Germany, Germany would have the right to terminate its tariff arrangements with Canada. I do not want to say anything against the rights of our own government; anyway, it was through having that paragraph 4 in mind that I was led astray and was perhaps somewhat confused in suggesting that Germany did in effect have most favoured nation treatment.


Charles Avery Dunning: I could not understand before, when my hon. friend made the statement, on what it rested, but I certainly can now.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I do not wish to give an interpretation to that paragraph.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I would like to press the minister a little further as to the interpretation of the words "of a class or kind not made in Canada."


George Washington McPhee: Carried?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: No, certainly not. I asked for an interpretation of the words, "of a class or kind not made in Canada."


Charles Avery Dunning: That interpretation has been given by the Department of National Revenue for years with respect to the individual consignment, and I cannot add to that except to say that the matter of attempting a definition is now before the government. My hon. friend can press me all evening and he will not get any further statement than that the government has the matter under consideration at the present time.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Oh, I think the matter has gone a little further than consideration in the matter of negotiations with Japan, where they have said that "produced in Canada" means produced in commercial quantities.


Charles Avery Dunning: Perhaps my hon. friend had better quote exactly what was said to Japan.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I have it here.


Charles Avery Dunning: And then I am afraid the discussion will be out of order.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: This is it:
In interpreting the words "class or kind" provision will be made to make it clear that the term "made or produced in Canada" in this context means, made or produced in Canada in commercial quantities, and arrangements will be made for giving adequate notice of the transfer for customs purposes of a product from the category not of a class or kind made or produced in Canada to the category of a class or kind made or produced in Canada.
So there apparently has been some crystallization of the mind of the government with
regard to made in Canada or not made in Canada. In order to be made in Canada, as I understand it, it must now be in commercial quantities.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is the intention of the government, yes. But I prefer not to go any further than that until it is thoroughly worked out, and my hon. friend will not do any good by pressing me to make premature statements when I do not want to make them.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: The minister need not think that I want to drive him into something that he does not want to go into. He is rather firm when it comes to not giving information that he does not wish to give. But it appears to me that he could have given a little more information than he did previously, in view of the statement that is made in this arrangement with Japan. Surely the attitude of the government in its interpretation of that phrase, "made in Canada," will not be different with Japan from what it is with any other country.


George Halsey Perley: It might provoke the United States if it were.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-427.	All machinery composed wholly or in part of iron or steel, n.o.p., and complete parts thereof, 25 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-427b. Ball and roller bearings, 27J per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: What were the imports
into Canada last year?


Charles Avery Dunning: The total was 8410,000
last year; from the United Kingdom, $56,000; from the United States, S241,000; from Germany, $15,000; and from Sweden, $98,000.
Exports are not separately recorded. Our production is very small, by one concern, figures not published. The effect of the item is to bind the intermediate. The United States tariff on a comparable item is 10 cents a pound and 45 per cent ad valorem.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-428e. Diesel and semi-diesel engines, and complete parts thereof, n.o.p., 25 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: Imports of diesel engines and parts last year, $845,000, of which $376,000 were from the United States; $303,000 from the United Kingdom; 885,000 from Sweden, and $67,000 from Germany.
I have no separately recorded exports, and inasmuch as there are not three firms reporting we have no figures of Canadian production

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
Mr. MaoNICOL: I believe this is a recent new line of manufacture in this country.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-432b. Hollow-ware of iron or steel, coated with vitreous enamel, 30 per cent.
Alexander McKay Edwards: What are the importations from the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: From the United States, $66,000; from the United Kingdom, S56.000; and from Germany, $14,000.


Alexander McKay Edwards: Any from Sweden?


Charles Avery Dunning: From Sweden nothing
recorded. Exports are not separately recorded, but our production in the calendar year 1934 of vitreous enamel kitchenware was $1,040,000.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I wonder how it is that 431b escaped the minister's notice. It is not in here, but I notice that the duty is 35 per cent. I do not know that the question is in order, but I wondered if the fact that some of the directors are called Graham and Fulford and Edwards has anything to do with the escape of this item.


Charles Avery Dunning: I think my hon. friend
knows the answer to his question. It is an imperial conference item, with margins arranged.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-432d. Manufactures of tinplate, painted, japanned, decorated or not, and manufacturers of tin, n.o.p., 27J per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: That is binding the intermediate tariff.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I think the minister ought
to give a little information about this item; I think it is one that would stand a good deal of investigation. It was before the price spreads commission a few years ago and it came out that very little of these goods is manufactured in Canada. The plate is brought in and all that is done is that it is made into cans. There is such a monopoly in this country by practically one firm that they charge whatever they want to those who are compelled to use these cans for packing purposes. It came out, I believe, that a can costs about three cents.


Charles Avery Dunning: This item is not tin
cans for packing fruit.


Abraham Albert Heaps: What were the imports
under this item, and the production in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: Under this item, total
imports, $250,000; from the United States, $185,000 and from the United Kingdom, $56,000.
[Mr. Dunninsr.l
Manufactures of tinplate, painted, and manufactures of tin, n.o.p., which is the second part of the item, total imports $381,000, of which $32,000 came from the United Kingdom; $341,000 from the United States; $2,000 from Germany, and $426 from the Netherlands. Our exports are not separately recorded.
I can tell my hon. friend that the production of tin cans, the kind of which he is speaking, in the calendar year 1934 was valued at $14,685,000.


Abraham Albert Heaps: What class of goods is
specified in this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: Tin containers other
than those for food purposes, which are in a preceding item, and constitute the big item in tinplate.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Tin containers are not touched at all in this agreement?


Charles Avery Dunning: Right.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What is the rate of
duty on these in the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Forty-five per cent.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The difficulty about tin is
that unless the cartel has been dissolved recently, there is an international cartel that controls not only the supply of tin but the price. That is the chief cause of the high prices of manufactures of tin and tinware.


Charles Avery Dunning: I think that is right.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-438g. Motor cycles or side cars therefor, and complete parts of the foregoing, 20 per cent.
Hugh Alexander Stewart: What is the duty on
these going into the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Ten per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-439e. Farm wagons, farm sleds, logging wagons, logging sleds, and complete parts thereof, 15 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: Binding the intermediate.


George Halsey Perley: I think we ought to have a little explanation of this. These are things that are made in Canada in large quantities.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is practically an
obsolete item in the tariff. Imports last year were: From the United Kingdom, $41; from the United States, $8,000. Our own production in Canada of carriages, wagons and sleighs in the calendar year 1934 was $113,000.


[Stage Direction]
Ttem agreed to.

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
Customs tariff-443. Apparatus designed for cooking or for heating buildings:
(1)	for coal or wood, 25 per cent.
(2)	for gas, 25 per cent.
(3)	for electricity, 25 per cent.
(4)	for oil, 25 per cent.
(5)	n.o.p., 25 per cent.
Percy John Rowe: What is the
duty going into the United States, and the imports of these articles?


Charles Avery Dunning: It looks as if they are
in a 50 per cent item going into the United States, if electric, and 45 per cent otherwise.
Our own imports were:
United United States Kingdom
Gas apparatus	$ 95,000	$	900Oil	
179,000	1,800Electric	
203,000	12,000Coal and wood	
121,000	1,600
Then we have total exports in this item amounting to 8847,000, of which 8105,000 worth went to the United Kingdom, 860,000 to the Irish Free State, 8582,000 to British South Africa, 831,000 to Australia and $35,000 to New Zealand.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: We must have a large
domestic production.


Charles Avery Dunning: If we included all stoves and cooking plates our domestic production would be valued at $6,521,000. This is a cold country, you know.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Cold, or coal?


Charles Avery Dunning: Cold.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Does this item include a new type of heating equipment which Canadian factories have been making within the last year or two? I refer to a motor heating unit used for blowing heated air. I imagine it would apply.


Charles Avery Dunning: Is it an apparatus designed for cooking or for heating buildings, and can it be used with coal or wood, gas, electricity, oil, or in some other way?


John Ritchie MacNicol: The minister must have seen these individual heating units either at the side of or in the walls of many buildings.


Charles Avery Dunning: I have not seen them.


John Ritchie MacNicol: They are equipped with a fan and a motor. The air goes around a heatef and is blown out into the room.


Charles Avery Dunning: If the heating is actually done by the apparatus it comes within the item.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am sorry, if that is so; I really am. This is a new line of equipment which is being made in Canada.


Charles Avery Dunning: Is it electrical?


John Ritchie MacNicol: An individual electric heating unit.


Charles Avery Dunning: What is the heating medium? What creates the heat?


John Ritchie MacNicol: It might be wood, coal or anything that would produce steam.


Charles Avery Dunning: Is the hon. member speaking about an apparatus to distribute heat? That would be different from the articles indicated in the item, because it includes apparatus creating heat.


Percy John Rowe: Evidently there was no consideration in the agreement given to the possible export of industrial products from Canada. We manufacture a substantial amount of the same articles, and yet the American tariff, after the negotiation of the agreement, charges us 50 per cent tariff on our products entering the United States, while we allow their products to come in at 25 per cent.


Charles Avery Dunning: The hon. member has not looked at schedule II. If he does he will find that we have a reduction on electrical apparatus of this kind going from Canada to the United States to 25 per cent. It applies only to electrical apparatus.


Percy John Rowe: Not for coal, wood and gas?


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


Mr. GRAYDON:: There is no change in regard to furnaces going into the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: I wonder if the hon. member would mind waiting until we reach schedule II. I am afraid we shall be overlapping our discussion.


Gordon Graydon: Very well, I shall wait.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-445c.	(i) Electric telegraph
apparatus and complete parts thereof, 25 per cent.
(ii) Electric telephone apparatus and complete parts thereof, 25 per cent.
Percy John Rowe: What is the tariff entering the United States on this item.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is 35 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-445d. Electric wireless or radio apparatus and complete parts thereof, 25 per cent.
Charles Hazlitt Cahan: What is the United States rate?

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement


Charles Avery Dunning: Thirty-five per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-445i. Electric dynamos or generators and transformers, n.o.p., and complete parts thereof, 30 per cent.
Percy John Rowe: I notice that the rate is reduced from 33-j per cent in the intermediate down to 30 per cent.


Charles Avery Dunning: Our tariff is 30 per cent, under the agreement.


Percy John Rowe: It is reduced below the intermediate?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, to 30 per cent.


Percy John Rowe: What tariff do we pay the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Thirty-five per cent.


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Beaubien):: Item 445g-


Hugh Alexander Stewart: We have not carried 445f.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I would like to say a word on it.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: But it was carried.


Charles Avery Dunning: I have no objection; go ahead.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Thank you, Mr. Minister; you are always kind and courteous. In the last five years the manufacturers of dynamos have made considerable progress, due to the fact that the American product could not come in without paying a high duty. Canadian dynamo manufacturers are now producing dynamos from the largest to the smallest sizes. While they may survive the cut in the duty, I say that those manufacturers deserve credit for what they have done in the past five years.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-445g. Electric motors, n.o.p., and complete parts thereof, 30 per cent.
Thomas Miller Bell: Of what does the item consist?


Charles Avery Dunning: The wording is fairly descriptive. It refers to motors for fans, and motors not otherwise provided for. It is difficult to give a description without going into great detail. Last year the total imports of motors for fans were valued at $19,000 from the United States and $600 from the United Kingdom. Motors n.o.p., were imported to the value of $190,000 from the United Kingdom, $878,000 from the United States and $34,000 from Switzerland. That refers to kinds of motors not otherwise provided for.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Would the hon. members for Welland and Peterborough pass their comments on the item?


Charles Avery Dunning: Perhaps the hon. member will speak for himself.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: These are reductions below the intermediate?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Without any corresponding reductions in the British preference.


George Halsey Perley: To what extent are these commodities manufactured in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: In 1934 the Canadian production was valued at $3,085,000.


George Halsey Perley: A very good industry.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 446a. Locomotive beds or frames of steel, cast in one piece; tender frames of steel, cast in one piece; cast steel cradles for the rear ends of locomotive frames; cast steel truck frames and bolsters for engines, tenders and passenger coaches; platform castings for passenger coaches; all the foregoing, whether in the rough or semi-manufactured, for use on railway rolling stock, 20 per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Are they made in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-446a. Manufactures, articles or wares, of iron or steel or of which iron or steel or both are the component materials of chief value, n.Ojp., 25 per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Why is the duty lowered so far below the intermediate rate?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is a basket item, and 20 per cent seems enough to pay, does it not?


Percy John Rowe: Are they manufactured in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: We have no available
data as to production in Canada. The reason, of course, is that this is a basket item into which fall thousands of articles of which iron or steel form the component parts of chief value.


Percy John Rowe: Do you mean a
basket of items?	.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is a phrase used in
connection with the tariff. After you have given everything possible a classification, in iron and steel, for instance, there must be some other item into which everything else of iron and steel will go, and that is the n.o.p. item or what is technically known as

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
the basket item. There is one in connection with every group of articles in the tariff. After you have finished describing all the items, you have to have some place to put those that are not separately described. That is what is meant by a basket item.


Percy John Rowe: It is quite evident that despite the few reductions made by the United States, scarcely any item in our tariff escapes reduction.


Charles Avery Dunning: When the intermediate
tariff and most favoured nation treatment were offered by the former government to the United States as a basis of negotiation, that meant that the government offering it, accepted, as this government subsequently did, to provide for a reduction in the tariff to that level against the United States.


Percy John Rowe: But this basket
item is below the intermediate rate. It is below the basis of the offer, and it is not part of the 50 per cent reductions you were to get from the United States.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: This item was not included
in the basis of negotiation.


Charles Avery Dunning: Oh, yes, the base included a further reduction on a specified list of articles.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: But it did not specify the
items.


Charles Avery Dunning: Oh, no. It can be
argued that you would not have made a reduction on any item we have touched; that that was not an item you had in your minds, but nevertheless you stated that a reduction would be made on a specified list of articles.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: We had in our mind that
we would get reasonable compensation for the reductions we proposed to make, and we proposed to make those reductions only in case we did obtain adequate compensation therefor.


Charles Avery Dunning: Did my hon. friend mean to use the plural or the singular when he used the word "mind"?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I used the word mind.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-500. Logs and round unmanufactured timber, handle, heading, stave and shingle bolts, n.o.p.; firewood, hop poles, fence posts and railway ties, free.
George Halsey Perley: This is free going from Canada into the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Free. This is truly reciprocal.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Are railway ties free going into the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Percy John Rowe: You should be
congratulated on that.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is that really so, that railway ties enter the United States free.


Charles Avery Dunning: Just a moment. It
would be horrible if I had made a mistake. Yes; railway ties are free.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That is surprising. I did
not think it was so.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Is there a corresponding item in the American tariff? It is a very comprehensive item.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes. The biggest item
in it is shingles, which go into the United States free-a very valuable tiling for us. It is bound in the agreement.


Mr. WARD:: I do not wonder, Mr. Chairman, that our friends of the Conservative party keep calling " carried," on this item. Listening for the last two or three days, particularly to my hon. friend from Davenport (Mr. MacNicol)-


John Ritchie MacNicol: You are interfering with the carrying of the items.


William John Ward: After listening to my hon.
friend talking about unemployment in this country, I started in a day or two ago to see what happened to the lumber industry under the administration of our Conservative friends, and we certainly have in lumber a unique example of their policy. For a number of years prior to 1930 we had an export trade in lumber to the United States of something over one billion feet. That lumber entered the United States with a duty of only one dollar per thousand, and that duty was on the finished product. The finished product accounted for one-half billion feet, and the other one-half billion feet of lumber entered free of duty. Our exports to the United States had a value of about $23,000,000. For a number of years prior to 1930 we imported on the average from the United States about twenty-five million feet of lumber at an average value of $1,500,000. One would have thought, with that tremendous advantage that Canada had, this was one item which our Conservative friends would have left severely alone. But no, sir. Lumber in the finished state entering Canada bore an ad valorem duty of 25 per cent, while lumber in the rough was free. Things were going along nicely until 1931 when our Conservative friends were nicely established in office, and



Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
were looking around, I suppose, for some new place to apply their Canada First policy. In 1931 they applied to the imports of lumber from the United States an arbitrary valuation of $18 per thousand. Let me give one illustration. Hardwood flooring of a certain kind imported from the southern United States was sold there for $60 a thousand. That was the regular price charged in the United States, not a dumping price. Our Conservative friends added an arbitrary $18 to that $60, bringing the value to $78 for duty purposes. That was in the spring of 1931. But not content with that, on the first of June, 1932, encouraged by the success of these government measures, the Canadian manufacturers waited on the government and secured the imposition of an additional S18 per thousand specific duty against the importation of lumber into Canada.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What kind of lumber?


William John Ward: Hardwood lumber, of course. The action of the Canadian government was immediately followed by action on the part of producers of hardwood lumber in the southern states. They raised the price of their hardwood flooring to $78, the kind they had been selling for $60. So what actually happened was that the action by the Conservative government at Ottawa transferred $18 per thousand from the pockets of Canadian consumers into those of American producers. Again the Canadian consumers paid the price.


George Halsey Perley: Does the hon.
member state that the Canadian government put on an extra duty of $18?


William John Ward: Yes; that is what I am saying.


George Halsey Perley: Eighteen dollars per thousand.


William John Ward: I got this information from the department. This is what happened under the regime of my hon. friends.


John Gordon Ross: They cannot believe what they did.


William John Ward: A little later, in 1932, our hon. friends opposite, encouraged by the success they had so far, added a one per cent excise duty to all imports of lumber coming into Canada.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: That was not only on lumber; it was on everything.


William John Ward: Yes; but I am dealing with
lumber just now. We are on the lumber item.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Why try to create the impression that it was on lumber alone.
IMr. Ward.]


William John Ward: It is the privilege of my hon. friend to introduce this question at any other time. Let us see what was the effect of this upon the employment of Canadian lumber men. In 1930 there were 3,000 sawmills in operation in Canada, all interested directly or indirectly in lumber exports, and less than one dozen of these plants interested in imports of hardwood. In the interests of that one dozen small, picayune and insignificant plants employing a few dozen workmen, our hon. friends opposite destroyed to a large extent an export trade of one billion feet. By and large our export trade exceeded our import trade by about forty to one. We did export, prior to 1931, forty thousand feet to every thousand feet we imported.


Percy John Rowe: That is good business.


William John Ward: Yes; but you destroyed it.


John Gordon Ross: Why kill it?


William John Ward: What was the effect upon the American government when our hon. friends opposite imposed the one per cent excise duty and the extra $18 per thousand feet specific duty?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: My hon. friend must be reading his notes incorrectly. There has never been an $18 per thousand feet specific duty on lumber since confederation.


William John Ward: I stand by what I have stated. I received these figures from the department.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Then the hon. gentleman must be misinterpreting them or misconstruing their effect.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: I think the hon. member is sticking very closely to his text.


Percy John Rowe: He is sticking closer to that than he is to the facts.


William John Ward: I can understand why my hon. friends are getting uneasy. I intend to point out in a few moments that this one act on the part of the Conservative government put out of work something like 28,000 men who were engaged in the lumbering industry. That is the number estimated by the Lumbermen's News, of about eight or nine months ago. When my hon. friend for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) gets up and talks about employment being given to some workmen in a little industry in Toronto, or the effect that this agreement will have upon the employment of a few men, I want to point out that it would hardly be possible for

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
anything contained in this agreement to have the same effect upon employment in this country as have some of the acts of my hon. friends opposite. I can quite understand why they are anxious to cover up their tracks.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am not going to take back anything I said.


William John Ward: In 1932 the American government, I think I am correct in saying in retaliation for the action of our hon. friends opposite, made another change in their rates of duties. The tariff arrangements of the United States they obtained in 1930 had existed since 1911. The American government at this time, owing to the action of the Canadian government, imposed a duty of S4 per thousand feet against the importation of all Canadian lumber. This was to replace the $1 per thousand feet previously imposed on our dressed lumber.


George Halsey Perley: Did I understand the hon. member to say that there was no duty before 1930?


William John Ward: I did not say that at all.


George Halsey Perley: What was the
duty on lumber going into the United States under the Hawley-Smoot tariff?


William John Ward: The tariff arrangement as of 1930 had existed from 1911 up to that time. The duty was SI per thousand feet on finished lumber, while lumber dressed on one side and in the rough entered the United States free of duty.


Percy John Rowe: What kind of
lumber was the SIS per thousand feet specific duty imposed upon?


William John Ward: I have just given that. That
was the specific duty applied on finished hardwood lumber coming into Canada. An arbitrary value for duty purposes was placed on lumber finished on one side. Let us see the effect this had upon the lumbering industry. According to the Lumbermen's News, on December 1, 1935, of the 3,000 mills which had been in operation in 1930 only seventy-five of the larger mills were operating. By 1935 two of the largest spruce mills in Canada were in the hands of the receiver, due to the tariff meddling by the government of our hon. friends opposite. One mill with headquarters at Edmonton and manufacturing 225 million feet a year went into the hands of the receiver because of this impost of $4 per thousand feet which had been placed against softwood entering the United States. This action had been taken by the American government in retalia-12739-741
tion for the actions of the former government.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Does my hon. friend
know that that was in retaliation for some action on our part or in pursuance of some domestic policy being carried out in connection with their housing program?


William John Ward: I have obtained most of my
information from the Lumbermen's News. This publication is not put out by the Liberals or Progressives; it is published and supported by the lumbermen of Canada who are interested in the success of their business. Since 1930 I have been reading Hansard very studiously, but I have not seen one reference by the hon. member for Davenport to his own government having put men out of employment. I think we have had just enough of the kind of stuff we have been getting from the other side of this house. I was informed the other day by the officials of a certain department that right now duties ranging from 100 to 200 per cent are being imposed against articles coming into Canada. Yet we have hon. friends opposite rising to their feet and protesting against these duties. The thing is all on one side. They have been protesting continually against the lowering of duties on any little item, with no thought whatsoever of the effect it may have on the farmers of this Country. I wonder where the revenue came from to build all	the palatial homes	to be found	inthe	city	of Toronto,	from	which my hon.
friend from Davenport comes.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Good Canadian workmen built them and the stuff that went into them.


William John Ward: In every case the people from the countryside had to pay through the nose for protection given the manufacturers, without	any	compensating	factor.	I am here	inthe	interests of freer	trade;	I was sent	to
demand freer trade for the benefit of the consumers of Canada. I agree with my hon. friend from Brantford who spoke this afternoon, and if we follow his philosophy we shall not have 'any tariffs at all in Canada.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not Brantford.


William John Ward: Tariffs are always imposed in the interests of a small percentage of the people. If we considered the interests of the people as a whole we would not have tariffs at all. The trouble with our friends from the industrial centres is that they see only their own small world. Perhaps if I were in the position of my hon. friend from Davenport I would do as he does; but if he would visit some of the homes in the country and see the

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement
conditions under which the farmers operate, where piles of junk are masquerading as farm machinery and where there are many other conditions comparable with that, he would be a little more considerate when he asks for high protection for industries that are at present over-protected, with large profits a fair share of which they do not pass on to the labouring population. If he studied the price spreads report he would be impressed by the extent to which that condition has prevailed.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


William John Ward: I realize that I am a little beside the point and I wonder that you did not call me to order, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the Prime Minister for having secured for Canadian lumber freer entry into the United States, which will result in putting back to work between 20,000 and 30,000 men in the next few years.


George Halsey Perley: I do not know where the hon. member for Dauphin got his information; if he will read over the report in Hansard to-morrow and make further inquiries he will find that he is in error in many respects. He thanks the Prime Minister for the free admission of lumber into the United States, but that is not in keeping with the facts. With regard to the duty on lumber going into the United States, this has been a difficult question in Canada throughout the years, during the whole of my lifetime. It has been under discussion many times and jhis extra charge put on lumber in 1932 by the United States was not in any sense in retaliation because of anything we had done; it was imposed at the special request of the lumbermen of the United States, particularly of the western states. I believe that if we had time to look into the question it would be found that they went to Washington on a special mission for the purpose of getting this extra impost put on. There has never been a time in my memory when Canada was not ready and willing to have reciprocity with the United States, to have reciprocal arrangements with them in connection with lumber. The offer has been made them several times, and the hon. gentleman is entirely in error in thinking that their duty was put on because of anything we had done. There was a time when we could send our lumber into the United States without a duty but that was for a short period. Nearly all through the years the United States insisted on collecting a duty on lumber from Canada, and the rate has varied from time to time. Practically, however, there has always been a duty on our lumber going into the United States.


William John Ward: If what the hon. gentleman says is correct, it is strange that the Prime Minister was able to secure so promptly freer entry of rough lumber into the United States.


Mr. HANSON:: I know a little about lumber and I know what the effect of this agreement will be in British Columbia. I will not take up the time of the committee going into the history of this matter, but in 1931 when the duty of $4 a thousand was imposed by the United Slates government, dozens of sawmills in British Columbia's interior, along the lines of the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific, closed their doors, throwing hundreds of men on relief. This fall, when the news came out that they had taken off almost $2, all these sawmills put men into the bush again to cut logs, taking back hundreds of men. They went further. The logging association of British Columbia increased the wages of those men they took back from $7.50 to $15 a month, without being asked by the union to do so. What I have said in regard to the fisheries will apply to lumbering in British Columbia. This agreement will be a life saver so far as British Columbia is concerned. Thousands of men will be put back to work at better wages than they have been receiving, and mills that have been closed for five years are now working. Spruce is not affected by quota, and we shall have the benefit of the reduction from 84 to $2 per thousand, which will mean to the lumbermen from $40 to $60 a carload. The government, in my opinion, has taken a step in the right direction and I hope that some day we shall have free access to the United States for our Canadian lumber.


Percy John Rowe: 
Charles Avery Dunning: What about arbitrary
valuations?


Percy John Rowe: It might be termed an arbitrary valuation on valuations for duty purposes or placed against them, it is true, as the hon. member says, at $18 a thousand, but a valuation of SIS and a tariff against lumber coming in at $18 are two entirely different matters. That is, so far as our importations are concerned they are entirely different. The hon. member mentioned that we do not import one thousand feet where we had formerly imported forty thousand, and it is intimated that this $4 a thousand has destroyed the lumber industry in Canada. To some extent it affected it, but I know that as regards the industry throughout the country it will also be agreed that, due to the imperial trade agreement, due to the increased tariff, due to the fixed value for duty purposes if you will, the number of those employed in the lumber industry in general in Canada from coast to coast increased almost three times since 1931, before the agreements. There were just three times as many employed in 1935 in the lumber industry in this country as there were just prior to the imperial trade agreement, due to the fact that that agreement made it possible for the industry to export just six times as much lumber as was formerly exported. The hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Hanson) will agree, I know, that it increased substantially the prosperity of the lumber industry in British Columbia.


John Ritchie MacNicol: He voted against it.


Percy John Rowe: I do not want to hold up the committee, but I think it is unfair to say that the increase of tariffs by the former government in any way decreased the employment of lumbermen, when in 1931 and the beginning of 1932 we had every yard from coast to coast filled with unsold lumber. I repeat again that, due to the policies of the government he has recently been condemning, the government which was in power from 1930 to 1935, even in a time of depression, when world trade was shrinking to one-third of its former volume, those employed in the industry increased from
45,000	to 120,000. The hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Howard) laughs, but I say that it is just similar to the position his rayon company at Sherbrooke would be in if tariffs had been lowered further, and this commodity had been allowed to come into Canada instead of arrangements being made for sales outside of this country. Then we would have had a different tale.


An hon. MEMBER:: We are talking about lumber.


Percy John Rowe: Isn't it lumber we are speaking about?


An hon. MEMBER:: You are speaking of stockings.


Percy John Rowe: Again I repeat that the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Ward) was unfair to himself, I think.


Mr. McCANN:: With reference to the last speaker attributing the increased price ol lumber to the Ottawa agreements-


Percy John Rowe: Increased sales.


James Joseph McCann: Increased sales or price, he is entirely wrong as far as Ontario is concerned. The fact that the Ontario government reduced stumpage dues from $4 to $2 a thousand1 gave an impetus to the manufacture and sale of lumber far beyond anything the last government did in that connection.


Jean-François Pouliot: I have listened to the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe as he spoke very highly of the attainments of the late government with regard to the export of lumber. I live in a lumber district, and the yards were not full of lumber when the preceding Liberal government was in power, but as soon as his government came into power in 1931 exports of lumber to the United States stopped completely. The yards were full of lumber that could not be sold and the lumberjacks were out of work. That is not all. Our best exports before that went to our neighbouring country, the United States. The leader of the former government thought it wise to divert our trade to the United Kingdom, and he messed the job completely; it was an utter failure. The Tory party is responsible for the decrease in the lumber trade. Whatever they say they cannot change the facts; they are guilty of that great offence of destroying the lumber trade of this country. That is the fact, and every lumber man is a witness to it.


Mr. WILTON:: I should like to ask as
a matter of information: Is it not necessary for a member to speak from his own chair?


An hon. MEMBER:: Not in committee.
Sir GEORGE PERI.EY: Will the minister be good enough to tell us for the benefit of all members of this house, what the rate into the United States of ordinary Canadian sawn lumber is under this agreement?


Charles Avery Dunning: Under which item?


George Halsey Perley: Under United
States item 401, lumber and timber, spruce, pine, hemlock and other woods.


Charles Avery Dunning: Of course we have that
under schedule II of the agreement.

Canada-U. S. Trade Agreement


George Halsey Perley: I find it stated
here that the present rate is $1 duty and $3 tax, and under the agreement made by this government it will be 50 cents duty and $1.50 tax per thousand. That is, the duty will be $2 on ordinary sawn lumber going from this country to the United States under this agreement; is that right?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, from $4 to $2.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Can the minister give
us the record of the imports of lumber from the United States in the last three or four years?


Charles Avery Dunning: Under which item?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I do not know whether
he has them segregated.


Charles Avery Dunning: Lumber sawn and cut
but not further manufactured; it is dressed on one side: total imports last year from the United States, $2,156,000. Our exports were $25,000,000: To the United Kingdom, $14,500,000; to the United States, $5,900,000; to Australia, $1,200,000; to China, $1,100,000.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Could the minister give
us the rate of duty in 1930 and since on lumber coming into Canada from the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: There have been no
changes on those items.


Charles-Philippe Beaubien: Carried?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: No, there is a lot more
on lumber.


Charles Avery Dunning: If there is a lot more,
we may as well move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Tuesday, March 17, 1936